Optionality SEO – How to Win Today and Tomorrow

Most SEO’s take ‘Search Engine Optimization’ too literally.

Yes, we want to optimize to appear in search. But too often, the process itself turns into the end goal. 

The focus is on vanity metrics and not what really counts: business results.

TL;DR

• Most SEO’s focus on building traffic or short-term leads. We say it’s not binary.
• Prioritize BOFU but leverage TOFU & thought leadership for content repurposing and audience building.
• Different content requires different KPI’s. TOFU content should not be judged on lead gen.
• Optionality SEO is about getting more out of your SEO.
• Thought Leadership can & should be ingrained in modern SEO & content.
• Deep ICP research & human creativity is the key to differentiating content.
• AI is not wrong. Using it the wrong way is. 

What does SEO success even look like?

The typical answer you’ll hear is:

• Traffic
• Rankings
• Clicks
• Impressions

But all of that in isolation means nothing – without tying it back to tangible business results.

A better description of SEO success might look like:

“611 % growth YOY & 540% increase in monthly trials for Online B2B client”

“Sustainable Growth: Organic revenue up 38% for B2B client”

(These are 2 recent results we got for our B2B clients)

What most marketers do

In light of chasing traffic and keyword rankings, most marketers start with high search volume, top of funnel (TOFU) keywords and topics.

The rationale? More traffic, more clicks, more impressions, better rankings and impressive graphs.

The problem? There is an inverse correlation between high traffic and high conversion rates.

Just because you have high traffic does not mean more leads and more business.

Time and time again, when we analyze GA & GA4 data for clients, the blog posts that drive the most leads are often the posts with the lowest traffic numbers.

SEO has changed greatly since the good old days of search results with just 10 blue links. 

Competitive SERPs have ads, rich results and now AI overviews. All this means less real estate for organic results. 

While the full impact on organic traffic is yet to be known – traffic alone as a key metric is becoming less & less relevant. Modern search results force us to focus on what should matter.

So what’s a better approach?

When you ‘flip the funnel’, you start with BOFU content topics that have high commercial intent. 

There is a much higher conversion rate with BOFU content than TOFU content.

In other words, this type of content can bring you business results today.

But, like most things in marketing… there’s more to it than meets the eye.

So why bother targeting TOFU?

When we introduce the ‘flip the funnel’ concept to clients, we often hear some variation of the following:

‘If TOFU content doesn’t bring leads today – why bother creating it?..’

It’s a fair question. BOFU is at the heart of what we do. But..there is a catch:

While we prioritize BOFU content – we don’t ignore everything else.

TOFU content has its role. 

But it’s not playing the same game as BOFU content.

It’s vital to understand that the majority of your target audience is likely not ready to buy today.

So what do you do? Ignore them?

No. That would be leaving $$$ on the table in the long run.

TOFU content gives you an opportunity to get in front of them at an earlier stage in their buyer journey.

TOFU gives you an opportunity to build an audience.

TOFU gives you the opportunity to get people into your ecosystem. And if you do it right, when they are ready to buy – you are the only option they consider.

It targets the buyer of tomorrow, not today.

Remember attribution?

Success in SEO & content = business results.

The nuance in this conversation is that when you go up the funnel – the relationship between content and business results becomes more ‘indirect’. But it’s still there. 

Let us explain.

BOFU VS TOFU attribution

BOFU content is easy(ish) to measure. 

Someone lands on your competitor alternatives article. They are in a buying state of mind. They read your content, fill out the form, demo request etc then become a paying customer.

Simple.

TOFU on the other hand…

TOFU content cannot be measured with the same yardstick.

If you’re an accounting software provider and someone lands on your article: ‘what is an accounting software’?.. They clearly are not looking to buy accounting software there and then. 

They are in a discovery and research state of mind. 

Expecting direct leads from TOFU content is like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

Instead, getting them to discover more of your content would be a more reasonable ask. Think email signups, subscribers to your podcast or Youtube channel etc.

TOFU content is a gateway to build your audience. And it positions you to win later on, when they’re ready to buy.

“Having the wrong KPI for the wrong content type is like putting a square peg in a round hole..”

So what’s the best answer?

Start with BOFU. But don’t forget about the rest of the funnel.

For new clients, we like the 60-20-20 breakdown.

60% BOFU

20% MOFU

20% TOFU

It’s a diversified portfolio of content. However depending on the client, their industry, current content etc – this will vary.

But at the heart of our strategy is leaving space for optionality SEO content.

What is optionality SEO?

In a nutshell, it’s SEO content that gives you more options.

The concept comes from the book Antifragile by Nassem Taleb. At a basic level – optionality gives you more choices. And more choices (or options) maximize upsides and limits downsides.

Take your standard blog post. It’s the ultimate content workhorse and a great example of optionality content.

Because a blog post is not just a blog post for SEO.

A blog post can also be:

• 10 Tweets
• 5 LinkedIn posts
• 2 Emails etc

Your blog post can be the ignition for content repurposing and distribution. 

So in this case, the blog post for months and years after can give you

• Attention through search
• Content ideas & repurposing power for other channels (which once created, can be recycled and repurposed again).

However.. Some blog posts give you more options than others.

(And some options are more or less valuable than others too)

So what types of blogs are the best optionality content?

Different content types have different strengths.. 

For repurposing and distribution – not all content is created equally.

BOFU content is great for leads today. But not so great for distribution and repurposing.

TOFU content is terrible for leads today. But is great for repurposing and distribution. 

TOFU content is great if you just want more traffic and eyeballs. BOFU is not great for this. (although it is questionable if traffic should even be on the cards here).

MOFU is in the middle. It’s a medium mix of both traffic, leads and repurposing power. But it generally does not hit the high levels on either side.

Each content type (and its subsequent awareness level) gives you different opportunities and different drawbacks.

Why repurposing potential is not created equally

We’ve covered why content types can vary when it comes to their ability to deliver leads (hint: different stages of the buyer journey).

But let’s dive a little deeper on why certain content types are better for repurposing.

Think about it. 

If you write the classic BOFU competitor alternative article, then what can you repurpose there? 

You’re covering your competitors in depth. That’s not something to share on your LinkedIn profile.

But, if you write about ‘What is accounting software’ there’s a ton of sub-topics there. 

For example:

• Benefits of accounting software
• Who accounting software is right and wrong for
• What most people get wrong when choosing accounting software
• The future of accounting software
• Types of accounting software

All of the above can be sliced and diced into social and email content.

The opportunities are only as good as the ecosystem you have in place

You might see the graph above and think: “TOFU content gives us more repurposing power – I’m sold.”

However, if you don’t have the right channels in place to build that audience – then it’s power is lost. 

In the same way, BOFU content can give you leads. But, if you don’t have the product, service or operations to deliver, then again, the power and potential is lost.

Content get’s your buyers (of today and tomorrow) into your castle. But if the walls are falling down – they’re not going to stick around.

They’ll be going to your competitor’s castle instead.

Great SEO can’t hide a bad product.

A note on repurposing

The right content gives you opportunities for slicing and dicing content. 

But this does not mean that once you write the blog post, it’s just a matter of taking a couple of quotes, and copying and pasting them into a LinkedIn post.

You need to tailor the content to the platform. Blog posts speed up ideation and execution for social. But you still need to edit and make it friendly for the new channel.

Where is thought leadership in all this mix?

Thought leadership generally falls on the TOFU side of things. However, the difference is that it may or may not have a target keyword for SEO.

In our view, SEO content can have thought leadership principles engrained.

But thought leadership is not led by SEO.

Regardless of how you define it, Thought leadership has great repurposing potential and generally makes for great social content.

It’s for that reason that Thought leadership content is part of our offering.

It’s classic optionality content that can build credibility and actually stand out.

And we need original authentic thought leadership now more than ever. Here’s why.

But there’s sooo much content out there already – how can we compete?

There is a lot of content out there. But it’s a lot of copycat content. Rehashing what’s already in the SERPs.

With the advent of AI, this problem compounds. LLM’s (what’s powering ChatGPT) uses what’s already been created. 

Plus, most SEO’s base their entire content outline off a software tool that just analyzes what the other ranking pages have. 

This all leads to different variations of the same thing ⬇️

If we’re all drinking from the same content sources – how can we come up with a new original content?

So how do you actually stand out with SEO content?

Our approach is 3 pronged.

• Use all existing data and content out there
• Use deep customer insights (through thorough ICP research)
• Use top SEO talent that can strategize & think creatively

With those 3 in place – now you can create content that can rank AND drive business.

And guess what? Original or authentic content is not just good for users. It’s good for Google. 

By leaning on the side of originality – you’re giving Google better options. 

Better options make for better search results. Better search results are good for the user and good for business.

It’s a win-win. 

What about AI? Can this be used in modern SEO?

Yes… but in a responsible way. 

Like most things, the devil is in the details.

It’s how you use it. At SERPsculpt (at the time of writing this in summer 2024).. we leverage human writers to get the bulk of our content created.

However, we’re not living in 2019. AI speeds up the process. But it’s not the process itself.

Humans are batman. AI is like Robin. A great side-kick (no offense Robin – your day will come). 

The danger with letting AI drive the content machine

AI is simply not there yet to be left to run a muck and create content.

We’re not at that point where you press a button and boom: perfect article for your audience.

Even if you do manage to rank with pure AI content, will that content truly resonate with the reader? Again the goal here is business results – not ranking or traffic.

Weak content does nothing but generate bad first impressions. AI (for the most part) creates weak first impressions at scale.

But Google is cool with AI content?

For us, it’s irrelevant. The AI debate is independent of Google updates and what their stance is on AI content. 

The real question we must ask: Is this content going to help drive results? (whatever that looks like). Is this content actually valuable for the end user?

In our view – a 100% AI approach is not going to drive results. But it can definitely be a great tool for writers and marketers. 

The frustrations we have with most approaches to SEO

By now, you have a lay of the land. To recap, here’s some of our biggest frustrations with typical SEO strategies.

• Angelizing or demonizing 1 side of the funnel.
• Going all in on TOFU content because it is high volume.
• Going all in on BOFU and completely ignoring opportunities to repurpose and audience build across other channels.
• Using traffic, clicks and positions as success for SEO.
• Rehashing what’s already been said a thousand times before (whether that’s through AI or copying every heading from the ranking pages in the SERPs.)
• Pumping out content with AI that does not resonate.

The answer:

BOFU + Optionality Content + Originality = ROI

Final words on Optionality SEO

In sum, our strategy can be summed up as follows:

• Flip the funnel and start with BOFU. 

• However (assuming the infrastructure is in place), allocate a certain percentage to topics higher up the funnel for repurposing & audience building opportunities.

• This takes advantage of optionality SEO – content that gives you more options than just SEO.

• With deep ICP research, we create original content that can stand out and get results.

We use the entire customer journey to repurpose & distribute content because modern b2b needs to meet their audience and future users at all points.

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