Using Website Funnels to Increase Your Conversions and Sales

Your website structure may be unintentionally sabotaging your business. Most sites face two core challenges: improving what’s already built, and knowing what to add next. A Website Funnel strategy addresses both.

First, auditing your existing content and mapping where it should lead often produces quick wins, especially if you already have a lot of pages or posts that aren’t pulling their weight.

Second, organizing your internal linking into deliberate Website Funnels makes it immediately clear what’s missing, so you can build new content strategically instead of guessing.

What is a Website Funnel?

A website funnel strategy is an interlinking system on your site that moves users from their entry point to your conversion page. This strategy includes how those pages relate, the text of the Call to Actions (CTAs), and the design and location of the links.

At the bottom of the funnel is your conversion/sales page, leading users to fill out a form, give you a call, schedule a meeting, or other primary action. At the top of the funnel are supporting pages or posts that lead users to the conversion page. The top-of-funnel posts should be in-depth exploration of different aspects of the conversion page, thus strategically enlarging the funnel to reach more people.

This isn’t a one-time event; if you are actively utilizing your website as a primary marketing tool, adding content to your funnels is a powerful conversion tool. Not considering your funnel strategy can end up inadvertently funneling those posts (and the money spent on them) into the void instead of increasing sales.

Website Funnels are for the People

The goal is always a person’s eyes. Every website, every marketing structure, every post, is meant to reach actual people. The method it uses to reach them might differ by the person, but if you can’t reach the PERSON, you can’t connect your services to their needs.

Funnels respect this requirement. A website with quality funnels are primarily focused on a person’s movement. Is the link visible to them? Does it draw attention? Are there other distractions pulling the user away? Does the funnel respect what a person’s next question is?

Fundamentally, every funnel is considering how a real person moves through your website, including where they get confused, how they understand the information, and where they (might) get bored or lost and leave.

Website Funnels are for the Bots / AI

But funnels also are for the bots, LLMs/AI. Strategic links allow you to signal to the bots which pages are most important. It overtly answers questions like: Which pages should be returned higher in search engines? Where do you want people to end up on your site?

Want to know what pages on your site Google thinks are important? Visit Google Search Console > “Internal Links”. This list shows which pages are linked to the most on your site. If all your internal links are relatively the same, Google does not see page hierarchy in your site. But it SHOULD. Page hierarchy allows Google & AI to structure the delivery of your content to the user. 

Website funnels also have a secondary powerful effect on bots and llms: the more complex and in-depth content you create, the higher those bots will rank you as an expert in that field. And experts get quoted, linked to, and recommended.

The Parts of a Website Funnel

To build a funnel, you’ll need a few specific parts:

Cornerstone Page(s): You’ll need at least one page that does the conversion. If you’re selling a service, your cornerstone page would be that one service, general information about it, a primary CTA, and a secondary CTA.

Primary CTA: This is the action you want users to take. It’s the primary Call to Action. It includes text like “Schedule a Call” and a link of some kind like Calendly, an email, a form, etc. Don’t confuse this with your secondary CTA.

Secondary CTA: This is the action you want users to take if they’re not quite ready for the Primary CTA. It should be in the same funnel. If you’re selling a service, a secondary CTA might be a blog about that service, or signing up for the newsletter with a free resource about that service. Don’t send them to a different funnel or off to general blog posts.

Supporting Posts/Pages: This is the last step of funnel-building. After the cornerstone pages are built, and your primary and secondary CTAs are structured, these will feed your funnel. Each funnel, even on a small site, should have 3-5 supporting posts. On larger sites, these could also be pages. For each of these, you’ll want to explicitly and strategically link to the Cornerstone Page.

The biggest mistake you can make while building out a funnel is not linking everything correctly. Review the user path once fully created, and make sure there’s no breaks, distractions, or confusion for the user.

Don’t Feed the Void

If your supporting posts or pages aren’t strategically added, you can end up in the unenviable position of “feeding the void”. You might get traffic to that page, but without providing the user with a next step, they’ll simply leave. All that time and energy spent, and the users will simply disappear back into the internet void instead of converting.

Before every post or page you build, you want to ask yourself the important question of where does this fit in your site? Does that page support your services? Does it support your client? Does it lead people to the services you can offer? If it doesn’t, you have to ask yourself the hard question of whether it belongs on your site.

Finding Your Funnels

To find the funnels on your site, start with your primary sales pages. Different businesses will have different sales pages: an Ecommerce site has a huge number of products that are all sales pages; service sites like mine, have just 3-4 sales pages; some businesses might only have one sales page.

Once you find your Cornerstone pages, review:

• Do you have a Primary CTA?
• Do you have a Secondary CTA in the same funnel?
• Are these distinguishable visually?
• Is the CTA being received by someone in your company? (is the form being delivered, email works, etc.)

Next you want to examine whether you have Supportive Pages/Posts:

• Are there supportive pages?
• Are there supportive posts?
• Do they currently lead to the cornerstone page easily and obviously?
• If you have current posts/pages “feeding the void”; if so, can you connect them to the right funnel?
• What posts/pages can you add to support your funnel?

Website Funnels Connect Needs and Services

If you’re selling something online, you believe someone can use your service. Building out your funnel structure is fundamentally focused on making sure your services are easy to find and buy.

While funnel building might feel a bit clinical, funnels are fundamentally about PEOPLE. Not computers or AI, but actual people being able to find you and enriching their lives or growing their business by buying your product or service.

I’ve watched clients pursue life-long dreams of opening their own business, grow their business by $35,000 a month, and create a life they love, in part by fully utilizing their website as a marketing tool.