Introduction
we’re diving into a big-picture topic: Where SEO intersects with the customer journey. This one’s not for SEO veterans or 15-year digital marketing pros — it’s for business owners, directors, and execs who want to understand how and when SEO should be part of your marketing mix.
The Evolving Role of SEO
Search engines like Google are getting smarter every day. Gone are the days of keyword stuffing and hacky tricks — the algorithm is now trained to evaluate a website like a human would:
- Is the user experience good?
- Does the site solve the searcher’s problem?
- Is the content useful and easy to navigate?
Google measures these factors in real time, comparing your site to hundreds of others based on location, relevance, and intent. The goal? To serve the best possible result to the user — not just the most optimised one.
Start With the Customer Journey
Before jumping into SEO tactics, you need to understand your customer journey — how people become aware of your brand, consider your solution, and make a decision.
Let’s break this down using a simple example:
- If you’re a therapist, people might search for things like “I have anxiety” or “help for phobias” — that’s issue-led, middle-of-the-funnel research.
- Later, when they know what kind of help they need, they may search for particular type of therapist such as a psychologist or hypnotherapy “near me” — that’s bottom-of-the-funnel, action-based intent.
Both of these moments require different types of SEO content and structure. Knowing where your audience is on their journey helps you tailor your site map and content accordingly.
The Sales Funnel in SEO
The sales funnel is a way to map the stages your audience goes through:
- Top of Funnel – Awareness: Problem discovery
- Middle of Funnel – Consideration: Solution research
- Bottom of Funnel – Decision: Provider selection
SEO plays a role in all three stages. The mistake many businesses make is focusing only on bottom-funnel terms like “best dentist near me”, thinking that’s where conversions happen.
But without helping people through the earlier stages, they may never get to the bottom and consider hiring you. As a business, you need to build trust first before scoring the goal – here the goal being acquiring a new customer.
The Harsh Truth About Page One
Everyone wants to be on page one of Google, but the reality is: it’s hard. Even seasoned businesses with years of SEO investment struggle to get there.
So how do you know if your SEO is working?
Look at more than just rankings:
- Are you getting more impressions?
- Are those impressions from relevant keywords?
- Are click-throughs increasing?
These KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) give you a better picture of progress than simply “am I on page one?”
SEO Isn’t a Quick Win
Let’s be clear: SEO is a long-term play. It’s a highly technical, often isolated part of marketing that won’t always show immediate results.
That said, it’s most powerful when it’s part of and connected to:
- Your overall business growth
- Your other marketing activities
- A solid understanding of your audience and brand positioning
Let Strategy Guide Structure
Take a niche example: a superyacht charter company.
SEO research might say to write blog posts about “trips to Fiji” or “luxury in Tahiti,” but if you bring your customer journey into the mix, the real opportunity may lie in building destination-specific landing pages that’s designed as exemplar itineraries. Over time, this creates a site map that reflects the journey users actually go through — entering your site, finding irresistible locations on offer with sample itineraries.
When users navigate your site, explore multiple pages, and spend time engaging, Google picks up on those signals and rewards your site with improving its ranking.
Experience + Testing + Competitive Insight
Every business is different. There’s no one-size-fits-all SEO strategy — even for two similar companies.
A strong SEO approach includes:
- Experience: Knowing what’s worked for your business or others like yours.
- Testing: Trying new strategies and adjusting when something doesn’t work.
- Reverse Engineering: Looking at what high-performing competitors are doing — their site structure, content types, keyword strategy — and adapting it to your online and SEO strategy.
Success usually comes from blending these three pillars over time.
Final Thoughts: Connect SEO with Customer Understanding
The big takeaway?
Your SEO strategy should be shaped by your customer journey — not separate from it. Your sitemap, content, and keyword focus should reflect the questions your customers are asking, subsequent actions they are likely to take after first entering your site and the path they take toward trusting your business.
It’s about building the bridge between what your users need and how your business shows up online.
Want More?
If you’ve got questions or want us to dive into another SEO or marketing topic, leave a comment or get in touch. We love nerding out and — full transparency — shamelessly promoting our work while we do it.
