How to do GEO? Do SEO in the mid-funnel
SEO is still SEO, but the journey has changed
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AI search is here to stay, which means that buyer journeys are changing. SEO efforts shouldn't focus on what the engines are taking away but on what the user seeks. The intent of queries and requirements is what is changing and will continue to change.
Top of funnel can be addressed by AI
LLM, whether Google, ChatGPT, Claud, Grok, or others, is fantastic at answering the curious questions you used to pose to Google. Even better, they teach users to pose their questions rather than ambiguous 2-—to 3-word queries. At IO, Google shared that queries have become significantly longer, which, even for traditional SEO, means that the query landscape has changed.
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More than that, as users get used to asking LLMs a question rather than a query, traditional search may no longer be able to answer these questions UNLESS there is content that matches that question almost precisely. AI will be the only results that will satisfy those users.
If your SEO strategy targets the curious or unaware, where many top-of-funnel searches occur, your competition is no longer other websites but the engine itself.
More than that, many comparisons that might have been answered on a content page can also be answered right on the search page, and this feature will likely continue to expand.
Information has always been commoditized, but its commoditization was less apparent because users clicked the top results without realizing that the subsequent thirty results likely had the same content.
Try a similar search to the one above from my AI mode example, and the traditional results are all commoditized (except for Reddit).
Start thinking of funnels
Instead of keywords, your SEO strategies should focus on the funnel of a buyer’s journey.
While you may have seen elaborate multi-phase funnels in a marketing class explaining every step of a buyer's journey, I think that is overkill for SEO. SEO just requires three:
Top
Mid
Bottom
The top of the funnel is those curious users. They want to know the best software for a use case, a definition, a list of options, or an article that teaches them something.
The bottom is where users are in transaction mode. In e-commerce, they will be checking out. In my AI mode payroll platform research example, they are looking for Gusto pricing or ADP logins.
Bottom-of-funnel SEO is very low volume and highly competitive. As a result, paid marketing sometimes becomes a better investment for these buyers than SEO, or these queries are winnable just with the existence of the branded page.
The midfunnel is where the real competition is, and where the focus should be
The middle of the funnel, or the consideration stage, is where users evaluate their options and decide which solution best suits their needs. At this stage, users can take any direction that sells them into the lower stages of the funnel.
Examples:
At the top of the travel funnel, they decided to take a beach vacation to Mexico. The mid-funnel can convince them which city to travel to and what type of hotel to choose.
For an e-commerce purchase, they might have decided on a 75-inch TV, but they still need to be educated and sold on the specific brand and where they will buy the TV.
For software, they have discovered the genre of software they need, but don’t yet know the brands or feature suite they should explore.
This midfunnel audience is gradually becoming more attuned to their own needs, carefully weighing their options, though they may not yet have your specific product or service in mind. At this stage, the focus shifts to gently nurturing these potential buyers, cultivating their intent to purchase while assessing whether they align well with your solutions. The ultimate aim is to guide them smoothly toward the final stretch of their journey to the bottom of YOUR funnel.
Keep in mind that this stage in the funnel they can go in multiple directions to yours or someone else’s bottom of funnel. They know they want a hotel in a specific neighborhood but haven’t decided which hotel. They know they need a SaaS tool, but can be persuaded to choose any option. The most visible solution in their query has the best shot at directing them through their funnel.
The marketing strategy here calls for a blend of persuasion and education tailored precisely to the buyer’s unique needs and interests. Mid-funnel content meets them where they are, building on their existing context and enriching it further.
How to do Mid-Funnel SEO
SEO for the mid-funnel means that your strategies will assume the user already has top-of-funnel awareness. This significant change is more prevalent with AI, assuming the user has already read an AI overview or seen any other AI response.
Mid-funnel SEO aims to position your products and services as the most relevant and valuable solution for these potential customers. While I am not always a fan of keyword research as the starting point for SEO, this is especially true with mid-funnel SEO. The search volumes will inevitably be lower than the top of the funnel, but the conversion intent is much higher. The goal with SEO should be conversion or some other close approximation.
User reach and buyer journey planning should be first; keyword research should help prioritize opportunities.
AI answers may be visible on mid-funnel content, but it's likely not enough for the buyer to make an informed decision. These are the types of users who will have to go to your site to make a choice, so the content needs to assist in that workflow.
Mid-funnel queries can tell you which car to buy, hotel to stay in, or software to try, but you need to click through to get what you want.
The content should be persuasive
The content created for the mid-funnel stage should be more detailed and solution-oriented, addressing your target audience's specific pain points and needs.
FAQs are great content types for this user because, rather than attempting to “rank” this content, the intent is actually to answer those frequently asked questions. Midfunel content can include product pages, case studies, comparison guides, and other content that helps potential customers understand how your offering can solve their problems.
Many websites and products neglect to make great SEO efforts on their product features because they consider these too low traffic and too close to their brand SEO efforts. This is precisely why you should focus on building great product pages. If a search user has been educated about your features from their top-of-funnel searches, the last thing you want them to do is search the feature types and not see your website.
Nurturing the user
Midfunnel SEO is about attracting new visitors and nurturing the users you've already generated through your top-of-funnel efforts. If your company does offline advertising, it informs users of your products and services. SEO should pick up the baton on that awareness by focusing on what the user now knows.
If you measure SEO with weighted attribution, you don’t need to convert every user to an organic channel. Consider how this mid-funnel SEO user could be brought to a lower point in the funnel if you utilized all other marketing channels.
This can involve strategies like retargeting ads, email marketing, and lead magnets to keep your brand top-of-mind and guide potential customers toward purchasing decisions.
If the user converts, the business wins. It’s not about just channel wins.
Measuring and optimizing
In the mid-funnel stage, it's important to track metrics that indicate user engagement and interest, such as time on site, bounce rate, and conversion rates.
(Important note: the engagement rates should be benchmarked against YOUR data. There is no perfect time on site, but there may be an ideal time for your website. Pages that don’t meet this benchmark might need to be adjusted.)
This data can help you understand which content and strategies are most effective at moving potential customers through the funnel. These metrics are available even if external tools like Google Search Console or Semrush/Ahrefs are less reliable in a declining search world.
Invest in weighted attribution; you will know the channel is working even if you don’t have those direct conversion metrics. You don’t need perfect data; that should be enough if you hear from sales teams that customers found you via search channels. The focus is on nurturing the user to a lower point in the funnel and then to buy, so build the measurement to know that it is working.
Only the journey changes not the demand
AI will disrupt search, but AI cannot provide products and services. AI can only provide information, so if you are in the information category, your business is more at risk than if you sell products and services. Regardless of how search changes the buyer’s journey, the number of people who need to buy payroll software, go on vacation to Mexico, or purchase a new 75-inch TV has not changed. These buyers still exist.
AI will provide the information about your offering for these kinds of businesses, but it is your job to get them to convert - this will happen at the mid-funnel.
Search is changing, but the fundamental job of connecting users with solutions remains. As AI absorbs more informational search space, focusing your SEO strategy on the mid-funnel creates a competitive advantage and higher business value. The brands that will thrive aren't those fighting AI for top-of-funnel visibility, but those building deep, persuasive content that helps users move from awareness to decision. This isn't just an adaptation: it's an opportunity to align SEO more directly with business outcomes, which is where SEO should have always been.
There is no GEO or AIO; it’s SEO for a new UI and journey. Find your users, map their journeys, and focus your SEO at the mid-funnel.
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Very inspiring. Thank you.