Your SaaS company deserves good SEO. Yeah, we said it. While countless people and companies can benefit from your software, they have to know about it first — and that’s where SEO comes in. You don’t have to take our word for it, either. A recent content impact study found that SaaS companies that used content marketing had 30% higher growth rates than companies that didn’t.
The proof is in the sweet, sweet pudding. But even if you’re ready to take your first foray into content, the question remains: How exactly do you find SEO success as a SaaS company? (We are so glad you asked.)
Start with the following tips for kicking butt at SaaS SEO.
Spelled out, SEO for SaaS is search engine optimization for software-as-a-service companies. But you probably already knew that.
Put tactically, SaaS SEO is the process of using SEO to strategically increase the traffic to your website by creating content that will rank high on Google’s search engine results pages (SERP) for searches your potential customers care about. But that doesn’t mean you should start creating content about dogs just because many of your prospects have one.
Though many SaaS companies see growth marketing (PPC, social ads, etc.) as their ticket to success, consider SEO the slow burn. Done right, SEO can create a strong, mutually beneficial relationship between your company and people who really need your solutions (even if they don’t know it yet).
With SEO, SaaS companies can:
Want to get all those eyeballs on your product? Here’s how (because, of course, you answered yes to that question).
To achieve SaaS SEO success, you have to know what success actually means to you. Otherwise, you’re just chasing the gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow. Your goals also narrow your focus. If you know what you want to happen, you can reverse engineer the tactics it’ll take to get you there.
While it’s tempting to just rush headlong towards getting as many sign-ups as possible, pick something specific and measurable.
Your goal may be something like: Increase monthly recurring revenue (MRR) by $X over X months.
With that goal in mind, set some KPIs that you’ll track regularly. Take into account both SEO KPIs and KPIs relevant to your business.
Common SEO KPIs are:
Common SaaS KPIs are:
Every SEO tactic you take should ladder up to these KPIs. Measure on a regular basis to check your progress, but make sure you give your new SEO time to grow.
Only 35% of SaaS companies have a central document that describes their customers. If you’re not one of them, take time to create one. And no, we’re not talking about a thin profile on “SaaS Susie.” Talk to both your marketing and sales teams to determine the psychographics — not demographics — that your most valuable customers have in common.
These could be things like:
If you are among the one-third of SaaS companies that already have a buyer persona, make sure that it’s relevant to SEO. It is possible and even likely that the customer coming through Google will be a little different than the PPC customer. Identify what those differences are so you can develop content that will add value to their work and life.
Chances are, you know who your competitors are. But when it comes to SEO, there are two key distinctions:
Let’s break that down.
There may be SaaS companies you consider massive competitors because they offer a similar product or solve a similar problem. But if they’re not pursuing SEO, they aren’t your competitor in this channel. There may also be non-SaaS sites ranking for SaaS-related terms. You guessed it; those sites are now your competitors, too.
Now, the competitor analysis begins. You can enlist a trusted partner or a comprehensive SEO tool to answer the following questions about your competitors:
Your competitor analysis might’ve yielded a good keyword list. While that’s a solid starting point, we always recommend adding to it since there’s a good chance your competitors aren’t ranking for every single relevant keyword (and if they are, it’s really time to get cracking).
Good keywords aren’t just one or two words. In fact, shorter keywords can be the hardest to rank for, and 91.8% of search queries are actually long-tail keywords.
With that in mind, consider the following:
These are all great sources for keywords. And once you’ve built that list, it’s time to sort it.
Start by sorting your list according to where those keywords fall in the buyer’s journey. These are:
Within each of those groups, categorize the keywords based on their difficulty level. These are:
You have your goals, your competitors, and your keywords. Think you’re ready to start slinging content? Think again.
Ranking — especially for valuable, competitive terms — is a long game. It’s about carefully mapping your keywords to your site and making strategic additions over time that both Google and your prospects will eat up.
At a high level, what you need to know is this: where the keyword falls in the funnel typically corresponds with the right piece of content for it. Blogs are generally a great fit for top-of-funnel keywords, while service/product and about pages are great for mid- and bottom-funnel keywords.
How you structure your site is equally important. High-quality blogs that rank well for less competitive yet still relevant keywords can boost rankings for pillar pages targeting more competitive terms. Essentially, you’re making a keyword map that answers this question:
Which keywords am I going to target for each section/page of my website?
And now the content-slinging begins. Kind of. The goal isn’t to throw any old blog at the SERP and see what sticks. It’s to create valuable, thorough content that is:
Use those two points as your litmus test. Any content that doesn’t meet those criteria does not pass go. Ever.
So what content should you green light? “Better” content can mean content that is:
Oh, you thought you were done once you hit “publish?” Not so fast.
Yes, true success in SaaS SEO is about creating great content. But it’s also about the tweaks, changes, and improvements you make over time. It’s turning tired old assets into shiny, new, rankable pages. It’s updating old content to keep it fresh. It’s adding to blogs as needed lest your competitors get the better of you.
You should tackle this from three different angles:
The seven steps above will get you well on your way to SEO victory. But the truth is that they’re just a start. Google’s algorithms are always evolving, which means SEO best practices are always changing. While developing a strategy and creating content can be simple, it’s rarely ever easy.
Whether you go it alone or enlist a partner, prepare to wait. It’ll take some time to gain SEO momentum. But once you do, it’s traffic that’ll just keep coming all on its own. Can you say “best pipeline ever?”
If you do want some support, our team at First Page Strategy can guide you every step of the way. Contact us to talk about implementing SaaS SEO.