Were you strategic when creating your website's customer journey that leads visitors from first-time viewers to paying clients?  You were successful at driving traffic from Google searches, social media platforms, YouTube and other points to your website. Now what? Your website is the one online asset that you have complete control over, and a well-designed website is the key to taking the reins on guiding the customer journey.

Why creating a customer journey through your website important

Hopefully, you created a strategic and effective Homepage on your website.  You should also have a similar process completed for every page you design on a website, focusing on what's best for the goal of that page. Yes, each page needs to have a strategic design.

After the strategy for each page is complete, you want to go back through to make sure you've created a full journey for visitors.

Why?  First-time website visitors can naturally make their way to whichever steps meet main goal over time.  You just have to lead them there.  Creating this journey is important since people won't land on a website for the first time and make a large purchase. So let's talk about how to get started.

Double-check your journey

The best thing to do after you've created the strategy for each page is to make quick sketches or wire frames. This will give you an idea of the overall layout, without having a ton of rework to do if something isn't quite right.  Then, start on each page and walk through potential paths visitors could take. Are each of your goals being met?

I like to write down the steps as I go. It could look something like:

Homepage > See headshot and intro > Read a featured post > Click to a related post > Opt-in to email list > View About page > Become familiar with available services

This might seem like a long-shot, but if you get the goals and strategy of each page right, you can make it a regular occurrence.

For someone who is selling services, that would be a great journey for someone to go on. Their audience members are:

• Instantly becoming familiar with them

• Reading great content and building trust and a need for their offerings

• Opting into an email list where regular contact can be made

• Learning more about them and what they do

• Becoming familiar with offerings, which makes the email marketing more effective down the road

Things to look for

When you are double-checking journeys you have created from each page, also consider the following questions:

• Are your eyes being drawn to the most important items on each page?

• Are each of your goals being supported?

• Are you ever running into a dead-end?

• Will this journey help the stats and expectations you planned?

What if it's not quite right?

If you find that the journey isn't quite right, you are at a stage where it is nice and easy to make some tweaks to your plan. If you are using sketches or wire frames, it's much easier to make the adjustments needed to fill the gaps in your journey.  For example, if you found that your goal of list building is looking great; however, you need a little more work to build trust, you may choose to replace some opt-ins with opportunities to learn more about them.

Once you have finished, you will have a completely strategic website with a journey that will lead clients and customers all the way through over time. 

Take Action

Today's action step is to help you get used to viewing a website as a journey. Start on your Homepage and map out what a common journey would look like.

Is it supporting at least one big goal for the site? Are there any dead-ends you are running into? If so, how could you tweak it to make it just right? 

Do this right and you are well on your way to creating your website's customer journey!