How to Select Keywords for the Middle Funnel

Think of keywords for the middle funnel in 2 buckets:

✅ Generic industry

✅ Solution-specific

Here's what I mean:

Category: Car insurance

Brand-specific solution:  Geico car insurance

If you're in the auto insurance business, those are 2 huge head keyword terms that could be mid-funnel, but probably aren't specific enough.

Another example:

Category: Accounting software

Brand-specific solution: Quickbooks accounting software

To pick out a great keyword phrase, start with a baseline & then add modifiers for longer-tail keywords.

[best][category] = Best Accounting Software

[best][free][category][noun] = best free accounting software

Next: add "for" and a use case and see where that gets you:

Such as: best free accounting software for schools

You can see that even though there isn't a lot of search volume, the traffic you would receive could be meaningful. (Screenshot is a little old, volume may be different now)

Now, let's play a game I like to call Keyword Jumble 🎲

Try these combinations with your generic industry solution (i.e., your product category).

Here's a table to help you get started:

These combos don't work out perfectly.

There is going to be some brainstorming on your end.

I'd love to hear what you come up with or what you're currently using.

It's fun (kinda?)

***There are a few online word generators like this, but the ones I used have shut down. If anyone has a good suggestion, please let me know.

Get creative & think of other modifiers to explore, depending on your product.

Consider:

• Location (i.e. region or city)
• Time (daily, weekly, monthly, annual, the year)
• Price point (under $$$)
• Template

Now, brand-specific solutions & keywords.

Another popular way to tackle the mid-funnel list pots is to riff off of the current solutions that people already know. This is a very popular tactic, but it works well. Why?

1. Searchers are motivated
2. Something with the big product didn't work out
3. They're open to new things

If you're not familiar with this, it usually takes on a few forms.

1. List of alternatives

This is very similar to the list of phrases in the previous section, only with the brand-specific solution instead of the generic industry solution.

Example: Best Quickbooks alternatives for small businesses

2. VS

Think of this as pitting 2 brands in a buying round. It usually looks like: X vs Y

These pages are often very comprehensive. Features are listed for each and sometimes a third option is inserted. If done well, these can capture high-intent buyers.

Often these are bottom funnel pages, especially if one of your brands is mentioned in the query:

1. One of the most famous is Drift vs Intercom: https://www.drift.com/drift-vs-intercom/
2. This page is now essentially a product page for Drift.
3. But if a 3rd company could jump in there, making it more of a mid-funnel play. Hubspot, though not traditionally considered a chat support tool, jumps in there too: https://www.hubspot.com/comparisons/intercom-vs-drift

Ok next, competitor keywords.

Hands down, the fastest and easiest way to grab keywords is to see what your competitors already rank for. This (of course) only works well when you're entering an established category. It also works well when you're competing against similar features.

You have to uncover the opportunities. (I wrote about this here).

Here's how you do it.

Type in one of your keywords that you want to rank for from your keyword jumble brainstorm

Identify the competitor URL and enter into Ahrefs & gather the info.

Here's a video on that https://youtu.be/ZkVzKWVKcfg

There are a few more keyword selection criteria you can try – including fail keywords and jobs to be done (h/t @t for that one).

Honestly, I'm running out of time, but you can find those in my content playbook if you're interested.

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