Personalised Content: Creating Better Experiences for Website Visitors

Personalised content is about giving your website visitors exactly what they need before they have to search for it. 

Traditionally, most websites have given everyone the same experience. You land on the homepage, work your way through the navigation, find the information you’re looking for, and hopefully, take the next step. 

But what if your website could do a little more to help users find what they need?

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Instead of showing every visitor the same content, businesses can use personalised content to create a website experience that better meets visitor needs. 

This might mean showing a visitor a relevant case study, recommending content based on what they have already viewed, or guiding them towards a particular service. It could even be as simple as answering a question based on what they need.

And this matters as people are increasingly used to digital experiences that feel personal to them. 

In fact, 84% of customers say that being treated like a person, not a number, is very important to win their business.

Of course, this does not mean that you need to completely change your brand or create a completely new website. Instead, you can adapt the content and journey to better suit the needs of each visitor.

But how exactly do you do this? 

That’s what we are going to explore in this blog.

What is Personalised Content?

So, what exactly do we mean by personalised content?

To put it simply, it’s website content that changes or is presented differently depending on who is visiting the site. 

A traditional website might show every visitor the same homepage, the same case studies and the same calls to action. With content personalisation, businesses can tailor parts of that experience based on what they know about a visitor. 

This could include things like: 

• Where someone is located 
• What they have previously viewed on your website 
• Their stated preferences 
• Products they have previously viewed 
• Their browsing behaviour
• Information about the type of audience or organisation they belong to

For example, a visitor who has already spent time looking at your financial services might be shown a related case study or a call to action to find out more. Someone visiting from a particular location could see information that’s suited to their region.

What Should You Actually Personalise?

There are lots of different parts of a website that you can personalise. The right place to start will depend on your audience, their needs and where they currently have to work too hard to find information.

• Homepage messaging – Show a message that is more relevant to a particular audience.
• Case studies and testimonials – Recommend examples that are relevant to a visitor’s industry, interests or needs.
• Recommended content – Suggest a blog, guide or resource based on what someone is already reading.
• Service recommendations – Point visitors towards the service most relevant to what they’re looking for.
• Calls to action – Change a CTA based on where someone is in their journey.

You could also personalise forms, lead magnets, location-specific information and experiences for returning visitors.

Personalised content can appear in different places across a website, from landing pages and navigation to recommendations, case studies and calls to action. The important thing isn’t simply where the personalisation happens, but whether it makes the experience more useful.

It’s not about more content. It’s about making it easier to find what’s useful.

How Personalisation Shapes the User Journey

That brings us to user journeys and how personalisation can help to shape the way a user moves throughout your site. 

Creating More Relevant User Journeys

Personalised content can influence what happens next, helping visitors move through your website in a way that makes sense for them.

Not every visitor arrives with the same needs or intentions.

One person might already know exactly what they’re looking for, while another might still be researching their options. Someone might be interested in a particular service, while another might want to see examples of your work before getting in touch.

So, why should they all follow the same path?

A personalised website experience can help guide visitors towards the information and actions most useful to them.

For example, imagine a visitor from the emergency services industry looking for digital accessibility information. Rather than making them search for it themselves, we could guide them towards relevant accessibility content, a related case study and eventually a contact or enquiry page.

The result is a journey that feels more useful because the visitor isn’t having to work as hard to find what they need. 

Is Personalisation Right for Your Website?

Before you start personalising your website, it’s worth asking a few questions:

• Do you serve different audiences?
• Do visitors struggle to find the right information or service?
• Do you have enough relevant content for different audiences?
• Do you have enough traffic to test different experiences?
• Do you have reliable website, analytics or CRM data?
• Is your existing website journey working well?

Personalisation can’t fix unclear positioning, weak content or a poorly structured website. If visitors are struggling to find their way around, it’s worth auditing your website first.

Audience-Led vs Dynamic Personalisation

Audience-led journeys start by understanding the different groups of people using your website.

For example, a website might have different routes for customers, partners, job seekers or industry-specific audiences. The content and structure can then be designed around what each audience is likely to need.

Dynamic personalisation takes this a step further. Instead of simply giving different audiences different routes, the website can adapt based on information about an individual visitor, such as their previous behaviour, location or interactions with the site.

But you don’t always need sophisticated technology to understand your audience. 

That’s something we saw when working with Blyth Star Enterprises.

Blyth Star Enterprises: Starting With Audience-Led Design

Personalisation doesn’t always require a website to dynamically change for every visitor. For many organisations, the right starting point is audience-led website design: understanding who uses the website, what each audience needs and how to create a clearer route for them.

That was the approach we took when redesigning the website for Blyth Star Enterprises.

Blyth Star’s previous website had become dated, cluttered and difficult to navigate. It contained an extensive archive of old news, but didn’t clearly communicate what the organisation did, who its services were for or where visitors should go next.

The website primarily needed to support social care professionals looking for clear information about Blyth Star’s services. However, it also had to work for service users, their families, donors and people interested in working with or supporting the organisation. Each audience arrived with different levels of knowledge and different reasons for visiting.

We began by auditing the existing website and mapping the journeys these audiences needed to take. This helped us reorganise the content around their needs, prioritise the most important information and create clearer routes through the website. Streamlined navigation, plain-English messaging and a bespoke icon system made Blyth Star’s services easier to recognise and understand, while prominent contact and donation journeys gave visitors an obvious next step.

The result wasn’t a collection of completely separate websites for different audiences. It was one coherent experience designed to help different people find the information and action most relevant to them. As Blyth Star’s Philanthropy and Marketing Manager explained, the new identity and website translated the organisation’s complexity into something “representative of who we are and what we do” while making it “accessible to all.”

Strictly speaking, this isn’t dynamic website personalisation. The website isn’t tracking visitors and changing its content based on their behaviour. Instead, it demonstrates the foundation that should come first: understanding your audiences and designing journeys around their real needs.

Before investing in personalisation technology, consider whether better content, clearer navigation and stronger audience pathways could solve the problem first.

The Benefits of Personalised Website Experiences

So, what’s actually in it for visitors and businesses? 

The biggest benefit of personalisation is pretty simple: it makes the website more useful. 

When visitors can find relevant information without digging through pages of content, everyone wins.

Benefits to website visitors:

For website visitors, personalisation can make it easier to find the right information, navigate the site and take the next step. This can lead to:

• More useful content 
• Easier navigation 
• More efficient user journeys 
• Less time spent searching for information

Business benefits:

Of course, personalisation should also support clear business goals. 

By making the website more relevant and helping visitors reach the right information sooner, businesses can:

• Generate more qualified leads, rather than simply increasing enquiry volume
• Increase engagement with relevant services, case studies and content
• Help visitors understand complex products or services
• Improve conversion rates at important points in the user journey
• Gain a better understanding of audience needs, behaviours and expectations

Successful personalisation connects a genuine visitor need with a measurable business goal. It should make the experience more useful while helping more of the right people take the next step.

Does personalisation mean completely changing your brand? No. 

Personalisation should adapt a user’s experience on your website, but it shouldn’t change the character or identity of your brand.

Your visual identity, tone of voice and core proposition should remain consistent.

Personalisation can make a brand feel more relevant without making the overall experience feel fragmented. 

What Data Can You Use?

Personalisation doesn’t always mean tracking everything a visitor does. You can use simple information, such as:

• Visitor choices – What someone tells you they’re looking for.
• Page context – Showing related content based on the page someone is reading.
• Location – Showing relevant regional services or contact information.
• CRM data – Adapting content for existing customers or prospects.
• Browsing behaviour – Recommending content based on previous activity.

The more data you use, the more important it becomes to consider privacy, consent and how that information is collected. The key is to use data for a clear purpose rather than simply because you can.

Personalisation, Privacy and Trust

Of course, personalisation comes with considerations, too. It relies on data, so businesses need to be clear about what information they collect and how it is used.

Businesses should focus on making personalisation useful rather than using data simply because they can.

Businesses also need to consider data privacy and compliance with regulations such as GDPR when using visitor data to personalise the website. Being transparent about how data is collected and used, and getting user consent where required, helps build trust.

The best experiences should feel helpful, while giving visitors confidence in how their data is being used.

Nobody wants a website that seems to know a little too much about them.

Personalisation should feel useful, not intrusive.

When Personalisation Goes Too Far

Personalisation isn’t always better. If it’s based on poor data, makes assumptions about visitors or creates too many different experiences, it can make a website harder to use rather than easier.

There’s also a risk of over-personalising. If every part of the website changes depending on who someone is, visitors can lose sight of the wider brand or miss useful information they wouldn’t have found otherwise.

The answer isn’t to avoid personalisation altogether. It’s to make sure every change has a clear purpose and genuinely helps the visitor.

If personalisation starts making the experience feel confusing, intrusive or overly complicated, it’s probably gone too far.

How Can Businesses Start Personalising Their Website?

So, you know why personalisation matters. But where do you actually start? 

Start With One Audience, Journey, and Goal

You don’t need to personalise your entire website. Start with one audience, one journey and one clear goal.  Think about their needs, the questions they want answered and the different journeys they may take through your website. This should form the basis of your personalisation strategy.

For example: 

Audience: Marketing Managers

Entry point: Blog article about improving website conversions 

Personalised content: Relevant marketing service, a case study from a similar business and a CTA to book a consultation

Goal: Increase qualified enquiries

Measure: CTA clicks, visits to the relevant service page and completed enquiries

A simple starting process: 

1. Choose an audience where a more relevant experience could make a difference.
2. Find a high-value journey where visitors are currently having to work too hard.
3. Choose what to personalise – perhaps a CTA, case study, service recommendation or piece of content.
4. Set a measurable goal so you can see whether it worked.

The key is to start with a genuine visitor need rather than personalising something just for the sake of it. Once you’ve identified an opportunity, you can test your approach, learn from the results and build from there.

Start Small and Keep Improving

We recommend starting with a small number of high-value opportunities rather than trying to personalise the entire website.

5 personalisation opportunities to get started with: 

1. Homepage messaging – Show a proposition that’s more relevant to a particular audience.
2. Case studies – Highlight examples that match someone’s industry or interests.
3. Recommended content – Suggest a blog, guide or resource based on what they’re already reading.
4. Service recommendations – Point visitors towards the service most relevant to what they’re looking for.
5. Calls to action – Change a CTA based on where someone is in their journey.

These are just a few starting points. You could also personalise things like forms, lead magnets, location-specific information or experiences for returning visitors.

The best opportunity will depend on your audience and what you’re trying to achieve. Start with one that solves a clear problem for your visitors, then test whether it actually improves their experience.

It’s also worth considering the work involved in maintaining personalised experiences. Every variation needs to be written, approved, tested and reviewed. As your personalisation becomes more sophisticated, make sure someone owns those journeys and that outdated content can be identified and removed.

Every personalised experience creates another experience that needs to be written, tested, governed and maintained.

A Simple Personalisation Model

Level 1: Content and structure 

Personalisation doesn’t always need technology. You can start by creating clear audience-led journeys, improving your navigation and making sure relevant content is easy to find. This can be enough to create a more tailored experience for different audiences.

Level 2: Your existing tools

Your CMS, CRM or marketing automation platform may already allow you to personalise parts of the experience. For example, you might show different content to existing customers and prospects, or use information from a campaign to make a landing page more relevant.

Level 3: Dynamic personalisation

More advanced personalisation can use behavioural, contextual and demographic data to adapt the website in real time. Specialist personalisation platforms can help businesses deliver these experiences at scale, while AI can help identify patterns and decide which content or experience is most relevant.

You don’t need to jump straight to the most sophisticated option. Start with what you already have, learn what works and build from there.

How Do You Know If It’s Working?

Personalisation should have a clear purpose, so you need to measure whether it’s actually making a difference.

Depending on your goal, you could look at:

• Click-throughs to relevant services
• Content engagement
• Navigation depth
• Search usage
• Form completion
• Qualified enquiries
• Consultation or demo bookings
• Conversion rates by audience
• Returning visitor conversion
• Time taken to reach important information

Where possible, compare the personalised experience against a baseline or control. Otherwise, it can be difficult to know whether personalisation actually made a difference.

Personalisation should also be an ongoing process. As your audiences, services and content change, your personalised experiences will need to change with them.

And if you work with a web design agency (like Canny!), we can help you start personalising your website.

The Future of Personalised Content

The future of personalised content isn’t about creating a completely different website for every visitor.

It’s about making the experience feel more considered.

When someone can find the information they need more easily, follow a journey that makes sense to them and see content that’s actually useful, the website becomes a much better experience.

AI and website personalisation tools are likely to make these experiences easier to deliver at scale. But the technology shouldn’t come first; understanding your audience should.

And whatever approach you take, your brand, privacy and customer trust still matter.

The best personalised experiences should feel helpful, not intrusive.

Need some help with personalisation on your website? Let’s talk.

Paige Harbottle

Marketing Executive