Rather than chasing after the latest search trends or churning out content just to try and target a wider audience of new customers, you need to take a step back. Instead, start by assessing your website’s onsite journey and the experience it’s currently delivering to the people who are already interested enough in your brand to click through to it. In this talk, Rachel will share her own tried-and-tested methods of improving onsite user experience, conversions and keyword rankings by utilising CRO and UX techniques to get actionable insights into user behaviour and any roadblocks impeding the customer journey. Examples of some of the methods that will be covered are customer feedback collection, website heat mapping, customer journey mapping, website crawling, A/B testing and more. Learn how to reverse the decision-making process and build your retail strategy around the customers you actually have by opening up a dialogue with them, rather than building your business around the types of users you think you have.

1. OPTIMIZING CUSTOMER
JOURNEYS ONLINE
RACHEL COSTELLO
Technical SEO & Content Manager
DGUConf

2. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
TALK OUTLINE
3. The key areas of a site to
optimize to increase conversions.
1. Why hard-earned campaign
traffic is going to waste.
2. Gathering data to understand
your users and their pain points.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

3. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
SEO
Email
Content
Affiliates
PPC & Display
Social Media
@rachellcostello DGUConf

4. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
SEO
Email
Content
Affiliates
PPC & Display
Social Media
Building campaigns
@rachellcostello DGUConf

5. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
SEO
campaigns
Email
campaigns
Content
campaigns
Affiliate
campaigns
PPC &
Display
campaigns
Social Media
campaigns @rachellcostello DGUConf

6. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
SEO
campaigns
Email
campaigns
Content
campaigns
Affiliate
campaigns
PPC &
Display
campaigns
Social Media
campaigns
Driving and converting website traffic
@rachellcostello DGUConf

7. A user likes your
campaign and
clicks through to
your site.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

8. But what
happens
next?
@rachellcostello DGUConf

9. What if the page is:
Redirected?
Slow to load?
Hard to navigate?
Not mobile-friendly?
@rachellcostello DGUConf

10. @rachellcostello brightonSEO@rachellcostello DGUConf

11. @rachellcostello brightonSEO@rachellcostello DGUConf

12. Your website and
the experience it
provides can be a
roadblock within
the user’s path to
conversion.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

13. You did something
right for the user to
choose your
website in the first
place, don’t let
them slip away.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

14. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
Don’t invite traffic to
your website if you
can’t offer those users
the experience they
expect and deserve.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

15. How to provide a better
experience for your users:
Collect data
Identify issues
Implement fixes
1.
2.
3.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

16. 1 Collect
Data
@rachellcostello DGUConf

17. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
+@rachellcostello DGUConf

18. The tools you’ll need:
Customer analytics tool
Search analytics tool
Crawling tool
Survey tool
@rachellcostello DGUConf

19. The data you need to gather:
Most visited pages
Organic search performance
Site structure & technical health
Customer feedback
@rachellcostello DGUConf

20. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
Gathering
website
data.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

21. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
Crawling
tool
Crawl
data
Crawl
sources
@rachellcostello DGUConf

22. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
Crawling
tool
Crawl
sources
Runs through your
site discovering all
pages and how
they connect.
Crawl
data
@rachellcostello DGUConf

23. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
Crawling
tool
Crawl
data
Crawl
sources
Additional data
sources to get the
full picture e.g.
backlinks, traffic.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

24. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
Crawling
tool
Crawl
data
Crawl
sources
Metrics and
information you
get from running a
full site crawl.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

25. Tool
integrations
will make your
life much
easier.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

26. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
Traffic metrics
show which
pages are
most often
visited by
customers.
Consumer
Data
@rachellcostello DGUConf

27. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
External link
metrics show
where referral
traffic and link
equity and
landing.
Consumer
Data
Backlink
Data
@rachellcostello DGUConf

28. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
Shows pages
being visited
by search
engines like
Google.
Consumer
Data
Backlink
Data
Bot
Data
@rachellcostello DGUConf

29. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
Shows how
often pages
are being
shown in the
SERPs.
Consumer
Data
Backlink
Data
Bot
Data
Search
Data
@rachellcostello DGUConf

30. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
One crawl, all your website
data in one place.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

31. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
Gathering
customer
feedback.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

32. Ask your users
what their pain
points are when
they browse
your website.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

33. “Study common complaints
coming into customer service
and see how improving
performance can help relieve
some of these common
problems.”
Smashing Magazine
@rachellcostello DGUConf

34. Use survey tools to
collect data on user
behavior and pain
points. Give incentives for
leaving feedback
(e.g. a voucher or a
discount.)
@rachellcostello DGUConf

35. Speak to your users
with the type of
language they
understand and
expect.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

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37. Use GA site search data to see what
users want from your website and the
terminology they use.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

38. Use card
sorting to find
out how users
categorize your
site in their own
terms.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

39. @rachellcostello DGUConf

40. 2 Identify
Issues
@rachellcostello DGUConf

41. Make the most of
your analytics
data, it will have
invaluable insights
into onsite user
behaviour.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

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46. Work backwards
from the final
destination of the
conversion to find
out how the user
got there.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

47. Make your
digital
marketing
tools work
harder for you.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

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54. Find low-
performing goal
paths and
conversion
pages to test.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

55. “Understand what users want,
care about and do on your site by
visually representing their clicks,
taps and scrolling behaviour -
which are the strongest indicators
of visitor motivation and desire.”
Hotjar
@rachellcostello DGUConf

56. Scroll heatmap Move heatmap
@rachellcostello DGUConf

57. Move key content and CTAs to where
users are most active.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

58. Customer journey
mapping:
Building a picture of
how users
experience your site
at every touchpoint.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

59. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
Opportunities
for Fixes
Touchpoints
& Devices
Phases in
Funnel
Customer
Feelings
Customer
Actions
Goals &
Expectations
@rachellcostello DGUConf

60. Source: Iris Tong Wu @rachellcostello DGUConf

61. Source: Tandemseven @rachellcostello DGUConf

62. Source: Tandemseven @rachellcostello DGUConf

63. Source: Heart of the Customer @rachellcostello DGUConf

64. Source: The Operations Blog @rachellcostello DGUConf

65. 3 Implement
Fixes
@rachellcostello DGUConf

66. If your pages
aren’t optimized,
hard-earned
traffic is being
wasted.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

67. These are the key
areas you need to
optimize to ensure
solid foundations for
your website and the
customer journey.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

68. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
Status
Codes
Broken
Links
Mobile
Usability
Speed Content
@rachellcostello DGUConf

69. Status codes
other than 200
can block pages
from being
indexed or
shown to users.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

70. Find pages receiving impressions and
traffic that have a non-200 status code.
Redirect broken pages to alternative URLs
and send server errors to the dev team.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

71. Broken links
disrupt external
authority flow
as well as onsite
journeys.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

72. Find pages receiving impressions and traffic
that have broken links on them and to them.
Update these links to the correct, 200 status
code destination URL.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

73. Mobile usability
is crucial as over
half of global
website traffic is
coming from
mobile now.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

74. Find pages receiving impressions and traffic
that have errors in the Mobile-friendly Test.
Send the recommended fixes to your
developers for implementation.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

75. Speed issues
increase
bounce rates
and decrease
conversion
rates.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

76. Users were surveyed and asked what they
considered to have the biggest impact
on their online experience:
@rachellcostello DGUConf

77. Find pages receiving impressions and traffic
that load slowly.
Follow recommended fixes from speed tools
like PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

78. Content can be
a powerful tool
for persuading
customers to
convert.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

79. @rachellcostello DGUConf

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81. Find pages receiving impressions and
traffic with thin content.
Add useful, engaging content to them.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

82. Use A/B testing to track performance
of fixes before fully launching them.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

83. Now you can relax
knowing that you
can drive as much
traffic as you like,
your website will
take care of the
rest!
@rachellcostello DGUConf

84. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
KEY TAKEAWAYS
3. Analyze status codes, broken links, mobile usability,
speed and content to enhance user experience.
1. Maximize the value of website traffic by optimizing
onsite user journeys.
2. Better understand your customers and their pain
points with surveys and heat mapping.
@rachellcostello DGUConf

85. @rachellcostello brightonSEO
FURTHER READING
https://www.deepcrawl.com/blog/best-practice/optimising-customer-journeys-for-digital-
marketing-campaigns/
https://theoperationsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/experiencemap1.pdf
https://www.mycustomer.com/experience/engagement/nine-sample-customer-journey-maps-
and-what-we-can-learn-from-them
https://www.hotjar.com/heatmaps
https://vwo.com/ab-testing/
https://www.deepcrawl.com/blog/releases/using-crawler-to-collect-chrome-page-speed-
metrics/
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/01/front-end-performance-checklist-2019-pdf-
pages/
@rachellcostello DGUConf

86. @rachellcostello DGUConf
THANK YOU
Any questions? Send me a tweet:
@DeepCrawl www.deepcrawl.com