Creating a User Journey

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How do I increase conversions on my website?

This is a question I’m constantly asking myself when I build a website in my ongoing pursuit of improvement. Creating a website that converts is a journey that seems to never have a destination as there’s always more things to test, new technologies and techniques to discover. But not to worry. There is a way to help nail the ever elusive conversion that you so much desire.

It all starts with Creating a User Journey.

I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve spoken to in the past that have asked for a website caring more about the aesthetics and the features rather than looking at how their target audience might use and interact with their website. This is key if you want to improve your online sales.

One of the things I like the most about customer journey maps is how it helps to discover the kind of content that needs to be created for your website. So often we think about what would be ‘nice’, or need to fill in some space somewhere. Mapping it all out allows you to create the right content for the visitor so that they can easily find what they’re looking for without needless information.

What Is a Customer Journey?

In simple terms, a customer journey is the process a perspective customer takes in order to make a buying decision. It has to do with understanding what motivates your customer, what their needs are, their hesitations and concerns. This is why creating a visitor persona is so important. A persona helps you to understand your customers on a deeper level so that you can design your website and other marketing assets to attract your audience.

A customer journey is data driven and maps out how your customer will interact with your brand so that you can create a clear interaction and response to their interactions.

How to Create a Customer Journey Map

Kerry Bodine created a really great video that explains what a customer journey map is and how to create one.

No Matter the Approach, The Goal is the Same

While there are many different ways a customer journey map can be created, the result is still the same. The goals and objectives you created for your website haven’t changed. Creating a journey map helps define how you reach those goals.

Adapting Customer Journey to Your Website

As the video above suggests, a customer journey map is about detailing ever part and channel used to interact with the customer. But we can adapt that process to be more specific to using it with your website. Here’s how.

Step #1: Behavior Stages

After examining your visitor persona, you’ll likely have a pretty good idea where to start. the image above details the common customer behavior phases. The different phases of course may differ based on your business.

The different stages don’t need their own page necessarily, but it does again provide insight into the kind of content that needs to be present on our website.

Align Customer Goals with Stages

While you may have an idea as to what content to use on your website, it may not be inline with what your customers needs are. Make discovering and understanding what your customers needs are a priority and you’ll be well ahead of the game. This can be accomplished by:

  • Customer interviews
  • Support Tickets
  • Conducting surveys with people who like online jobs from home
  • Customer service emails

Once you’ve developed some insight into the different stages, you can begin to form content around each stage using effective call to actions to bring them to the next stage.

Map Out the Touchpoints

Think about where customers engage on your website and where you can help support the completion of their goals. Group these under the relevant stage in your customer journey map.

Examples of where these two intersect could be a product description page if your a retailer. If it’s a service based business, it could be a pricing page or a contact form. One way of finding and tracking these touch points is by looking at Google Analytics.

Make it Visual

As previously mentioned, a customer journey map can come in different shapes and sizes, and is unique to every business. Use a spreadsheet or a flow chart to make it visual. Here are a couple examples of what a map might look like. Keep in mind, it doesn’t have to look fancy or be complicated.

You can be as general or specific as you like. The key is to start somewhere. Once the data collected begins to grow, you can add a section called ‘key findings’ and make some notations.

Wrapping Up

Creating a customer journey map for your website is a great way to build a website strategy in order to bring higher conversion. It assists in determining what content should be used on your website and to create better call to action buttons.

While it takes research and some thought, it will be well worth it as it brings a great deal of clarity to your online presence while helping to narrow your traffic to better capture your target audience.


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Randy Dueck | Founder Street Smart Creative