Home » SaaS SEO » Bottom of the Funnel for SaaS
If you want to capture leads that are 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 and how to catch them at every touchpoint, including search points.
You need to create content to meet them along their entire buyers’ journey, especially when they’re about to convert or close to converting.
And this means going beyond content strategies that just involve white papers and ebooks to capture contact information.
You also need to focus on creating conversion-focused content that catches your customers’ interest and persuades them to choose your product over the competition.
This means focusing on your conversion rate over organic traffic. And focusing on the right kind of conversions, not just MQLs.
With bottom of the funnel content, you’re taking advantage of the moment when your audience is looking to make a decision.
Usually, when they’re comparing competitors and trying to find the best solution.
This opportunity allows you to influence the narrative around your product and persuade users to choose your product over the competition.
So, how do you find these funnel topics and go after them?
This article is all about helping you find these revenue-focused topics, also known as bottom-of-the-funnel.
This guide will show you how to use BoFu topics properly for your SaaS and earn more revenue with your content.
TL;DR: Bottom of the Funnel (BoFu) content can be an effective way to drive high value conversions, especially for your SaaS. Here are some things you need to keep in mind when creating BoFu content:
- BoFu Keywords: Target users ready to make a purchase decision.
- Prioritize BoFu in Marketing Funnel: Start with BoFu content to capture decision-ready users.
- Types of BoFu Content: Include comparison articles, competitor alternatives, category leaders, case studies, and clear pricing information.
- Creating Effective BoFu Content: Align closely with your product, avoid being overly salesy, show how your product elevates customers, focus on quality, set clear KPIs, use diverse media, and have strong CTAs.
- Selecting BoFu Keywords: Focus on audience research, competitor analysis, and relevant content ideas.
What Exactly Are Bottom Of The Funnel Keywords?
Bottom of the funnel keywords are keywords used to target the final stage of the buyer’s journey.
The goal is to capture the audience’s intent through SEO before they make a purchasing decision.
Assuming your customer has gone through the whole marketing funnel, they are now ready to purchase or convert in some way (could be a product demo or free trial).
In the context of SaaS, these bottom of the funnel keywords can include competitor comparison articles, competitor alternatives blog posts, pricing pages, and descriptive service pages.
By targeting these keywords, you can directly address your target audience who is ready to purchase and potentially influence their buying decision into choosing your SaaS solution.
As content marketers, these keywords will be very important for driving revenue and growth for your SaaS.
How Should We Prioritize the SaaS Marketing Funnel?
To create a successful SaaS marketing strategy, you have to start your content marketing efforts at the bottom of the funnel and work your way up.
Why? Because capturing users at the point of their purchasing decision can influence their final choice.
These people are ready to buy, subscribe, or try your product.
Say, for instance, your prospective customers went through the entire awareness stage and consideration stage of the customer journey and now have their options boiled down to your product and a competitor’s product.
They’ve subscribed to your email list, attended a few webinars, and even followed you on social media.
Now they’re ready to make their decision.
With this bottom of the funnel content, you can influence how that user decides.
You’ll want to highlight how your product is the better solution for them (without trashing the competition’s product).
Give an honest review of both products.
With this, you’ll be able to control the narrative around your product rather than have a competitor control it for you.
Once you’ve addressed topics along the bottom of the funnel, you can move up to cover topics along the middle and top of the funnel.
This covers the entire customer journey, from the awareness stage to the consideration and decision-making stage.
This approach guarantees that you’re attracting ready-to-convert users and nurturing potential customers who are still exploring potential solutions.
It creates a smooth transition through every stage of the buying process.
You’re optimizing for the entire customer experience rather than capturing them at a few random customer touchpoints.
Rather than starting from the top, your target audience will have a nice path to follow as you build your content toward top of the funnel topics.
As the funnel suggests, you’re setting a search path to move them down the funnel to the point of conversion.
This is why content velocity is so critical for SaaS.
You can’t spend months building out 1 article per month; you need to find that sweet spot where you can craft quality content at scale.
Content velocity is more like a sprint rather than a marathon. But in this sprint, you’re not sacrificing quality for quantity; you’re just finding that production equilibrium where you can scale quality content.
While every industry will look different, at least creating more than 1 blog post per month will make the difference (while staying consistent as well).
Your competitors already have a content marketing strategy in place; now, you’re doing what you can to catch up and capture more customer touchpoints (and outrank your competition) as quickly as possible.
That’s why SaaS companies have to set proper budgets for their SEO and content marketing efforts.
SaaS content creation has to be scaled no matter the industry.
It can’t be low-quality content, especially at the bottom of the funnel—everything you have to focus on is value-added content to make a difference with your SaaS content.
You should even be focused on different content mediums, too; this doesn’t have to be just blog posts.
You can improve the quality of your content by adding custom-made infographics or even using videos.
In some cases, users don’t want to read a wall of text and would rather watch a 5-minute video.
In this case, you have an even better opportunity to showcase your product value and brand voice.
Why Do We Need to Focus on Bottom-Of-The Funnel Content?
BoFu content is essential for SaaS marketers. But why?
Because BoFu content targets users who are almost ready to make a purchasing decision.
These users have identified a need, explored their options, and now just need that final assurance or information to take action.
This action could be subscribing, purchasing, or any other conversion metric.
Can Bring Direct Conversions
Bottom-of-the Funnel (BoFu) content, as previously mentioned, is key in driving conversions. And not just MQLs, actual conversions that can contribute to revenue.
When users reach the BoFu stage, they actively search for a solution and are looking to ultimately find the best solution from their options.
BoFu content addresses their concerns about your product and ultimately guides them toward the best solution.
By focusing on BoFu content, you position yourself at the critical point where consideration becomes commitment.
Helps Sway Users Toward Your Product
BoFu content will be a powerful tool for you to persuade users to choose your product over the competition.
At this stage, users compare features, benefits, and pricing between your product and the competition.
Tailored BoFu content showcases both the tangible aspects of your software and the unique value propositions that set your product apart from the competition.
You can sway users toward your solution by strategically highlighting these points and capturing users at this search point.
If you don’t control the narrative around your product, then someone else will.
Captures Leads At The End of Their Buyers’ Journey
Users go through a buying journey, and their queries become more specific as they approach the BoFu stage.
At this point, they are almost ready to take action but may still have questions or doubts about the products on the market.
You’re pitching your product at the last customer touchpoint.
BoFu content is created to address these concerns and present your SaaS solution as their best choice.
It acts as a net, capturing leads at a crucial decision-making point.
It ensures that after all their research, they come to the conclusion that your product is best for them.
This is why most marketing teams start with topics at the conversion stage of the funnel and work their way up.
Users will be at that conversion stage regardless of SEO and content marketing, although those marketing channels do help increase the volume of users who reach that funnel stage.
Common Types of Bottom of the Funnel Content Topics
Comparison Content
You must create detailed analyses that directly compare your SaaS solution to another competitor.
This 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 your SaaS 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 that your solution is ultimately the best for your ideal customer.
This is the search traffic you’ll want to capitalize on the most.
Example of Comparison Content: Ahrefs vs. Moz vs. SEMrush
As mentioned, this “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 at all, so Ahrefs has full range to control the narrative about their product and their competitors.
And of course, they will position their product as the better solution compared to the competition.
This makes no sense on SEMrush and Moz’s part; they’re missing out on thousands of search traffic because of this.
Competitor Alternatives
These articles or landing pages target users who are 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 a user has doubts about the solution they’re investigating.
Using the example above, say you’re SEMrush, and you know your main competitor is Ahrefs; you can capture searches for users looking for alternatives in the market.
Ahrefs is a pricey solution ($200 per month vs. SEMrush’s $130 per month), so you capture users where price might be a pain point.
If price is a pain point, which it likely is, as Ahrefs is one of the most expensive SEO tools, 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 your SaaS. This is how you target actual qualified traffic.
And by targeting specific pain points or limitations of the competitor, you can offer your solution as the main alternative to your competitor.
Here, you can show your product features, benefits, and pricing and how they differ from the competition.
Competitor Alternatives Example: Asana Alternatives
This is a prime opportunity for websites to capture users who might be unsure about their primary solution and looking to learn more about SaaS alternatives on the market.
This is a great way to bypass the entire discovery/awareness stage and replace your competitor in the consideration and decision stage.
You can see this is what Workzone and Hive are doing with Asana.
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 negative features of Asana and showing how their product does what Asana can’t.
Monday.com’s Example
Monday.com is an interesting example of this.
In addition to creating alternative articles for their competitors, they also created 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.
Basically, 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.
Best “Category” Content
These articles establish your SaaS product as the top choice in a specific category, such as “Best Project Management Tools” or “Top CRM Systems for Startups.”
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.
Case Studies
Case studies go beyond customer testimonials.
They tell stories about real customers who faced challenges and achieved impressive results with your software.
They provide detailed examples of your product’s benefits, serving as proof for potential customers who are unsure about your product.
Your product isn’t the hero; your product has to make your customer the hero.
Leverage customer stories throughout your content, especially bottom-of-the-funnel content.
Show satisfied customers and how their stories can be used for prospective customers.
Clear Pricing Information
A transparent pricing page in SaaS is not just informative; it’s persuasive.
Prospects at the bottom of the funnel are ready to decide, and transparent pricing and the value provided can be the final push they need to sign up for your product.
This content explains costs, package differences, and potential ROI and removes guesswork for your audience.
Best Practices for Creating Bottom of the Funnel Content
Keep the Content Heavily Product Aligned
Prospects in the BoFu stage want details about your product.
Focus on its features, capabilities, and benefits.
But don’t just list them; show your target audience how your solution can solve their problems.
Illustrate how your software integrates smoothly into their workflows and tackles their challenges.
Avoid talking about how your product is the greatest invention in the world, and instead, take a customer-focused perspective and create content that shows how your solution can be used to solve your target audiences’ problems.
Not only are you taking a product-led approach to your content, but you’re also answering the search intent behind a query, which will help you rank better when it comes to SEO. You can use this checklist to help with your SaaS SEO content.
So you’ll basically be killing two birds with one stone there.
Don’t Be Too Salesly
While it’s tempting to go full throttle on the sales pitch, subtlety is critical at this stage.
Your prospects are already interested; they need assurance, not pressure.
Create a balance by focusing on your product’s genuine value propositions and solutions.
Authenticity and clarity will make your BoFu content more relatable and persuasive without sounding desperate for a conversion.
Show How Your Product Can Elevate Customers
Your product has the power to transform.
Show its impact through success stories, before-and-after scenarios, and case studies.
Help prospects see how your software can improve their operations, increase their ROI, and elevate their position in the industry.
Create the Best Content Possible
Quality should be uncompromised at the BoFu stage.
As a more straightforward way of putting it, your content has to be on point at this stage in the marketing funnel.
To build up your customer base and earn more signups, you must focus on creating the best content possible, especially at this funnel stage.
Your entire blog article needs to convey to the reader why your product is the best choice for them.
And they’ll leave fast if your content is just low-quality or entirely AI-generated.
Set Clear KPIs with your Content
Creating BoFu content is about both production and performance.
To measure how effective your content is at driving conversions, you need to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Understanding what resonates with your audience and what doesn’t is essential so you can make improvements accordingly.
Whether it’s email list signups, product demo requests, or even product signups, you need to set KPIs to measure which content is underperforming and which is performing.
Use Lots of Media in Your Content
Infographics, videos, interactive demos, and high-quality images can bring your BoFu content to life.
They can be used as extra ammunition to show your audience the value of your product and brand.
If you want to get more leverage out of your content, there needs to be more collaboration between marketing teams, specifically social, content, and graphic design.
The more communication between the channels, the more effective your content efforts will be.
Search engines also like websites that focus on user experience, so you can even see better search traffic and keyword rankings by using media.
So, another reason why you should use media in your content.
Have Clear CTAs Throughout Your Content
Your BoFu content should have a clear Call to Action (CTA).
These CTAs are essential for converting users.
They can guide users to start a free trial, schedule a demo, or even signup for your product.
To be effective, CTAs should be strategically placed, attention-grabbing, and aligned with the content’s message.
This will make it clear for users to take the next step with your SaaS. Your copywriting should always be on point to convince users to convert.
I recommend auditing your content at least every 3 months to find CTA opportunities.
Choosing Bottom of the Funnel Keywords that Matter To Your SaaS
When selecting bottom of the funnel keywords, you’ll mainly use content formats and templates.
But it all begins with your SaaS researching your audience, competitors, and keywords.
As content marketers, you must understand who your competitors are, how you compare them, and why your product is superior.
The same applies to your audience. You need to discover how they will discover your products and how you can persuade them to choose your SaaS over the competition.
Always start with your audience if you want to find the right content ideas.
Start with your audience before using monthly search volume from your marketing tools.
Your content will be way more on-point this way.
For endless content ideas, always start with your loyal customers.
And before starting any content marketing strategy, ensure your buyer personas are set.
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