Ryan Nead

What is the overall market size of SEO? What is the expected growth of global search engine optimization this year and beyond? The rise of ChatGPT, Perplexity.ai and Claude have put into serious question not only the growth prospects of this large, but little-understood industry, but also whether or not it will be a sustainable growth driver in the years to come. If you’re an industry veteran or a newbie thinking about starting an SEO business, this information will prove helpful for your understanding of the SEO space and how the market may or may not expand in both the short and long term. This high-level SEO industry growth report will give you a sense of the overall size, scope and expected growth of the search engine optimization industry. Disclaimer & Executive Summary Please consider the following key points relative to this market report. This report on the SEO & digital marketing industry provides detailed expert market size and market growth estimates for digital marketing/SEO consultants, search engine optimization (SEO) agencies, SEM firms and other companies who provide expert consulting for internet advertising. The report includes detailed discussion of the United States as well as global statistics. This market report is not comprehensive, but represents a collation of various market reports and research reports performed by reputable third parties. The research included herein should not be wholly relied upon to make complete, accurate or timely business decisions, including investment decisions. Related, ancillary SEO services and firms provide various overlapping SEO services, including–but not limited to–website design, public relations, management consulting, advertising & market research/analysis and IT consulting. The numbers discussed below do not take into account obscured data, including SEO services provided by white label SEO companies. We encourage those interested in further detail based on the findings presented to further consult the original research sources referenced herein. IBIS World Statistics Total SEO industry revenue was $52 billion USD in 2021 Overall industry profit for 2021 was $3.1 billion USD The expected annual growth between 2020 and 2025 is 3.5% There are over 125,000 total companies servicing the search engine optimization industry The expected growth in internet traffic from 2020 to 2025 is 26.4% Market Report World The expected growth in industry revenue from 2020 to 2024 is $740 million USD The expected compounded annual growth rate from 2020 to 2024 is 15% Borrell The expected market size of the industry in 2020 was $79.3 billion USD As one might expect, significant variation exists between assumptions on market size and growth. However, some reports take a look at industry specifics like search engine optimization SaaS, including MarTech, while others focus specifically on direct search marketing and SEO services. Despite the variation, key indicators, including the SWOT and industry analysis below reveal additional details on whether or not it makes sense to enter the SEO business. SEO Industry Performance Historical performance for the SEO industry. SEO Industry Lifecycle Demand lifecycle for search engine optimization relative to market maturation. SWOT Analysis The following provides a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of the SEO market. SEO Industry Products & SEO Services Products and SEO services provided by agencies, service providers, SaaS/MarTech companies in SEO (search engine optimization). Source: Borrell. Spending by category 53% of industry budget and spend was for “web presence” 17% of industry budget and spend was on “online ad production” 12% of industry budget and spend was for “online marketing support” 9% of industry budget and spend was for “online public relations” 9% of industry budget and spend was for “consulting and research” Major Market Segments in SEO Major markets that typically engage search engine optimization service providers. Source: IBIS World. Major Market Segments by Sector 30% of the industry is from retail trade and consumer goods 21% of the industry revenue is from travel, entertainment and media  18% of the industry revenue is from internet and telecom 11% of industry revenue is from other business  10% of industry revenue is from financial services  10% of industry revenue is derived from healthcare and pharmaceuticals  Major Competitors As a highly-fragmented industry, industry researchers do not believe that any single SEO agency or search engine optimization company represents more than 1% of the overall industry pie. AI Impact on the Growth Prospects of the SEO Industry AI is expected to massively disrupt the growth prospects of traditional SEO in ways that are both good and bad. Users are still going to be searching, but how they search and interact is changing at a rapid rate, impacting mobile optimization as well as desktop searches. No longer are individuals or companies simply heading to Google to search and ask questions. The landscape is changing. And the growth of traditional search engine optimization is most assuredly going to be impacted. Positive Impacts on the SEO Industry Enhanced Content Creation. AI tools enable faster, more efficient content creation. Marketers can generate blog posts, web copy, and meta descriptions quickly using tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity.ai or Jasper. This allows SEO teams to scale their efforts, targeting more keywords and producing more content efficiently. However, it also takes the cost to produce content — something that has typically been time-consuming and expensive–to near zero. This means that now that everyone has AI super powers, no one really does! Better User Experience with Personalization. AI improves search experiences with personalized results. SEO professionals will focus on providing targeted, hyper-relevant content to match specific user search intent. Websites offering quality, personalized experiences will likely perform better in search engine optimization, especially those that are enhanced by AI (artificial intelligence). SEO Automation Tools. AI can automate repetitive SEO tasks, such as keyword research, rank tracking, and link-building outreach. Tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Surfer SEO already integrate AI for deeper insights. Automation allows SEO professionals to focus on strategic, creative decisions–rather than spending time deep in the weeds of customer campaigns. Better Understanding of Search Intent. AI search engines are becoming increasingly context-aware, prioritizing search intent over raw keyword matches and

Link building for SEO remains a solid long-term strategy for growing search engine rankings and increasing online exposure. Whether via manual link building (e.g. HARO or broken link building), guest posting services or guest blogger outreach services, dozens of link building strategies abound. But how to build backlinks with guest posts that won’t elicit the ire of Google STILL remains a topic of perpetual debate. As it should.  Guest blogging services are not what they used to be. Quality matters more than quantity and when a single link in your backlink portfolio can create Google penalties, you should take stock of your current guest blogging strategies to make sure they are in-line with today’s best practices. What worked as white hat only a few months ago, may now be considered a black hat tactic. This is more true with penalizing Google updates like SpamBrain and the Helpful Content Update. In this article, we will discuss how to find guest blogging opportunities for quality, avoiding low quality publishers and guest posting services that are blatantly associated with private blog networks. Spreadsheet Assessment Outline for Guest Posting Services When assessing these various guest posting service metrics, we typically run them in a spreadsheet that has a header tab that might look something like this: The spreadsheet header row includes: Site name Domain Authority (DA) score (per Moz) Domain Rating (DR) score (per Ahrefs) Ahrefs traffic Server IP Trust Flow (per Majestic) of the root domain Citation Flow (per Majestic) of the root domain Site niche Total backlinks (Moz, Ahrefs, SEMRush) SEMrush rank Alexa rank Moz quality score Moz spam score Percentage of quality backlinks Total # of indexed URLs Creating something like this in your own guest posting service and link building outreach campaign assessment is no longer an option, it’s vital. If you want a walk-through on assessing the quality of a guest posting service, we have created the following video, which should be helpful. Now, let’s dig into the metrics for qualifying your guest posting services! What is the Guest Post Site’s Moz Domain Authority, Ahrefs Domain Rating? Both Moz and Ahrefs have their own proprietary metric to assess the authority of a given URL/page and a website overall. This gauge is done by taking into account the totality of the site’s linkgraph, judging how the site looks relative to other sites based on the quantity and quality post links pointing to the site. Both gauges are logarithmic, meaning a 1x jump in “authority” or “rating” equates to a 10x jump in quality. Similar to Google’s old system of Pagerank, the Domain Authority/Domain Rating of a website can help provide with an initial gauge of the quality of the site and help you determine 1) the value of a backlink from the site and 2) how much effort should be expended in acquiring a link. However, when making assessments for guest posting services, it’s important not to become too fixated on third party metrics. These are both good gauges, but they’re certainly not perfect by any means. Even Google itself reiterates the need to be wary of third-party metrics. What is the Guest Posting Site’s Moz Spam Score? Similar to Moz Domain Authority, the Moz Spam Score.. …represents the percentage of sites with similar features to the site you’re researching which we’ve found to be penalized or banned by Google. Spam Score is based on our machine learning model which identified 27 common features among the millions of banned or penalized sites in the data we fed it. Bear in mind, the Moz Spam Score is also wildly imperfect. We have noticed that sites with non-dotcom (.com) TLDs are weighted unnaturally poorly via the Spam Score, without any guest post links to them. Just use it as a gauge, but not necessarily THE gauge of whether a site is worthy of guest posts nor is it a definitive one. If a high Spam Score is present, but not other factors point to negativity, we have no problem using the site in your guest posting services. It is, after all, a third party metric. What is the Citation Flow and Trust Flow of the Guest Posting Site? Majestic publishes two metrics that can help you gauge how natural a given link profile might look relative to other sites of similar age and in similar niches. Not only are solid Trust Flow and Citation Flow numbers helpful, but comparing the two with one another can provide further detail on the quality of the site in which you’re considering adding to your guest posting repertoire. Majestic has a great piece outlining how to read and interpret trust flow and citation flow for sites that accept guest posts. Essentially, these metrics help determine how naturally distributed a guest posting service site’s links might look. Similar to Domain Authority and Page Authority, Trust Flow and Citation Flow measure both the authority and trust of a given site based on the site’s backlink profile. We have discussed natural vs. unnatural link profiles in depth before, but mostly for assessing your own website and cleaning up spammy links. But, the Moz link graph can also help you tell whether a given guest posting service has a naturally distributed link profile. We suggest a full assessment of the trustworthiness of a potential guest posting service would include a look into Majestic’s Trust Flow & Citation Flow as well as Moz’s link graph to see how natural a given publisher’s link profile appears. Does the Guest Posting Service Include Relevant Blogs or are the Sites Generic? There are several types of guest post websites from which you can attempt to acquire links. Here are just a few, in order of decreasing difficulty: High authority, corporate sites Low authority, corporate sites High authority, niche-specific blogs Low authority, niche-specific blogs High authority, generic blogs Low authority, generic blogs We always tend to avoid guest posting services that include websites that fall into the last two bullet points listed above. These types of guest

SEO strategists and writers rely heavily on backlinks to make their content more authoritative and valuable for readers. However, the backlinks you choose can either help your page ranking or harm it. Google’s own Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst, John Mueller, explained that websites shouldn’t focus exclusively on link building for SEO. However, Mueller’s advice doesn’t mean that you should skip link building altogether or that your efforts are in vain. Several factors determine whether the high authority links you’re building help, hurt, or cause no effect on your website’s rankings. Essentially, backlinks are external URLs that lead to pages on your website. These links are the backbone of search engine optimization as they signal to Google that many other websites find your content reliable enough to link back to it. However, until a few years ago, the quality of these gov links didn’t matter. All you needed was hundreds of backlinks from nearly every kind of website available. As a result, businesses started to buy backlinks. Many of them employed black-hat SEO practices that involved link building with spam-filled websites. Google had to adjust its algorithm as a result of all that unethical activity. Now, it checks whether the backlinks coming to your website originate from trustworthy, relevant, and quality sources. Their findings can have a positive, negative, or neutral effect on your ranking in the search results. Link building is the practice of improving your SEO rankings through backlinks. Since Google regularly updates its system and algorithms, it can be challenging for businesses to understand which backlinks work for them and which they should scrap. Selecting Reliable Sources Of Backlinks Conventionally, websites have tried to source their backlinks from .edu and .gov sites or government and educational sites. Many websites believe that the more .edu and .gov backlinks they use, the better. People have gone so far as to say that one backlink from these domains is worth ten from any other. Previously, SEO strategists strived to obtain backlinks from reputable .edu or .gov website since they were absolutely sure that these domains would get them the top spot on SERPs. However, this isn’t true. Instead, it’s born of a misunderstanding—SEO specialists and Google representatives have provided information that seems contrary at surface level, but many aspects of the backlink conversation are lost in translation. While many SEO strategists still believe .gov and .edu backlinks to be the ultimate reason website rankings go up, they don’t hold up the same way anymore. In fact, unless care is exercised, your website’s Google rankings are more likely to drop. Let’s find out how backlinks from these domains can affect your rankings. .edu And .gov – What Value do These Domains Add? You may be taken aback by the claim that .edu and .gov backlinks don’t add as much value as you previously believed. The Internet is full of stories about businesses that used backlinks from these domains and sat back as their rankings soared. While it’s true that .edu and .gov backlinks can measurably improve your SEO rankings, it’s definitely not because these domains hold more priority than others. It’s a common misconception that .edu and .gov backlinks have more weight than niche-relevant sources. American software engineer and Administrator of the United States Digital Service, Matt Cutts, has stated that backlinks from these domains receive the same treatment as any others. John Mueller went a step further and divulged that Google ignores many .edu links. His Tweet said, Because of the misconception that .edu links are more valuable, these sites get link-spammed quite a bit, and because of that, we ignore a ton of the gov links on those gov sites. So why do websites’ ranking improve when they use backlinks from .edu or .gov sources? We’ve seen that it’s not due to the domain you’re using since Google officials themselves have confirmed that it doesn’t matter whether you’re using a .gov, .edu, .net, .com, or .org backlink. It’s essential to recognize the factors that make .gov or .edu backlinks valuable so you can maximize the advantages they offer your website. What makes a backlink valuable when it comes to SEO? The Value of These Authoritative Sources Registering for a .edu or .gov domain is a long, complicated process. It’s not just a question of going to the local domain registrar and asking them for a new .gov site. You must provide them with a variety of paperwork that verifies in detail that you’re operating a legitimate governmental organization. The same principle applies to .edu domains. Organizations registering for a .edu domain have to prove that they’re legitimate institutions of education to qualify for them. These barriers are in place to preserve these domains’ authority, and so the public using these sources can trust the information presented on .edu and .gov website without hesitation. Visitors to these websites rely on the protection that .edu and .gov offer them when they’re looking for concrete, essential answers. For instance, incorrect information on a .gov financial website could leave a family in monetary ruin, and scams on a .edu website could endanger students’ well-being. These possible consequences are the reason that organizations looking for an .edu or .gov domain have to face stringent background checks and provide lots of relevant information to domain registrars. Since websites that apply for .edu and .gov domains have to undergo extensive scrutiny, they are trusted authorities on their subjects, making their link juice extremely potent. These websites have to provide valuable, trustworthy information to their users or face harsh consequences. Search engines recognize the value regardless of the domain extension they use. In fact, you could obtain the same kind of link juice from a .biz or .info website under the right circumstances. Therefore, the goal for your website is not necessarily to get a vast quantity of .edu or .gov backlinks. Instead, it would help if you looked for websites that are authoritative and highly ranked sources relevant to your niche. It’s perfectly fine for you to use

If you want to climb the ranks of Google and other search engines, you need to boost your perceived authority. And in order to boost your perceived authority, you need backlinks. But building backlinks is a lot more complicated than most people initially think. If you spam your links, or build links recklessly, you could end up doing more harm than good. If Google catches you deliberately attempting to manipulate your rank, or if they notice suspicious patterns in your technical SEO efforts, you could get slapped with a hefty penalty that sets you back months, or even years. So what’s the solution? You have to keep a clean backlink footprint at all times, actively practicing white hat SEO strategies and monitoring your efforts. How do you do it? What Is a Backlink Footprint? Your backlink footprint is essentially a profile of the links you’ve built and how you’ve built them. It’s a description of all your past and current efforts to improve keyword rankings that reflect on your brand. If executed responsibly, your backlink footprint can reflect well on you. It can increase your referral traffic, improve your online reputation, and boost your authority so you rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). If executed irresponsibly, your backlink footprint can reflect poorly on you. It might turn people away from your brand, cut your referral traffic significantly, and evenly due to Google penalties. Why Keeping a Clean Backlink Footprint Matters Keeping a clean backlink footprint is important for several reasons: Avoiding penalties. If you practice your SEO strategy irresponsibly, you could face a Google penalty. People use the term “Google penalty” pretty loosely, often describing multiple different, independent actions with the same terminology. A true Google penalty is a manual action taken by a human to remove your website from SERPs, usually temporarily. This is usually reserved for only the most egregious offenders, and as long as you correct whatever problems led to this penalty, you can usually reverse it. The more common and arguably more destructive penalty is a natural byproduct of search engine algorithms; if Google detects repetitive patterns or black hat tactics associated with your domain, you could plunge in the rankings, erasing any progress you made and condemning you to the deepest pages of search results. Improving your brand reputation. Keeping a clean backlink footprint also matters for improving your brand reputation. It’s not just about making search engines happy; it’s also about making users happy. If the links you build are valuable, relevant, and natural, people are going to be more likely to click them and think positively about your brand. Analyzing and improving your SEO execution. Finally, making the effort to improve your backlink footprint and analyze your efforts with SEO software tools, will allow you to better understand and improve your SEO execution. You’ll get a better understanding of which links work and why, and you can gradually tweak your approach to perfection. How to Keep a Clean Backlink Footprint Now to the meat of this article. We’ve talked about what a backlink footprint is and why it’s important. So how do you keep yours clean? 1. Start with an overarching SEO strategy. Everything begins with an overarching strategy. Before you publish your first article or post your first link, you should have a clear idea of what you’re trying to accomplish and how you’re going to accomplish it. You should have a comprehensive understanding of best practices in SEO and you should be familiar with what constitutes a white hat tactic (vs. a black hat tactic) in the SEO world. What types of publishers are you going to use to place your links? What pieces of on-site content are going to be the targets of those links? How quickly are you going to build links and how are you going to scale? Document your plan and stick to it; the more you deviate from your original vision, the messier your backlink footprint is going to become. 2. Build links slowly (at first). Always start building links slowly and carefully, paying close attention to your link velocity. Google has an established understanding of a reasonable pace of growth for new websites. If your website launches on Monday, and you have more than 1,000 links by Friday, the search engine is going to be suspicious. Instead, focus on only building one or two links per week during your first several weeks of operation. Over time, as your website has more history and develops more natural authority, you can scale these link building efforts up. It’s not worth rocking the boat early on, no matter how eager you are to attract new traffic. 3. Prioritize content quality. You’ve probably heard that “content is king” in SEO. This remains true, for the most part, since content is deeply intertwined with almost every aspect of SEO. In fact, content is related to multiple aspects of ranking in Google search results. You’ll need powerful onsite content to serve as the target for the links you build. You’ll also need well-written offsite content to house and support the links you build. In both of these areas, you need to focus on content quality above everything else; if you link to a piece of weak content, it could ultimately work against you, weakening your reputation or even threatening removal of the link. If your offsite content is weak, publishers going to accept it, or you might run the risk of having the link flagged. Hiring a white label SEO content assistant may be your best bet. These types of SEO professionals are not expensive and can have a huge value-boost in your traffic and leads. 4. Keep your links relevant to publishers. Whenever possible, build links that are relevant for the publishers that will be hosting them. The easiest way to do this is to be selective about the publishers you work with. If you primarily choose publishers that are at least somewhat related to your industry,

If you have ever tried performing a link building outreach campaign, you know how difficult it can be. And outreach link building is only getting tougher.  You can’t just drop your CSV into Mailshake or Pitchbox and hope to receive dozens of positive responses. We never respond. We either mark as spam or delete dozens of daily backlink outreach requests, most of them from so-called “link building experts.” The relentless nature of these continuous link building outreach campaigns is obnoxious, but unfortunately not illegal. Foreign outreach emails (usually from Indian link builders) typically show up in the inbox looking something like this: Don’t be this guy!  When you have high quality backlinks, along with the properly optimized on-page SEO factors, the Google algorithm responds by bumping it up in the rankings, But there is a right way and oh, so many wrong ways to engage in outreach link building. Link Building vs. Link Building Outreach For years, business owners and digital marketers have understood the importance of backlinks and have implemented targeted backlink strategies designed to create and leverage linking opportunities. Link building is best described as the process of getting third-party web pages to link to your website. It’s a long-term strategy that’s designed to: Enhance SEO As mentioned, Google uses backlinks as authority signals. The more quality links you have pointing to your site, the higher you’ll rank for related search terms. Boost visibility It’s not all about technical algorithms and search results. There’s a very practical benefit associated with obtaining backlinks: visibility. If you get a backlink on a major site like Forbes.com, you instantly put your brand in front of thousands of new people. Enhance reputation Link building drives reputation by affiliation. The more your brand is featured on reputable websites and blogs, the more positive your reputation becomes. Drive traffic While not all backlinks will get clicked, many do. The result is a steady influx of traffic to your web pages – a percentage of which may eventually convert in the form of a sale. Link building, as a strategy, can be executed in numerous ways. In the past, many businesses have resorted to spammy and/or ineffective practices like forcing irrelevant links into blog comments; stuffing links in low authority web pages; setting up dummy pages to harvest links; using blog rolls to reciprocate links; and/or grabbing links on low-hanging fruit like online business directories. Some of these strategies provide a minimal boost, while others can actually hurt more than help in the long run. Then there’s link building outreach. Outreach is one of the main ways in which modern link building is carried out. It’s considered sustainable and effective. It’s oriented around Google’s primary aim of adding value to the internet search ecosystem. As the name suggests, SEO blogger outreach involves manually contacting business owners, marketers, webmasters, bloggers, and social influencers in an effort to earn a backlink/brand mention to your website. It’s more time-intensive than some of the standard link building initiatives businesses have relied on over the years, but promises to generate a higher return on investment when executed properly. How to Perform Effective Link Building Outreach Performing outreach isn’t a get-rich-quick strategy. It’s a long-term investment that can take months or years to produce significant results. However, it’s highly sustainable. Once the returns come in, you don’t have to worry about them disappearing in the next Google update. The seeds of a quality link building campaign will always yield a healthy harvest. If you’re interested in the how-to of manual outreach link building, here are some steps to help you generate positive results: 1. Know Your Options There are a variety of tactics that fall under the title of “link building outreach.” You have the freedom to use any number of strategies or techniques, including: Email/PR. This option involves emailing people and asking them to link back to your site. In order to find the right people, you have to perform some due diligence, personalize your offer, and promise value in return. Social media. Under this approach, you look for and build relationships via social media as a method of popularizing your content and enhancing its impact. Influencers. With influencer outreach, you find, contact, and engage influential bloggers, website owners, and public figures with the intention of leveraging their status to garner highly visible and authoritative links. Personal/professional network. You don’t always need highly public figures with millions of followers. Sometimes effective link building occurs via outreach to personal and professional networks. Mine your business cards and LinkedIn profile to unearth these hidden opportunities. These are just some of the options. Feel free to get as creative as you want, but don’t make things more complicated than they have to be. The aforementioned options should give you plenty to chew on. 2. Create a Shortlist of Linking Opportunities Whether you decide to go all in on one of the previously mentioned options, or you pick and choose a variety of linking opportunities, you’ll want to create a shortlist to guide your outreach. Some in the industry would call this the backlink pipeline. It’s through this pipeline that all of your link building efforts will flow. A simple spreadsheet with contact information and other relevant notes should suffice. 3. Generate Compelling Offers The next step is to generate a compelling offer for each individual in your link building outreach pipeline. One recommendation is to use what we’ll call the what-why-how formula. Next to each individual, create three columns and fill in the appropriate information: What? When approaching someone with a link building request, the worst thing you can do is string them along. It should be clear exactly what you’re seeking. Any ambiguity here will lead to your email or direct message being deleted. Why? It’s equally important that you quickly address the why. In other words, what’s in it for them? How will they benefit from giving you a brand mention, link, or space to publish content on their site?

Small businesses – and many medium-sized businesses, for that matter – often have very good ideas, well-developed products, and high quality services. Yet they fail to gain visibility or traction. What gives? While a lack of results could be tied to thousands of company-specific factors and circumstances, it’s often underscored by one simple reality: Most businesses don’t have a plan for how they market their products and services to prospects. And if they do have a plan, it’s not optimized in a way that works with the basic psychology of how people shop for products and make decisions. Whether it’s impatience or ineptitude depends on the business, but most companies are unwilling to put in the work it takes for marketing qualified leads. They’d rather earn a quick sale. (Unfortunately, this mindset often comes at the expense of losing many qualified leads who would have otherwise been quite valuable.) What’s the solution? Well, it’s actually quite simple and sensical – once you understand how it works. And once you wrap your mind around the correct method of nurturing prospects and converting them into loyal customers, you’ll realize that all businesses ultimately work the same way. In this article, we’re going to discuss marketing funnels, what they are, how they work, and what it takes to generate content that moves people through your funnel – ultimately resulting in sales. Does that make you tingle with excitement?   What is a Marketing Funnel? Let’s begin with the basics. A traditional marketing funnel is essentially a visualization for understanding the processes that take place when a prospect turns into a customer (through a sales lens). The basic gist is this: A prospect has no clue that your business exists. She then becomes aware of your business and its products, interest is sparked, she evaluates whether she likes your products (in the context of other marketplace options), decides to make a purchase, and ultimately follows through by exchanging money in return for what you’re offering. It’s called a marketing funnel because of how the number of leads ultimately gets smaller and smaller until only the most qualified are left. You might have a pool of 15,000 people who are aware of your product, but only 10,000 of them are interested. Out of this group, just 7,500 take the time and effort to evaluate your product. In other words, they make it down through the bottom of the marketing funnel. And of these, 4,000 make a purchase. The funnel moves prospects through a sensical step-by-step process that weeds out the disqualified and disinterested, while nurturing those who are interested and likely to become paying customers. (In this sense, it’s an efficient process for both parties.) While this sounds super formal and rigid, a good marketing funnel is invisible to your prospects. To them, it’s all engagement. It starts slow and surface-level and begins moving faster into a more detailed and refined direction. Before they know it, they’re sliding down your well-oiled funnel – ready to open up their wallets and purchase what you’re offering. The 5 Stages of the Sales Funnel Every marketing and sales funnel has its own nuances and steps, but they all follow five basic stages. That’s because all human psychology is basically the same. People might seem different – and in many regards they are – but customers tend to act in predictable and repeatable ways. Thus dividing the sales funnel into five clean stages serves as an effective way to standardize the process. We’ll discuss specific ways to target customers in each of these stages with high-converting content in the next section. For now, let’s get a clear understanding of what’s happening in each of them (from the perspective of the customer). Stage 1: Problem/Need Recognition It’s during this first stage that people become aware of the fact that they have a problem. This is the top of the funnel. (Prior to this point, an individual isn’t actually in your funnel to begin with. They have no issue, so there’s nothing you can do for them.) Examples of customers entering into the problem or need recognition stage include: A homeowner’s AC stops working in the dead of summer and he suddenly realizes that he needs something fixed or replaced in his system. A busy mom hops in her van in the morning to carpool her kids to school and it won’t start. She clearly has a problem and a need. A freelancer gets fed up overpaying on his taxes. He figures there must be a better way, but he doesn’t know what that is. A college student is frustrated by the poor picture quality of his TV and begins wondering if there are better TVs on the market that are within his budget. There’s no active searching going on in this phase. Customers in this phase are just realizing they have an issue or need. They’re on the front end of the process. Stage 2: Information Search While some people will live with a problem or need for days, weeks, months, or even years before taking action, most will seek to alleviate or solve it as quickly as possible. This leads them into the information search stage. This phase puts the user higher in the top of the marketing funnel. During the information search stage, prospects gather information, explore the products and solutions that exist, gather information about different companies, get prices, ask questions, read reviews, browse Google, etc. This is also the phase where many would-be marketers tend to find and focus on vanity metrics and not conversions, which happen later. While top-of-the-marketing-funnel metrics can prove helpful to later success, they are not success in and of themselves alone. Depending on a prospect’s personality and the severity of the problem or need, this information search can be fast (minutes) or extensive (months). Using our four examples above, here’s what the information stage might look like: The homeowner Googles possible problems that could be causing his AC unit to