Wouldn’t it be great if every page on your site led directly to a sale or conversion? Or if all it took to convince someone to purchase from you was to have them land on your website? Or if money grew on trees?
We all know these scenarios are unrealistic, yet I still see site owners and marketers focusing solely on converting pages.
Every page has a unique purpose and not all pages should be focused on conversion. Some examples of other objectives your pages might serve include:
- Introducing key employees and leaders
- Defining your brand, culture, and beliefs
- Explaining your company’s unique systems and processes
- Attracting large, top-funnel audiences through organic search
- Informing and educating your audience about an important topic in your niche
For the most part, pages that serve these goals won’t be the pages where your audience converts. However, these pages support the overarching goal of increasing conversions.
Similarly, not all pages are equally link-worthy, and they don’t all need to be.
Link-worthiness is generally related to the size of the audience a given page serves. Your product pages have limited link-worthiness because they serve a smaller audience who are ready to purchase. More websites would link to a page that explores the rich history of soccer and the World Cup than a page that sells soccer jerseys.
Of course, you still want your product pages ranking for the terms that describe them, which means you need backlinks. Due to limited link opportunities for bottom-funnel pages, you’ll need to get more creative in cultivating link equity for these pages by using linkable resources and internal links.
In this post, I’ll walk you through the process of finding linkable topics, creating link-worthy pages, optimizing internal links, and promoting those pages to boost visibility for your bottom-funnel pages. I’ll also share a recent project where we executed this strategy and achieved great results.
Let’s get started!
Finding linkable, top-funnel topics
The first and most important step to influencing bottom-funnel pages with top-funnel content is identifying the right topic. This step is critical because you will be investing a lot of time and energy into building and promoting this page, and you want to ensure the topic has potential before you proceed.
Start by analyzing competitors — which pages are their top linked pages? What types of topics are they covering? Are they targeting an audience you’re ignoring on your site?
Competitor content offers insights into how they’re earning links. If a competitor has a guide about a topic that has over 100 links and you don’t address that topic on your site, it’s likely a topic you should cover due to proven linkability. Keep a list of these linking sites as they may be open to linking to the page you eventually create.
Even pages without many backlinks could be linkable topics if your competitor failed to promote them properly. Explore the search results for these pages and associated keywords to see if the ranking guides have a substantial amount of referring domains. A missed opportunity for your competitor could still be valuable for you.
If you can’t find promising ideas by researching competitors, broaden your search to analyze websites that aren’t direct competitors but still create content within your space and rank in relevant search results. Tools like Majestic’s “Related Pages” or SEMrush’s “Organic Competitors” can help find these sites.
Government agencies and websites can also provide linkable topic ideas. These sites may cover a topic only if there is a legitimate need for it, providing a solid starting point. For example, a FEMA blog post about creating a hurricane emergency kit could inspire a guide on “How to Keep Your Pets Safe During a Disaster” for a pet supply site.
The key is to look for topics or audiences with a proven record of being link-worthy, and brainstorm ways to adapt those topics to fit your products or services. Ensure alignment with your brand’s expertise as well — would an audience trust your advice on this topic?
Using the pet example again, PetSmart could advise on essential products for a disaster, but they might not provide reliable advice on protecting your home in such a scenario.
Believability is crucial, and you want to cover topics where you can be considered an expert.
Execution and promotion
Once you have a proven idea, you need to create the page.
If you’ve done your research upfront, this process should be straightforward since you already have a successful page blueprint from competitors or other authoritative guides. Structure your guide with distinct sections for each sub-topic, making it easy for readers to find relevant information quickly.
Including anchor links can open more link opportunities by allowing you to pitch specific guide sections that are highly relevant to potential link partners.
A critical aspect of this step is naturally linking to your converting, bottom-funnel pages within your guide through internal links. Ensure that these links make sense contextually and seamlessly fit the overarching topic.
Building these internal links is vital as they direct both visitors and link equity to your converting pages, helping them rank better in organic search.
Promotion should be straightforward as you should already have a list of link prospects from your ideation phase (sites that linked to the page you drew inspiration from). Link building is much easier when you identify potential linking audiences before content creation and then design the content to serve those audiences. All that’s left is reaching out to the appropriate websites.
Improving keyword rankings for converting pages with top-funnel, linkable content
With the process of ideation, creation, and promotion of link-worthy pages covered, let’s look at a real example of how this strategy can influence visibility for your converting pages.
This project involved an e-commerce client aiming to improve US-based keyword rankings for their primary services’ head terms.
Since the client’s target pages were bottom-funnel (not highly linkable), we created a guide for safe online shopping that appealed to a broad but relevant audience and internally linked to their goal pages. The strategy succeeded, as the guide quickly earned relevant links (over 10 in the first two months) and began influencing rankings for the client’s converting pages.
In just three months, the client experienced the following movements for their head terms:
- Primary Keyword (most competitive): Up one position (on page one)
- Secondary Keyword: Up 24 positions (from page four to page two)
- Tertiary Keyword: Up 11 positions (from page two to page one)
These keywords lead directly to increased revenue, and such gains wouldn’t have been possible without the link equity earned through the created resource.
While securing links to bottom-funnel pages isn’t impossible, scaling link acquisition for these pages to a level that moves the needle is challenging. However, top-funnel resources can sustainably earn links, and through internal linking, you can leverage these resources for the betterment of your bottom-funnel pages.
Each page on your site should have a purpose, and by being strategic, your pages can support one another and your overarching business goals.
