- June 4th 2024
- Blog,Content,Content Creation,content marketing,SEO Strategy
What is a content journey and why is it important?
It’s a curious phenomenon that despite many humans now having more leisure time than ever before, we’re all so very tired. Perhaps it’s all the journeying we’re doing. The word journey has collected a swathe of fresh nuances in the last 20 years. As a consequence, a lot of us spend a fair chunk of time on our journeys every single day. We’re either physically journeying from place to place, contemplating our mental health or physical fitness journeys, or on a virtual journey through cyberspace.
It’s that last one that we’re here to explore. Like it or loathe it terminology wise, the information that you consume as you move through a website is called a content journey. And it’s really important.
Content or user journey?
Ahh, but of course content isn’t the only journey you need to know about! You’re more likely to be familiar with a user journey. This is the sequence of clicks that takes a user through a website from their first contact point to where they convert to a customer or lead. Hopefully. A user journey can be as straightforward as a direct, intentional search for a homepage, moving straight to the ‘contact’ button. Or it could be a more complex process where users are drawn in through one of any number of landing pages, establishing a relationship that moves them, via multiple visits, from awareness to a buying decision.
Mapping journeys
Like the journeys of old, when people would embark on a physical voyage or expedition IRL, there needs to be a map. This is true for user journeys, too. It makes sense – if you’re going to send people off into what is essentially an information maze, they need to be able to navigate it. The easier your information is to navigate, the more confident a user will feel, and they’ll be more likely to spend money with you. So map out the pathways that you want your audience to move through your website in different scenarios. These are your user journeys.
Where content fits in
If the user journey is a basic route map, your content journey is all the landmarks along the way. It’s your church with a spire, if you remember from school orienteering days. Maybe we’re ageing ourselves there, but never mind. A content journey specifically engineers content to direct users in the way that you want them to move around your website. It might be a pathway from one blog post to another. This example keeps a user on your site for longer and expands their awareness of your brand. Or it could be a clear and prominent delivery policy that removes a barrier from purchasing, making it quicker for a user to make the decision to purchase from you.
Content design
This is where we start thinking of content as more than just words. It’s also about where those words, images, buttons, and links are located. Content encompasses colour, fonts, text size and layout. Basically everything that a user looks at. Good content design will take into account how their target reader habitually scans a web page. It will support their motivations and pain points, and offer up the information that they need without obstacles. It will do all this by providing relevant content journeys. A user’s journey may have two stops or ten. However long the journey, the content that is consumed along the way should all be constructive.
Content for SEO
As well as a content journey helping to move a user along the sales funnel, it’s intertwined with SEO too. When someone moves between pieces of content on your website, they extend their dwell time. This is the period of time that a user spends on your website as a whole, and is a contributing factor for search engine rankings. This is another important reason for building pathways in between related content.
Content types
Depending on your business, service or product, video content may be really helpful to users. It’s also increasingly prioritised by search engine algorithms. Think about how your users would prefer to consume that content; whether it should pop up, be embedded, or linked to elsewhere. Similarly, images, infographics and motion graphics are fantastic pieces of content to accompany text. These make a page more engaging, and can offer a range of content types to cover more user preferences.
Fresh content
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: keep adding fresh content to signal that your website is active, engaging and relevant. Make sure it’s not content for content’s sake, though. Write a schedule so that you have a range of well researched blog topics. It’s helpful to plan blog posts to tackle relevant topics from different angles that can be linked together.
Informative content
From instructional videos to product specifications, the more informative your content, the better it is for SEO. Think about how industry opinions within your blog might work to support well listed product pages. To a user, there’s lots of expertise evident as they move around your website. Try to avoid becoming too embroiled in technical jargon, though. A junction in your content journey should cater for different levels of requirement. So a brief summary of a product spec, for example, with a button leading to a full technical breakdown allows a user to choose their own pathway.
Dynamic content
The best way to demonstrate engagement with your brand is to include dynamic content. Product reviews and service feedback sections are an ideal opportunity to open these lines of communication between your business and its customers. Integrate social media posts to spread your reach, and as a platform for transparency.
Evolving content
Ideally, a successful content and user journey will end with new business for you. Ultimately, though, for you the journey never ends! There are always improvements to be made and things to learn. Use data to analyse how users are consuming the content on your website in order to improve and refine those content journeys. Update existing content and don’t be afraid to remove content when it is not meeting the needs of your users.
Ultimately, content journeys are important because they make the information on your website more accessible. This information helps users to learn about your product or services, to trust your brand, and to give you their business. When each and every aspect of content is created with humans in mind, it will take users on a journey that offers resolution. Which leaves them rather more fulfilled and a little less tired!
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