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Every SaaS marketer or owner wants to grow their business. You can measure that growth using a variety of metrics such as organic traffic, qualified leads generated and conversion rate. These metrics can be boosted by SEO.
SaaS SEO can increase brand awareness and help you generate qualified leads. SEO is a powerful marketing strategy for software companies.
Source: Uplift Content
SaaS SEO refers to the process of Increasing organic traffic Your SaaS website can be enhanced with technical enhancements, on-page and off-page. Let’s take a look at each step:
- On-page SEO: Optimizing content, keywords and internal links. Images and HTML tags.
- Off-page SEO: Backlink building, guest content posting, promotion on social media, listing on relevant platforms (e.g. Google Places)
- Technical SEO Optimizing page speed, site structure and indexation.
This article will summarize SaaS SEO into three pillars which will help you rank higher.
1. Keyword Research
Keyword research is a critical step in any SEO campaign. This applies not only to SaaS companies. A successful keyword research process is key to a successful campaign.
This process allows you to identify the keywords that your target audience searches for when they search for information related to your software.
SaaS SEO requires more keyword research than other industries. Consider e-commerce as an example. Online stores will only target keywords that have the highest buyer intent. These stores will also include target keywords in product descriptions. E-Commerce stores do not usually have blogs.
However, a comprehensive keyword list is essential for a SaaS business. It will be used to track the customer journey. This is because SaaS companies need to be able to use content marketing, and blogging in particular. To rank higher in search engines and attract more qualified traffic to your blog, you will need to optimize it for the correct keywords.
Thanks to the availability of many SEO tools, keyword research can be quite simple. Ahrefs and Moz as well as SEMrush and Ubbersuggest can be used to help you find target keywords.
Source: Ahrefs
There are many ways to approach keyword research. You can start by typing your target keyword, and then search for similar keywords. Or you can reverse-engineer the SEO of your competitor.
These tools allow you to enter the URL of your competitor into the search field and see which keywords they rank for. The dashboard will also show you the featured snippets of your competitor and the keywords they are bidding for in paid search campaigns.
The first step in the keyword research process is to create a list. Next, you need to discover the search intent behind these keywords.
If you Start a businessIt is crucial to understand the factors that influence organic searches. Only by identifying the search intent can you create content that ranks higher and retains site visitors.
There are four types of search intent.
- Navigational. The user is searching for a particular website, such as “HubSpot CRM” and “Slack login”.
- Transactional. The user is looking to buy something. You may search for “buy”, “coupons”, or “discounts”. You could search for “HubSpot CRM Discounts” or “Slack Coupon Codes.”
- Informational. A user is looking for specific information about a subject. For example, “how can I improve customer relations and relations” or “how can I increase remote team productivity”. Informational keywords can be used to attract organic leads into your marketing funnel.
- Commercial. Although the search query indicates intent to purchase, it doesn’t indicate that the user has made a decision. You could search for “best CRM software” or “HubSpot CRM versus Zoho CRM.”
How can you determine the intent of a keyword’s search? Search the keyword in Google to see the organic content that ranks for it.
If you search for “best CRM software”, you will notice that product comparisons are the most common ranking pages. This is because the keyword has commercial intent. To target this keyword, you will need to make a product comparison guide.
2. SEO-Friendly Blog Posts
Every SaaS company should have SEO-friendly blogs. This is your best chance to introduce prospects to your sales funnel, and nurture them beyond their first subscription or free trial. You’re not only trying to get that first subscription. Your marketing efforts will return a positive ROI if you can reduce churn and keep users signed up.
Blog posts that are SEO-friendly must be visible Expertise and Authoritativeness (EAT). Google’s algorithm uses EAT to determine if a website or piece of content is worth enough to rank among the best results.
You can ensure that your content meets this demand by creating high-quality content that is helpful for your readers. You must also provide links to other credible and useful resources. It must also be regularly updated.
Invite authority figures to post guest posts on your website. This will help you build a good reputation for your website.
SEO friendly writing blog posts Optimizing your content to be found on search engines also includes optimizing it. These are some tips to help you get started:
- Your primary keyword should be included in your title, meta descriptions, headers, and footers.
- In your introduction and conclusion, include your primary keyword.
- Use headings and/or subheadings (H1,H2, H3).
- You should ensure that your blog posts don’t compete for the same keywords (also known keyword cannibalization).
- Include links from both internal and outside sources in your blog posts.
These are just a few of the many ways you can include visuals in your blog content. Rich text is a favorite of Google and is a great way for your blog pages to stand out and keep users interested.
While optimizing blog posts for search engines is important, humans will still consume the content. Don’t forget to make your posts SEO-friendly. This can lead to poor user experience. Instead, scan your content to ensure readability. Use rephrasing instruments To ensure that your content is relevant to your intended audience.
3. High-Quality Links
SaaS SEO is incomplete without link-building. You want to get backlinks from sites you trust. high domain authority. This tells Google your content is trustworthy. SEO tools such as Ahrefs and Moz can be used to check the domain authority for a site that you are looking to link with.
Link-building for SaaS can be easier than for other industries and e-commerce, mainly because SaaS companies invest in quality blogging. It is much easier for other websites to link to your valuable content than online stores without any blog content. To secure backlinks, you need to produce quality content.
These SEO tools can help you determine which websites to target with your link-building outreach. Simply analyze the URL of a competitor and look at the websites that link to it.
Source: Ahrefs
How do you create backlinks? These are the best link-building strategies:
- For a backlink to you site, write high-quality guest posts on authority sites.
- Publishing credible research and case studies is a good idea. Other websites will want to link to them.
- Create and offer free tools. You will get a backlink from other websites if they link to your tools.
- Local citations For your business.
- Ask your target websites to analyze broken backlinks and replace them with yours.
You should also monitor your backlinks so that you don’t attract links from spammy sites.
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This is how you do SEO for SaaS. First, identify your target keywords. Next, create high quality content that is both SEO-friendly and user-friendly. To boost your rankings, create high-quality backlinks.
SEO is a long-term endeavor. SEO takes time to show results. It is good to know that SEO results can increase ROI significantly.
More resources on SEO Strategy for SaaS Businesses
Five Powerful Tips on PPC for SaaS Companies
Your B2B Website Powerpage: Seven Must-Have Ingredients
Garrett Mehrguth, Marketing Smarts: How to Position Your B2B brand for Search [Podcast]