Zero in on bottom-of-funnel

Araminta says: “Now, it's more important than ever to do bottom-of-funnel content to help appear for the right topics and the right keywords in Google, but also for LLMs.”

How do you describe the different stages of the funnel, and the content that is needed at each stage?

“It's really important to make that distinction because people have different definitions of what each stage in the funnel is.

To me, top-of-funnel content is for someone who's not aware. They are still very much at the beginning of their journey in terms of making a purchase. I work in the B2B payments and financial services sector, so I’ll use the example of an e-commerce site or merchant who wants to work with a payment provider and start accepting payments online.

At this stage of the funnel, they're still doing a lot of research. How do other companies accept payments online? What different business models are available? They're almost looking for inspiration, and they may not even have a problem yet. They're at a very early stage of their journey.

Middle-of-funnel, they are starting to be more aware that they have a problem. They're starting to do research on types of payment providers, what kind of payments they should be accepting, and what the flow should be. They're trying to understand exactly what the problem is, but they may not be looking for a solution just yet.

Bottom-of-funnel is someone who's aware they have a problem and is actively looking for a solution. In this case, they're looking for things like ‘top payment gateways,’ ‘how to accept payments online with Stripe,’ or ‘Stripe vs PayPal’.

What's key here is that it's non-branded. Often, people assume that the bottom-of-funnel is someone who already knows about your company and is trying to understand how the product works. That could be the case, but I would say that's after the buying journey, because they're already aware of your brand.

We're focussed on non-branded bottom-of-funnel: someone who doesn't know that your product exists and is actively looking for a solution to their problem.”

How is top-of-funnel content changing, and why is it becoming less of an opportunity for SEO?

“A lot of SEOs will agree that top-of-funnel is not as effective as it used to be. Over the past few months, people have seen a decrease of around 34% in their traffic, according to an Ahrefs study.

If you look at the specific pages that have lost that traffic, a lot of it is top-of-funnel, higher-level content. The reason is because of AI overviews.

Now, if you look up, ‘What is a payment provider?’ you'll get that big chunk at the top of the search results that gives your answer. Because the answer is right there, you don't feel the need to scroll down and click into a website, and therefore, traffic is decreasing. Someone who gets their answer that quickly is usually at the top of the funnel.

If you're at the bottom of the funnel, and you're searching ‘Stripe vs PayPal,’ you’re actively looking for a payment provider. That is a complex buying decision, and an AI overview isn't going to answer your question immediately. It will give you some high-level distinctions, but if you really need to understand how Stripe works, how PayPal works, the percentage fee that they charge, etc., you're going to want a much more in-depth piece of content, so you're a lot more likely to click into the results and do more in-depth research.

By the nature of the stage in the buying funnel that you’re in, bottom-of-funnel means that the person you're targeting is going to click, do more research, and be a bigger percentage of your traffic, because they need to read the content.”

Is middle-of-funnel content also consumed directly on LLMs, so it’s also less of an opportunity for publishing on your website?

“Middle-of-funnel is murkier and more complex. It really depends on the topic.

For me, middle-of-funnel is usually a lot of how-to content, and looking at different types. For our merchant who wants to accept different types of payment methods, if they search ‘types of payment methods’ in Google, they’ll get a good list on the AI overview. That might be enough if they just need a quick overview.

However, if they need to actually understand which types make sense for them, then they might dig in and click through. Middle-of-funnel is a bit more murky. It depends on what you're looking for and the topic.

With top-of-funnel, it’s a bit clearer that the answers are just going to appear directly in the AI overview or the LLM itself.”

How do you uncover the correct queries to target for bottom-of-funnel content?

“You have to remember who you're targeting and the situation they are in. You're targeting someone who is aware they have a problem and is actively looking for a solution. That means you want to be putting yourself in their position. What is your ideal target audience? What are they thinking? What are their problems?

As an agency that's external to the company, we like to talk to salespeople, the people who are very in touch with the ideal customer. We have a series of questions that we will ask to really have a good understanding of what those potential problems could be, what they're thinking, and what they would be typing into Google.

The questions are things like: Who are your best customers? Who are the ones you want more of? What are their pain points? What are the other solutions that they compare you to? What are the triggers that would cause them to go to Google? What are the problems that they initially have, and how do they try and solve them at first? Who are the competitors that they compare you to?

Based on those conversations, we then do a bit of research – maybe keyword/topic research – and that's how we identify the bottom-of-funnel topics. There are also some frameworks that we can play around with, that we know work quite well, like the classic ‘X vs Y’, ‘product + cheaper’, or a list post like ‘Top Payment Providers’.”

If you don't have salespeople or your salespeople don't want to talk to you, who's the next best person to talk to?

“I would really push to talk to them. They will understand that this is how you need to do your research.

If you can't do that, another good method is to just interview your customers, if you can. Interviewing your customers is the best. Reading form submissions is another thing that we love to do as well, by going through the contact form submissions on your website. You could also do a survey, or even go to an event where your ideal target audience is and ask questions.

I always think that research or talking to your customers is the number one thing a marketer should be doing constantly. Marketing all depends on how well you understand your target audience. There are a lot of things that can be done, and it might have to include a few different things at the same time

Data like Google Search Console and People Also Ask is useful, but there's nothing like just talking to people, because you can ask questions. To me, it's all about asking the questions – What are the triggers? What are the pain points? – and having someone respond to that.

People Also Ask is interesting, but the qualitative information that you can get from talking to someone is irreplaceable at the moment.”

Do you still look at keyword volume?

“Once we've interviewed a salesperson and we've got lots of research, we'll then try and think, ‘What are some of the keywords that they might be searching? We still definitely do that.

However, if a topic has come up time and time again, and we know that it’s a problem, even if the volume says zero, we'll still go after it – and it often brings really good results. Keyword volume is still an interesting metric, but it's certainly not the most important.”

Would you go for a zero-volume query over one with 100 searches per month, if you thought it was more relevant for your target market?

“It's hard to say without knowing the keywords. If you are 100% sure about that keyword, then yes. We would probably do both, it's just about prioritising which one we would do first.

It depends on what stage the company's at. If they're very early in their SEO journey, we would maybe prioritise the higher volume one because they need a bit of rankings and traffic. However, if they're further along in their SEO and they've already created a lot of content, the zero-volume one could be quite interesting.

There are a lot of different factors there, so it's hard to say without knowing the specific company.”

How do you go about deciding what content to produce?*

“First, we prioritise the topics, and then we create content focussing on those topics.

For ‘Stripe vs PayPal’, someone looking this up would be in our target audience, and they would be bottom-of-funnel. So, we would start by creating content targeting that keyword or that topic.

We'd start with the ones where we think the pain point is the highest, or where the product has the biggest advantage. If it's a saturated market and a lot of competitors do the same, but you have one feature that no one else has, we would prioritise that topic as well.

Prioritise the ones where the conversion rate would be highest or where the close rate would be fastest.”

How do you decide which elements to incorporate as part of an article?

“That would all depend on the topic, to be honest, and what we're going after.

If it's a ‘Top X’ post – ‘Top Payment Providers’, ‘Top Payment Gateways’, etc. – there would be a table, and then you would be going through each competitor and explaining the key features and how they work. Then, obviously, talking about the client's product.

If it's a pain point or a use case, we would highlight the pain point that you’re probably dealing with, why it's horrible and a pain, how you could solve it, and then how you could also solve it with the product.

It will depend on the topic that we're targeting, but the goal is always to create a piece of content that engages the reader, answers their question, and promotes the product – but in a way that's not salesy and is genuinely helping them solve a problem.

That's always the focus, and that’s how these articles are designed to convert readers into leads or customers.”

How do you try to ensure that an article is surfaced at the right point in the buyer journey?

“By its nature, when you’re creating bottom-of-funnel content, you're targeting people who are already at that stage in the buying journey.

If you're creating an article about Stripe vs PayPal, you're targeting people who are doing research online, on Google, looking up ‘Stripe vs PayPal’. They are already at the bottom of the funnel.

The main way that we target them is via SEO and Google. That’s why Google is such a fantastic distribution channel, because you can target the person exactly at that moment when they're ready to buy.

Then there are LLMs, which are another key part of that.”

Are you concerned that people will start consuming bottom-of-funnel content within LLMs, or is that unlikely in the near future?

“They're already definitely consuming top-of-funnel and middle-of-funnel content within LLMs, without clicking through. This is why bottom-of-funnel is more important than ever.

If someone's looking up, ‘What is a payment provider?’ that's top-of-funnel. They will consume that content within ChatGPT, and they don't need to click on a link to get more details. They can get that answer straight away, within ChatGPT.

Imagine that same person is trying to understand whether they should use Stripe, PayPal, or another solution. They're going to spend a lot of time doing research on ChatGPT: ‘When should I use Stripe?’, ‘When should I use PayPal?’, ‘What are some alternatives?’

If they've done all that research in ChatGPT, the only way your solution will turn up is if you have created bottom-of-funnel content for ‘Stripe vs PayPal vs X other solution’, ‘Alternatives to Stripe’, or ‘Alternatives to PayPal’. That is bottom-of-funnel content. It's crucial to create this content because, without it, these LLMs won't know to surface your tool.

Once that person has done their research on ChatGPT, and they're ready to buy, they're still going to have to click on a link and head to your website and convert.

Bottom-of-funnel content is probably going to be consumed in ChatGPT, but the actual buying action still needs to happen on the website. This type of content is more important than ever because it makes sure your product actually surfaces and converts that LLM user into a customer.”

Araminta, what's the takeaway from the tip you shared today?

“Prioritise topics that target people who know they have a problem and are actively looking for a solution.

Start creating content around that, so that your product is surfaced in the right moments in LLMs and also, of course, Google.”

Araminta Robertson is Managing Director at Mint Studios. Find out more over at MintCopywritingStudios.com.