Last week, I was on a call with a YC-backed startup founder.
They had been doing SEO for the last 6 Months. Traffic numbers were rising everything looked healthy, but no conversions.
On a deeper dive, I noticed the majority of their traffic share came from Top of the Funnel Content - which is written for general awareness around a topic. I asked them how they planned to convert this traffic.
Their answer shocked me.
They replied - Internal Links.
I further questioned: Shouldn't they also be focusing on niche Bottom of the funnel content to increase conversion? which they turned down, saying those were all low-volume queries.
Most people who start with SEO relate it with traffic and often forget that it's actual people who are going to read your content and bring your revenue.
You can’t force someone to buy a product—especially if they’re not ready—just because you added internal links.
Or because you placed two CTA banners instead of one.
Or because you changed a button color.
Your prospects are either in-market to buy, or they’re not.
What you can do is shorten the buying cycle, simplify decision-making, and reduce friction through your content.
But a single piece of content isn’t going to convince someone to buy your $12K ACV product.
So why do we still create non-BOFU content?
Why do we care about the rest of the funnel?
Because the goal is to create multiple touchpoints and stay top-of-mind.
If someone searches for "Zendesk vs Freshdesk," chances are at some point they’ve also searched for:
“Customer service software”
Or
“How to retain customers”
But they won’t buy immediately after visiting those pages.
Instead, their journey will look something like this:
➜ They visit the page.
➜ They hop off and forget about it.
➜ They see something on LinkedIn that reminds them of the problem.
➜ They search for another related keyword.
➜ They ask peers for recommendations.
➜ They see suggestions in online communities.
➜ They hear about Zendesk on a podcast.
➜ They run more "Zendesk vs [competitor]" searches.
➜ They visit the site again.
➜ They finally request a demo.
When you create your Organic Strategy, your goal is to own as much mindshare as possible and not just inflate traffic numbers.
Ps. And for God's sake, don't think all this doesn't matter because AI is taking over. If your site doesn't rank for right intent keywords in traditional search, no one can make your site rank in AI results. In 6/10 of my last strategy calls I was asked if SEO is still relevant. It's crazy.
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