You are trying to attract more visitors to your website and generate real leads, but you are still not satisfied with the results. And you are questioning what you are doing wrong. You optimize for the right keywords and meta tags, yet the results are slow.
To understand this whole process, you need to know that before you can start converting, you have to rank better. People can’t buy from a brand they can’t find. It’s like putting a billboard in the middle of a desert; even if your message is strong and perfect, people will not see it.
That’s why building an SEO funnel is an important part of the whole customer journey. Your visibility matters. So, let’s find out how to move that billboard into the most visible places.
The path that a person takes from finding the right product or service to buying it and becoming your customer is known as the SEO funnel. It looks simple, but the process needs careful research and a good SEO strategy to do it right.
The traditional SEO approach is focused on one thing – getting your website higher in the SERP when someone searches for a query. But somehow you noticed that there are still no clicks, or that the bounce rate is increasing.
Ranking higher isn’t enough anymore. Your content needs to align with search intent and directly answer users’ questions. This means you need to complete every stage of the user’s journey, including awareness, research, decision, and action.
There are three main parts of the segmentation funnel for SEO, such as:
Each stage requires a unique approach, tone, and format, so you can rank higher. Additionally, aligning content with search intent increases the chances of appearing in AI Overviews or featured snippets, giving your brand more visibility and authority.
Most companies don’t know what the sales funnel for SEO is and where it starts. Others may start their SEO strategy but leave it somewhere in the middle. This can be confusing for the customers and bad for your business.
Search visibility comes with real outcomes. Instead of just ranking higher on Google, the funnel helps you understand how and why users move from discovery to conversion. And to know what’s stopping them along the way.
From a technical perspective, Google needs to crawl the site and decide if it’s relevant to index it before showing it to the users. The site should be well-structured, so you can compete.
Bonus tip: To find out how to rank higher, our blog on how to get on Google’s first page might be a good place to start.
Even if you’ve optimized your site perfectly, many searches now end with zero clicks, especially as AI Overviews deliver answers directly on the results page. This shift has a major impact on your SEO funnel strategy.
Whether someone is searching for “best CRM tools for small businesses,” or “how to fix a zipper”, AI collects together the key points from multiple relevant sources in seconds. It’s changing how you find information – faster and smarter. And also, it’s affecting the overall SEO efforts.
According to a Zero-Clicks study from Semrush, only 25.6% of desktop searches and 17.3% of mobile searches end without a click, which is a relatively small share of overall search activity.
However, how to improve visibility and show on the AI-Overview?
AI-Overview prioritizes:
Tip: Start answering direct and common questions to match user search intent (the reason why they search for a particular query). Clear answers can improve the chances of showing on AI-Overview and featured snippets.
You can type your main keyword on Ahrefs and find the Questions part.
AI-Overview is expecting to fulfill these common steps in every stage of the funnel:
1. Top of the Funnel – you should focus on creating clear and structured content that answers questions directly. Use information keywords, because Google bots target these phrases, such as what is, how to, why, etc.
2. Middle of the Funnel – the content here compares products and services with unique insights. Structured headings and lists can help AI summarize your content.
3. Bottom of the Funnel – ensure landing and product pages are optimized with clear CTAs, pricing, and trust signals like reviews, case studies, and testimonials. Don’t forget to target transactional keywords, as they are the main focus for Google’s bots to rank higher and appear in the AI overview.
According to Ahrefs’ research in 2023, more than 95% of content doesn’t receive traffic from Google.
That’s why we will explain the SEO conversion funnel in more detail, helping you better understand how each stage works and why it matters.
Let’s start with the first stage of the funnel. For Google to rate your page, it needs to be found first.
If the content structure is good and the blog contains all important on-page SEO elements, Google will find and index the page in its database.
When the user searches for a query, Google bots crawl to find it. Then, the first 10 results are ranked according to a specific technical SEO strategy, including:
If you want to know if your page is crawled, you can find it in the “URL inspection” left menu in Google Search Console. Paste the URL from your page and see the results below.
Expand the “Page indexing” section to see the last time your page was crawled. A healthy crawl report is equal to better visibility and faster updates in Google’s index (showing your page).
Another example from a crawling report of Screaming Frog, showing which page is crawled and shown on Google.
Important Tip: Don’t let valuable links get lost at the bottom of the page. Google ignores them, which will affect your ranking. Always prioritize pages that convert, not just those that attract traffic.
When done correctly, your webpage is likely to appear in AI overviews or snippets too.
Once Google finds your page, the next question is whether it will show to the users. In this stage, you need to focus on important parts of your SEO funnel, so your page won’t be disqualified, such as:
An example of page crawling in Screaming Frog, where there is no duplication or missing data found. This will make the indexing process faster and accurate.
Google bots are not just “finding your pages.” They are doing their part behind the scenes to analyze, evaluate, and rank your content, which directly impacts whether your content will appear in search results and AI Overviews.
You can write the best blog in the world, but if it doesn’t match the Google indexing principle, it simply won’t rank and show on the AI Overview.
Here’s a basic How-To schema block that you can add to your page using a plugin or manual code:
The visibility stage is where you are showing up on Google. But just visibility alone isn’t enough; you need to attract attention.
Common ways to grab fast attention are:
This is the moment when you will answer questions to your audience better than your competitors, so they can easily understand your product/service.
According to Ahrefs, the featured snippets gained more clicks compared to those without them.
Let’s take a look at the example below.
For the query “why does my wordpress site now show on google”, our blog is on a featured snippet.
Also, this blog on Google Search Console gained 298 clicks.
When someone sees the solution to their problem in a snippet, it is more naturally to click it. It doesn’t just boost traffic but also increases the authority of your webpage. As there are more clicks, you will get high click-through rates because you are giving faster and concrete answers to a certain query.
Therefore, having a spotlight in featured snippets means you are relevant and increases online visibility.
If you own a local business, it is important to adapt your local SEO funnel to appear in local searches. Google Maps is the most common tool for local search, together with Google Search. According to a Backlinko study, more than 40% of local searches click on Google Map Pack. This tells the importance of optimizing your content to enhance visibility and attract local customers.
Here are common tips that can help you rank locally and appear on Google Maps:
All these strategies can help to strengthen your “Location Authority” and increase review volume.
The users are ready to make a decision and want to take a concrete step. You are at the bottom of the funnel, and you don’t want to lose money. At this stage, focus on:
This CTA can be as simple as a clickable link, so the user can buy it without additional steps.
For example, our homepage may encourage a conversion immediately, because of the direct pain point targeting, with an engaging video to support the sales proposition.
For those who aren’t convinced yet, there’s more – the rest of the homepage as well as the service pages, testimonials, and case studies, listed below.
Important tip: Google’s algorithms tend to rank transactional-intent searches like product pages, service listings, and comparison content higher than general blog articles.
The journey doesn’t end here. Once they’ve bought the product and become customers, the job doesn’t stop. You need to make sure customers are being successful and achieving their goals with your product/service. They need to see that you care and want to help them.
Create educational content, best practices, tips/tricks, roadmap information, how-to guides, and similar content that helps them get the most out of what they’ve purchased. This not only strengthens their trust but also keeps them engaged with your brand.
Encourage feedback and interaction, respond to reviews, answer common questions, and make them feel supported and valued.
The best way you can do this is by:
By combining these strategies, you not only build trust and authority but also create a cycle of engagement, conversions, and referrals.
Here’s a clear step-by-step guide for tracking insights of your SEO funnel in GA:
Visualize how users move through the funnel.
You’ll quickly spot where visitors drop off and which pages lower your conversion rate. Once it’s set up, the numbers don’t lie. It’s like having X-ray vision for your funnel, revealing exactly what’s working and what’s not.
Here’s an example of Microsoft Clarity connected with our GA4.
With Microsoft Clarity, you can track every visitor on your site and see exactly how they navigate through it. This allows you to understand how your funnel is structured and whether users are moving through it as intended.
Additionally, the tool integrates with GA4 to pull in data, giving you a more complete view of user behavior.
If you are trying to turn more clicks into customers, then the SEO funnel is the right strategy. Every step is crucial to expand your business, which directly impacts your revenue. The use of the funnel of SEO is not only about a theoretical concept, but it is a practical method that will help you gain more clients, boost sales, and improve customer retention. Your business matters. Your customers maintain your growth, and the funnel keeps the relationship strong from brand awareness to loyalty.
Book a free consultation today, and start optimizing your SEO funnel to maximize conversions.
There are five important stages every business should keep in mind:
The sales funnel focuses on the user’s journey to buy a product or service. On the other hand, the SEO funnel focuses on content improvements according to each stage.
You can measure by tracking metrics in Google Analytics or a similar CRM.
To improve conversions at the BOFU stage, focus on user intent, clarity, and trust, including:
Director at Simber
Smartclick’s team has helped us grow our site traffic significantly. We have been able to reach the first page on Google and thanks to their work we’ve managed to close the deal on some very important collaborations for us. Their true passion for the job and easy communication are what makes them the best in their game.
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SmartClick – Web and SEO Agency delivered all tasks on time and were highly responsive to the client’s needs. They exhibited a proactive approach in their client relationship, going the extra mile to understand challenges and showing a willingness to adjust the scope of work based on circumstances.
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CMO of StatusCast
We saw relatively quick improvements in the technical performance of our website. Followed by a steady upward progression of page rank for core keywords. Smartclick experts were extremely flexible and worked to meet our needs more than most companies we’ve worked with.
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SmartClick’s team is one of the best I’ve had the opportunity to work with in a long time. Their team of developers are solution builders, meticulous and have a strong attention to details. In the world of online, pixel-perfect is all too important. Working in collaboration with their team, we’ve seen amazing support for the growth of JTF Marketing’s online presence, and importantly, the services. I look forward to a continued collaboration!
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CTO of Adeva
Our collaboration with SmartClick is one of the best performing. They’ve been working with us not as a vendor, but as partners. We’ve seen the first results only a few weeks after we started implementing the strategy they put together with us. I can clearly say they’ve been one of our key partners in supporting our rapid growth.
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It is an absolute pleasure to work with SmartClick. They helped us realize many important website changes. The faster implementation of ideas and the overall betterment of the user experience has been beneficial for our conversion rate, customer’s expenditure and customer satisfaction. Our clients are buying more and staying longer on the website. They had a great intuitive sense of how to convert a design idea into a reality on the web. Working within their set of skills, I have not seen any other developer work more efficiently. We were surprised by the implementation speed and the ability to work on schedule. I will definitely hire SmartClick for future projects.
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