Sales Funnel for SEO: How to Drive Leads and Conversions

SEO Sales Funnel Explained

An SEO sales funnel is a strategy developed specifically to attract new leads. Yet, it doesn’t end there. This type of funnel also focuses on ways to nurture and eventually convert those leads through different stages of the buyers’ journey. 

As the term suggests, SEO funnel means using search engine optimization tactics at each stage. Of course, they will come in different forms, but more on that later.

No matter what stage we’re talking about, you’ll have to create engaging, high-quality content that will eventually lead people to take the desired action. The more strategic you are with your content, the better. 

Now, we hear you asking — how do you create that mythical content that can drive leads and conversions every time, and what should your strategy look like?

To understand this, let’s first figure out how the SEO sales funnel works. In this guide, to avoid any confusion, we’ll use the basic model that has four main stages — awareness, interest, desire, and action. 

But after reading this blog, feel free to expand your strategies further if you’re using a more extended version of the funnel. The most important thing is that today, you’ll understand the mechanism, and elaborating based on that won’t be an issue.

What Is the Role of Sales Funnel for SEO?

The sales funnel for SEO mainly helps new customers and leads discover the brand. It also creates that necessary bonding that people need to become loyal clients. Let’s check what roles SEO plays at each stage:

#1 Awareness

This stage of the sales funnel is also known as the top of the funnel or TOFU. Here, the main goal is to catch and hold the attention of potential customers or leads. These are people who are just beginning their research journey online.

The awareness stage is when your company comes under the radar of prospective clients for the first time. And this is where SEO first shines. Why? For starters, 68% of all online journeys begin with a search engine. 

That’s why SEO plays an important role in helping people discover your brand and learn about your business. We can all agree that googling a generic term (e.g., “buy flowers,” “grocery store near me,” “dry cleaning Atlanta,” etc.) made us clients of at least a couple of brands. 

But to show up for any of those searches, you have to work on your optimization. Yes, here, we’re talking about all those backlinks and blog posts. 

Still, link building is one of the most challenging parts of SEO for a reason. Getting quality links all the time is complicated. That’s why many choose to use a backlinks service, whether it’s LinksManagement organization or something else.

If you need proof, let’s simply google “buy flowers.” 

The first non-sponsored result is a store that has tons of optimized product pages, nine pages of SEO blogs, and over 7.5K backlinks (77% of which are dofollow). As you can imagine, there is no magic formula, only a clear SEO strategy.

#2 Interest

Yet, as we all know, awareness alone isn’t enough. If the SEO strategy used at the awareness stage is successful, the lead will naturally progress to the interest stage. This moment is where they begin to seriously consider the various solutions you offer in your blog articles and other content.

If you are a B2C business, then your content generally has to be visually attractive and easy to understand. Besides, you can appeal to both logic and emotions.

Still, if you are a B2B, your strategy will look different. Typically, you want to provide valuable insights, like survey results and data-driven content. Comparison guides and even case studies are a great idea, too. Such high-value content helps you not only nurture the leads but also build trust. 

Plus, it’s no secret that sharing industry insights helps people see you as an authority in your niche. This way, it becomes easier to nudge the lead down the sales funnels to the next stage.

#3 Desire

This stage can also look different for different businesses, especially when it comes to B2C vs. B2B. 

This is because the B2C marketer is dealing directly with an individual consumer. It’s usually easier for that consumer to make up their minds and just buy the product. But in the B2B market, there are many different stakeholders that have to reach a decision before purchasing.  

Either way, to generate desire, your content not only needs to be SEO-friendly but also convincing. You can use articles, testimonials, appealing social media content, and detailed product descriptions. 

Case studies can also work for this stage, but they have to be extremely detailed and filled with testimonials. Ideally, you want to show the whole process of how you brought your client from point A to point B. 

Another option is to let people test your product. For this, you can use free trials, freemium models, demos, or even interactive sections on your website.

Pro tip: You should always use transactional keywords at this stage. This helps ensure that your content will be easily discovered in search results — as long as it matches search intent. 

#4 Action

The action stage is also known as the bottom-of-the-funnel stage, and this is where prospects finally convert by making a purchase, subscribing to your course, or doing whatever else. Can you use SEO at this stage? Absolutely. SEO is perfect for improving your conversion rates here. 

You can use search engine optimization to create converting landing pages, improve the mobile version of your site, or enhance your “near me” searches. While all these seem to have no connection, they all influence the experience your potential clients have when making a purchase.

Yet, before you even start thinking about the tactics we’ve just mentioned, make sure your site has all the relevant information to reassure leads that they are making the right decision. 

Another very effective SEO strategy is including videos on your landing page. This has been shown to improve conversion rates by up to 80%. What videos? You can include anything from video testimonials to clips featuring your product in use.

Now, here is the most important part — contrary to popular belief, people do not take a straightforward journey down the sales funnel. Not only is that not practical, but it does not reflect reality. 

The reality is that search traffic can lead anyone to any stage of the sales funnel. So, using SEO to optimize each stage makes perfect sense. That’s exactly what the next section is about.

How to Align SEO to Each Stage of Your Sales Funnel

At this point, it is pretty obvious that optimizing your SEO strategies for each funnel stage can definitely improve your conversion rate. The question now is, how do you do this? Here are our top tips:

#1 Awareness Stage

As the awareness stage is the first touch your audience has with you, your content has to reflect this. Here, you want to share general information so that people can learn about your brand or products. But the important thing is to be special, not like everyone else in your niche.

For this group, you need to:

• Create unique content with a broad appeal, like a how-to guide on using a feature or tool to solve everyday problems.

• Do keyword research with a focus on keywords with informational search intent. Examples of these include queries that start with “What is?” or “How to?”

• Diversify your content types to catch the attention of different audience demographics. For example, infographics and videos for visual learners, podcasts for those who love to learn on the go, and blog articles for the rest.

• Every article must be properly optimized. That includes headers, meta descriptions, titles, image alt texts, etc.

Apart from the SEO-friendly content pieces we mentioned above, many marketers use social media ads or influencer marketing to reach their target audience at this stage. 

#2 Interest Stage

The strategy for the interest stage is similar to what you do in the awareness phase but with an extra step. The prospects already understand what they need. Their main focus is finding information about possible solutions. This is where you come in. 

You will still need to craft educational blog posts and guides but with a deeper approach, carefully crafting them to match search intent. These are meant to provide a more comprehensive view of your product and brand. 

To ensure that the right people see your creations, you will also need more long-tail keywords that are relevant to your niche. Overall, you can do the following:

• Create interactive content like product recommendation quizzes, surveys, etc.

• Craft engaging comparison guides. Use these to highlight how special your products are compared to the competitors.

• If possible, share some samples or free trials of your products to give people a taste of what it’s like.

• Use internal links to send readers to other posts on your website that provide more context and depth.

• As usual, optimize the title, headers, and meta tags and create clear CTAs.

#3 Desire Stage

At the desire stage, the potential customer or leads already know exactly what they want. They are just considering their best options before they make any commitment. 

Your SEO strategy, at this point, has to focus on persuading people that you are the best option and fit for them. You need high-intent, solution-focused keywords like “best tools for XYZ” or “best plugins for XYZ.” So:

• Create in-depth case studies. This provides real-life examples of how your products or services can provide the solution they need.

• Offer detailed product demos, whether in blog, video, or live format.

• Got any industry research or insights to share? This is the perfect opportunity to share, as they make you look more authoritative and credible. It would be even better if you mentioned how your solution fits in.

• Like all the previous stages, you need internal links and optimized meta tags to keep people engaged longer.

• Your CTAs, in addition to being clear, also need to be more persuasive. 

A quite unusual example could be this ROI report Hubspot created. Basically, they analyzed their 228,000+ customers to find out how their solution helped them optimize costs.

Apart from this, the common SEO conversion funnel tools can also include limited-time offers and extensive testimonials (even better if it’s a video format). 

#4  Action Stage

When it comes to the action stage, your SEO strategy has to ensure that the conversion process goes as smoothly as possible. You also need to reinforce people’s trust. 

Bookafy explains that when the leads have to take a lot of steps before they can buy a product, then most won’t bother with the purchase anymore. They just go to another website that offers a more distraction-free experience. 

The same goes for your site speed, general UX, and even mobile-friendliness. Can you see how important SEO is?

At the same time, your content should take on a more direct tone and approach with transactional keywords “buy XYZ” or “buy X for Y.” For example:

• Share your testimonials and success stories that show how your products add value to your potential customers’ lives.

• Your product pages should provide the information they need to evaluate your offering. This includes all the features, pricing, and clear images or videos of products.

• Optimize your landing page, and make sure that you are specifically focusing on pain points and desired outcomes.

• And your CTAs should not be easy to miss.

This list can go on, depending on your product/service. One of the things you can do is to offer an easy-to-use checkout with as many payment options as possible. Bonus points if you also include upselling during checkout with some discounts.

Besides, it’s important to track engagement and do A/B testing for lead funnels. This helps you tell what strategies are the most effective for you. 

Conclusion

It takes some learning and practice to fully get the hang of the SEO marketing funnel, but the results are worth it. Basically, your success comes down to providing intentional value and effective solutions no matter what stage of the sales funnel the customer starts from. 

As with anything SEO, as long as you are open to learning new things and unlearning what no longer works, you are going to thrive.