💰 High converting content topics

Hi 👋

Last week we talked about how if you want to make SEO work, you need a world-class engine (your website) and high-quality fuel (your content).

This week, we want to expand a bit on the content side. Traditional marketing says to start at the TOF (top of funnel) and work your way to the BOF (bottom of funnel). But when it comes to creating content with the goal of driving conversions from organic search, we need to start at the BOF first.

If you're selling a product or service, this strategy is for you.

After working with many clients, we've found that the highest converting posts fall into these 3 buckets:

1. Competitor and alternative articles

2. "Best" type list articles

3. Product-led "how to" articles

Let's talk briefly about each one, using Notion as an example of a company to create a content strategy for.

(1) Competitor and alternative articles work so well because the intent to buy is extremely high at this stage. If someone is searching for your competitors, there's a good chance they're ready to make a purchasing decision. And at this stage, you don't need to "sell" as hard because your prospect already has an idea of what they want.

• Competitor article example for Notion: Asana vs Trello: Who wins at project management in 2023? \ (In this article, you optimize around the keyword "asana vs trello" but in the article you also introduce Notion as an alternative to both.)

• Alternative article example for Notion: 10 best Asana alternatives in 2023 (ranked & reviewed) \ (In this article, you optimize around the keyword "asana alternatives" but in the article you create a listicle with Notion as one of the top options.)

(2) "Best" type list articles work well for conversions because someone at this stage is looking for the best product to satisfy their needs. They already know they want a particular solution, but want to shop around to see which product resonates the most with them. At this stage, you simply list out a few tools in your industry and mention your own product.

• "Best" type listicle example for Notion: 10 best project management tools for nonprofits in 2023 | (In this article, you optimize around a long tail keyword related to your product with the word "best" in front of it. In this case, we decided to go long tail and optimize around "project management tools for nonprofits." The article would then mention Notion as an option.)

(3) And lastly, we have product-led "how to" articles. These are articles that show how to do something, with your product being a tool that lets the reader accomplish whatever it is they are searching for. The idea is to go after a non-branded keyword that fulfills one of the use cases of your product.

• Product-led "how to" article example for Notion: How to create a social media content calendar in 2023 | (In this article, we are optimizing around the keyword "how to create a social media content calendar" and in the article, we would show the reader how to create one using Notion. This gives the reader a reason to use Notion to complete this tutorial.)

Hope this helps in getting a better idea of what type of content works best for conversions. These types of articles may not bring in a ton of traffic (although they could depending on the industry), but they can bring in more qualified traffic that is likely to convert.

With that, let's get into what we have in store this week (lots of good stuff):

• Marketing news from the past week

• The SaaS metrics that matter

• Cazoo's SEO journey to IPO

• The best rebrands of 2022

• Winning the AI products race

• Ad from the past

• Website of the week

• Cool marketing jobs

• And much more

🗞 In the news

• Google announces AI features in Gmail, Docs, and more to rival Microsoft

• Publishers move past seeing social media platforms as traffic drivers

• Twitter’s planning to extend long-form tweets to 10k characters

• Elementor WordPress contact form plugin vulnerability exposes up to 200K sites

• OK, what is going on with SVB?

🚀 All things growth & product

SaaS metrics that actually matter, owning the demand, the art of product marketing in a digital world, and a beginner's guide to category design.

✍️ Content, social media, & email

How to produce creative content in an AI world, how to write a blog post that will 10X your traffic, how to do audience research with reviews, and how to create an effective email marketing strategy.

⚙️ SEO

Cazoo's SEO journey to IPO, the changing dynamic of programmatic SEO, how replacing stock images can impact SEO, and scaling SEO.

🔮 Psychology & branding

The psychology of overcoming egocentric decision-making and the best rebrands we saw in 2022.

🧠 Extra stuff

Winning the AI products arms race, the unknowns matrix in ecommerce, and how to start freelance marketing.

📣 Ad from the past

(Converse ad from 1973)

What is it? Who makes it? Where is it?

💻 Website of the week

🏝 Cool remote marketing jobs

• Head of Growth at Alleyoop

• Head of Content and SEO at SimpleTexting

• Performance Marketing Specialist at Feeld

• Digital Content Writer at Graphite

• Partnerships Marketing Manager at Obie Insurance

Okay, that's it for now 💛. See you next Tuesday!

“A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner—continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you—is a fine art, in and of itself.” — Elizabeth Gilbert

Riddle answer: Insta-graham crackers