Why it matters.
In Grow & Convert’s study of 100 buying-intent prompts (updated 30 March 2026), 83 triggered a web search, and each of those generated two to four fan-out queries. About 78% of the sources cited were marketing or company pages: lists, product pages, homepages and pricing pages.
So vendor pages do get cited, but only when they match one of the searches the engine runs. A buyer’s problem produces searches about the problem.
The 10-minute self-check.
Write down the three problems prospects most often describe on a first call. For each:
- Is there a page on your site whose title names that problem?
- Does the page explain the causes, not only your service?
- Does it say who the situation applies to?
- Does it link to the service that solves it?
Steps.
- Collect problem statements from call notes and enquiry forms, in the buyer’s words.
- Group them into five to ten situations. One page per situation.
- Open each page with a direct answer: what usually causes this and how to tell which cause applies.
- Show a dated example from your own work or your own site.
- Link each page to the one service page that owns the fix, and nowhere else commercially.
Situation pages feed the service pages in our SEO programmes.
What we saw on prolinkage.com.
How to measure it.
- Search Console queries per situation page: are they problem-shaped? Monthly.
- Assisted enquiries: GA4 key events from sessions that viewed a situation page. Monthly.
- Engine citations of the page on your problem-stage panel questions (play 02). Monthly.
Sources.
- Grow & Convert, fan-out query SERP study, updated 30 March 2026.
- Prolinkage change log: 14 Insights articles published (article-route-pack-1), 7 November 2026.
- Prolinkage decisions log: FluentSMTP connection restored; GA4 duplicate key event removed, 6 November 2026.