SEO Basics for SaaS Platforms: A Beginner’s Guide
Most of the time, when you think about SEO, your mind likely focuses on keywords and backlinks. While these two aspects are crucial for ranking well in search engines, there’s a lot more that needs to be considered when optimizing your website. SEO for SaaS platforms plays an essential role to rank and get your target audience coming. But before you jump into the technical aspects, you must take a moment to understand the basics.
What is SEO?
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of optimizing and organically ranking your site in search engines such as Google and Bing. Ranking higher means a greater chance to be found by those who are searching for content related to your business.
Two Types of SEO
- On-Page Optimization
On-page optimization is the process of optimizing your website’s content to rank higher in search engines and help it show up on SERPs. This includes ensuring you have a meta title, meta description, page keywords, and headings that accurately describe what your site covers and what each page covers.
- Off-Page Optimization
Off-page SEO strategies involve everything outside your website, such as social media posts or guest blog post links that link back to your business’s site.
You can build links by identifying influential people who would like to share their opinion about something related to your company or industry and reaching out with an offer for them to write a guest post on your blog. It can also be approached by finding opportunities to provide others in your industry with a helpful resource link that would boost their authoritative voice, such as linking to a reference post that describes a particular work/process in detail — content often considered evergreen.
By investing time and resources to strengthen your company’s voice on social media or in guest blogs, you’re adding more “link juice” to your website.
With over 1.8 billion websites online today, competition is tight. Standing out from your competitors isn’t easy. It requires time and investment in the right resources to ensure that you are reaching the right audience at the right time in their buying journey, which is why SEO for SaaS platforms is so crucial.
The Importance of SEO for SaaS Companies
In today’s digital world, it is essential to have a strong web presence. Consumers spend more time looking up companies online rather than traditional methods, such as looking through the phone book. Approximately 63% of all shopping occasions begin online. With an estimated 1.8 billion people shopping online, you must take all the necessary steps to stay ahead of your competition.
To stay competitive with so many other businesses vying for both customers and attention, you need your company’s website to rank highly in search engines. Placement matters significantly when it comes to which link a consumer will click on. Research shows that, on average, the first organic (non-sponsored ad) result on Google has an average click rate of 28.5%, with the click rate for each following result dropping quite significantly. For instance, the second organic search result averages a click rate of only 15.7%, while the third result averages only about 11%. Once you get down to the tenth result, the average click rate is a dismal 2.5%.
Wondering how SEO for SaaS companies can help you achieve better rankings and click rates? Here’s how.
Drives Traffic to Your SaaS Platform
Search engine optimization aims to help your platform be found by those in need of a solution to a particular pain point.
There are several effective ways that SEO can drive traffic to your SaaS website, including:
Inbound Links (driving users from other platforms):
By “other platforms” this could mean through link placement on other industry websites or by placing links on your various social media platforms to help guide consumers to your website.
Internal Links (driving users within your platform):
These links are found within your brand’s website and help guide visitors to specific pages. For example, if you’re offering consumers a cloud storage solution, you may post a blog on the benefits of cloud storage. You can cleverly link to your product in that blog by using a keyword such as “cloud storage software.”
Content Marketing:
Content marketing is a powerful way to help drive traffic through SEO. You can create a vast array of content, such as webinars, blog posts, or white papers on topics related to your SaaS platform, and then share it via your social media platforms, email subscription services, etc.
Social Media:
Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are great places for brands with business pages where you can post links back to your site and share your content.
When it comes to driving traffic to your SaaS platform, there are dozens of viable options. And when you combine these methods with proper SEO optimization practices, it is much easier for the right people to find your particular product/solution.
Increases Organic Brand Awareness
Organic brand awareness simply refers to brand awareness that is generated without spending on paid advertisements or social media sponsored posts. Research has proven that organic traffic is more valuable than paid advertising, as it tends to be of higher quality and relatively cheaper.
It’s considered cheaper because, once you start implementing proper SEO best practices, your content does much of the heavy lifting for you. As long as your top-performing content is updated regularly to stay relevant, your organic traffic will continue to grow over time.
As for higher quality leads, SEO for SaaS companies ensures that only the most relevant audience comes across your products and solutions. When SEO is implemented correctly, your targeted keywords and authoritative content will draw in those who are ready to take action, which converts to those who are ready to buy now. How? These individuals know what their pain point is, and they already have an idea of the perfect solution — they just need convincing. If you’ve got the data to back up your authoritative claims, then you’re more likely to attract a buyer rather than someone who’s “just looking.”
Decreases Dependency on Paid Advertisements
While paid advertisements and sponsored posts have their place in any good marketing strategy, more and more brands are looking to move away from paid advertisements, and for a good reason.
Sure, while a vast majority of search results that appear at the top of Google or Bing are marked as “ads,” they don’t receive the same amount of attention as organically placed pages that rank in the first and second slots following those paid advertisements. Studies show that approximately 80% of internet users choose to ignore paid ads in search results and that organic SEO is nearly 5.7% times better than paid search ads as far as overall effectiveness is concerned.
Increases Your Domain Authority
One of the primary benefits of SEO is that, when implemented correctly, it can help you increase your domain authority.
Domain Authority, or DA for short, refers to a number assigned by Google and Bing that reflects how authoritative you are in a specific industry. The higher your DA score, the more traffic your site is likely to see. The more your visitors trust the information and content you provide them with, the more likely they will be to invest in your products or services.
Increases Your Brand’s Authority
It’s important to note that your domain authority doesn’t always translate into your brand authority.
Think of it this way, your brand’s authority is more or less its reputation amongst your audience. Just because your DA may be high due to frequent backlinking or mentions online doesn’t necessarily mean that your brand’s authority is doing wonderful. This is why you want to make sure you are monitoring where your backlinks are happening, what’s being said about your brand, etc.
Of course, both on-page and off-page SEO can increase your brand’s authority when implemented correctly. With proper keyword research, proper data to back up all claims, and an adequate online presence, it will be much easier to establish yourself as an expert in your field and provide visitors with the information they are searching for.
This also means that potential new clients will be much more likely to trust your company, which leads them to be more willing to invest in what you have available for purchase or sign up for one of your services.
Aids with Lead Generation
Finally, SEO for SaaS platforms can increase your overall lead generation significantly. SEO boosts your rankings in search engines, which means that you’ll have a much greater chance of appearing on the first page. This leads to more visitors clicking through and engaging with your site, as well as an increased conversion rate for any online purchases or subscriptions.
As you build your website DA and your brand’s authority, those who already trust you as an authoritative figure will be more likely to suggest your brand when others are in search of similar products or services.
SEO Basics for SaaS Platforms
With a solid understanding of what SEO is and how it is beneficial for SaaS companies, it’s time to start with the basics.
Keyword Research is Crucial
Keyword research is an integral part of SEO, and without it, your business may not see the success you want. Keywords can help you determine the language that audiences are using to search for a product or service like yours, which in turn gives insight into what they’re looking for. Your keyword selection should also align with how people will use your sites, such as search queries, user journeys, and site content.
Content is Key
This may seem rather obvious, but it’s something that many brands, believe it or not, still struggle with. The saying “Content is King” has stuck around for a reason. Without content, you have nothing to optimize. However, you don’t want to spit out the same nonsense over and over again. That can hurt your DA and brand authority right off the bat.
The key is to be publishing original content regularly. Consumers today are bombarded with advertisements, marketing messages, and other distractions all day long. It’s easy to lose their attention these days — make sure your brand is doing its best to keep them engaged.
Internal and External Linking is an Absolute Must
It’s important to remember that SEO isn’t just about the keywords you’re selecting — it’s also about how other pages are linked within your website. You want to make sure every page on your website has a unique link structure so Google can crawl through all of your content and rank the pages accordingly.
This is another reason why your keyword research is so important. When building your site’s linking structure, you’ll want to use your primary and secondary keywords as anchor text for your links to other pages on your site. Doing so will help you establish a seamless link structure that Google can follow when crawling through your site.
You also want to make sure you include authoritative outbound links to other websites as well. Linking to other sites that are related to your business can help show your audience that you know how to do extensive research and identify authoritative figures within your industry/niche. This helps you build your DA and your brand’s authoritative voice as well, which will help you establish a trusting relationship with your audience.
Topic and Link Relevancy is Important as Well
Unfortunately, when it comes to topic creation and keyword research, many brands simply look for what’s trending and attempt to create shareworthy content that will be swept up in the viral tides.
The problem here is that your content and the content you choose to link to must be relevant to your particular audience.
If you’re in the kitchen appliance industry, and you start talking about Nicki Minaj because her name is currently trending on Google with over 200K searches — your audience is going to think you are a hot mess. What does Nicki Minaj have to do with selling kitchen appliances?
Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t get creative in your content and use her name in an article referring to kitchen appliances that celebrities love or something of that nature. But the key is to ensure you are making the content you publish highly relevant to your reader, not to the public.
After all — you can’t sell to everyone, right?
4 Tips for Improving Your SaaS Website’s SEO
Already have your website up and running? Then you’ll want to check out these four tips for improving the SEO for your SaaS platform:
1. Write for the Reader, Not the Search Engine
To rank high on Google and other search engines, it’s important that your content is not only well-written but also highly relevant. Speaking about topics closely related to what you offer — or close to the heart of your brand — will help readers find exactly what they’re looking for when using a search engine while helping improve rankings in general.
You also want to maintain a tone that will relate to your potential customers. This may mean that you want to avoid using a lot of jargon, acronyms, or industry-specific language in your content and instead use more layman’s terms that are easier for the average reader to understand.
2. Complete the Meta Information for Each Page
Whether you’re adding new pages to your website or updating old pages, you want to make sure you are completing the meta information for each page you have. That means taking the time to enter your meta title and a short description of your article where necessary — but ensuring that they are properly optimized with the focus keyword of your piece.
3. Use Keywords Within Subheaders
Keyword placement is crucial in creating content that performs well. You not only want to include it in your meta information, but you also want to optimize your subheaders with both your focus keyword and relevant synonymous keywords as well. Remember, you want to make sure that the keywords are used naturally and not just blatantly thrown into your content.
Consider how people might search for information on the topic of SEO basics — they may type “SEO basics” or “How does SEO work?” So, it’s important to include those phrases within your subheaders if appropriate.
However, you want to be careful about keyword stuffing, which simply refers to using your focus keyword too much or unnaturally throughout your piece. This is considered black hat SEO and can result in a penalty from search engines.
4. Update Old Content with Fresh Information
SEO isn’t meant to be a one-and-done deal. If you already have an established website, you’ll want to revisit your old content and update it with fresh information instead of throwing it out.
This allows you to use your old content and give it new life, all while helping you establish yourself as an industry expert and providing value to your audience. It also enables you to avoid topic cannibalization, which is repeating information on multiple places on your site, resulting in possible penalties from search engines for unoriginal content.
Address Your SEO Needs with CadenceSEO
At CadenceSEO, we know that SEO is crucial for any SaaS website. We also understand how difficult it can be to find the right person or company to manage your SEO strategy. That’s why our team of experts is ready and waiting to partner with you on a plan that will grow your business through various digital marketing efforts!
Ready to jumpstart the SEO for your SaaS website? Schedule your free consultation today!
