Keywords by funnel stage: which terms fit awareness, consideration and decision

Keywords by funnel stage means sorting your keywords by the intent behind them: is someone searching for a problem (awareness), for solutions (consideration) or for a purchase (decision)? The words themselves give away the stage. “Fix”, “problem” and “how” point to awareness, “best”, “comparison” and “vendor” to consideration, “price”, “review” and “request” to decision. In this article you will read which keywords belong to each stage and how to pick them so they bring in leads, not just traffic.

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Why you should sort your keywords by funnel stage

Most people do keyword research the wrong way round. They look at estimated search volume, compare it with the competition, and then pick the highest-volume term they can still win. That is a popularity contest: keywords get chosen for their ability to pull traffic, not for their ability to convert.

The problem is that traffic is worth little without buyers. The most popular search terms mainly bring in people who are still orienting themselves around their problem, people who are weeks or months away from a purchase. A keyword like “Las Vegas” pulls enormous search volume, but you have no idea what the searcher wants (the weather? a hotel? a show?) and so you cannot optimise a page on it that sells.

That is why you flip the order. You do not start with volume, you start with the funnel stage. You deliberately look at the awareness keywords, then consideration, then decision. Only after that do you dive into volume and competition per stage, so you only compare terms within the same stage. That way you compare apples with apples.

This is the same logic behind a good content funnel for B2B: you work back from the buyer to the search term. If you want to set the broader frame around keyword research first, also read how to build B2B keyword research that steers on leads. And if you want this handled by a team that steers on revenue, take a look at our approach to content marketing.

How do you spot the intent behind a keyword?

People use specific words that give away which stage they are in. That is exactly how you identify them. In HubSpot’s well-known funnel model (awareness, consideration, decision) you see this reflected, backed up by a classification of keywords by intent: searchers in each stage reach for their own kind of term.

• Awareness: people use “problem or opportunity focused” terms. They have only just realised they have a problem. They search for the pain itself, not yet for a solution.
• Consideration: people search for solutions. They reach for terms like “tools”, “vendors” or “services” that could take their pain point away, and they compare alternatives.
• Decision: “reviews”, “benchmarks” or “tests” help someone make the final choice. Here someone wants to decide, but only after every option has been weighed up.

The underlying reason is that buyers today do extensive research before they buy anything. Google called this the Zero Moment of Truth years ago: the orientation moment where people read up online (and offline) long before they get in touch. In B2B that moment has only grown longer. A buyer typically consults a whole series of sources before making a decision, and the question is simple: does that research happen on your site or on someone else’s?

Those three stages together form a funnel: wide at the top where people are still orienting themselves, narrow at the bottom where they are ready to choose. The words in the search query tell you which band someone is in.

Which keywords fit awareness (top of funnel)?

At the top of the funnel someone is orienting themselves broadly. They realise something is off, but do not yet know the solutions. General high-volume terms are tempting here but dangerous: they are too vague and you are competing against the big players with big budgets. The way out is a long-tail approach: you target countless less competitive queries that describe the same problem.

This is how you generate awareness keywords. Write down every pain point your customers experience and the benefits of your product or service. Then hang problem-focused modifiers onto them:

• Fix / solve
• Problem
• Error
• Troubleshoot / repair
• Prevent
• Optimise
• Improve

Plug those variants into a keyword tool and you get dozens of new awareness terms, perfect as topics for blog articles. The goal here is not direct conversion, but getting people onto your site so you can help them further later or reach them again. A popular term can serve as a hub: an in-depth guide that links internally to the specific variants beneath it, so you build a web of relevant terms.

Which keywords fit consideration (middle of funnel)?

In the consideration stage someone is past the generic terms. They are no longer searching for “Las Vegas” but for “hotel rooms in Las Vegas”. In B2B language: no longer “reduce cost per lead” but “best lead generation agency” or “compare marketing automation”. They know which category of solutions exists and want to weigh up the options. The intent behind a keyword clearly shifts here from learning to comparing.

Take the same product benefits as with awareness, but now hang these modifiers onto them:

• Solution
• Provider / vendor
• Supplier
• Comparison
• Software
• Features / functionality

People in this stage are comparing alternatives, so you do not just want to tell them about your features, you want to show them. The page has to match the expectation someone arrives with. If someone types in “ux design features”, they expect something specific. If your content does not match that, they click back and your ranking drops like a stone. SEO here is not only about keywords, but about optimising someone’s experience: the best experience determines whether someone takes the next step towards a decision or walks away.

Which keywords fit decision (bottom of funnel)?

At the bottom of the funnel someone is ready to choose, but only after weighing up every option. Branded queries and very concrete search terms often show up here. These are the modifiers you take along as standard for bottom-of-funnel keywords:

• Price / pricing
• Review / experiences
• Rating / score
• Pros vs. cons
• Benchmark
• Comparison with [competitor]

Say someone is interested in a tool but knows it can be pricey. What do they search for then? A comparison, a pricing overview, an alternative. Smart providers build pages for exactly that: a comparison page “X versus Y” that they optimise on precisely that search term. Those pages pull little organic traffic on their own, but they do not need to: they exist to convert, not to pull volume. The awareness and consideration content brings the people in, the decision page converts them.

Watch out for the trap: if someone searches for “best CRM”, they do not want you bragging that you are the best. They want a comparison of alternatives so they can choose for themselves. The search term and the page have to carry the same intent.

The chicken-and-egg problem: keywords and pages

A keyword is worth nothing without a page to optimise. There is a chicken-and-egg problem here that hits a lot of B2B companies. Many sites are built lopsided: they have too much awareness content (blog posts) and too little decision content to convert the visitors they bring in. A content gap analysis exposes that imbalance stage by stage. Other companies have the exact opposite: only pages about themselves, their product, their service, and no awareness content that pulls in volume.

Both problems break your funnel. If you have no pages per stage, you end up trying to optimise pages on search terms with the wrong intent. Even if you do get clicks, they do not match the visitor’s expectation, and instead of buying they leave. That is why building your content assets per stage is often the first job, before you can optimise on keywords at all.

That is also where our stance comes in. We would rather steer on customers and revenue than on vanity numbers like pageviews or shares. A keyword that pulls enormous traffic but never produces an enquiry is not a success, it is a cost. And sometimes the honest advice is to leave that popular awareness term alone until you have your consideration and decision pages in place. As a small team that moves fast, we would rather build the path to a quote first than yet another blog article at the top.

Frequently asked questions about keywords by funnel stage

Should I place a keyword in only one funnel stage?

Usually yes. Most search terms carry a clear intent: “what is X” is awareness, “X versus Y” is consideration, “price of X” is decision. The occasional term sits on the border, but it helps to deliberately assign every keyword to one stage so you know which kind of page belongs with it.

What if an awareness keyword has far more volume than a decision keyword?

That is normal and no reason to go for the volume. Only compare volume within the same stage. A decision keyword with low volume can be worth far more than an awareness term with high volume, because the searcher is almost ready to buy.

Does this approach also work for B2B with long sales cycles?

Especially there. In B2B, buyers do long and independent research before they talk to sales. By having the right keywords and pages per stage, you are visible at every moment of that journey instead of only at the end.

How do I find the right modifiers for my industry?

Start with the pain points and benefits of your offer and combine them with the modifiers per stage (fix, prevent for awareness; comparison, vendor for consideration; price, review for decision). A keyword tool turns those combinations into concrete search terms.

Getting started with keywords by funnel stage

Sort your keywords on intent first, tie every stage to a page with a logical next step, and steer on the terms that bring in customers instead of the biggest volume. Want us to map your keywords onto your funnel and build the content that actually converts? Schedule your free intake.