Show Notes
What's happening when buyers search your name
When someone types "[your product] vs [competitor]" into Google, three things show up — none of them you:
- Your competitor's page — they picked the features, framed their strengths against your gaps
- G2 or Capterra — stale pricing, checkbox feature lists, descriptions nobody updates. They call this brand squatting.
- An affiliate blog — written by someone who's never used any of these tools, optimized for referral clicks, not accuracy
That's the only story your buyer gets.
The conversion data
Grow and Convert tracked 95 articles across SaaS clients — 123,000 page views, 4,687 real signups:
- Alternative/comparison keywords ("brand alternative", "X vs Y"): 8.43% conversion rate
- Vs keywords specifically: 5.45%
- Category keywords ("project management software"): 4.85%
- Generic blog content: significantly lower
Geekbot found their bottom-of-funnel content converted 2,400% better than top-of-funnel posts.
Backstage SEO had a client build 50 comparison pages: 1,000–2,000 visits/month, 5–10% conversion rate. On a $500/month product with 25 pages, that's $243k return on $89k invested over three years.
Companies that did this
- ClickUp — built comparison pages against Monday, Asana, Jira, Basecamp. Bootstrapped to $20M ARR in two years. All organic, all high-intent.
- Missive — 3 founders, went from $2M to $6M ARR. They openly say what competitors do better. That's why buyers trust the rest of the page.
- Storylane — 25,000 to 150,000 monthly visitors in 6 months building programmatic comparison and tutorial pages.
- Teamwork.com — hired GetUplift to rework comparison pages. Got 45% more conversions and 170% more signups from their highest-value segment.
- Groove — tiny helpdesk, built a comparison page against Zendesk anyway. Worked because prospects were already considering both.
What goes on the page
- Frame it as a buyer's guide, not an ad. Asana's comparison against Monday reads like "here's what to evaluate" — not "here's why we win."
- Acknowledge what the competitor does well. Missive does this. Metadata's page against Sixth Sense says the two tools are complementary. UserEvidence compares itself to TechValidate and still says what TechValidate does well. Buyers notice.
- Use specific numbers. Not "we're faster" — "8x faster in this scenario" or "saves you 7%."
- Switcher testimonials, not generic quotes. Klaviyo puts migration guides directly on their comparison pages.
- Side-by-side comparison table — scannable for humans and AI alike.
- One CTA. Demo, trial, or call. Pick one. Don't give people five options and no direction.
- Write simply. Unbounce found pages written at a 5th–7th grade reading level convert at 12.9%. Professional copy: 2%. Your buyers are skimming 10 pages — don't make them work.
One thing to do this week
Open Google. Type your product name, then "vs", and look at the autofill. Click the first three results. If your competitor has a page and you don't, you've found the gap. Build one comparison page for a single competitor — honest positioning, one clear CTA, written simply. That's the highest-ROI page you can ship this month.
▶︎ Transcript
0:00Go google your product name right now. Add vs after it and look what auto fills. If your competitor built a page for that search and you didn't, they're telling your buyer why their thing is better. And you're not even in the room at this point. I'll show you the data on why this is the highest converting page you can build and exactly what goes on such a page. I'm Deian, this is Before They Buy. This is what's actually happening today. Someone's evaluating your product right now. They typed your brand versus the
0:35competitor into Google and that search happens whether you like it or not. Three things can show up when someone is searching. Either it's your competitor's page, they wrote this, they picked which features to compare and they framed their strengths against your gaps. You can't even respond to any of this. The other thing is it's a site like G2, Capterra. The entire business is ranking for software brand names. They literally call it brand squatting. So your product shows up with state
1:07pricing, maybe a checkbox feature list somebody filled in two years ago, and descriptions that have nothing to do with what anyone actually buys. The third thing is an affiliate blog. Things like you've seen probably dozens of times like top 10 tools 2026 for a specific category. This is usually written by someone who's never logged into any of those products. They don't care about accuracy. They only care about the referral click. But this is everything your buyers read.
1:38That's the only story they get. And here's one thing you should remember. There is a company that figured out how to use this exact gap to grow from 2 million to 6 million in annual recurring revenue. Their co-founder said something about it that changed how I think about comparison pages. Powered by Search put it very plainly, if you don't create competitor comparison pages, your competitors will and they will dictate the narrative of your brand. This is not a marketing opinion. It's not something I made up. It's literally what is happening right now. Let's look at some numbers.
2:13Grow and Convert tracked 95 articles across their SaaS clients. What they measured were 123,000 organic page views. and they led to 4,687 conversions. These are not just projections, these are real signups they measured. Another thing they measured were that alternative and comparison keywords, so searches like brand alternative and X versus Y, converted at 8.43%.
2:43If we look specifically at versus keywords, they converted at 5.45%. And category keywords, for example, project management software converted at 4.85%. Now, if you compare this to just regular blog content, it looks quite different. Geekbot tracked their own numbers through Grow and Convert. And they were looking specifically at their bottom of funnel polls, which converted 2400% better than top of funnel stuff. So if you have a content agency that wants to write very generic blog polls
3:17like 5 tips for better remote collaboration, just remember that a comparison page outperforms it by an order of magnitude. People searching for you versus competitor aren't browsing at this point. They're already in the mode to decide. They want something to pick and they need the reason to make that choice. Backstage SEO had a client build about 50 comparison pages and those pages brought in 1,000 to 2,000 visits a month and the conversion rate was somewhere between 5 to 10%. They also ran the math on what this looks like. Like imagine you have a $500
3:52per month product with 25 comparison pages. In about three years, you get a return of $243,000 and you only invested around $89,000. If you want some real examples of who's done this, we can just look at ClickUp. They built comparison pages for every major competitor. This is Monday, Asana, Jira, Basecamp and so on. They bootstrap to 20 million annual recurring revenue in only two years.
4:22Each of their pages target specifically the competitor term versus ClickUp. And this pulls in thousands of visits every single month. Everything is organic. Everything is from people who are ready to choose between these tools. If we look at Missive, which is bootstrapped by just three founders, they were sitting at 2 million ARR a couple of years ago. and as of early 2026, they are already three times higher. Their co-founder said something I think about a lot.
4:53If we're honest in the reviews, we will attract the right customers. And those who need something else will go elsewhere. So they actually tell you what competitors do better. And people trust them for it. If we look at Storylane, they went from 25,000 to over 150,000 monthly visitors in only six months. They built thousands of tutorial and how-to pages programmatically. So these are interactive demos for popular tools. and they became the go-to result for searches people were already making.
5:24Teamwork.com hired GetUplift to rework their comparison pages. The result is pretty cool. They got 45% more conversions, but also 170% more signups from the highest value segment. And none of these companies have 50-person marketing teams. Missive, for example, is still just three people. One thing I keep hearing is pushback from founders. Either it feels sleazy, which it doesn't really, or they think like good comparison
5:57pages are like fancy ads. Well, Missive acknowledges what competitors do better. That's why people believe them when they say what they do better. Metadata's page, again, Sixth Sense, literally says the two tools are complementary. User evidence compares itself to TechValidate. The founders used to even work at TechValidate. They still say what it does well. So the problem isn't really that you frame your comparison pages as an ad. It's just that the worst comparison pages are the ones that pretend that competitors
6:30don't exist. and the good ones are super honest about everything on the whole site. Another thing founders say all the time is that they don't want to give them free publicity. I mean, you're not introducing anyone to your competitor because by the time someone lands on these pages, the person is already searching for them. They already know them and you're either in that conversation and shape the narrative or you're not. And the other small pushback I always hear is that we're just too small for
7:02this, which is backwards thinking. For example, Groove is a tiny helpdesk software, yet they still build a comparison page against Zendesk. It worked because prospects were already considering both and Groove gave them a reason to look closer. You're not saying that you're the bigger company, you're just saying you're different. Let's look at what goes on the actual page. Start with the bias problem, not why you are such a great company. If you're looking at a signer's comparison page against Monday,
7:33it reads like a buyer's guide. They are writing something like, here's what you should evaluate, not why we win in this specific case. Acknowledge what the competitor does well, and I know that sounds really wrong, but buyers can smell that you are bullshitting them. And the moment they do, they stop trusting everything else on the page. You should also put numbers on it. Don't just say we are faster, but say you can save 7% or we are 8 times faster in this specific use case scenario.
8:06You should also put testimonials from people who switch to your software on the page, not just generic customer quotes that are not really relevant. Klaviyo, for example, puts migration guides right on their comparison pages. It's a great signal because the person who's visiting this page already made the choice to switch. The next element is the comparison table. It should be a nice side-by-side view, very scannable for humans and AI alike. And the next step is the call to action and here you have to be really specific
8:39either it's a demo either it leads to the trial or it leads to some kind of call make the choice and stick with it don't confuse leads with multiple choices and don't build a page that convinces someone and then gives them nowhere to go and one more thing unbounce found that landing pages written at the 5th or 7th grade reading level, convert at 12.9%. If you're writing professional level copy, this drops to only 2%.
9:10So write as simply as possible. Your buyers aren't stupid, but they're skimming. They're looking at maybe 10 different comparison pages and they don't have the time to figure out your complicated copy. Here's what I want you to do today. Open up Google, type your product name, space, VS, and look at the autofill. Click through the first three results and see where it goes. If your competitor has a page and you don't, then you've identified a gap.
9:41High intent traffic, reading somebody else's take on your product. Start building one comparison page for just a single competitor. Have honest positioning and a very clear way to sign up. start a trial or book a call. That's the single highest ROI page you can ship this month. This is Before They Buy. I'm Deian. See you next week.