Understand the three recognition stages of your online audience

Not all traffic is equal. Companies tend to forget that site access and success indicators aren’t just numbers. They bring people who are driven by action to breathe lively. By understanding and creating content for different perception stages of that “traffic,” you can not only extract more information, but also efficiently turn those clicks into conversions. After all, businesses aren’t built solely on visits.

This article describes three key recognition stages of online traffic, the types of content that fit them, and how to audit existing content. Remember that all customers go on a journey. This is about making sure you are at the finish line when they are ready to convert.

The importance of knowing the stage of consciousness

Well, bear with us, but answer this: Are you trying to sell roller skates to your newborn baby or his parents? A little extreme, yes, but sometimes these are the best examples. The important thing is that babies can grow into those who need or want roller skates, but they are not at that stage yet.

Understanding the different stages of your potential customers and how they are searching for your product / service (directly and indirectly) can help you target them better. These stages are recognition, consideration, and decision.Just knowing that these aren’t enough, you Balance..

Websites that feature content that is only suitable for the first stage of awareness can struggle with conversions, while sites that focus solely on conversions can struggle to drive traffic to conversions in the first place.

Research and role-playing can be very helpful here. To come to the minds of the audience and understand what their journey looks like, you need to ask yourself, “What if I …” almost everywhere.

To better explore these stages and how they apply to your content, we’ll stick to one example in the next three sections. Focus on fictitious Manchester-based small businesses that go beyond roller skating babies and instead sell hearing aids and seek to expand their customer base.

Stage 1: Consciousness

This recognition stage is when the customer is having a problem and is beginning to realize that a solution is needed. Prior to this stage, they may not have realized that their problem could be fixed, or even that it was a problem in the first place. Good content at this stage instills in their heads the seed that they no longer need to proceed this way.

With that in mind, you don’t want to overwhelm your readers here. Yes, they may now find that they want a solution, but it’s very rare that some of the content can check all three boxes at once.They – make them know Of problem, help them examination Options, and going to decide Go with your options. Therefore, the content will be different for each stage.

In the example of a small business in Manchester that sells hearing aids, the content at this stage looks like this:

• “Five Common Signs of Deafness”
• “Data show increasing deafness.”
• “When should you seek help with your hearing?”

If you’re writing content for this fictional company, you won’t open the article “I’m here now. See the huge sale of hearing aids!” Instead, it relates to a problem that the reader may have. In fact, through all these stages, your language should be empathetic, solution-oriented, and as familiar to the reader as possible.

Imagine a woman in her 40s playing the guitar in a rock band from a young age. She would feel to her that her oxygen supply was cut off when she couldn’t hear the nuances of the music. She may have hearing problems with her, but her search may not start immediately with “hearing aids near me.” She tries to learn about her problems, whether they are common and how they can be fixed. These pages are related to hearing problems, and in the end (although not too much sales), hearing aids have ultimately helped millions of people. Suggests.

By creating content that targets this stage, you’ll be right at the beginning of your consumer journey.Although they are more likely to convert in end In that journey, a good content strategy is all about balance. This takes us to the next stage.

Stage 2: Review

If the first step is to let them know that there is a problem, this is to show them how they can fix it. Here, the reader is willing to look for a solution and consider the options.

Our fictitious business may be an expert in helping with deafness, but there are other ways than providing hearing aids. Hearing aids cannot simply be assumed to be the immediate preferred option for all visitors. The challenge here is to balance knowledge and empathy and provide content that is objective and truly useful to consumers. However, while educating your target audience about your options, you can add smart CTA to direct your users to landing pages that drive your business’s bottom line. This gives consumers more choices to choose from and what they want to enforce. Their throat.

Sticking to the example of a Manchester small business selling hearing aids, the content at this stage looks like this:

• “Six Ways to Help Deafness”
• “Five Best Hearing Aids in the UK”
• “Why even teens should consider hearing aids”

Since this is an intermediate stage, you will want to avoid being overly inclined to “awareness” or “decision”. You don’t want to talk to your readers and use paragraphs that explain the very basics of deafness. Also, I don’t want to open my mouth and hang out about a great new hearing aid.

Imagine a scale. There is “Notification” on the left side and “Sales” on the right side. I want to balance this fairly evenly, but leaning a little to the left and leaning towards the “notification” side.

Show readers choices and educate them on available solutions. And if they decide that what you offer is a fix for them / they are already on the right website! You need a page that you can convert and make the final decision. It guides us well …

Stage 3: Decision

Earlier we talked about how well-known content stands in front of consumers at the beginning of their journey. Being on the starting line has a lot of value, but turning clicks into customers is the right content for this stage.

Therefore, this page moves away from the blog / article format of the content proposed at other stages.Instead, you need a page specially designed to sell readers your With the option to convert the product or service on the fly.

For the fictitious hearing aid business, the pages designed at this stage look like this:

• Category page showing off the best brands
• Product page where you can buy hearing aids
• Service page for organizing hearing tests (with inquiry form)

These pages let readers know why your business is a better choice for them than their competitors, while focusing on sales. This means a great focus on USP.

For our fictitious hearing aid companies, these may include free delivery, the lowest price in Manchester, and even 5 years of free insurance. All your USPs should be sung on pages that focus on these decisions. At this point, you know what they want, whatever you sell, so you spend a lot of time explaining the very basics of your offering. No need to.why your Business is the best for them. Make sure these pages are littered with some positive reviews.

The content here should be easy to read, scannable, and supported by images if the viewer thinks they are interested (always check what your competitors are doing). ).

Other than copying, for e-commerce businesses, the path to purchase these products is clear and requires a large button to indicate to the user: this Where you can buy them. For lead generation businesses, there should be plenty of CTA (subpoenas) to give users contact forms, phone numbers, or email addresses.

Important point

As with any marketing or psychology model, there are variations of this with even more steps. However, in summary, we believe that most businesses require only three steps. It’s important to remember that the same user may not go through this entire journey of the website in a single session. A balanced content strategy means that you can attract potential customers at any stage of your purchasing path.

The danger of an imbalance in content strategy is that there may be many blog posts around the initial recognition stage, but users realize that you can solve the problem they are having now. Is not … Conversely, you can focus most of your content on the final stage, but you may have a hard time attracting customers who aren’t even aware that they need you.

Therefore, we recommend that you perform a content audit on your website to see the current balance of output. Create a table like the one below and add the existing content.

This example uses the ideas used in Manchester’s business.

Awareness-raising content	Contents of the examination stage	Decision-making content
Five common signs of deafness	6 Ways to Help Deafness	Category page showing off the best brands
How to improve your hearing at a concert	5 best hearing aids in the UK	Product page where you can buy hearing aids
When asking for hearing help	Why Even Teens Should Consider Hearing Aids	Service page for organizing hearing tests (with inquiry form)

As you map your pages to this, you should be able to easily identify where the gap is and plan your content strategy for filling the gap. “Mapping” is a good term because every successful journey includes a map.

If you’re just publishing random content without an overall purpose, you want to stumble in the dark and get to where you want to go. A quality content strategy is to understand the journey and be there no matter what steps your customers take.

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Jack Bird is a content operations lead for Manchester-based SEO and digital marketing agencies. Add people..

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