Understanding the three levels of awareness of your online audience – observing search engines

Not all traffic is the same. Businesses often forget that visits to their websites and measures of success are not just numbers – they are living, breathing people driven by behavior. By understanding and creating content that matches the different levels of awareness of this “traffic”, you can not only attract more – but effectively convert these clicks into conversions. After all, businesses don’t just build on visits.

This article will show you the three main levels of awareness of online traffic, what type of content is relevant to them, and the method for reviewing your existing content. Remember, every customer goes on a journey. It’s about making sure you’re at the finish line when they’re ready to convert.

The importance of knowing levels of awareness

Now be patient, but answer this: would you try to sell roller skates to a newborn or his parents? A little extreme, yes, but sometimes these are the best examples. The bottom line is that a baby can grow into someone who needs or wants a pair of roller skates, but is not yet at this stage.

Understanding the different levels your potential customers are at and how they search for your products / services (directly and indirectly) will provide you with the precision to better target them. These stages are awareness, reflection and decision. You just need to be aware that this will not be enough balance.

A site that contains only first-level awareness will have a hard time getting conversions, while a site that focuses only on conversions may have a hard time getting traffic for conversions.

Research and role-playing will be of great help here. If you want to get to the head of your audience and understand what their journey looks like, you have to ask yourself on almost every corner, “What would you do if …”.

To better explore these stages and how they relate to content, we will stick to one example for the next three sections. We will move from a child with roller skates and instead focus on a hypothetical Manchester-based SME that sells hearing aids and wants to increase its customer base.

Level 1: awareness

This level of awareness is when the client is just beginning to realize that he has a problem and that he needs a solution. Prior to this phase, they may not have been aware at all that their problem could be fixed or that it was a problem. Good content at this stage sows the seeds in the head so that they no longer have to continue down this path.

You don’t want to overload the reader with this in mind. Yes, they may now be aware that they want a solution, but it is extremely rare for a piece of content to be able to check all three fields at once. Those who make them to be aware of problems, help them to think options and then to decide to decide on my option. That’s why we have different content for different phases.

In our case of a small business in Manchester selling hearing aids, the content at this stage can look like this:

• “Five common signs of hearing loss”
• “Data shows that hearing loss is on the rise”
• “When to seek hearing help”

If you were writing content for this fictional company, you wouldn’t open these articles with “You’re Here Now, Check Out Our Big Hearing Aids Sale!”. Instead, they would refer to the problems the reader is having. In fact, your language should be empathetic, solution-focused, and as connected to the reader as possible at all these stages.

Imagine a woman in her 40s who has been playing guitar in a rock band since she was young. For her, the inability to hear the nuances of music would almost feel like an interruption in the oxygen supply. She may have hearing problems, but her search may not begin immediately with “hearing aids near me”. I would try to find out about my problems if they are common and how they can be fixed. These pages would address hearing problems and end up (but without sounding overly saleslike) suggesting that hearing aids have helped millions of people to the end.

By writing content that targets this level, you can be there at the beginning of the consumer’s journey. While there will be a higher probability of conversion to the end this trip, good content strategy it’s about balance. This brings us to the next level.

Phase 2: reflection

If the first stage is just to let them know they have a problem, they show them how to fix them. Here, the reader would actively seek a solution and think about their options.

Although our hypothetical company may be an expert in helping with hearing loss, there are other ways to do this than just providing hearing aids. We cannot just assume that hearing aids are an immediate priority option for every visitor. The challenge here is to reconcile knowledge, empathy, and provide content that is objective and truly beneficial to your consumer. While educating your target audience about their options, you can add smart calls to action that direct a person to a landing page that will generate revenue for your business – making it more of a choice your consumer has made compared to what you wanted to force. their throat.

If we stick to our example of an SME in Manchester that sells hearing aids, the content at this stage can look like this:

• ‘Six ways to help with hearing loss’
• “Top five hearing aids in the UK”
• “Why should even teenagers consider hearing aids”

Since this is the middle stage, you will want to avoid too much inclination to ‘be aware’ and too much to ‘decide’. You won’t want to talk down to the reader and spend paragraphs explaining the very basics of hearing loss. You also won’t want to open up and talk about your great new hearing aid sale.

Imagine a scale with the words “inform” on the left and “sell” on the right. You want this to be fairly evenly balanced, but slightly tilted to the left and to the ‘inform’ side.

Show the reader their options and teach them about the solutions available. Then, if / when they decide that what you provide is the solution for them, they are already on the right site! They just need a page where they can transform and make the final decision. That brings us to lepo

Phase 3: Decision

We mentioned earlier how awareness content brings you in front of the consumer at the beginning of their journey. While it’s a lot of value to be on the starting line, it is content suitable for this level, which turns clicks into customers.

Therefore, the pages here will move away from the blog / article content format proposed for other levels. Instead, you want pages designed specifically to sell the reader yours product or service, with the possibility of conversion there.

For our hypothetical hearing aid business, pages designed for this stage can look like this:

• Pages with categories showing their best brands
• Product pages where you can buy hearing aids
• Hearing Test Organization Service Page (Contact Form)

These sites will be laser-focused on sales, while still keeping readers informed as to why your business is a better choice for them over all your competitors. This means a strong emphasis on USP.

In the case of our hypothetical hearing aid company, this could include free shipping, the lowest prices in Manchester, or even five years of free insurance. You should sing all your USPs on these decision-focused pages. Remember, at this point, they know they want everything you sell, so you don’t have to go to great lengths to explain the very basics of your offer. Just why yours business is best for them. Make sure positive reviews are scattered across these pages.

Content should be easy to read, scan, and supported by images if you think it’s something that interests your audience (always look at what competitors are doing).

Outside the copy, the path to purchase these products should be clear to e-commerce companies, with large buttons showing the user that to you can buy them there. If you are a lead generation company, there should be many CTAs (calls to action) that direct the user to contact forms, phone numbers, or email addresses.

Key withdrawals

As with any marketing or psychological model, there are versions of this with even more steps. However, if we turn everything around, we believe that most companies need only three steps. It is important to remember that the same user may not go all the way to your site in one session. A balanced content strategy means you can attract any potential customer at any stage, no matter where they are on their shopping journey.

The danger of an imbalance in your content strategy is that there may be a lot of blogging in the first stage of awareness, but users are unaware that they can solve a problem they are now aware they have. On the other hand, you could have most of your content focused on the final stage, but you may find it hard to attract customers who aren’t even aware they need you.

Therefore, we recommend that you perform a content review on your site to see how balanced your current result is. Create a table like the one below and add existing content to it.

In this case, we will use the ideas we used for our business in Manchester:

Content of the level of awareness	Content of the consideration phase	Content of the decision-making phase
Five common signs of hearing loss	Six ways to help with hearing loss	Pages with categories showing their best brands
How to improve hearing at concerts	Five best hearing aids in the UK	Product pages where you can buy hearing aids
When to seek help with hearing	Why even teenagers should consider hearing aids	Hearing Test Organization Service Page (Contact Form)

While mapping your pages to this, you should be able to easily identify where the gaps are, and then plan your content strategy to fill them. “Mapping” is a great term because all successful trips include a map.

If you only post random content with no general purpose, you stumble in the dark and hope to land where you want. A quality content strategy is based on understanding travel and being present at any stage your client is at.

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Jack Bird is Head of Content Operations at Manchester-based SEO and Digital Marketing Agency. Add people.

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