How to create a customer journey for your site

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You’ve spent hours upon hours setting up your website, struggling with code and Canva to make it look somewhat like what you had in mind. Why isn’t it bringing in more clients?

Your website needs to be more than just pretty – it needs to be strategic. But you’re a coach – writing and designing your website is not your strong suit. In this post, I’ll walk you through the steps you should get someone to go through when they land on your website.

Research

See how the pros do it

Gather inspiration from people you admire – how do they do it? This can be the big names in your niche, or people rocking it in a different kind of business.

Take screenshots and sketch out the wireframes of these websites. When you break it down to the components, you’ll notice the similarities between these sites – even if their branding makes them look completely different.

Use Google Analytics

On your own site, you can take a look at what people are currently doing. Make sure to set up a filter to exclude your own traffic from your stats. Take a look at Behavior Flow in Google Analytics to see the flow of visitors through your site. You’ll get a better understanding of it with more data, so select a longer timeframe if you don’t get a lot of traffic.

Google Analytics: Behavior Flow

Install a heat map

You can install a heat map to see exactly how far down a page people scroll and where they click. There are several free options out there. I recommend only using a heatmap when you have a good amount of visitors. A small amount can skew results, you need a larger amount to be able to draw conclusions from the data.

Map out your goals

The steps you take someone through when they land on your website are not the same for every site. Even if the goal of your website is the same as it is for other coaches – bringing in clients – how you do it is different.

The goal of your website is to bring in business – whether you’re offering 1:1 services or a group program. Take a look at what’s currently working for you in getting clients. Do you book most clients from your email list? Or do discovery calls work best for you?

Perhaps you don’t actually like doing things the way you currently do. If all your clients first book a discovery call and you don’t want to do those anymore, can you think of what you can do or offer to change it to something that works better for you? Getting them to sign up for your email list could be the way to go for you. Then you can introduce them to your services through your welcome sequence.

But if you’re rocking the discovery calls and enjoy doing them, you may want to make that the main call-to-action on your site, and have your email list as a secondary call to action.

Once you have nailed down what your main call-to-action will be, it’s time to map it out for all your pages. Every page should serve a purpose. When deciding on the call-to-action for every page, keep in mind at what point in the journey a potential client most likely is.

If you’ve been in business for any amount of time, you’ll have heard of the know, like, and trust factor. How can you get visitors to know, like and trust you from your website? Think of it like a party – social media is the handshake, where you introduce yourself to new people. If they’re clicking over to your site, they want to learn more about you. You’re continuing the conversation and telling them more about you, what you do and how you can help them.

Homepage

With SEO and social media, most of your visitors may start on a blog post, but your homepage is still one of the most important pages. If someone starts on a blog post and wants to learn more, the homepage will be one of the first they check out. So what are the steps you should take someone through from your homepage?

Your homepage should give a quick overview of who you are, what you do, and who you do it for. Don’t go into too much depth here – that’s what the About page is for.

  1. On your homepage, the first photo with a face should be yours. Don’t start with testimonials, podcast guests, or anything else that shows a person’s face, before you’ve introduced yourself. I recommend having a photo of you in the very first section of your homepage, above the fold. Above the fold is the part of the page people see before scrolling down.
  2. Divide your content into sections, and have calls-to-action for each. After telling them a little about you, include a link to your About page so they can learn more about you. After sharing a quick overview of your services, link to your Services or Work With Me page.
  3. While it may be too soon for most people to take your #1 action, you always want to give them the option. Be sure to include a clear call to action for the main thing you want visitors to do.

About

Your About page should NOT be all about you. Instead, it should mostly be about your ideal client.

  1. Tell them what they’re struggling with and how you can help them. Go into depth on what you do, who you do it for, and why you chose to make this your business. Why should they trust you to help them with what you do?
  2. Then, tell them a little bit about you to help them get to know the person behind the business. People don’t want to be coached by a random stranger. Sharing some fun, interesting things about you, your hobbies and interests, will help your visitors to see the person behind the business and get them to know, like and trust you.
  3. Halfway through your About page, include a secondary call to action, like signing up for your main opt-in freebie. Your main opt-in freebie is related to what you do and should lead to your services or programs, so it should be easy to include it in a way that feels natural. Don’t just randomly place it between two paragraphs that aren’t at all related to the topic of your opt-in freebie.
  4. At the bottom of your About page, include your main call to action. After someone learns about you, especially if they make it all the way to the end of your About page, is the perfect point to include a call to action for your services or programs.

Services and Sales Pages

At this point, someone is showing an interest in buying from you. You want to make it as easy as possible, so remove all distractions. Remove anything in the header, footer, and sidebar that’s not directly helping your potential client make that purchasing decision.

Blog posts

Most people will first come to your site by landing on one of your blog posts. Your blog can encourage several next steps, and include more than 1 call-to-action. Still, every blog post should have only 1 main call to action which stands out the most. The others should be secondary. I recommend making the main call to action different for each blog post, as it should relate to the topic of your post.

There are next steps you want to include on every blog post, and next steps that are more specific and related to the topic of your blog post. After someone reads a blog post, next steps can be:

  • Reading related blog posts
  • Leaving a comment
  • Sharing the blog post on social media
  • Opting in to an email list
  • Signing up for an upcoming webinar or event
  • Scheduling a discovery call
  • Learning more about a specific, related service or program.

Other pages

Now that you know what your calls-to-action need to be on your homepage, About page, services and sales pages, and blog posts, you can work this out for your other pages. Write down what other pages you have, and what the main call-to-action (and secondary call-to-action, if needed) for each page will be. Map out what steps you want someone to go through when they land on each page.

anouska-hi

I'm Anouska

I help solopreneurs to stop struggling with code and Canva. You can spend your time and energy showing up for your clients and promoting your offers. Learn more.

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