# Bottom of funnel keyword patterns > Fourteen keyword patterns that produce trials for software companies, each with a query template, an example, expected volume and the page type to build. Source: https://saas-marketing.net/guides/bofu-keyword-patterns/ Topic: SaaS SEO Type: listicle Published: 2026-09-11 Last updated: 2026-09-11 Publisher: SaaS Marketing (saas-marketing.net) License: CC BY 4.0. Quote or republish with attribution and a link to https://saas-marketing.net/guides/bofu-keyword-patterns/ ## Short answer High intent SaaS keywords follow fourteen repeatable patterns, and they should be prioritised by conversion rate rather than search volume. Competitor alternatives, head to head comparisons, best-of category queries, legacy tool replacement and vertical specific queries convert best, typically 3 to 10 percent to trial. Template and free tool queries carry the largest volume and the weakest purchase intent. Build the top five patterns before publishing any informational content. ## Key takeaways - Rank keyword patterns by conversion to trial, not by monthly volume, because the two orders are nearly inverted. - Competitor alternatives and head to head comparison pages typically convert 3 to 10 percent, against 0.2 to 0.5 percent for blog posts. - Template and free tool queries bring the most traffic and the least purchase intent, so measure them on links and email capture. - Integration and app-to-app patterns scale programmatically, but only where each page holds genuinely unique setup detail. - Compliance and region qualified queries have tiny volume and the highest close rates of any pattern on this list. - Five patterns cover most of the available intent, so build those before any informational content goes live. --- Keyword tools sort by volume, which is why so many SaaS content plans open with a 14,000 search term that produces four trials a quarter. Sort the same list by conversion and a different set of pages rises to the top, most of them boring, most of them under 500 searches a month. The fourteen patterns below are ordered by how well they convert, not how much traffic they bring. The first five cover most of the buying intent available to a typical B2B SaaS product, and I would build all five before publishing a single informational post. ## The fourteen patterns, ranked by conversion | Rank | Pattern | Typical monthly volume | Page type | Typical trial conversion | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | `[competitor] alternatives` | 100 to 5,000 | Alternatives listicle, you first | 5% to 10% | | 2 | `[a] vs [b]` | 100 to 2,000 | Head to head comparison | 4% to 9% | | 3 | `best [category] software` | 500 to 12,000 | Ranked listicle with a verdict | 2% to 6% | | 4 | `[legacy tool] replacement` | 50 to 800 | Migration led landing page | 4% to 8% | | 5 | `[category] for [vertical]` | 40 to 900 | Industry landing page | 3% to 7% | | 6 | `[competitor] pricing` | 300 to 10,000 | Pricing teardown plus your comparison | 2% to 5% | | 7 | `[app] integration` | 20 to 1,500 | Integration page with setup steps | 2% to 6% | | 8 | `[category] for [company size]` | 50 to 1,200 | Segment landing page | 2% to 5% | | 9 | `[app] to [app]` | 10 to 400 | Connector or workflow page | 2% to 4% | | 10 | `[category] software for [region or regime]` | 30 to 600 | Compliance landing page | 4% to 12% | | 11 | `[category] pricing` | 100 to 2,000 | Pricing explainer with your model | 1% to 3% | | 12 | `open source [category]` | 200 to 3,000 | Honest roundup including you | 1% to 4% | | 13 | `free [job] tool` | 1,000 to 40,000 | Free interactive tool | 0.5% to 2% | | 14 | `[category] template` | 1,000 to 50,000 | Template gallery with product CTA | 0.3% to 1.5% | **10x to 25x** Conversion gap between a competitor alternatives page and an informational blog post Volumes are typical ranges from keyword tools for mid-market B2B categories in the US, and conversion ranges are what I would expect from a well built page with a visible signup path. Both vary enormously by category. Treat them as planning assumptions to replace with your own data after a quarter, and model the traffic side with the [organic traffic forecast calculator](/calculators/organic-traffic-forecast/) before committing headcount. ## 1. Competitor alternatives The person typing `zendesk alternatives` has already decided to leave. Your job is to be a credible option on a page that does not insult their intelligence, which means the listicle includes competitors other than you, ranked with reasons. Build it as a ranked list of five to eight tools, you at position one with a stated reason, and a comparison table covering price, core differentiator and best fit. Include the competitor you are targeting as a legitimate entry with its real strengths. Refresh quarterly. Competitor pricing changes and a stale price is both a credibility problem and, in several markets, a legal one under comparative advertising rules. ## 2. Head to head comparisons `ahrefs vs semrush` and `asana vs monday` are the archetypes. These pages rank hardest because third party sites compete for them, and they convert best because the reader is at the final step. Two rules make the difference. Say where the competitor genuinely wins, because a page that only praises itself gets read as marketing and bounces. And end with a verdict that names who should pick each one, since a comparison without a recommendation leaves the decision exactly where it started. Include a last-checked date on the pricing row. Nothing damages a comparison page faster than quoting a plan that was retired eight months ago. ## 3. Best category software `best applicant tracking system` carries the biggest volume of the top five and the most competition, usually from review sites and media publishers with far more authority than a vendor. Build it anyway, but build it as the most specific version you can win: `best applicant tracking system for agencies` rather than the head term. Include yourself, disclose that you do, and rank honestly. Vendors who bury their own product at position four and explain why gain more trust than the ones who do not. The head term takes 12 to 18 months if you ever win it. The qualified variants take 3 to 6 and convert better because the qualifier filters for fit. Ship five qualified versions, earn links to them, and the head term becomes reachable later from a position of topical strength. ## 4. Legacy tool replacement `jira replacement`, `sharepoint replacement`, `spreadsheet to crm`. Small volume, very high intent, and usually uncontested because incumbents do not write these and other challengers have not thought of it. The page should lead with migration, not features. What happens to existing data, how long the move takes, whether there is an import tool, what breaks. Linear built a large part of its early positioning on people actively trying to leave Jira, and the pages that serve that search answer the switching cost question before the feature question. ## 5. Category for vertical `crm for real estate agents`, `accounting software for nonprofits`, `project management for construction`. Forty to nine hundred searches, and the highest close rate of anything at that volume because the qualifier is doing the segmentation for you. These pages fail when they are the generic page with a vertical swapped into the H1. They work when they carry the vertical's actual vocabulary, one named customer from that vertical, and a screenshot of a workflow that industry recognises. The structure for this sits inside a proper [keyword map](/courses/saas-seo-sprint/01-keyword-map/) so each vertical gets one owning URL and no two pages compete. ## 6. Competitor pricing `salesforce pricing` and `gong pricing` attract enormous volume, mostly from people researching that vendor rather than looking for you. Conversion is lower than the patterns above but the volume compensates. Do it as an accurate teardown of their public pricing with your own comparison underneath. Be scrupulous about accuracy and date every figure. This is the pattern most likely to generate a complaint from a competitor's legal team, and being demonstrably factual is the entire defence. ## 7. App integration pages `slack salesforce integration` and its thousands of siblings. Zapier built a large share of its organic footprint on this pattern, with a page per app pairing carrying genuinely unique setup detail. The test that tells you if yours will work: does the page contain the specific fields that map between the two tools, the steps to authenticate, and a screenshot of the result. If it contains only the two product names swapped into a template, it will not index at scale. ## 8. Category for company size `hr software for small business`, `crm for enterprise`. The same logic as vertical pages, applied to the axis buyers use when they suspect a tool is built for someone larger or smaller than them. Worth building the two or three sizes you genuinely serve, and worth explicitly saying who you are not for. Naming the segment you do not fit removes trials that would have churned and raises the conversion rate of everything else. ## 9. App to app `export hubspot contacts to google sheets`, `sync stripe with quickbooks`. Very small volume each, thousands of possible combinations, which makes this the clearest programmatic candidate on the list. Launch 25, check indexation after six weeks, and scale only if more than 60 percent get indexed. This is the pattern where teams publish 800 pages and get 60, then conclude programmatic does not work. Sorted by volume, this list starts at templates and free tools and ends at compliance pages. Teams build in that order, celebrate the traffic, and cannot explain to their board why signups did not move. Sorted by conversion the order inverts almost completely. If you only read one thing on this page, make it that sentence. ## 10. Category software for a region or compliance regime `gdpr compliant analytics`, `hipaa compliant crm`, `eu hosted project management`. Thirty to six hundred searches and the highest conversion on this list, because a compliance requirement is a hard filter and anyone searching it has already disqualified most of the market. PostHog and the privacy focused analytics tools grew meaningfully on exactly this pattern. The page needs the actual detail: where data is stored, which certifications you hold and their dates, if you will sign a BAA or a DPA. Vague reassurance converts nobody in this pattern. ## 11. Category pricing `help desk software pricing`, `crm pricing`. The searcher wants to know what the category costs before they shortlist. Give them real ranges across named vendors, then your own model. Conversion is modest, but these pages get linked by procurement guides and cited in AI answers because they contain structured, comparable numbers that most vendor sites deliberately hide. ## 12. Open source category `open source crm`, `open source product analytics`. A specific audience with a strong preference and a low tolerance for a vendor pretending to be something it is not. If you have an open source edition, this is a strong pattern. If you do not, you can still rank with an honest roundup that includes the open source options and explains the hosting, support and compliance tradeoffs. Do not enter this one with a page that claims to be open source because a client library is on GitHub. ## 13. Free tool pages `free invoice generator`, `free utm builder`, `free logo maker`. HubSpot, Ahrefs and Canva all run large free tool sets and they earn serious volume and referring domains. Judge them on links and emails, not trials. A free tool that pulls 12,000 monthly sessions and 300 referring domains is doing its job even at a 0.8 percent trial rate, because those links lift the pages that do convert. Keep the build under two weeks or the economics stop working, and check the cost side against your [demand capture channel payback](/guides/demand-capture-channels-ranked/) numbers. ## 14. Category templates `project plan template`, `invoice template`, `okr template`. The largest volume on the list and the weakest purchase intent, because most searchers want a free file and nothing else. Build a gallery where using the template inside your product is the natural next step rather than downloading a file. Notion and Monday both run this well by making the template open in-product. Done as a PDF download it captures emails and rarely more. ## What to build, and in what order The objection to this order is real: bottom of funnel volume runs out fast. A mid-market SaaS might exhaust the genuinely high intent patterns in 40 pages, which is maybe six months of work. That is fine. Build them, then move up the funnel with the [bottom of funnel content](/guides/bottom-of-funnel-content/) already in place to catch what the informational pages warm up. The second honest caveat: these pages need maintenance. Pricing changes, competitors rebrand, features ship. Budget a quarterly refresh cycle from the start, because a comparison page with 2024 pricing does more damage than no page at all. ## Where to start on Monday Pick your three most named competitors and write their alternatives pages this fortnight, then the three head to head comparisons that pair you against them. That is six pages, roughly three weeks of work, and it covers the two highest converting patterns on the list. Run the same patterns through your paid account while you wait, since [PPC keyword research](/guides/saas-ppc-keyword-research/) on these exact terms tells you within two weeks which ones actually convert for your product, and a [negative keyword list](/templates/saas-negative-keyword-list/) keeps the test clean. Then expand using the full [SaaS keyword research](/guides/saas-keyword-research/) process, and slot the results into the wider [SaaS SEO](/saas-seo/) plan rather than treating them as a one-off sprint. ## Frequently asked questions ### What are high intent keywords for a SaaS company? Queries typed by someone comparing or choosing software rather than learning about a problem. The reliable patterns are competitor alternatives, head to head comparisons, best-of category searches, legacy tool replacement, vertical and company size qualified searches, integration queries and pricing queries. They carry low volume and convert to trial at rates 10 to 25 times higher than educational blog content. ### Are alternatives pages worth building for SaaS? Yes, and they are usually the highest converting page type on the site. Someone searching for alternatives to a named tool has already decided to switch, so the page only has to present a credible option. Keep claims factual and dated, since competitor pricing and feature claims go stale and comparative advertising rules apply in several markets. ### How do you write a SaaS comparison page that ranks? Cover both products honestly, including where the competitor is genuinely better, and say who each one suits. Include a feature and pricing table with a stated last-checked date, real screenshots of both products, and a clear recommendation. Pages that read as balanced outperform one-sided ones because reviewers and journalists link to them and readers trust the verdict. ### What search volume should I expect from bottom of funnel keywords? Far less than you want. A competitor alternatives query for a mid-sized rival often shows 100 to 900 monthly searches, and a vertical qualified query might show 40. That is normal. A page with 300 monthly visits converting at 6 percent produces more trials than a guide with 9,000 visits converting at 0.3 percent. ### Should SaaS companies build free tools for SEO? Build them for links and email capture, not for trials. A free invoice generator or UTM builder can earn hundreds of referring domains and thousands of monthly sessions, but the person using it rarely wants your paid product today. Judge them on referring domains acquired and emails captured, and keep the build under two weeks. ### Which keyword patterns work for programmatic SEO in SaaS? Integration pages, app-to-app pages, and vertical or company size variants, in that order. Each needs unique content per page: the actual setup steps, the specific fields that map between the two tools, real screenshots. Launch 25 pages, wait six weeks, check indexation, then scale only if more than 60 percent are indexed. ### How many bottom of funnel pages should a SaaS company have? Start with five and expand to roughly 40 over the first year: one best-of page, three to six alternatives pages for your named competitors, eight to twelve head to head comparisons, four to eight vertical pages, and the integration set. Beyond that, the volume drops off and effort is better spent refreshing what exists.