Use this 'customer-discovery-journey' GPT to *increase* your conversions

Reduce the number of clicks = increase the chances of conversion

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Today, we’re talking about search intent and the ‘true’ customer journey. You see, most people miss this part, and they miss out on a gold mine. Once you can work out *how* people search for something, you can work out how to optimize your website for that.

At the end of this newsletter, I’ll give you a GPT you can use to mirror your potential customers’ search intent and use that to redesign your website and increase conversions.

Let’s get into it.

The first thing you must do if you want to understand how to maximize your chances of getting people to go from browsing to buying is to ‘map’ the user journey. Which just means walking in their shoes.

Step 1: Mapping the user journey

This week I’ve been looking for a birthday cake — specifically a brownie ‘stack’.

Long story short, the said birthday cake is for someone who doesn’t like birthday cake and instead likes birthday brownies.

And let me tell you, it’s been a complete pain. I got recommended someone who initially said they could do the brownie stack for £30, but then they completely ghosted me.

So after messaging 3 times, I hit Google, Facebook, and Instagram to see who I could find.

When I say it’s been a mission to find anyone with remotely the right information to help me, I’d be understating it. Here’s what my ‘search intent’ was:

• Search 1: ‘Brownie cake maker in [my area]’ on Instagram — all searches return bakeries nowhere near me.

• Search 2: ‘Bakeries in [my area]’ — all searches bring back bakeries with little to no information about celebration cakes

• Search 3: ‘Birthday cakes in [my area]’— websites don’t detail what cakes or prices (or any useful information)

All of this leads to a very frustrated potential customer (aka me) and it got me thinking how this could be wayyyyyy easier if the discovery part of the user journey, aka the bit where somebody finds out what you do, was built *exactly* as though someone was discovering your thing.

So that’s what we’re going to do.

Step 2: Start with *who* searches *what*

You might know your product or service inside out, but the chances are that your potential customers do not. So you must be a) aware of that and b) cater for that. In both cases, we need to start from the very beginning.

Let’s take the example of finding someone to make a birthday cake.

Ask yourself ‘What are people searching to find me?’ and list down all of the potential search terms that people might use to find your business.

If you’re struggling, use this prompt:

I'm running a business that does:

[insert your product/service + location if relevant]

What are some realistic, high-intent search terms or phrases that people might type into Google (or social media) when looking for this type of service?

Include:

Common, plain-English phrasing
Location-based variations
Occasion-specific or audience-specific terms
Design/style-based search intent (if applicable)
Keywords that reflect urgent needs (e.g. "last minute", "same day", "near me")

Give me 10-20 search terms. 

Once you have this list, you have to remember that this is the information people want from you; you have to satisfy this information need to get them to take a step towards ordering with you.

This is really important.

✅ Satisfy their information need = build trust
❌ Don’t satisfy their information need = break trust

Remember, a huge part of handing over your hard-earned money is to build trust.

If you don’t give them the information they need, they’ll click off and go elsewhere. If you can get this bit right, you are more likely to convert people into sales.

Here’s how you get it right:

Step 3: Search intent = website content

Your website has one job: give people the information they need.

Somebody’s search intent should marry up *exactly* to what you have on your website. Let’s go through some typical search terms for my brownie query and see how we can make a website meet my needs.

Some search terms:

• ‘Brownie delivery [my area]’

• ‘Brownies instead of birthday cake’

• ‘Homemade brownies for birthday’

The trouble with this website is:

• It doesn’t show me birthday brownies

• There’s no section for ‘birthday’ on their website

So, because it doesn’t meet my information need — and I don’t want to spend hours trawling through their website trying to understand what they do and do not offer— I click off.

This is surprisingly true for most people, most people don’t want to spend hours trying to solve their problem. They want to land on a website, that website gives them the exact information they need, so they order.

For each search term, you have to ask yourself: Can my potential buyer find this information quickly and easily on my website?

If the answer is no, there is work to do.

Let’s work through an improvement example of the above.

• Search term: ‘Brownies instead of birthday cake’

One way to help potential buyers is to allow them to filter on ‘occasion’, that way, they can see if the ‘birthday’ options available are appropriate or not. The other thing to note is when buying cakes, people often search by dietary requirements because it’s often they have someone that is dairy-free or gluten-free, etc.

By allowing potential customers to find what they’re looking for quicker, you’re more likely to get the sale because most people just want to get on and buy the thing. If you make it easy for them, you’ll get more sales.

The other thing we could do is put a link on the homepage:

Typically, people ordering birthday brownies or a birthday cake are in a rush (AKA me), and they want the quickest way to get to where they want to be.

In that case, let’s make it as easy as possible.

By adding in a ‘birthday brownie’ button as a ‘quick link’ to all the birthday brownies available on this site, we reduce the number of clicks, which in turn increases the likelihood of clicking.

Top tip here: Look at what you’re selling most of and use data to make the most common customer journeys the easiest.

If you want a complete checklist of what your website should mention based on your discovery needs (the GPT prompt above) then here’s your GPT prompt: