What is mapping?
Mapping also known as content mapping—refers to the process of outlining and structuring your content in such a way that it perfectly aligns with the objectives of your target customers at every stage of the buyer’s journey.
If you want a more in-depth understanding of this topic, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: What are the benefits of content mapping?
The biggest benefit of content mapping is that it can help you determine what needs to be written and when. It helps you identify gaps in your content and create an appropriate website strategy.
You can also use it to determine where to place the content on your site in order to best meet your target users’ needs and encourage them to take whatever action you need them to take, such as:
- Make a purchase
- Join your email list
- Sign up for your next event
- Download your new ebook
- Book a consultation
- Sign up for a free trial
In addition, content mapping also allows you to identify which pages link to which pages and why so you can optimise everything to help your target users to accomplish their objectives more quickly and easily.
Finally, content mapping allows you to identify areas of your website that need special attention so you can improve your conversion rate, reduce your bounce rate, boost your engagement, generate more traffic, and encourage repeat visits.
Question #2: What are the steps in content mapping?
The basic steps in content mapping are as follows:
- Create a list of all the pages on your site (and how they link to each other). The goal is to make it as simple as possible for your target users to get to where they want to go and do what they want to do on your website.
- For each page, list the primary purpose. Is it to educate, help, sell? You need to get clear on what each of your pages is for and build them around that single purpose to ensure that your target users also know exactly where to go on your website to find what they need.
- Map out the trigger points. For pages whose goal is to convert, you need to craft your content in such a way that it not only helps but also encourages your target audience to convert at points where they are naturally more inclined to do so.
For pages whose goal is anything but conversion, the goal is to craft your content in such a way that it provides your target users the exact content they need at whatever stage of the buyer’s journey they may be and naturally guides them to whatever action you need them to take to mark a successful conversion.
Question #3: What are the downsides to doing it?
The main downsides to doing content mapping are as follows:
- It can be challenging to learn. Unless you are experienced in creating content maps, you would either need to spend significant time learning the ropes or hire an expert to take care of it for you.
- It can be time-consuming. It can take a lot of time to map out every page on your website, not to mention keeping your content map updated when you add or remove pages or sections from your site. If you are not careful, you might end up spending more time than you would like on content mapping, losing time for other important tasks in the process.
- Content mapping does not work particularly well with large, complex sites. The process is already time-consuming for small to medium-sized websites. Just imagine how much longer it would take you to create a full-on content map for a website that has hundreds of pages.
Question #4: How does it affect SEO?
Content mapping not only helps web crawlers index the pages on your website more efficiently but also helps search engines make better sense of your website as a whole and recommend it to people who might find it valuable.