Creating Content for the Buyer's Journey
Creating Content for the Buyer's Journey checks that you can map formats to the three stages and write for the question the buyer is actually asking.
The three stages
- Awareness: the buyer feels a problem. Content is educational, usually ungated and searchable - blog posts, guides, videos, checklists. Minimal product mention.
- Consideration: the buyer names the problem and compares approaches - comparison pages, webinars, case studies, templates, ROI calculators.
- Decision: the buyer chooses a vendor - free trial, demo, pricing, implementation guide, references.
Topic clusters
A pillar page covers a broad topic; cluster pages go deep on subtopics and link back to the pillar. This builds topical authority and internal linking, and it gives each cluster a natural next step.
The offer ladder
Match the ask to the commitment: a checklist needs only an email; a consultation needs qualifying fields. Each stage should have at least one offer so readers always have somewhere to go.
Worked example
A project-management tool wants to rank for "how to run a sprint retrospective." Reasoning: that query is awareness - the reader has a problem, not a vendor shortlist. The correct asset is a free retrospective template behind a light email gate; the follow-up sequence should offer a comparison of retrospective tools (consideration) and only then a demo (decision). Linking an awareness post straight to a demo mismatches intent and kills conversion.
Traps
Gating everything so nothing ranks or gets shared; pitching product inside awareness content; building decision-stage pages before there is any traffic; forgetting the internal link that carries readers to the next stage.