Every page is a journey for your buyer

How to think about optimizing individual pages

Hey friends,?

It’s a love story, really. The stranger discovers your website, reads a variety of pages, and ultimately decides to take your relationship to the next level.

That’s the buyer’s journey: discovery, education, action. It simplifies an infinitely complex process in a very useful way. With three discrete phases in view, marketers can take strategic action across an entire website.

But the story works on a smaller scale, too. You can use it to optimize individual pages. Every page on your site, in fact.?

Join us on the journey within…

?? Example: the buyer’s journey within a product page

Ideally, the components of a typical buyer’s journey – discovery, education, and action – all exist within every page of your website.?

Take for example, this very basic product page on the Akuity site.

When engaging with a product-focused marketing page, a prospect will go through the same three phases of engagement:

1. Discovery. A visitor may have landed on this page from a Google search. They may have clicked their way here from another page on your site. Ideally, every page is optimized for both of these discovery paths, thanks to metadata and an internal link strategy.
2. Education. The visitor learns about the product in detail, thanks to well written content. In the case of a product page, this will include clearly defined copy identifying product features, use cases, customer testimonials, and more.
3. Action. They click on a call-to-action that leads to the product Demo page. Or a case study page. Or a product pricing page.

All of these components can be optimized to guide every visitor forward to the next action that best suits their unique needs and interests.?

?? Metrics for the micro journey

If you’re already working with a basic funnel strategy, you’ve already got the data you need to optimize individual pages for all of these areas.

Organic traffic and search performance data will show you how frequently a page is being discovered. Bottom line: if traffic is low, the page has a visibility problem, no matter where in the funnel it sits.

(The ércule app consolidates all of that data – and more – in one marketer-friendly dashboard.)?

Engagement rate and heatmap data will show you how much time people are spending on your educational content – and where on the page they’re spending that time.??

Page path and click data will show you the links that are really driving action on a page.?

With data analyzed you can start optimizing. But first, a sidebar.

?? If the page's traffic is low…

Focus on fixing that above all else. Sorry, there’s no shortcut here. Work on your SEO fundamentals and internal linking.

It’s okay to spend some time improving the education and action components of the page, but you won’t see much return on that investment until you have actual visitors on the page.?

Besides, if you want to make the most of heatmap data and click data, you need a substantial data set. This requires substantial traffic.

?? If the traffic metrics are sound…

Start revising the educational components:

• Revise the post to emphasize sections that generate the most heat.
• Add relevant links to any section that is generating attention.
• Revise content to meet visitors’ search-intent and convey your authority on the topic.

Once you’ve revised and refined the educational components, it’s time to look at the action-oriented components. Click-through and conversion tips are covered in this guide.

Every step in the marketing funnel is a journey unto itself. That’s the kind of cosmic thought we’re bringing into the new year.?

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