How to Find Bottom of Funnel Keywords

If you want to capture leads almost guaranteed to convert, you need to focus on your audience’s journey.

Not just through one marketing channel but their entire customer journey. 

To capture quality leads (and ultimately revenue), you need to understand:

• What your potential customers are looking for
• How to engage them at every touchpoint
• What current problems they may have

This means going beyond content strategies that involve white papers and ebooks to capture contact information.

This will involve bottom of the funnel keywords.

What are bottom of the funnel keywords?

Bottom of the funnel keywords are used to target users at the final stage of their buyer’s journey. 

The goal is to capture the audience’s intent through SEO before they make their final decision.

Assuming your customers have gone through their journey, they are ready to purchase or convert.

Whether that is a product demo or a free trial.

These bottom of the funnel keywords can include:

• Competitor comparisons
• Competitor alternatives’
• Service Keywords
• Category content
• Sales Enablement Content

Examples of these include:

• Best project management software
• Asana Alternatives
• Employee Satisfaction Software for Startups
• Ahrefs vs SEMrush

Why Bottom of the Funnel Keywords Are Worth Going After

Bottom of the funnel keywords will ultimately be the tool used to convert your audience.

They can:

• Influence at Decision Point: Targets users ready to purchase, influencing their final choice.
• Control Over Narrative: Offers the opportunity to present the product favorably compared to competitors.
• Comprehensive Customer Journey: Covers the entire funnel from awareness to decision-making.
• Optimized Customer Experience: Creates a seamless transition through each buying stage.
• Content Velocity and Quality: Balances the frequency of content production with its quality, ensuring effective reach and engagement

Common Types of Bottom of the Funnel Content Topics You Can Go After

#1. Comparison Content

Comparison content is usually in the form of “vs.” content.

As mentioned before, a user has boiled their options down to two competitors and is now looking to find what will be the better product.

Use breakdowns, comparison tables, or charts to highlight the unique features that set you apart from the competition.

The purpose is to show potential buyers why they should choose your solution over the competition.

Whether it’s brand or product comparisons, you want to highlight what separates you from the competition and why you’re ultimately the better solution.

Example of Comparison Content: Ahrefs vs. Moz vs. SEMrush

As mentioned, “vs.” content allows you to go toe to toe with a competitor.

In the case of Ahrefs, they have a product comparison article dedicated to their top 2 competitors (SEMrush and Moz).

Interestingly enough, Moz and SEMrush don’t have these bottom of the funnel articles, so Ahrefs has full range to control the narrative about their product and competitors.

And, of course, they will position their product as a better solution than the competition.

This makes no sense on SEMrush and Moz’s part; they’re missing out on thousands of search traffic. 

#2. Competitor Alternatives

These articles or landing pages target users looking for alternatives to a potential or current solution. 

This type of content highlights to users what other products are in the market, especially when they have doubts about the solution they’re using.

Using the example above, say you’re SEMrush, and your main competitor is Ahrefs.

Ahrefs is a pricey solution ($200 per month vs. SEMrush’s $130 per month).

If price is a pain point, which it likely is, you can capture searches for users looking for similar but cheaper products.

In fact, “Ahrefs alternatives” has around 700 monthly searches per month. 

And you know this traffic is highly qualified.

They are actively looking for solutions relevant to you.

This is how you target actual qualified traffic. 

By targeting specific pain points or limitations of the competitor, you can offer your solution as the main alternative to your competitor. 

Competitor Alternatives Example: Asana Alternatives

Workzone and Hive are doing this with Asana, a popular project management software.

You can see in the meta description of each URL that each website positions themselves as the better alternative to Asana.

In the case of Workzone, they’re calling out Asana’s negative features and showing how their product does what Asana can’t. 

Monday.com’s Alternative Example

Monday.com is an interesting example of this. 

In addition to creating alternative articles for their competitors, they also made an alternative article for themselves.

Why in the world would you ever do this?

It’s actually a genius content marketing tactic. 

They know their competition will create alternative articles against them regardless, so they’re getting ahead of their competition and controlling the narrative around their product rather than letting their competition get a leg up on them.

Even better, they’re using this article to highlight the negative features of their competition while still positioning their product as the better solution.

It negates the purpose of all the other competitor’s alternative articles.

And even better, they rank in position #1 for that search term that has 350 monthly searches.

#3. Best “Category” Content

These articles establish your product as the top choice in a specific category, such as:

• Best Project Management Tools
• Top CRM Systems for Startups
• Best Analytics Software for Mobile Apps

They cover a variety of products but subtly highlight your software’s features as the best for that category.

This will help users connect with products they deem the “best” for their issue.

Best Category Content Example: Best Time Tracking Software

As you can see in Paymo’s case, they’re creating “best of” content to showcase who the best time-tracking service providers are.

And you can probably guess who will be number 1 on that list.

And the best time tracking software award goes to Paymo!

Nominated by Paymo!!

But in all seriousness, this is a great way to capture the initial interest of people looking for options for your solution.

So, if you’re not capitalizing on this content, your competitors probably are.

How to Find Lower Funnel Keywords

Google Search Console

My personal favorite for finding these keywords is using Google Search Console.

You can find a pretty large set of data for these keywords, especially if you know how to get around GSC’s 1,000-row limit.

The only limitation with Google Search Console is that the keyword data you’re getting only shows you what your website is ranking for.

Don’t get me wrong, this is still extremely useful (and the reason why I have this at #1), but it can be pretty limited if you don’t have any existing BoFu content built out.

If you do go the GSC route, I recommend:

• Using Regex to find alternative, best, and vs keywords
• Using a position filter of 35 and above to find topically relevant keywords
• Seeing if there are any striking distance lower funnel keywords we can target

Ahrefs

I think Ahrefs will be the best way to bridge the gap between GSC and competitor research.

With Ahrefs, you can either do the research yourself or do a competitor gap to see what lower funnel topics you’re missing out on.

I recommend starting with a competitor gap since finding the relevant lower-funnel terms worth going after will be much easier.

For most of those pages, I’m willing to bet your brand is probably featured a few times.

Competitors + Site Operators

Honestly, this doesn’t get talked about enough, but this is probably my favorite way to find inspiration for these BoFu terms.

I’ll usually take a competitor, plug in the “site:” search operator, and then add a modifier like “best, alternative, vs.”

You’ll then find all the lower-funnel articles your competitors have created. 

Sometimes, even against you.

Best Practices for Creating Bottom-of-the-Funnel Content

Let’s talk about what actually works when it comes to lower-funnel keywords. 

Keep the Content Heavily Product Aligned

Prospects in the BoFu stage want details about your product.

Don’t shy away from highlighting your product’s features and benefits. 

But don’t just list those features in a bulleted list; show your target audience how your solution can solve their problems.

Show how your product should be used to make their lives easier.

Don’t Be Too Salesly With Your Content

While you would think that BoFu content is the best opportunity to sell your product, it’s probably the worst time to do it.

When users are in this stage and are close to converting, they’re looking for information that’s actually useful to them and not just to be pitched to.

This is where we need to really double down on helpful content.

Especially for category and comparison content.

This isn’t your opportunity to throw mud at your competition and make your product seem like it’s the greatest thing ever created.

Be honest with your reviews and focus on being as helpful as possible for a user who needs information to make their final decision.

If you get too salesly, then your reader/potential customer might leave because you didn’t deliver what they were looking for.

Set Clear KPIs with your Content

One of the best things you can do with your lower funnel content is create KPIs specifically for those pages.

You can set up specific tracking events on those pages so you can tell whether they’re successful or not.

And I mean specific tracking like:

• Page-level conversion events
• Specific CTA events

This is to help you measure whether your BoFu content is resonating with your audience and if it needs any tweaking.

Have Clear CTAs Throughout Your Content

Your BoFu content should have a clear Call to Action (CTA). 

Like I mentioned in the previous section, you should set up tracking on your CTAs so you can A/B test them.

Once you find the CTA that works, you can apply it across all of your lower funnel content.