Don’t rely on your navigation menus to move customers through your site.

*UPDATED* When organizations think about how their users will get to the content on their sites, the navigation menus are first to come to mind. This makes sense—it’s a consistent wayfinding system that’s there to ensure your users know their options and don’t get lost.

Navigation menus are the public view of your page structure, also known as the sitemap. By definition, a sitemap is the hierarchical structure of the pages on your site. It starts at the homepage and the subpages are nested in a tree structure. As you click deeper, the topics become more niche. In a grocery store example, it might look like this: Home > Produce > Fruit > Apples > Red Delicious.

If the grocer gets a shipment of kiwis, they know logically to put them in the fruit category. That’s where customers will look for them.

Your sitemap—and therefore navigation menu—is logical and boring. And necessarily so, so that people can orient themselves and understand all of their options.

But navigation menus aren’t the only page structure you need. That’s because buying something, and decision-making in general, isn’t always logical. It’s emotional and complex.

There is significant research about how people can’t make decisions without involving our emotions. (See works by Antonio Damasio) So the logical menu isn’t always aligned with how your customers engage with your products or services.

If your potential customers have to rely on your navigation menus, you’re disrupting the flow of their decision-making process.

Persuade them with journey architecture

The journey architecture, sometimes referred to as persuasion architecture, is a way to structure and link information on your website to align with the decision-making process of your users. The goal is to persuade users toward conversion at a comfortable pace that builds their confidence in you along the way.

Unlike the hierarchy of the sitemap, the journey architecture is more like a matrix. One item or page might relate to many others. It’s more subjective and based on the customers’ process and needs.

How do you create a journey architecture? It’s a series of calls to action, strategically placed to persuade them from one stage of the journey to the next.

Craft the story you want to tell

It meant you could read the same book multiple times, and have a new plot and ending each time.

This is how you should treat each page of your website.

Because people don’t read websites front to back like a book, they must be able to orient themselves and pick up your storyline. You’ve got to offer options in the context of what they’ve just read.

When you do, your users are more likely to follow them.

Follow the customer journey map

Where are these strategic locations you put the calls to action? Well, follow the journey. Here are the typical phases of a customer journey.

The questions that your customers need answered at each phase should form your website content.

Need ⇢ research stage

When people are in the research stage their intent is to gather information. Their searches tend to be “how to” or “what is” questions. If you’ve talked to some of your customers, you know what these are. Hopefully you have some blog posts that are designed to catch people doing these searches.

Imagine that in their time of need, someone does a search on, “how to deal with [insert random issue]”. They look at the search results and see your blog post called “Deal with [issue] in 5 easy steps”. Fantastic! Just what they’re looking for. The user—your potential customer—clicks to your blog post. This is research stage content. They read on and learn that you know what you’re talking about. They feel confident they clicked to the right spot.

Research ⇢ evaluation stage

From here, the goal is to nudge them along to the evaluation stage. Towards the end of the blog post, in context, you include a call to action that links to the most relevant evaluation page. Based on the blog post, you’re seeming pretty credible and they want to get to know you better. Imagine the call to action takes the user to a services page.

Evaluation ⇢ decision stage

Now on a services page your potential customer is further along their journey, in the evaluation stage. They know something about you, they are learning the specifics of your product or service. They’re able to compare your offering and your organization to others they found. (You didn’t think they weren’t shopping around, did you?) But now it’s appropriate to ask for something a bit more substantial, so include a call to action to decision stage content.

Maybe you want them to submit a lead form, or register for an event, or buy something. In this example: Book a free demo.

Persuade users down the funnel

If we were to diagram this, it might look like this funnel. Notice the volume of content at each stage. At the top is research stage content. Things like blog posts, how tos, and articles do well in organic search and social media. This is why writing and publishing more original content is such a great tactic. You’re widening the top of your funnel—creating more opportunities to attract your target customer.

As outlined with the journey architecture, your goal is to move them down the funnel, toward conversion.

Primary and secondary calls to action

As a general rule, each page should have only one primary call to action.

But, perhaps your potential customer isn’t quite ready to move forward. They need to get to know you a bit better. That’s perfectly natural in relationships.

If you want, add a secondary CTA to move them laterally in the journey. Perhaps the blog post also links to a case study or a how-to video on a related topic. In the evaluation stage, you could link to an alternate service. And maybe in the example above, “Book a demo” is your secondary call to action, because you really want the them to buy. You get the idea. Nudge your customers sideways or forward—just keep them on their journey.

Two ways organizations mess this up

1. You don’t have any call to action.

Did you know that over 70% of small business websites do not use call to action buttons. 70%!

What happens if you don’t offer a suggestion? Maybe they hit the back button. Maybe they leave your site.

If they aren’t ready to leave they will go back to your navigation menu and have a look. But you’ve disrupted their flow. Your user has to re-evaluate ALL their options and you’ve lost the opportunity to guide their journey.

2. You ask for too much too soon.

Have you ever asked someone to marry you on the first date? Has your brand new neighbour asked if they could borrow your car?

Maybe, but the answer is sure to be no! There is no rapport, no relationship. And yet many websites aggressively shout “Buy now” at every opportunity.

Don’t act like a used car salesperson on your website. If you save your big calls to action for when someone is ready to hear them, they won’t seem so big, and your users will be more likely to say yes.

A clear path for your customers’ journey

You have the power to persuade your customers forward. When you align your content and calls to action with where your customers are in their decision-making, they are more likely to follow your lead. You build their confidence in you, and create trusted relationships.

Crafting the journey architecture is just part of a high converting site. To learn more, check out my book, Would You Date Your Website? How to create a website that will grow lasting relationships—and your business.

(See what I did there….a call to action from research to evaluation stage content. Nudge, nudge. 😉)