From the user's perspective, the funnel can have several stages before they even arrive at your website. E.g. becoming aware they have a problem, researching the problem in general and what approaches have been tried, deciding which type of approach is applicable them, comparing different products. An organic search is likely to be in one of the earlier phases, but a paid search campaign can target keywords indicative of later phases, as well as different value propositions.

This user-centric idea of a funnel is different than the website-centric view of the funnel where you start with a landing page and end with a lead form or purchase. The phrase "Customer Journey" usually gets bandied about to refer to the former, although it also often gets bandied about without referring to anything at all.