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Marketing teams are under immense pressure right now.
It's no longer about pretty traffic charts that trend upwards. Now, the focus is on connecting marketing efforts directly to revenue by driving more demos, sign ups, and conversions.
This shift requires a change in focus in your content marketing strategy. Specifically, away from a high focus on top of funnel keywords (that drive more traffic) and towards bottom of funnel keywords (which convert better).
This guide will help you find high-converting bottom of funnel (BoFU) keywords for your business.
What are bottom of funnel keywords?
Bottom of funnel (BoFU) keywords are the search terms people use when they are close to making a purchase.
Since the intent to buy is high, blog posts and landing pages with BoFU keywords convert far better than either top or middle of funnel content.
These keywords aren't only key to your content strategy. They're also valuable for people across your marketing & growth teams.
- For content & SEO teams: Identify programmatic SEO opportunities
- For growth teams: Build out landing pages for paid campaigns
- For product marketing teams: Set up use case or persona landing pages
How to find bottom of funnel keywords
To find bottom of funnel keywords for your business, list your features, services, and products.
Then pair them with BoFU modifiers.
What are bottom of funnel keyword modifiers?
When someone uses a bottom-of-funnel modifier in their search, it's usually a strong sign they're ready to take action.
Here is a list of common BoFU modifiers.
- Category (tool, app. software, extension, platform, solution)
- Industry (X for industry)
- Persona (X for persona)
- Business type (X for business type)
- Comparison (X vs Y, X alternatives, X competitors)
- Reviews (X reviews, X ratings, X pros, X cons)
- Pricing (Cheap X, X discount, X coupons, free X)
- Leaders (Top X, Best X)
Examples for how to find bottom of funnel keywords
Let's run through a few examples of how to use each of the above BoFU modifiers to find bottom of funnel keywords for your business.
Category modifiers
Pallyy is a scheduling tool for social media.
They have a few core features but let's only use "social scheduling" for this example.
First, let's append the category modifiers to the feature keywords.
- Social scheduling tool
- Social scheduling app
- Social scheduling software
- Social scheduling extension
- Social scheduling platform
- Social scheduling solution
Now add the modifiers for each of the platforms Pallyy supports. In the example below, replace [social network] with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and so on.
- [social network] scheduling tool
- [social network] scheduling app
- [social network] scheduling software
- [social network] scheduling extension
- [social network] scheduling platform
- [social network] scheduling solution
Doing this exercise for all features and all social networks results in hundreds of bottom of funnel keywords.
This can quickly become unwieldy though, so it's best to use a spreadsheet rather than a doc.
Industry modifiers
Pair your features, products, and services with a list of industry modifiers like SaaS, finance, accounting, etc.
Continuing our Pallyy example, some BoFU industry keywords might be:
- Social scheduling tool for saas
- Social scheduling tool for non profit
For B2B, I like using Clearbit's extensive category of industries for companies. Some of them can end up being a bit silly though so exercise good judgment.
Persona modifiers
I'm sure you get the gist by now.
Tack on the core personas you serve to your features, services, and product keywords.
Continuing our Pallyy example, the list of keywords might be something like:
- instagram scheduling for social media managers
- google my business scheduling for small business owners
- tiktok scheduling for influencers
Business type modifiers
Continuing our Pallyy example, the format for business type modifiers for BoFU keywords is:
- social media scheduling for agencies
- social media scheduling for b2b
- social media scheduling for b2c
- social media scheduling for ecommerce
- social media scheduling for enterprise
- social media scheduling for marketplaces
- social media scheduling for saas
Comparison modifiers
Comparison keywords usually have the highest conversion among BoFU keywords because people are actively comparing different solutions.
For example, if someone is looking for a whiteboard tool, their list of comparison modifiers might include terms like:
- Miro vs whimsical
- Miro alternatives
- Miro competitors
- Similar to miro
- Like miro
- Miro vs
Reviews modifiers
When people use review modifiers, they're doing due diligence for a specific solution.
You can (and should) target these on your own site. However, people trust other people more than brands.
So I'd recommend building a presence on external sites people trust for recommendations. In the B2B space, G2, Capterra and others are table stakes.
Here are some typical review modifiers for bottom of funnel keywords:
- [brand name] ratings
- [brand name] reviews
- [brand name] pros
- [brand name] cons
Pricing modifiers
Using pricing modifiers is often the final step before a purchase.
BoFU pricing modifiers include:
- Cheap [keyword]
- [keyword] discount
- [keyword] coupon
- Free [keyword]
Your business model dictates which modifiers you should target.
If your marketing motion is Product-Led Growth (PLG), then targeting people who are using "cheap" or "free" is a good idea.
On the other hand, if you're a SaaS without a free tier, you may want to steer away from price sensitive customers who could have a higher churn rate.
Leaders modifiers
This one is straightforward – people are looking for the best solutions.
Modifiers are:
- Top [brand name]
- Best [brand name]
Combining bottom of funnel keywords
If you've been following along, you might have noticed that we can mix and match different BoFU modifiers and formats.
Continuing with our Pallyy example, people might be searching for "best tool for scheduling linkedin posts" or "cheap buffer alternative" among other bottom of funnel keywords.
Once you've built your list, mix and match different bottom of funnel keywords together.
This will give you a comprehensive array of search terms a potential customer might use to find your product.
More ways to find bottom of funnel keywords
While the formats and modifiers for bottom of funnel keywords are great, you shouldn't only rely on them.
Add more depth with these three methods.
Talk to customers
Simply talk to your customers!
Ask them why they started looking for a solution, how they found you, their decision criteria for choosing between solutions, and how they'd describe your product to someone else.
If you can't talk to customers, sift through call recordings or transcripts.
Another option is to talk to people on your Customer Success and Sales teams. They have firsthand information about what matters to prospects and customers.
Find places where your customers hang out
Don't just guess where your customers are; go online to the places where they are active.
Here's a small list to kick off your exploration.
- Discussion forums: Reddit, Quora
- Social media: Facebook, X, Linkedin, Tiktok
- Communities: Slack, Linkedin groups
- Review sites: G2, Capterra, TrustRadius
If you're a product manager, Lenny's Slack community is stellar. Are you an SEO? Check Traffic Think Tank. The more niche a community, the better your chances of finding people who'd be a good fit for your product.
While you're in these spaces, pay attention to the language people use when discussing problems your solution can solve. If you have established competitors, you can unearth frustrations that can inform your positioning and product development.
For example, when I was at Stable (a virtual address and mailbox for business), I mined G2 and Capterra reviews to find what people disliked about competitors the most. Speaking to these pain points in our marketing copy led to higher conversion rates on our homepage and paid ad landing pages.
Google Autocomplete & People Also Ask
Google's Autocomplete can help you find real search terms from other users.
To make sure your search history doesn't skew results, open a private window.
Then start typing in your product, service, or features, and Google will autocomplete the query – giving you a bunch of good keywords ideas in the process.
For example, if I'm looking for alternatives to Hubspot, Google suggests popular options.
Google only suggests words at the end of the query though. A quick way to find suggestions between and before search terms is to add "+" in between and just click on it.
Here's how it looks in action:
Finding search demand for bottom of funnel keywords
By this point, you likely have a list of hundreds of bottom of funnel keywords.
You can't create blog posts and landing pages for all of them so how do you decide which ones have the most potential?
A cheap way is to use Keywords Everywhere to find search demand. It gives you data like search volume, CPC, trends and it's dirt cheap (100k keywords for under $2).
Simply throw all your keywords in there, sort by search volumes, and now you have a prioritized list of keywords.
However, keep in mind that all tools are imprecise and only provide estimates. Use them to gauge the scale of the opportunity but don't let them dictate strategy.
Got questions or need any clarification? Don't hesitate to reach out over email or Linkedin!
