The Role of the Buyer's Journey in SEO

The Role of the Buyer's Journey in SEO

Try asking a startup founder how they plan to do SEO. They’ll probably have an answer. They’ll say things like, "We’re going to write blog posts," or "We’ll repurpose those posts on LinkedIn," or "We’re hiring a content marketer to launch a newsletter." They’ll have a list of activities.

Now ask them a different question: Once you’ve got organic traffic, why would a visitor become a paying customer? Watch what happens. They’ll think about it for a while. They probably won’t have an answer right away. It’s a question that usually stumps people.

Now, try asking the same questions about paid marketing—like Google ads. Most people know how to answer. They’ll say, “The ads drive targeted traffic to landing pages. If people like what they see, they sign up.” With paid ads, you know quickly if it’s working. If you’re spending money but not getting sign-ups, you’ll know within a few days. SEO is different. With SEO, you wait weeks or months for results. And you risk working in a vacuum, without any user feedback.

If you Google “How to do SEO” or “How to create an SEO strategy,” most blog posts will tell you how to get traffic. There’s a million posts about link building, keyword research, and technical SEO. These are all good tactics. But most of them skip a critical question: Why are you doing these things? When you’re spending $500 on a blog post, you should know how that post will turn traffic into revenue.

But because SEO takes time, people assume that traffic will eventually turn into customers on its own. So they publish N blog posts, each optimized for a keyword. These posts rank, but they don’t have a clear way to convert visitors into paying users. It’s a low-content-to-sales ratio. Some posts will convert, but many won’t. And then what? Traffic goes up, but revenue doesn’t. So founders think, We need more traffic.

There’s a helpful framework to think about this, the buyer's journey. It’s an organized way of incorporating user empathy into your SEO strategy. If you know what your visitors are looking for at each stage, you can turn traffic into revenue faster.

What is the Buyer's Journey?

In marketing, people love the framework of funnels because it’s simple and powerful. You start with awareness—this is when users first hear about your product or brand. It’s a soft introduction. They might not even know what they want yet. They’re just poking around, gathering information.

After the awareness stage, you move to consideration. This is where users start comparing options and evaluating which product meets their needs.

Finally, you reach the decision stage, when the user clicks on one of the plans from your pricing page and fills in the credit card details, followed by the retention stage. By now, they’ve made up their mind, and the goal is to make it as easy as possible for them to convert—to hit that "Buy Now" button.

Focusing on traffic, rankings, and keywords targets the awareness stage—and the awareness stage only—where potential users discover a product and are introduced to a brand. But targeting this stage alone has a low impact if you don't understand whether people will actually pay for what you're offering. Paid campaigns, for example, are never run solely for awareness because it would be a waste of money and time.

There are two ways to think about the buyer's journey. One is the traditional way, where you just map out each stage. The other is the revenue-focused way, where you figure out how each stage actually leads to making money. The second perspective is often the difference between a great and a not-so-great SEO campaign.

Idealized Buyer's Journey

Let’s say a company offers a tool designed to reduce bounce rates. Here’s how some marketers often envision the buyer's journey:

  1. A CEO searches "how to reduce bounce rate" on their laptop while sipping imported espresso.
  2. They land directly on the website, read every word of the compelling landing page, and realize they are the perfect match for what the tool offers.
  3. They read one blog post, fully understand how it can help keep visitors on their site, and immediately sign up for our premium enterprise plan, paying annually upfront.
  4. Impressed, they share the tool with their entire network and mention it on their next keynote speech.

But, it turns out that this rarely, if ever, happens, depending on your offering.  And, even if it does, it’ll represent only the tiniest fraction of how people become your customers after encountering your website.

Of course, this is an exaggeration, but it’s the only scenario where the ROI from a strategy focused on ranking for keywords justifies pursuing that strategy.

Think about it: how often do you first hear of a company and immediately make a purchase?Almost nobody buys like that. Here's what usually happens in real life:

Typical Real-Life Buyer's Journey

Rather than Googling bounce rates, discovering the website, reading the landing page copy, then paying for the subscription, the user is much more likely to do this:

  1. During a conference call, the CEO scrolls through LinkedIn and clicks on an article titled "Why Your Website Visitors Are Leaving So Quickly."
  2. They skim through it, find a useful insight, but get interrupted by a sudden shift in the meeting and forget all about it.
  3. Weeks later, at 3 AM, they wake up worried about their high bounce rates and search for "how to keep users on my site longer." They land on a forum where someone briefly mentions tools like this one, but their phone dies before they can click the link.
  4. The idea slips away until a meeting with their CTO, who mentions bounce rate issues. The CEO scribbles “check that bounce rate tool” on a sticky note, which soon disappears into the clutter on their desk.
  5. Months later, while cleaning the desk during a call, they find the note and vaguely remember its importance. They forward it to the Head of Marketing with a message: “Look into this.”
  6. The Head of Marketing, buried in tasks, passes it to an intern, who Googles "tools to reduce bounce rates," finds the site, but gets distracted by a notification about free pizza in the break room.
  7. Eventually, the CMO, desperate for better website engagement data before a quarterly review, stumbles upon the tool. They check the reviews, sign up for a free trial, see promising results, and present it to the founder, who praises the "new" idea—forgetting they started this process months ago.
  8. Finally, the CEO approves the purchase, and the tool becomes a solution they adopt—months after the first encounter, with several touch-points along the way.

Real buyers—whether they’re CEOs or regular consumers—don’t follow the neat paths we imagine. Instead, they navigate a messy, unpredictable maze. Your job as a marketer is to understand what that maze looks like for them.

If you don’t really get the people you’re trying to reach—if you don’t know what problems they’re trying to solve when they search—it’s going to be tough to win their trust. And it’s going to be even tougher to match the keywords they’re using with where they are in their journey, making your website a part of that path so you can turn them into customers.

Most SEO content is expected to push users straight to a conversion. But most of the time, all it does is inform the user, and then they bounce. If you haven’t mapped out the buyer's journey, you’re just hoping for the best. And that’s not a real strategy.

What separates the best SEO strategists is that they know their audience better than anyone else. They understand what people are really searching for, what problems they’re trying to solve, and how to help them. SEO is path-dependent, and you have to map that path. Make sure that as prospects move through their journey, they land on your website when it matters.

How to Come Up With a Buyer's Journey

Keywords are often treated as the starting point for understanding buyer behavior. But keywords are symptoms of problems, not causes. They reflect how people articulate their needs at a specific moment, but they don't reveal the underlying journey.

Keywords are actually questions that users don’t type fully. Those questions are mapped somewhere in the search journey of your ideal users—not just simple words typed into search engines. Keywords are the words that users don't fill in to avoid wasting time, and search engines try their best to understand the full question by hypothesizing the search intent using a variety of data. It's like autocomplete on steroids.

Buyer journeys help you understand the actual question behind the keyword. A keyword report is a model—a simplified representation of reality. A buyer's journey adds context to that model, making it more accurate.

Keyword research often falls short in revealing the full range of user intent, which is why placing them in the funnel and the journey is necessary in content creation.

The Buyer's Journey Across The Funnel

Top of Funnel (ToFu):

At this stage, users are just browsing and gathering information. They aren't ready to buy but want to learn more about their problem or topic. They might be searching for general insights like “why is my website’s bounce rate high?” or “tips to keep users on my website.” There’s little to no purchase intent at this point. Here, your content should focus on educating and building trust, offering valuable insights into why bounce rates matter and how to improve user engagement.

Common Modifiers:

  • “Why” (e.g., “why is my website’s bounce rate high?”)
  • “How to” (e.g., “how to reduce website bounce rate”)
  • “Tips” (e.g., “tips to keep users on my website”)
  • “Guide” (e.g., “beginner’s guide to reducing bounce rates”)
  • “What is” (e.g., “what is a good bounce rate”)
  • “Best practices” (e.g., “best practices to improve website engagement”)

Content Types:

  • Educational blog posts (e.g., “What is a Bounce Rate and Why It Matters”)
  • How-to guides (e.g., “How to Analyze Bounce Rates Using Google Analytics”)Infographics (e.g., “10 Reasons Your Bounce Rate is High”)
  • Videos (e.g., “Understanding Bounce Rates in 5 Minutes”)
  • Topical webinars (e.g., “Reducing Bounce Rates 101”)
  • Checklists (e.g., “Checklist for Optimizing Your Website for Lower Bounce Rates”)


Middle of Funnel (MoFu):

In this stage, users have identified their problem and are actively comparing solutions. They’re looking for more detailed information about specific tools and strategies. This is where competition heats up, and your content must address specific user needs.

Queries like “best tools to reduce bounce rate” or “how to choose a bounce rate analysis tool” are common here. Reviews play a critical role at this stage—they provide social proof and help users evaluate whether your tool is worth considering. Using People Also Ask questions can surface mid-funnel topics, like “is [your tool] effective for reducing bounce rates?” or “user reviews of bounce rate analysis tools.”

Common Modifiers:

  • “Best” (e.g., “best tools to reduce bounce rate”)
  • “Vs.” (e.g., “bounce rate tool vs. user flow tool”)
  • “Review” (e.g., “review of [tool name]”)
  • “Case study” (e.g., “case study on reducing bounce rates with [tool]”)
  • “Features” (e.g., “features of [bounce rate tool]”)
  • “How does” (e.g., “how does [tool] help reduce bounce rates”)
  • “Top” (e.g., “top bounce rate analysis tools”)

Content Types:

  • In-depth comparison articles (e.g., “Top 5 Bounce Rate Tools Compared”)
  • Case studies (e.g., “How [Client Name] Reduced Their Bounce Rate by 30%”)
  • Testimonials (e.g., “What Our Customers Say About Using [Tool] for Bounce Rates”)
  • Feature pages
  • FAQs (e.g., “FAQs about Using a Bounce Rate Analysis Tool”)
  • Whitepapers (e.g., “Improving User Retention with Better Bounce Rate Analysis”)
  • Webinars focusing on problem-solving (e.g., “How to Choose the Right Tool for Reducing Bounce Rates”)


Bottom of Funnel (BoFu):

At this stage, users are ready to make a purchase. They are looking for detailed product comparisons, customer testimonials, and specific feedback from other users who have achieved success with your tool. Keywords at this stage include modifiers like “buy,” “trial,” “pricing,” or “customer reviews.” The goal here is to use positive testimonials and clear calls-to-action (CTAs) to reassure users and guide them smoothly to conversion. This is where you can turn interested visitors into paying customers.

Common Modifiers:

  • “Buy” (e.g., “buy [tool name]”)
  • “Pricing” (e.g., “pricing for [bounce rate tool]”)
  • “Free trial” (e.g., “free trial of [tool name]”)
  • “Discount” (e.g., “discount for [tool name]”)
  • “Customer reviews” (e.g., “customer reviews for [tool name]”)
  • “ROI” (e.g., “ROI of using [bounce rate tool]”)
  • “Case study” (e.g., “results from using [tool name] for reducing bounce rate”)

Content Types:

  • Product landing pages (e.g., “See How [Tool Name] Can Help Reduce Your Bounce Rate”)
  • Pricing comparison pages (e.g., “Compare Our Plans for the Best Fit”)
  • Detailed customer testimonials (e.g., “What Our Clients Say About [Tool Name]”)
  • Product demos and walkthrough videos (e.g., “How to Use [Tool Name] to Lower Bounce Rates”)
  • Limited-time offers (e.g., “Get 20% Off Your First Month”)
  • Free trial pages with strong CTAs (e.g., “Start Your Free Trial Today and See Results”)


Retention:

For SaaS companies, the real work begins after the conversion.

Driving more traffic and boosting conversions is great, but if you’re running a subscription-based service, keeping your current customers is even more critical. If a customer churns because of something that could have been fixed—like a missing feature—your bottom-of-the-funnel is leaking, and you’re losing users faster than you can replace them.

Think about the math: if your conversion rate is 1%, losing just one customer means you’d need 100 new top-of-funnel visitors just to make up for it. It’s much more efficient to fix those leaks and keep your existing users happy than to constantly chase new ones.

Common Modifiers:

  • “New features” (e.g., “new features in [tool name]”)
  • “How to use” (e.g., “how to use [advanced feature] in [tool name]”)
  • “Upgrade” (e.g., “upgrade to [premium plan]”)
  • “Integrations” (e.g., “integrations with [tool name]”)
  • “Cancel subscription” (e.g., “how to cancel [tool name]”)

Content Types:

  • Knowledge base and support articles (e.g., “How to Maximize [Tool Name] for Your Site”)
  • Customer success stories and interviews (e.g., “How [Client] Reduced Churn by Using [Tool Name]”)
  • Webinars for existing customers (e.g., “Advanced Tips for Getting More from [Tool Name]”)
  • Feedback surveys (e.g., “Tell Us How We Can Improve [Tool Name]”)


After you’ve finished talking to users, creating buyer personas based on their feedback, mapping out their search journey, and identifying the right topics for each stage, the final result should look something like this:

I’m not great at designing infographics, so here’s a better example from Ahrefs:


All that’s left is to create content for each stage and adjust the CTAs and the design. That’s it.

The Buyer's Journey is simply a tool to formalize and organize your learnings about your users and write content that converts better. It's an organized way to empathize with the user through SEO. You can also use it to strategize how to push a user further down the funnel by properly placing CTAs and recommending other articles at the bottom of your blog posts, for example.



To view or add a comment, sign in

More articles by Nick Cretu

Insights from the community

Others also viewed

Explore topics