Today, I’m going to teach you about SaaS SEO strategies. No, I’m not just throwing a bunch of random letters at you. There’s no riddle or mystery. Instead, we’re talking about search engine optimization (SEO) for Software as a Service (SaaS) companies.
Over the past seven years, the SaaS market is five times larger than it was less than a decade ago. If you want to be a part of this booming industry, things are probably going to be competitive.
Content Marketing Life is here to give you an edge in the world of SaaS SEO. Whether you work for a startup or a large-scale SaaS company, these SEO strategies work.
First, I’ll let you know why you should care about SEO as a SaaS company.
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The benefits of SaaS SEO strategies
Forming and carrying out SaaS SEO strategies takes time and effort. So, it makes sense to wonder whether or not SEO for your SaaS business is worth it all. I might be a little biased, working in this industry for almost 10 years, but I’d say that SEO has many benefits for SaaS businesses.
Spending less money for better results
Understandably, no company has an unlimited budget to spend on marketing. Instead, SaaS companies tend to operate within the confines of a budget.
If you want the most bang for your marketing buck, forming an SaaS SEO strategies could be the perfect solution.
Compared to marketing channels like paid advertising, SEO is often far less expensive because you’re not paying for every reader or impression. Granted, more competitive keywords could require spending money on guest posts or something similar.
Meeting potential customers at any funnel stage
People interact with companies at all stages of the buying process. Some people who are new to these people exist at the top of the funnel.
Slightly more interested leads need content made for the middle of a funnel. There’s also bottom-of-the-funnel-content, which can often turn leads into customers.
Unfortunately, companies often try to target everyone while only speaking to those at one part of a funnel.
Do you need content that introduces your business to a reader? Great, include lots of social media and blog posts to increase your brand’s online reach.
SaaS companies often include education resources in middle-of-the-funnel content. Check out what target keywords your competitors rank well for. Use these keywords as content topics you can currently offer to your readers.
Stacking the benefits of continual SEO
From a marketing standpoint, there are almost no better long-term SaaS marketing strategies than using SEO. But why? That’s for one reason: continual SEO.
Well, look at that. It must be example time!
Example: Company A doesn’t spend time on continual SEO. Instead, it doesn’t do keyword research and rushes out a 350-ish word blog post once every few months.
Company B has a SaaS SEO strategy. It focuses on keyword research and targeted content creation, posting something new just once or twice per week.
In about six months to a year, which company do you think will have more traffic? It’s Company B.
Will Company B automatically show up on the first page of search engines every time it creates content? Probably not. But by building a library of content, Company B has a far better chance of showing up when people search for related keywords online.
If your SaaS company doesn’t create content regularly, it’s hard to maximize the search potential your company could have. So, start turning those content ideas into posts – each one could get you valuable rankings.
Forming successful SaaS SEO strategies
Now that you understand the basics of SaaS SEO strategies, it’s time to look at how to have a successful SEO strategy.
1. Focus on your following
As you look into the data behind any SaaS SEO strategy, you’ll find that search engines are ranking certain pieces of content higher than others.
Look for patterns in the keywords your company is showing up for. More often than not, keywords or topic clusters your website ranks are great ways to find your followings.
You can also use social media to find out your top posts – the content that more people engage with anything else. Start looking at
2. Create feeler pages
The closest thing I can imagine to hell on Earth is the feeling you get after spending tons of money and time ranking organically… and getting nothing in return.
By learning about creating something I dubbed “feeler” pages, I never have to deal with the problem of putting too much time or money into target keywords that aren’t worth pursuing.
Fortunately, feeler pages take the pain out of writing the perfect page only to find it ends up going nowhere in the eyes of search engines.
If you come across a keyword of interest and it’s taken over by super authoritative websites, it’s going to be tough for the average website to compete regardless of what SaaS SEO strategies they use. Feeler pages with your keywords of choice strengthen your topic clusters.
Do you see that a mega-popular and valuable keyword has a bunch of 4,000-word posts? Create something that’s around 1,500 words and see what happens.
Usually, a feeler page will rank somewhere in Google’s top 100 results (hopefully). Then, in time, you can continue building on this page until it becomes able to compete with the top 10 results.
Soon, having strong enough clusters could push out a few websites currently on the first page in favor of yours.
3. Start an outreach program
The good news: Outreach can be a powerful tool when combined with other SaaS SEO strategies, helping your website gain authority and build relationships with new audiences.
The bad news: There’s no way around it. A successful outreach strategy is a semi-major time and effort investment.
First, I don’t care what the person on YouTube or Twitter said. Getting strong backlinks works to increase your website’s position in search engines.
There’s a catch, most of the websites that can provide these links for you know how valuable their links are. This means you’ll typically need to pay money for links on these websites.
Depending on the website, you might also need high-quality content. If that doesn’t come naturally to you, outsource this task to someone capable of writing what you need.
Unfortunately, many SaaS companies either do outreach poorly or don’t focus on this type of link-building at all! Let me take the confusion out of outreach and link-building.
Here are some of my favorite SaaS SEO strategies to get inbound links from other authoritative websites:
- Offer something of value: Whether it’s money, a relevant piece of content, or both, most websites with great metrics want something in return from guest posters.
- Have patience: Unless you’re sitting on one of the world’s most popular websites, expect that it will take time to build relationships that lead to inbound links. Be prepared to send a lot of messages and emails for these SEO efforts to pay off.
- Pitch new ideas: You wouldn’t want to post the same type of content over and over. Neither do the people who run other blogs. So, before you pitch any ideas, make sure your topics aren’t ones they already have.
4. Find content gaps
If everyone on Earth had the exact same stream of thoughts, that’d be weird. Fortunately, we don’t. Your competitors, while operating in the same industry as your business, have their own unique content plans targeting certain keywords.
When comparing two or more companies, the subjects these websites don’t have in common are content gaps. And, to find them, you have two options: use a paid tool like Ahrefs to help you out or do things manually.
The latter option will take a little more time. But either option will help you find these elusive content gaps. These gaps are keywords your competitors rank for, but you don’t.
Word of advice: Take it from me; not all content gaps are worth pursuing. Some of your competitors suck at SEO. Trying to go after every keyword can lead to confusing Google and your visitors. (two no-nos.)
I recommend going with your gut for this SaaS SEO strategy. If you see relevant keywords you’re not covering in content gaps, crack those knuckles and get those typing fingers a-moving. Ignore random, unrelated keywords that have nothing to do with your industry or niche. They’ll be wastes of your time and energy.
5. Check out search intents
As you begin the keyword research process, you’ll tend to see lots of tempting keywords. However, a word of advice is to check out the search intent behind these words.
What’s that? Another example? Okay, deal.
Example: You perform keyword research and see that the keyword “how to use B2B business software” gets a lot of organic traffic. So, you immediately start pumping tons of work and time into a 5,000-word post teaching people how to use B2B business software.
Then, on a whim, you type your keyword of choice into Google and hit the search button. And you see tons of videos taking over the first page of results. The search intent behind this keyword is video-based content, not long-form blog posts.
When you know the search intent of a keyword or keywords before you start writing, you can save yourself a lot of time beginning or continuing your company’s SaaS SEO strategies.
6. Use topic clusters to your advantage
Another one of my favorite SaaS SEO strategies involves creating topic clusters. As you know, there are small and large subjects in your industry. Bigger subjects typically contain a lot of smaller, more specific topics.
If your target keyword has a high search volume and is extremely competitive, it could take more than one well-written blog post to make a dent in search engine rankings.
Many SaaS companies create topic clusters to gain more authority. Instead of writing a single page or post about a topic, turn it into a series of blog posts, with each one covering a different (but related) keyword.
7. Create a spreadsheet for your internal links
When people build links, they’re often understandably concerned about the increase in authority received from other websites. But another important part of your SaaS SEO strategies should focus on links from your website.
I have no idea exactly how much better external links are than internal ones. But I do know that you also need internal links in your content (links going to other areas of your website).
Another benefit of this on-page SEO strategy is that internal links can direct your target audience where you’d like them to go next. That’s why it’s important to make sure that internal links are relevant to the page or post they’re on.
Content Marketing Life can form and execute SaaS SEO strategies
Content Marketing Life takes the hassle of keyword research and content creation off your shoulders. Already have content, but it’s not bringing in sales, leads, or traffic? We can fix that with our Content Clean-Up service.
I’ve spent a decade working with SaaS companies in the U.S. and around the world. I know that each company needs different types of marketing help. That’s why Content Marketing Life makes things flexible and easy.
Starting a new website? I’ll make sure you have a keyword and content game plan that’s ready to go. Just need help with the social media side of things? Need blog content? I’m sure you get the idea.
Wrapping things up, SaaS SEO can involve quite a few steps. You’ll likely be spending time on keyword research, on-page SEO, and maybe even some aspects of technical SEO. As you continue performing these tasks use a program like Google Analytics or something similar to track how your website gains, maintains, or loses rankings.
Alex Eagleton is a copywriter and digital marketer passionate about helping companies connect with customers. Throughout the past decade, he’s worked with companies including Referral Rock, Connecteam, and Ramsey Solutions. He’s a versatile writer who understands how to align with companies, truly matching their voices and tones.
When he’s not writing, he enjoys spending time with his dogs, reading, and playing guitar.
You can reach him by emailing alex@contentmarketinglife.com.