What Is the Role of a Website When the Buyer Journey Happens Everywhere?

I’ve spent more than 25 years trying to get people to websites. Search strategies, content strategies, campaigns, navigation, landing pages, conversion paths. So much of digital marketing has been built around one central goal: get the right person to the website, then create an experience that helps them take the next step.

That model made sense because the website was where much of the buyer journey happened. You controlled the navigation, decided what information someone encountered first, demonstrated your expertise, provided proof, and guided them toward the next logical action.

The website WAS the environment where you brought everything together.

That’s changing. Not because websites are disappearing, but because buyers no longer have to visit one to learn a significant amount about your company, your expertise, or the problem they’re trying to solve.

So what is the role of a website when the buyer journey can happen almost anywhere?

AI Changed More Than Where People Search

Buyers could always research a company beyond its website. They could read reviews, visit industry publications, talk to peers, explore social media, watch videos, or research competitors.

But doing that took work. Most people weren’t exhaustively researching all of those sources before they reached your website. Some did deeper research later in the process. Some never did it at all.

LLMs changed that dynamic. A buyer can ask a single question and get an answer informed by multiple sources, perspectives, and companies. They don’t have to visit Reddit, YouTube, industry publications, competitors, reviews, and your website individually for information from all of those places to influence what they learn.

That makes what exists outside your website more important than ever.

It also means brands have less control over the experience. When someone came to your website, you decided how to position your company, which proof points they saw, which content they encountered, and where you wanted them to go next. Now, you must influence the buyer journey without owning the environment where that journey happens.

Informational Content Still Matters. Where It Lives May Change.

Buyers still need to understand problems, evaluate approaches, compare options, find proof, and determine who they trust. AI hasn’t eliminated the need for that information. It has changed how people can find and consume it.

For years, content strategy often started with: What content should we create to bring people to our website?

Now there’s another question: Where should this information exist so the people (or LLMs) who need it can actually find and use it?

The answer won’t always be your website.

Your website still needs to clearly communicate who you help, what you offer, why you’re different, why someone should trust you, and what they should do next. It also makes sense as a home for information you want clearly associated with your organization, such as original research, detailed resources, case studies, and product or service information.

But an expert answer might be more useful as a YouTube video. A timely perspective may reach the right people on LinkedIn. Validation may carry more weight when it comes from customers or an independent third party.

The point isn’t to distribute content everywhere. It’s to make a more intentional decision about where your expertise needs to exist.

A Better Way to Decide Where Content Belongs

Instead of automatically deciding that your next answer, article, video, or resource belongs on your website, start with the buyer and work outward.

1. What is the buyer trying to do?
   Are they learning, comparing, validating, or getting ready to act?
2. What do they need to know about you in that moment?
   Do they need to understand your expertise, see proof, understand how you’re different, or know what the next step looks like?
3. Where should this information exist so buyers can find it, directly or through the LLMs helping them research?
   Your website may be the answer, but it could also be YouTube, LinkedIn, a third-party publication, a community, or somewhere else.
4. Is this information owned, distributed, or both?
   Does it need a permanent home on your website, does it benefit from appearing on other platforms or third-party sources, or should it exist in multiple places and formats?
5. Does this content already exist, or does it need to be created or updated?
   Before creating something new, look at what you already have. The answer may be improving an existing page, repurposing existing expertise for another format or platform, or filling a genuine content gap.

This is also where GEO fits into the larger digital strategy. The goal isn’t to get everything back to your website or to publish everywhere an AI system might look. It’s to understand what your buyers are trying to accomplish, what they need to know about you, and where that information needs to exist to become part of their research and decision-making process.

For decades, website strategy has focused heavily on bringing people into an experience we could control. We have less control over that experience now.

That doesn’t make the website less important. It means we need to be clearer about the job we’re asking it to do.

The primary question becomes:

What belongs on our website, and where else does our expertise need to exist?

The website isn’t the entire digital experience anymore. It’s one part of it.