Does Your Site Content Meet Visitor Needs?

Driving traffic to your site is the first step in the conversion process. But there’s a long way to go from there. Most visitors aren’t ready for a one-click purchase—especially those who have landed on your site for the first time. That means you have some work to do to turn that visitor into a customer.

Many people don’t think much about the visitor’s experience on the site. They just want to provide the information and assume that it sells itself. Unfortunately, your product and service information isn’t the only thing visitors need. What they need is the right content at the right time. Fail to give that, and they may not even care about how great your product is.

 Unfortunately, your product and service information isn’t the only thing visitors need. What they need is the right content at the right time.

What Are They Looking For?

The first step is to make sure that your content is what the visitor expects it to be. If you’re bringing visitors from a search, then that means that the content must align with the searcher’s intent. What were they looking for? What kind of solutions are they looking for? Where are they in their customer journey?

Failure to understand the intent of the searcher and the queries they use will often result in the right content but for the wrong audience. Your content may be great, but if it doesn’t match the searcher’s intent, it’s just not going to have the ability to make an impact.

Having the right content for the right audience ensures that each searcher who lands on your site is finding exactly what they expected to find when they clicked the search result.

Similar Terms, Different Intents

A good example of understanding the difference in search intent (and expectation) is someone searching for “snowmobile clothes” and “divas snowsuit for women.” If you land both searchers on the same page, one of them will definitely not find what they were looking for. The first is likely just starting their research, looking at all their clothing options, while the second knows more precisely what they want and are now exploring specific features. Only the second one is close to the purchase.

If you deliver the first searcher on a product page, chances are it’s not the product they want. They may navigate back to research, or they might leave. If the second searcher lands on a broad page that isn’t narrowed down to what they searched for, again, they may continue to drill down, or they may leave the site completely. However, if you land them on a page that meets their intent, and provides them with the features they want, they may buy right then and there.

Focus on the Visitor

The content that you deliver to your visitors matters a great deal. You have to understand not only what different searchers want but how to get them to the page that matters based on their current need, which changes with time. In the end, however, it means you have to focus on the visitor. Meet their needs and there’s a good chance they’ll meet yours.