What are money pages?
Money pages are the pages on your website that drive conversions and – ultimately – make you money. On most sites, the majority of traffic, conversions, and income will be driven by just a small percentage of pages. It’s therefore important to know which these are so that you can make the most of them.
A user doesn’t necessarily have to make a purchase on a page for it to be a money page. A money page could also be a key part of the journey that leads a user to becoming a customer. For example, a particularly useful article that successfully encourages a website visitor to click through to a different page and purchase a product could be a money page. The conversion may not come on that page, but it’s the main driver for a conversion.
How to find your money pages
In order to successfully identify your money pages, you need to have Google Analytics set up on your website. You can learn how to do that here. You’ll get the most useful information if you’re tracking goals, purchases and revenue, but you’ll be able to get some limited information even without this more advanced setup.
Landing Page report
Open Google Analytics 4 and find the Landing Page report (Reports > Engagement > Landing Page). This report gives you a breakdown of the first pages users land on when they visit your site. The majority of traffic will first land on the home page (represented by a ‘/’ in the report), but you might be surprised by how many other pages act as landing pages.
The report includes several columns that can help you identify your highest converting pages. This includes the name of the page, the number of sessions, the average time spent on a page, the number of conversions, and the total revenue generated on that page.
If you don’t have any goals or e-commerce tracking set up, then you’ll need to reply on sessions and average engagement time to identify your best pages. While this does give you some idea of your best performers, you’ll only get part of the picture.
For example, you could have a page that sees lots of traffic because it’s useful to a certain demographic. But if that demographic always leaves after reading, and never returns to make a purchase, the page probably isn’t a money page.
If you do have tracking set up, then look at pages that generate the most income and the most conversions. Make a note of these – they will be your primary money pages.
Sales funnel
I wrote earlier that a page doesn’t have to directly receive conversions in order to be a valuable money page. These particular pages are a bit trickier to identify, but are worth the extra work.
Still in Google Analytics, open Explore from the left-hand menu. This is where you can create custom reports, including reverse sales funnels. Follow these steps to build your report:
- Select Path Exploration
- Select Start Again on the template report
- From the newly blank report, under Ending Point, click Drop or select node and then choose Event name.
- Pick one of your most valuable conversions (e.g. purchase) and you will be shown a basic reverse funnel.
- In the Step 1 dropdown menu, select a page title or page path option and you will see a list of pages that a user was on before they completed the conversion.
- Click on one of the of these results to to expand the path to the page before, and so on.
- Eventually, you’ll end up with a path of pages so you can see the journey users took before they converted.
By analysing multiple paths in this way, you may start seeing patterns. If a reasonable percentage of user go on to convert shortly after viewing a particular page, you may have found another money page.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is another tool that can help you identify money pages. Again, it will require some setup before you can access the relevant information, but once you have done that, navigate to Search results in the left menu.
From here, you can see all the different search terms your page ranks for, as well as the pages that searchers land on. This will give you an idea of your most popular pages.
You can dig even deeper by clicking on a single page or a single search query to filter your data. This will allow you to see which specific keywords a page ranks for, or which pages a keyword brings up.
This information can be compared with the information gathered from Google Analytics. Together, it will give you a good overview of which search phrases lead to which pages and therefore how many conversions.
How to optimise money pages for more conversions
Now you’ve identified your money pages, it’s time to optimise them so that they bring in more customers and income.
Follow SEO best practices
Like any other page on your website, your money pages need to follow SEO best practices in order to be successful. This includes:
- Optimising images
- Adding appropriate title tags
- Adding enough useful content
- Putting the user first
Read my full guide to implementing SEO best practices.
Keyword research and copy
Through the research carried out above, you may have already found that your site is ranking for a number of important keywords. You can often strengthen your content by adding the best of these keywords into your copy, though be aware of keyword stuffing by adding too many keyword mentions. Instead, aim for one or two keywords and their variations, and make sure that the text reads naturally and doesn’t feel like words and phrases have been forced in. I have a handy guide on writing effective SEO copy.
You can also explore new keyword opportunities by carrying out additional keyword research. This might flag up some additional phrases that are relevant but which may not be mentioned on your page. It’s an especially useful step if your money pages are only ranking for very generic, overly specific, or extremely competitive phrases.
When it comes to keyword research for money pages, it’s worth looking at those keywords that are a little more specific. Very high volume keywords tend to be much harder to rank for and involve a much longer sales funnel. Try and hone in on audiences that are more likely to convert by picking more specific phrases that still see a reasonable number of searches.
Know your audience
As well as the reports mentioned above, Google Analytics can tell you about the demographics of your audience. You can learn details that range from age to device usage, and these can help you learn more about who’s purchasing.
By knowing these details, you can tailor the content of your money pages to suit the audience that is most likely to convert. Learn more about your audience and make sure the content is as helpful as possible to that particular demographic.
Include a call to action
What do you want a user to do when they’re on the page? A call to action will help you move them towards that step, whether it’s adding a product to a cart, signing up to a newsletter, or navigating to another page on your site.
Your call to action should be clear in its location and intention. Ensure it works properly and build content that leads the user towards the action.
Review, refresh and update
It’s important to keep your content up-to-date, which is why regular reviews are important. A lot of SEO work is based around intelligent guesswork, so you need to test the results of any changes and updates you make.
Regularly check-in with your page to find out how it’s performing compared to previous months. Are you seeing more or less traffic? Are you receiving similar traffic but fewer conversions? Has your audience changed? All these factors – and more – should affect the content on your money page. Regular check-ins ensure your information doesn’t become stale and less profitable.
When it comes to making changes, smaller is better. If you make lots of updates, you won’t know which ones have worked and which ones haven’t. By making one or two small alterations, and then giving them some time to take effect, you can be more granular about what is successful and what ma need reviewed again.
Conclusion
Money pages are the pages on a website that make you the most money – either directly or by leading users to make a purchase or take a particular action. You can find out which pages of your site are already working for you by using free tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Then follow good SEO practices – with regular reviews – to see growing benefits for your business from these individual pages.
