Here’s Why I’m All in on the Middle for Organic Search

Hey! Last year, my CEO asked me to increase traffic & conversions from content.

At the same time. (Wait, what?)

So I said, “Hmmmm” while secretly freaking out a little.

Then, I double-downed on the middle funnel and this is what happened next:

We increased traffic & sign-ups by more than 300% in only a few months for Friday.app.

How? The focus on the middle funnel helped tremendously. What do I mean?

Well, you know the typical marketing funnel?

Awareness – Consideration – Decision

Or maybe this:

Problem Aware – Solution Aware – Product Aware

In my view, the middle funnel has been overlooked for way too long.

I think it's a ripe place for growth and conversion. Here's why:

Middle funnel buyers are:

• Actively shopping
• Actively interested in new products

They may not know all the features, but they know similar products and are willing to try something new.

As a marketer, what more could you ask for?

When I talk to SaaS companies that are just starting out, content marketing can look very overwhelming.

All of these topics? Where do you start?

For too long – perhaps due to our trustworthy Hubspot inbound certification – we (or maybe just me???) gave equal weight to each of the three parts of the funnel.

It was important to have each, recognizing that the top would have lots of volume, and the bottom would have very little volume, but lots of buying intent.

IMO, the middle funnel is underutilized in content marketing, especially organic search content marketing.

Typical co's start at the top of the funnel, but this is a huge mistake.

If you try this, what you soon learn is that the top funnel takes forever to rank and no one goes straight through your well-designed funnel anyway.

So what do you do? Focus on the middle.

The Middle Funnel Advantages

• Larger volume than bottom-funnel pages
• Interest from people looking for a solution

Because of that volume, you have a higher chance of seeing results in your organic efforts.

…And you’ll find motivated buyers faster as well.

It’s not that the other parts of the funnel are unimportant (they are!) they just don’t deserve the same percentage of your time or resources.

We’ve been conditioned to think that the top of the funnel deserves more time because there’s more opportunity. But only more opportunity for higher-volume words.

The middle funnel is the best – it provides good enough volume, with higher buying intent.

Check out these examples from Ahrefs. These are search terms in industries I’ve never been involved in before.

The key for these is not to only look at volume, but also Clicks Per Search (CPS) – It’s a ratio that indicates how often people do click when they search for these terms.

I tried to pick three words in each part of the funnel. The middle funnel comparison has the highest CPS with a healthy amount of volume.

Granted, these are still competitive keywords. Topic depth and expertise are important. If I’m trying to compete with search on these words, the middle funnel gives you a lot of impact.

I’ve used this strategy mostly in the productivity space (ClickUp/Workzone), in the HR space (special projects at Toptal), and with company/team communication (Friday).

I’ve seen significant conversions each time.

Instead of running generic leadership posts competing with Forbes or Inc, you can drill down the solutions/problems that your target audience is keenly interested in.

Your buyers aren’t investing the same amount in the different parts of the funnel, and you don’t have to be either.

Others can build the “What is…” pages and you can build the pages that actually convert.

If you’re just starting out, jump into the middle funnel.

I’ve built a content playbook to help you do just that, documenting my learnings from publishing 50 posts in 1 quarter, mostly focused on the middle funnel.

Here’s a special Gumroad link with a discount for this group: https://growthcontent.gumroad.com/l/Kfnjy/swipe

PS: My friend and agency owner @Bill Rice is publicly tracking his progress in implementing my content playbook.

Thanks!