Content marketing funnel: TOFU, MOFU, BOFU content, with blog examples

The funnel is narrow at the bottom because people drop out along the way. Semrush describes the shape as an inverted triangle, "because audience size decreases at each stage as prospects drop off due to reasons like disinterest, price, or competition." For a blog, the funnel is mostly a way of reading search queries: the words someone types show how close they are to buying, and the content that serves them changes with it.

The three stages of a content marketing funnel

Stage	The reader	Typical searches	Formats that fit	What to measure
TOFU: awareness	Has a problem or a question, not yet looking for a product	how to, what is, why does	How-to guides, explainers, checklists	Impressions, new visitors, newsletter sign-ups
MOFU: consideration	Knows the problem, comparing ways to solve it	best X for Y, X vs Y, X alternatives, how much does X cost	Comparisons, roundups, cost guides, case studies	Clicks through to product or service pages, return visits, leads
BOFU: decision	Ready to choose, wants reassurance	[product] pricing, [product] reviews, [product] free trial, [product] demo	Pricing, product and service pages, case studies, demos	Sign-ups, demo requests, sales

The search column follows Semrush's own mapping, which files "what is" and "how to" queries as informational and top of funnel, "best," "top," "vs" and "alternatives" as commercial and middle, and "pricing," "demo," "free trial" and "buy" as transactional and bottom. Wording is a first guess, though. The results page is the real test of what a query wants, which is the method behind search intent.

Top, middle and bottom of funnel examples

Here is how the stages read for three different businesses:

Business	TOFU	MOFU	BOFU
Project management software	what is a gantt chart	kanban vs scrum; how to choose project management software	[your product] pricing; [your product] vs [competitor]
Local plumber	how to unclog a drain without chemicals	tankless vs tank water heater; how much does a water heater replacement cost	water heater installation in [your city]
Online coffee shop	how to make cold brew at home	french press vs pour over; how to choose a coffee grinder	[your grinder] review; the product page itself

Two things stand out. The top and middle rows are blog posts. The bottom row mostly is not: a pricing page, a service page or a product page answers those searches better than any article. Blog post ideas groups forty search patterns by the same stages, ready to fill in for your own subject.

How to map a blog to the funnel

1. Label what you already have. Semrush suggests exporting every URL and labeling each by stage, warning that "most assets live at the top of the funnel, leaving mid- and bottom-stage content thin or missing entirely."
2. Organize by theme first, stage second. Your content pillars decide the themes. Each theme then needs a spread of top-of-funnel posts, a few comparisons and cost guides, and a bottom-of-funnel page the others can point to.
3. Link the stages to each other. Semrush's advice is to "Link TOFU articles to relevant MOFU resources" and to end middle-stage pieces with calls to action "toward BOFU assets such as demos, trials, or pricing pages." A content hub puts the stages for one subject in one place, and a pillar page can be its front door.
4. Fill the gaps in proportion. As a starting split, Semrush suggests roughly 40% top, 40% middle and 20% bottom, adjusted to what your data shows.

Our post on what a content strategy for SEO includes covers the goal-setting and inventory steps that come before this.

What search changes at each stage

The top is the most exposed to AI answers. Simple how-to and what-is questions are the ones a summary can answer on the results page, and Ahrefs found that the presence of an AI Overview now "correlates with a 58% lower average clickthrough rate for the top-ranking page," measured on December 2025 data. Top-of-funnel posts still earn visibility, citations in those answers and brand recall, but judging them by clicks alone undercounts them. Zero-click searches covers what still earns the visit.

The middle is where a blog turns readers into prospects. Comparison and cost searches ask for judgment, trade-offs and specifics, and a reader weighing options has a reason to read the full page and then look at yours.

The bottom belongs to pages that make an offer. Pricing, product and service pages convert, and they deserve the most care per page. The blog's job at this stage is to send the right readers there.

How to measure each stage

Measure each stage against its own job. Semrush's metrics follow the funnel: at the top, "Organic traffic and impressions" and new visitors; in the middle, email sign-ups, content downloads and return visits; at the bottom, demo or trial requests and conversion rate. Search Console impressions per page show top-of-funnel reach even when clicks fall, and analytics that credit the first page a visitor landed on show which posts start the journeys that end in a sale.

Common content funnel mistakes

• Only top-of-funnel posts. Traffic grows and sales do not, because nothing helps readers compare or decide.
• Selling too early. Semrush's guide puts it plainly: "Trying to sell too early (pushing BoFu content to ToFu audiences) creates friction and drives prospects away." The opposite fails too, when buyers ready to decide find only education.
• Dead ends. A how-to post that links nowhere leaves the reader at the top.
• The wrong scorecard. Judging a what-is post by sales, or a pricing page by traffic, kills the content that is doing its job.

How Structura handles this

Structura writes the top and middle of the funnel. On paid plans, campaign keyword research judges each candidate against what your business sells and who buys it, and keeps searchers who could become customers, including people trying to do the job themselves first. It favors how-to and what-is searches and comparison and cost searches, and the keyword list labels each phrase as a how-to (DIY) or a comparison (Research) search, so you can see the balance before anything is written.

It deliberately drops searches where the reader wants to hire someone or find a local provider, navigational searches and competitor brand names, because those results are service pages and product pages, not articles. That leaves the bottom of the funnel with you: pricing, service and product pages, and comparisons against named competitors. You can add your own keywords to a campaign's list when there is a comparison you want covered.

On the Free plan there is no keyword research, so campaigns write from the campaign objective instead. Structura also does not decide which offer each post points to; that call to action is yours. The page on SEO content for your site shows how a campaign is set up.

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