Designing a competitor comparison content series
Capturing bottom-funnel evaluation searches before buyers reach your brand
The context
Traditional “our product vs competitor” pages only capture people who already know your brand and are actively comparing you to other tools.
But a large portion of evaluation-stage search happens earlier — when buyers are comparing platforms like Asana, Monday, GitHub, and ClickUp without a clear shortlist yet.
This series was designed to test whether the same approach could work for Nulab: intercept brand-agnostic comparison searches and introduce Nulab as an alternative before decisions were locked in.
What I owned
I built and shipped a comparison content series on Learn targeting competitor-vs-competitor searches, including:
keyword research to find high-volume, achievable comparison queries
a standardized outline to keep pages consistent and scalable
publishing across two verticals (project management + software development)
performance reporting using organic and AI discovery signals
Pages published
Software development
GitLab vs GitHub
Git vs GitHub
Bitbucket vs GitHub
Project management
Asana vs Monday
ClickUp vs Monday
Wrike vs Asana
What happened (performance summary)
Even as a small pilot, the series proved viable as a new organic acquisition layer.
Organic search impact
pages showed sustained organic growth post-indexing
monthly traffic stabilized in the 100–150+ range per URL
trends suggested real keyword fit rather than launch spikes
Keyword visibility
50+ organic keywords now ranking
multiple Top 3 and Top 10 placements
coverage across both head and long-tail comparison terms
AI search visibility
These pages began earning citations in AI-driven discovery environments:
Google AI Overviews: 38
ChatGPT: 3
Perplexity: 1
This confirmed the URLs were influencing AI-generated buying guidance — not just traditional SERPs.
Authority signals
Despite limited link building:
79 backlinks earned
referring domains increasing
authority metrics improving
Why this mattered
This series expanded organic acquisition beyond brand-aware traffic and created a repeatable format for capturing bottom-funnel evaluation search.
Instead of relying only on people searching for Nulab directly, it allowed Nulab to show up earlier in the decision process — when buyers were still comparing other platforms.
Most importantly, it proved that competitor-vs-competitor content can function as a durable acquisition surface, with measurable search visibility and early traction in AI discovery environments.
What this shows about how I work
This project reflects how I approach evaluation-stage content:
I look for high-intent search behavior happening upstream of the product
I build repeatable, structured formats rather than one-off pages
I focus on credibility and usefulness over aggressive positioning
I close the loop with evidence — proving viability without turning the work into a roadmap