SaaS SEO : The #1 Guide to Growing Your SaaS Business in 2023

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a rapidly evolving industry that has truly taken the world by storm. But of course, with exponential growth, comes fierce competition. If you are a SaaS business wanting to stand out in this highly-saturated marketplace, you will not only need to keep up with your rivals, but stay ahead of them. How do you do this? By creating a robust SaaS SEO strategy.

An effective strategy, whether developed in-house or through a professional SaaS SEO agency, is vital to achieving sustainable growth and success in the SaaS market.

This step-by-step guide will walk you through the process of creating a tailored SEO strategy for your SaaS business – the very thing that will set you apart from the rest of the competition.

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Yes! Search Engine Optimisation is still very much a relevant and effective strategy in 2023. Whilst algorithms, market trends and best practices may evolve over time, the core principles of SEO remain unchanged.

A recent report by Brightedge found that 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine, but only 0.63% of those searchers will go beyond the first page of Google’s search engine result. Because of this, it is absolutely integral that businesses continue to implement SEO strategies. SEO for SaaS companies is especially important, given it is so vital to stay relevant and ahead of the game within the industry.

Implementing a comprehensive SEO strategy that includes creating high-quality, helpful content, optimizing for relevant keywords and acquiring backlinks, can significantly enhance a website’s chance of increasing visibility and driving organic traffic. Just keep in mind, to ensure your strategy is up-to-date and effective in the present day, you will need to stay informed with the latest news, updates and trends when it comes to algorithms and best-practices. Once you do this, you will be well on your way to nailing SEO for your SaaS company.

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Let’s start with a quick refresher on SEO. SEO is a catch-all for everything you do to improve your brand’s performance on search engine results pages (SERPs). The aim is to get your landing pages, blog content, and products as high on those pages as possible. The higher ranked you are, after all, the more traffic you get.

There are a vast number of factors that go into determining each page’s ranking. Google – the pre-eminent search engine – uses an AI-enhanced algorithm to rank online material. Some of the ranking factors accounted for by the algorithm include:

• User engagement – How site visitors interact with your pages. How much time are they spending on your site? How much do they click on or engage with your content? How often do your pages get viewed?
• Link profile – The makeup of the links to and from your content. Which sites and domains link to you? Where do your external links lead? How are internal links organized?
  
• Content – What your onsite material is about and how useful it is. What keywords are prominent within your onsite content? How well do articles or posts answer reader intent?
  
• Domain authority – How relevant is the content to your specific industry? Google evaluates your business on Expertise, Authorativeness, and Trustworthiness now more than ever before. Does your site include a thorough about page? Have you provided the site visitor with easy-to-find contact pages and references and external links to sources? Does every article on your blog feature author bylines?

Those represent the tip of the ranking factor iceberg. A robust SaaS SEO strategy accounts for all of them and more. It’s not a simple feat; it takes significant time, effort, and investment. Done well, however, and it’s all worth it for a range of reasons.

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04. Mastering Search Intent: Types of Google Searches

Performing a Google search is something with which we’re all familiar. It’s so run of the mill, in fact, that it’s easy to take it for granted. If you’re already interested in SEO, you won’t fall into that trap, as organic searches are key to your strategy. What you might do, though, is get so caught up with searches that you forget about searchers.

There’s a real person behind every search query, and you should never forget it. Thinking about search volume, keywords, and click-through rates is essential. What’s equally so, is considering and understanding why someone performs the search they do. That’s search intent.

Anyone who types a phrase into Google needs something. They’re looking to the search engine to perform a service on their behalf. Precisely what they need differs, as we’ll cover in a moment. That it’s critical for you to understand their search intent remains the same.

It’s thanks to Google itself that search intent is so vital. The search engine is dedicated to delivering the most relevant results possible. As such, Google’s algorithms can and do recognize the intent behind searches. SERPs only display what searchers want – and need – to see. 

Your content marketing strategy needs to factor this in. That means tailoring pages and content to what those searching for relevant SaaS keywords are after. The first step in this process is to grasp the four principal types of search intent:

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05. Navigating the Funnel: The Importance of SaaS Keyword Research

Learning about search intent is all very well, but what does it have to do with SaaS SEO? That’s a valid question. The answer becomes apparent when you consider the first step to building your SaaS SEO strategy. It’s not performing keyword research, as you might guess. Instead, it’s turning the spotlight on your customers. 

You’re likely familiar with the concept of a marketing funnel. For SaaS companies, they usually look something like this:

 

One of the principal aims of a SaaS brand is to get people into – and moving down – their funnel. Once clients reach the ‘Retention’ area, they’re making the company money. It’s there, therefore, that you want to keep customers for as long as possible.

When it comes to SaaS SEO, the ‘Retention’ section is less important. It’s also worthwhile to reimagine the rest of the funnel somewhat. Don’t think of it as a solid funnel with one opening at the top. Rather, imagine a kind of upturned colander. There are access points on every marketing channel,  letting customers enter it all the way from top to bottom.

 

You might now be starting to see how this lines up with what we discussed about search intent. The different kinds of search intent, after all, fit within the sections of this SaaS SEO funnel.

An informational searcher is looking for solutions to a problem they have. Someone doing an investigational search compares specific products. They might read comparison guides, listen to podcast reviews, or reach out for free trials.

Don’t start the SEO process with the question ‘which search terms must we rank for?’. Instead, ask yourself, ‘who are our potential customers?’. Then, you can consider what they may search for and why. This is how to keep search intent at the front of your mind. 

A tried and true way to better understand your target audience is to build buyer personas. These are fictional representations of your typical customers. They lay out the characteristics that people interested in your products are likely to share. 

In the case of a SaaS brand, you’re likely to need more than one. Your different products or packages will appeal to varied clients, after all. Try to flesh out your personas as much as possible. There are a few different ways you can find useful information:

• Staff Interviews – Ask your team what they know or have noticed about your present customers. 
• Customer Surveys – Get information straight from the horse’s mouth. Ask existing clients if they’d mind sharing some insights with you.
• Data – Your various solutions and platforms will already be packed with information. You can comb your CRM software for details on customer demographics. Google Analytics, meanwhile, can tell you plenty. It will reveal loads about how potential customers interact with your website.

With buyer personas, it’s easier to put yourself in the shoes of prospective customers. You’ll have a better idea of their pain points, and the problems they need solving. As a result, you’ll know the information they require.

 

Understanding the buyer’s journey.

People are a lot less predictable than water. That’s why the analogy of a funnel isn’t perfect for explaining their behavior. It’s also why you must endeavor to map buyer journeys before then lining them up with your marketing funnel. You don’t want to follow a template and assume that all customers take the same routes.

 

Some leads will enter your funnel at the top – they’re at the traditional ‘Awareness’ stage of their journey. These are the people most likely to perform informational searches. They’re aware of a problem or challenge and want to learn how to overcome that issue. 

Other prospects, however, might first encounter your brand later along their journey. They may have learned about say, VoIP,  through a LinkedIn contact or an in-person conversation with a colleague. It might be during further research – when doing investigative searches – that they find your firm.

Finally, some potential customers could jump into your funnel right at the bottom. They’ve completed much of their journey and already know the product that they need to solve their problem. All they’re searching for is the right provider. 

 

Pre-Funnel SEO

Aptly – given the activity’s name – before we talk about SEO at each stage of your funnel, let’s address pre-funnel SEO. Many Scale-up and Enterprise SaaS brands engage in pre-funnel SEO, as it has a range of notable benefits. We’ll mention them a bit later, but first, let’s nail down what this part of SaaS SEO strategy is.

Pre-funnel SEO is when you target keywords and create content to attract a different audience. You’re not looking to snag visitors within your funnel. Instead, you’re reaching out to other persona-qualified traffic. By that, we mean people who match your buyer personas but may not presently want one of your products. They haven’t got a problem you can solve with your SaaS product, but are people you want to connect with.

HubSpot is a prime example of a SaaS brand that leans heavily on pre-funnel SEO. They have a comprehensive and renowned sales and marketing blog. It has great domain authority, and contains varied content that’s certain to interest the brand’s target audience.

 

Far from all the posts, however, relate to HubSpot’s own products. Many of them focus on different areas of sales and marketing entirely. As such, they won’t rank for keywords relevant to the company’s marketing funnel.

What HubSpot knows, though, is that those posts will interest their target audience. As such, the traffic they bring does contain prospective customers. They’re just not ones who will convert in the short term.

There are many benefits to giving pre-funnel SEO a place within your wider SEO strategy:

• Brand Building & Awareness – By growing your persona-qualified traffic, you build your brand. You’re putting your name in front of people who are part of your target audience. That’s even if they’re not on a buying journey right now.
• Growing an Audience – Someone who isn’t a customer can still be a brand advocate. By creating and optimizing content beyond your funnel, you establish yourself as an authority in your field. Doing so can help you build an audience. Members of that audience may then recommend you to others who are interested in your products.
• Overcoming a Lack of Keywords – Depending on your product or niche, there may not be many relevant keywords to target. That limits your possibilities for SEO at any stage of your funnel. The pre-funnel alternative, therefore, is a way to grow your traffic nonetheless.

 

Top of the Funnel SEO

Not all SaaS sites will use pre-funnel SEO. A robust strategy, though, will always contain top of the funnel SEO. This is the work you put in to attract site visitors at the beginning of the buyer journey. You remember, it’s the traffic that will be entering your funnel by the traditional top-down route. 

 

People entering the top of your funnel are aware of a problem or challenge they face. Say they feel they’re paying too much for their business communication solutions. If they don’t have any idea how to solve their issue, they’ll turn to Google. They might search for something like:

• ‘How to get cheaper business communications.’
• ‘How do I cut my commercial communication bills.’
• ‘How to get cheaper communication solutions for my small business.’

They’re trying to learn if there are solutions out there to the pain they’re suffering. This is your opportunity as a SaaS brand to create content that answers their search intent. If you know what potential customers want to know, tailor your content accordingly. You might create pages or posts which focus on:

• Cutting communications bills with a UCaaS solution.
• How unified communications platforms cut costs for small businesses.
• Replacing multiple providers with one UC specialist to shrink your bills.     

 

Keyword research: problem solving keywords.

We’ve touched on the type of content you need for top of the funnel SEO. It’s informational and educational material to help answer prospect’s questions. That will often take the form of blog posts. It can also, however, be pillar pages, FAQs, or other similar sections of your website.

This content must get optimized for the keywords that informational searchers are using. Your research in this area, then, has to focus on the problems those searchers have. Top of the funnel SEO is all about problem solving keywords.

The good news here is that you’ve already got a head start. You built your buyer personas earlier, which tell you your customer’s pain points. You know, therefore, the principal problems your target audience are seeking to solve.

You can arrange what you know simply and easily in a table like that shown above. Lay out the solutions you provide and the particular challenges they can solve. These should be the pain points you identified when building your buyer persona.

Those issues provide your jumping-off point for keyword research. Answering reader intent is critical. So, making sure your content stays tightly focused on the problems at hand is a must. It’s arguably more important than optimization for a particular keyword. You will, however, still want to ID and target search terms.

With your broad topics for content understood, this is more straightforward. Consider each challenge you’ve identified for your target audience. Then, brainstorm the phrases paramount to those issues. You can use any one of many tools to help with this stage of the process, too. Then, add the keywords to the final column of your table.

Middle of the Funnel SEO

Middle of the funnel SEO is particularly crucial to SaaS and other B2B brands. Buyer journeys in the niche are often lengthier than in the B2C world. You’re fairly likely to go online, find a book, skirt, or video game you like, and buy it all in one visit. You’re going to do a lot more research if you’re choosing a communications platform for your small business.

Your middle of the funnel content takes aim at the leads in their consideration phase. Here, your target audience is  aware of both their problem and the available solutions to it. However, they haven’t settled on the tool or product they will choose to meet the challenge.

These searchers are still looking for information but of a more specific kind. General blog content won’t do – at this stage, they’re looking for different categories of products. More than that, they’re assessing those types of solutions against their unique needs. The SEO content you produce for this part of the funnel must align with those objectives.

 

Let’s extend our example of a firm worried about their business communications bills. At the middle of the funnel, they’re aware that a UCaaS platform might solve their problem. Now, they’ll be trying to find out more about those kinds of solutions. Things they may want to know will include:

• What features UCaaS platforms typically include.
• Whether solutions integrate with other software.
• If particular products are better suited to their industry or niche.

Say our fictional small business is in the financial niche. They might enter the middle of your funnel by searching for ‘UCaaS solutions for finance’. It’s those kinds of queries, therefore, that your middle of the funnel content must satisfy. 

Keyword research: product related keywords.

Keyword research for middle of the funnel SEO is mercifully straightforward. Once again, you’ll want to lean on your buyer personas.

This time, focus on different aspects of the personas. You’re interested in their niches and the types of products that may answer their pain points. You should also think about the features of those solutions they won’t be able to do without.

 

Once again, a straightforward table will help you visualize what you know. List out the features that are critical to your target audience. Then, also include the verticals or fields to which they’re most likely to belong.

It should be apparent how, armed with that information, you can ID keywords to target. You’re looking for search terms someone may use when looking for the type of mid-funnel content we discussed above.

From the above table, you can see you may choose to target sales teams. A feature they’d be interested in might be video conferencing solutions. A keyword like ‘Sales team video conferencing’, then, is an apparent target.

 

Bottom of the Funnel SEO

The leads at the bottom of your funnel are very different from those above. These potential customers know all about the types of solutions that could solve their problems. They’re also aware of the precise tools they have to choose from. Ideally, yours will be amongst those. It’s not a given, though, if a prospect joins your funnel here, rather than having traveled down from the top.

Keyword research: comparison & purchase keywords.

Your keyword planning at the bottom of the funnel involves a lot of competitor analysis. First, make a list of all the rivals offering directly competing products. These are the brands for which you can produce comparison content to extoll your product’s virtues.

 

Your next step is to ID brands offering slightly different products. These are tools that aren’t direct competitors to yours but which your target audience may opt to use instead. You can then build content that targets different types of keywords. Things like, ‘How to Choose the Right Business Communications Solutions’, or ‘Jive Voice competitors’.

A third table like that shown above will once again help to organize your research. It will help keep the content you produce and the keywords which it targets well-focused. You could even assign different writers or creatives to different competitors at this stage of the funnel. Whatever it takes to persuade those transactional searchers that you’re the brand for them.

You’ll also want to ID the correct search terms to target with your case studies that also form part of the bottom of the funnel content. A good starting point here is to think about the challenge you helped your client overcome. Perhaps you aided them in reducing call handling time.

 

The story of how, therefore, would be most interesting to prospects facing the same issue. You can then develop a list of keywords they’re likely to use. Such a selection may include things like ‘reduce call handling time with UCaaS’, etc.

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06. Implementing SEO for SaaS

Up to now, we’ve dealt with each part of the SaaS SEO funnel separately. It was important to do so to highlight that your strategy must take each stage into account. Too many SaaS brands make the mistake of only looking to move traffic into the top of the funnel.

Each element of your SaaS SEO strategy, though, doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You want to make your efforts at every stage of the funnel part of a well-rounded overall plan. What you’ve generated through the above steps of our process means you’re well-placed to build one.

Your buyer personas tell you where down the funnel most of your target audience are likely to enter. That reveals which areas deserve most of your attention. You’ll also have a list of content topics and keywords for each section of the funnel. You need just one more thing before you can draw up your strategy.

What that final element is, is an understanding of your existing content. Audit your website and blog to check the subjects and keywords you’ve already got covered. Don’t forget to check the quality of technical SEO aspects too! ID pages that can get better optimized and others you may want to replace. Look at meta descriptions, image alt-texts, and other oft-forgotten details. Then, you can find the glaring gaps in your content compared with the topics and phrases you’ve IDed in your research.

With all that information now at your fingertips, you can build an SEO content creation strategy, including the following:

• Keywords to target at each stage of the funnel.
• General topics and subjects of interest to prospects at each stage.
• The types of content you need to produce for every area.
• Which parts of your funnel on which you should place more emphasis.
• Existing content that can get repurposed or optimized to fit your plan.

 

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07. Technical SEO for SaaS 

Technical SEO is an essential part of any SaaS SEO strategy. It involves optimizing the technical aspects of your website to improve its visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).

There is no overarching trick or secret that will ensure your SaaS website has “perfect” technical SEO. However, implementing a combination of various strategies can greatly enhance your website and put you ahead of the competition. 

Some key technical SEO strategies to include in your overall strategy for SaaS include optimizing site structure, improving page speed, making your site mobile-friendly, securing it with HTTPS, creating and submitting an XML sitemap, managing duplicate content, and optimizing for voice search. By nailing these technical elements, you’ll create a solid foundation for your SaaS website, and improve your chances of ranking well in the SERPs. 

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08. Link Building for SaaS SEO

While not covering every nuance of SaaS SEO, what you’ve learned so far about both the technical and content aspects of SEO will put you in a good position to create a solid strategy for your SaaS business. By focusing on creating high-quality, optimized content and addressing any technical SEO issues on your website, you can set yourself on a path towards dominating the SERPs. However, you won’t get your ranking up with that alone.

Google takes lots into account when ranking websites. The on-site content plays a big part but doesn’t cover every base. One thing you must build into your strategy alongside content creation is link building. Even the highest quality, best-optimized pages won’t rank with no backlinks.

It’s true that people will naturally want to link to outstanding content. You can’t, however, adopt a ‘build it and they will come’ attitude. You must at least get the ball rolling with some active outreach. Yes, horror of horrors, that does mean asking for some links.

Take the SaaS brand, Canva, as an example. They have a remarkable SaaS SEO track record, and building backlinks is a big part of why. In fact, according to ahrefs, the brand has over 14m of them. ! That’s thanks to a shared focus on great content and personalized outreach.

 

Canva employs SEO specialists devoted to growing traffic. Part of their job descriptions is to earn backlinks for the brand’s content. They do so by first identifying blog posts, pages, or other material relevant to their niche. Then, they reach out to the writers or owners of the content to request they include a Canva link.

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09. Maximizing your Strategy: The best SEO SaaS Software & Tools to implement in 2023

The implementation of SaaS-based SEO software and tools can be incredibly beneficial when developing an SEO strategy for your SaaS company. These tools can provide a wealth of information about your website’s performance, the preferences of your audience, and the actions of your fellow competitors in the SERPS.

By utilizing these tools, you can make informed, data-driven decisions that will allow you to enhance your search engine rankings, attract relevant traffic, and improve conversions – all whilst ensuring you stay ahead of the competition.

There are thousands of great SaaS SEO platforms out there that you can easily implement into your SEO strategy today. However, here are a few of the best-rated SEO tools for SaaS that I would personally recommend for optimum growth and success:

Ahrefs:

• Provides a comprehensive analysis of your backlink profile, which is crucial for understanding the quality and quantity of links pointing to your website.
• Allows you to track your keyword rankings, so you can monitor your progress and identify areas where you need to improve.
• Offers a content analysis tool, which can help you optimize your website’s content for search engines by providing suggestions for improvement.

Google Search Console:

• Gives you insights into how your website is performing in search results, including the number of clicks, impressions, and average search position.
• Alerts you to any crawl errors on your website, so you can fix them and ensure that all pages are being properly indexed by Google.
• Allows you to submit your sitemaps, which makes it easier for Google to discover and index all of your pages.

SEMrush:

• Offers a comprehensive suite of SEO and PPC tools, including keyword research, competition analysis, and search engine ranking tracking.
• Helps you analyze your competition by providing insights into their keyword rankings, backlink profile, and advertising strategies.
• Provides a keyword magic tool that makes it easy to find profitable keywords to target in your SEO strategy.

 

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Conclusion

For a SaaS firm, growing online traffic is fundamental to success. The more people you can make aware of your brand and products, the better. A robust SEO strategy is the foundation on which you can build that success. Get your SEO correct, and your other acquisition efforts will also improve.

Getting SaaS SEO right takes time, effort, and investment, but is well worth it. What you must remember throughout is to tailor your work to your potential customers. That starts with understanding who your target audience is. You must then build on that by mapping your buyer’s journey.

From there, you can segment your SaaS SEO funnel to target leads at different stages of that journey. Research what your prospects want, and create optimized content to suit. Make sure to consider searcher intent throughout. Every page or post you build must answer the questions or aims of its targeted readers.

Even the best content needs backlinks to help it rank. That means organized outreach should also play a role in your SaaS SEO. Approaching domains or brands for links can feel daunting. If you’ve got your content creation right, though, it’ll be easier than you think. Writers, editors, and business owners are keen to link to top-class content. It helps their domain as well as yours.

So, there you have it. Everything you could possibly want to know about building the perfect SEO strategy for your SaaS business in 2023, and probably a fair bit more to boot. If that’s whetted your appetite and you do want to learn more about scaling your SaaS brand then book a chat with us.

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