A user journey is the sequence of steps a person takes to reach a goal, such as choosing and buying a product. The Nielsen Norman Group describes it as scenario-based and spanning several channels and touchpoints, often over days or weeks. A journey map visualizes these steps along with the user’s actions, thoughts and emotions.
How does a user journey differ from a user flow?
NN/g separates the two. A user journey covers the whole path to a high-level goal, across channels. A user flow describes the steps for one task inside a single product, such as completing checkout, and usually takes minutes.
What does it mean for SEO?
Search is often one of several touchpoints in a journey. An early informational query can lead to a guide, a later comparison query to a product page. Matching each page to the search intent of its stage and linking the pages to each other supports the next step. Analytics tools show the paths people actually take. In Google Analytics 4, path exploration displays the pages and events users trigger after a chosen starting point or before an ending point.
Example
A user searches “what is log file analysis”, reads a glossary entry, returns a week later via “log file analyzer comparison” and requests a demo from the pricing page.
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