Low Funnel Keywords for Startups: Win Buyers Faster

Low funnel keywords, also called bottom of funnel keywords or BoFu keywords, are searches from people ready to buy, such as “pricing”, “alternatives” or a product name plus “vs”. 

Startups should target them first because each visit sits closer to a sale. This guide explains the funnel stages, how to find these keywords and what to publish.

Understanding the Marketing Funnel

The Marketing Funnel is an illustration of all the actions involved in making that journey from becoming aware of you for the first time through to purchasing.

The tofu mofu bofu funnel breaks down the marketing funnel into three stages, while the keyword funnel breaks down the search query into three types of keywords and three tasks for your content.

Top of the Funnel (ToFu): Awareness Stage

People here are just starting. Top of the funnel keywords are broad and informational, and for an organic skincare shop, “benefits of organic skincare” is a typical one.

Middle of the Funnel (MoFu): Consideration Stage

Your audience knows it has a need and now compares options. Keywords turn specific and comparative, such as “organic vs chemical skincare products”, and your content helps readers weigh the choices.

Bottom of the Funnel (BoFu): Decision Stage

The potential customer is ready to make the purchase decision. The low-funnel keywords include a brand, product name, price or action such as “buy organic skincare serum online.” The landing page targeting low-funnel keywords should convert. 

Data on search shows just how small the size of the audience is. According to Jansen, Booth & Spink, out of 1,523,793 searches conducted by 534,507 users of Dogpile.com search engine, 80.6% were informational, 10.2% navigational and 9.2% transactional (Source).

That split suggests that the buying queries for one product form a short list, so a startup can cover its low funnel keywords with a focused set of pages. List your product, price and comparison queries before you write any ToFu content.

The Importance of Low Funnel Keywords for Startups

Startups work with small teams and tight budgets, so the order of your content matters. Gartner reports that B2B buyers spend only 17% of their buying time meeting potential suppliers, which means most of the decision forms on pages and channels you do not control (Source).

1. Cost-effectiveness: low funnel keywords need fewer pages than broad topics, because the list of buying queries for one product is short. Each page speaks to a reader who already wants a solution.
2. Ready-to-buy audience: searchers on low funnel keywords have done their research. They want a price, a comparison or a demo, and a page that gives it can turn a visit into a lead without a long nurture sequence.
3. Trust at the decision moment: appearing for low funnel keywords signals that your brand is a credible option for that need. A good purchase experience supports repeat business.
4. Competitive edge: larger rivals often spread their effort across broad topics, which leaves low funnel keywords for comparison and pricing thin, and a startup can take those pages first.
5. Clear measurement: a page built for low funnel keywords has a defined conversion, such as a demo request. You can tie results to the page.

Use this order as a guideline and not as a mandate. In a study done by Jansen and Schuster on almost 7 million search logs from a 33-month, $56 million paid search marketing program implemented by a major US retailer, awareness-oriented terms were found to be more cost-effective and revenue-producing than purchase-oriented terms (Source). 

The study covers paid search for one retailer, so check revenue by stage in your own data before you move the whole budget down the funnel.

Implementing a Low Funnel Keyword Strategy: Real-World Example

Our work with DianaHR shows the approach. DianaHR is a Y Combinator-backed startup that offers AI-powered fractional HR services to US startups and small businesses, and it competes with Gusto, Rippling, Justworks and Bambee for high-intent HR searches.

On the DianaHR case study, we researched 2,300+ keywords and scored 447 of them by volume, difficulty and intent. We then published 160 posts in under six months, including compliance guides, comparison content and HR checklists matched to what US business owners search when they face an HR problem. 

Ranked keywords grew from about 200 to 1,500+, the site reached the top 10 for “human resources software” (8,100 monthly searches) and organic search now drives 17 conversions a month.

Apply the same scoring to your own list of low funnel keywords.

• Start by searching for buying modifiers: price, cost, vs., alternative, best, buy, demo, free trial, and reviews.
• Integrate your own brand, product, and competitor names.
• Use queries from Search Console as these give insight into which low-funnel keywords are already driving traffic to your site.
• Visit the results page of each prospective keyword and ensure that it consists of either product, comparison, or pricing pages – an indication of buying intent.
• Score keywords on the basis of volume, difficulty, and intent. Create pages for the top scoring keywords first.

Effective BoFu Content Types

Decision-stage readers want proof and specifics, so these formats match low funnel keywords best, and each one gives the reader a reason to choose you over the next result on the page.

• Comparison pages that compare your product against a named competitor based on the questions asked by buyers.
• Lists of alternative products.
• Pricing pages that list price and what’s included in each option, so that a buyer doesn’t have to ask the sales team for numbers.
• Case studies showing results achieved for companies like their own.
• Free trial and demo pages with one call-to-action.

Link each page to the others, so a reader who lands on a pricing page can reach a case study in one click.

Key Takeaways for Startups

• Identify high-intent keywords: focus on low funnel keywords that signal readiness to buy, such as product names, pricing and comparisons.
• Answer first: lead with the answer.
• Optimize landing pages: keep them fast and clear, with one call to action that matches the keyword, because a buyer who finds a slow page or three competing buttons leaves for the next result.
• Use testimonials and case studies: a named result does more than a general claim, and it lands at the moment a buyer weighs the risk of choosing you.
• Scale with care: programmatic SEO can produce many pages for low funnel keywords, but each page still needs facts a reader cannot get from the next one.

Challenges in Implementing a Low Funnel Strategy

Low funnel keywords carry four risks, and each one has a plain fix.

• Balancing the funnel: if you ignore ToFu and MoFu, fewer people learn your name, and the pool of future buyers shrinks. Keep a steady flow of top of the funnel keywords content that links to your decision pages.
• Staying current: pricing, features and competitor details change. Review each page every quarter.
• Finding the right low funnel keywords: intent is easy to misread, so check the live results page for each term before you write, and drop the terms where the top results are all guides.
• Competition: specific terms attract specific rivals, and some of them have larger budgets, so compare your pages with theirs on proof and detail, and do not rely on length alone.

Conclusion

Low funnel keywords give startups a short, high-intent list of pages to build first. The research shows that buying queries are a small share of search, and the funnel studies warn that you should measure revenue by stage instead of assuming the bottom always wins, so build the pages, track conversions by stage and widen the plan as the data comes in.

DianaHR scored its low funnel keywords and the rest of its list before it published, and it now reaches the top 10 for “human resources software”, a query with 8,100 monthly searches. It started with 447 scored keywords.

Plan your low funnel keywords with our team through the contact page, or read how we approach SaaS content writing.

FAQs

1. What are low funnel keywords?

Low funnel keywords are searches that demonstrate the intention of making a purchase, like “pricing,” “demo” or product name plus “alternatives.” Other terms for low funnel keywords include bottom of funnel keywords, lower funnel keywords and bottom funnel keywords.

2. What is the difference between ToFu, MoFu and BoFu keywords?

ToFu keywords are broad, MoFu keywords compare different products and BoFu keywords identify a product or price or make an action. The type of keywords should correspond to the level of the marketing funnel.

3. Are low funnel keywords always the best option?

No. Low funnel keywords fit startups that have websites with a clear conversion goal, however, the study by the Journal of Electronic Commerce Research about paid search campaigns revealed that more sales revenue was generated from awareness-stage phrases compared to purchase-stage phrases.

4. How would I use bofu keywords for my startup?

Add buying modifiers to the name of your products and your competitors’ names, and see the Search Console and results page. Keep the keywords whose top-ranking pages are product pages, price, or comparison pages.

5. How many low funnel pages does a startup need to launch initially?

Create one page per low funnel keyword, in case you can answer them better than the ranking pages and add more as needed based on the number of impressions and conversions.

6. Is it okay to ignore top of the funnel keywords in startups?

No, not ignoring them because they will bring in the audience which later will search for your brand. So create them in a consistent manner after launching the decision-stage pages.