How to Develop SEO Content for the Top of the Funnel

There are several essential pillars of SEO—Technical, community-building, and content creation.

Each is vital to your organic search traffic. With great content and a slow website, you’ll find little success. With a fast website and irrelevant content, you’ll also find little success. Finally, community-building (otherwise known as link-building) is the cherry on top to establish widespread authority.

When you’re considering the content creation pillar of SEO, we must consider the marketing funnel. To keep things simple, there is the top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel. Each has a different objective.

TOFU: Discovery

MOFU: Consideration

BOFU: Purchase

It’s the idea of nurturing a lead down a funnel until finally, we reach the conversion. Rarely do qualified leads purchase on their first visit or first hearing of your company. It requires time and effort. That’s where content creation comes in. So, what kind of content fits the top of the funnel?

Top of the Funnel (TOFU)

At the top of the marketing funnel, we’re not particularly trying to sell our services. We’re trying to capture the awareness of our potential customers.

Importantly, we’re not trying to capture the attention of just anybody. Though the conversion doesn’t happen at this point, we still need to be strategic in our SEO content creation. We’re creating value for our potential customers—they don’t know they’ll soon be our customers. We don’t want to create content to capture the attention of people who wouldn’t eventually be interested in our services.

How to Develop SEO Content

At this point in the funnel, it usually starts with a search query.

“How to develop content for every stage of the marketing funnel.”

That has the potential to be searched on Google. Who would search that? People who are wanting to improve their rankings on Google. Now, when they search that, if that query is relevant to our industry, we should develop content for that search. Let’s step outside the marketing industry for a moment. Suppose someone searches:

“Best wedding planner in North Carolina.”

This query naturally shows intent. The person searching this is looking for a great wedding planner in North Carolina. If you are a wedding planner in North Carolina, you should consider creating a top ten list around this topic. Of course, you can list yourself at #1.

Keyword Research and Action Steps

One of the most challenging parts of TOFU SEO is deciding which keywords to select. It starts with excellent keyword research. We must figure our customer intent.

• What would someone need to know about your industry or service?
• What kind of value can you provide for that question?
• Does the keyword have enough volume to make it valuable for you?
• How are your competitors using this keyword?
• What will someone do with this information?

These are all things to consider for each keyword. The goal is not more content. The goal is compelling content. Below is a list of different content types to consider for TOFU SEO content:

• Blog posts
• Social media
• Infographics
• Pillar Content
• Glossary Development
• FAQ
• Videos
• Podcasts

When considering the development of any or all of these types of content, start with keyword research. Don’t write what you think will work. You may write an excellent article for a highly competitive keyword or a low-volume keyword that’s not worth your time.

• Assess keyword value
• Write effective content
• Publish on your website, social media, and email
• Establish relationships for link-building opportunities.

If you need help with any of this, let’s talk.