Software as a Service businesses live online. Therefore, to attract new customers and build trust with them, they need to invest more in building a solid website.
Your SaaS website is your online ID. It stands for your brand’s credibility and professionalism, inspiring a customer to choose you over your competitors.
Still, just building an exceptional website is not enough.
The number of SaaS businesses is constantly rising and, to increase your rankings and drive more traffic to your site, you need to have a solid SEO strategy to back you up.
Target keywords that will make you findable
Exact-match keyword phrases worked in the past, helping sites win top rankings in the SEPRs.
Unfortunately, this practice isn’t profitable anymore.
Namely, we’re living in the mobile-first era, where more and more users are utilizing voice search to find stuff on the internet. And, they use natural language when interacting with search engines.
Precisely because of that, when ranking sites, Google switched from specific keywords and started focusing on in-depth content and the context behind it. This is why you need to focus on targeting conversational, long-tail keywords.
So, in addition to popular keyword research tools give you detailed insights into your keywords, you should also leverage Google’s “Autocomplete” and “People also Search for,” F&Q sites, and social networks.
These are all invaluable resources of long-tail keywords you should use.
These resources also help you understand search intent. In other words, you need to know what kind of results a user wants to get once they google a certain search phrase.
Do they want to make a purchase or to simply get information? Only by breaking your keywords up into separate buckets will you make sure that they match your searchers’ intent and increase your traffic and conversions.
Conduct a Technical Audit of your Site
How many times have you clicked on an awesome piece of content and seen the notorious “Oops, something went wrong” error message? Technical website issues impact user experiences, hurting the overall reputation of your site and its rankings.
This is something you want to avoid. And, to identify errors in your site’s code and fix them efficiently, you need to run regular technical SEO audits.
Now, every solid technical audit consists of several stages, including checking:
- Your website speed can be easily checked with the help of tools like Google’s Speed Test. Some of the simplest steps to speed up your site are to minify your code and reduce the number of resources, optimize and reduce image size without harming their quality, minimize the number of redirects, use caching, and leverage file compression.
- The overall functionality of your site, including checking the crawlability of your resources, verifying your indexed content, setting up 301 redirects properly after your site’s migration, checking blocked resources, reviewing your sitemap, using HTTPS, testing the user-friendliness of your URL structure.
- Content optimization includes finding and replacing broken images, auditing internal links, finding and replacing duplicate content, using structured data, and checking whether the number of on-page links is optimal.
The mistakes you make at the website development stage can hurt your SEO efforts in multiple ways. They lead to greater bounces, as well as affect users’ interaction with your site, the time they spend on your site, and their conversions.
These are all important signals that tell Google that your website doesn’t meet your target audience’s needs. Consequently, your rankings in the SERPs will plummet and, parallel with them, your online exposure and traffic will suffer.
Create Exceptional Content
Targeting the right keywords is just half the job done. The other half creating powerful content around them.
Your blog is a place where people don’t expect to read self-promotional articles about your business. They expect you to inform them about the latest industry trends, keep them engaged, teach them something new, and help them solve specific problems.
For you, this is a great opportunity to prove how reliable and experienced you are. If you’re just starting out, then invest in your blogging consistency. Establish your own tone of voice and publish your content regularly.
Most importantly, each piece of content you publish needs to be relevant to your target audience, well-researched and backed up with relevant facts and data.
To keep your users engaged, you don’t have to limit yourself to articles solely. There is a bunch of other forms of content that will nicely resonate with your readers, including:
- Infographics
- Comprehensive guides
- Industry news
- List posts
- Q&A with industry experts
- Podcasts
- Videos
- Personal success stories
- Product releases
Visual and interactive content types are more shareable and linkable and, as such, they drive greater traffic to your site.
Focus on Converting Visitors into Leads
Increasing your website traffic means nothing if it doesn’t bring value to your brand. Your goal is to connect with your customers and convert them into your leads.
Only this way will you be able to build stronger relationships with them and get them to remember your brand.
Now, one of the most powerful tactics to increase your leads is to create awesome lead magnets. These are usually extremely valuable pieces of content like detailed checklists, eBooks, whitepapers, comprehensive guides, various templates, case studies, and so forth.
Logically, to download them, a user first needs to fill out a form on your site.
Creating such valuable content requires lots of research and time investments. Precisely because of that, you need to back your content up with some additional lead generation tactics that work for your customers.
For example, one of the most powerful ways to generate B2B leads is to build a chatbot on your site. These powerful conversational tools will provide real-time customer assistance, irrespective of a visitor’s time zone.
Receiving the desired information in a highly pleasant environment, without having to wait on the phone or fill out boring forms, your customers will be more likely to give you the information you need.
Off-Page SEO to Earn Authoritative Backlinks
Off-page SEO is the basis of your business. And, the idea behind it is simple – to promote your site on highly authoritative sites in your niche and earn a backlink from them.
As backlinks are still among Google’s top ranking signals, these practices may significantly boost your rankings. Above all, they will build trust with your potential customers and help you position yourself as a truly credible online resource.
Now, here are a few off-page SEO tactics every SaaS business should use:
Business Directories
Business directories are places where users can find relevant information about your company. Even though they’re far more important to local business, but they can also be valuable for your SaaS business.
When registering on these platforms, always ensure you include relevant data and that your NAP (name, address, phone number) information is consistent across multiple platforms.
In addition to most popular online directories like Angie’s List, Glassdoor, or BBB, you should pay special attention to SaaS directories like G2Crowd, Capterra, Trustpilot, SaaS Genius, etc. These are some great places to explain what your software is about, describe its main features and pricing options and, most importantly, link back to your SaaS website.
Forums and Q&A Platforms
Users still rely on their peers’ experiences when investing in a solid piece of software. So, leaving a link on reputable forums and Q&A sites may increase your brand exposure and get more people to visit your site.
Always make sure that the forum is relevant to your niche and find threads that are looking for solutions relevant to your software.
Remember, being present on these sites is not all about building links. On the contrary, you need to bring value to your potential customers and give them a reason to click on your link.
Roundups Of Softwares In Your Niche
Many bloggers in your industry are already writing extensively about SaaS solutions similar to yours and your goal is to reach out to them, inform them about your software, and ask them whether they would be interested in adding it to the next update of their list.
If they find it valuable, they will certainly be eager to do so. And, even if you don’t get a link, you will still earn lots of free publicity and boost your traffic.
Guest Blogging
This is still the most powerful way to build links. Sure, to get the most out of guest blogging, you need to invest lots of effort into finding the right blogs and creating exceptional content for them.
When assessing a guest blogging opportunity, always make sure that they’re targeting the same audiences, check their rankings and domain authority, and audit the quality of their posts.
Gaining a link from a spammy, low-quality site may only hurt your rankings.
If the site meets your standards, then see what kind of content they publish, what their tone of voice is, and try to create a highly relevant, data-backed piece that resonates with their audiences. Only this way will you be able to earn quality links and be perceived as a quality information source.
Over to You
For SaaS companies, customer acquisition and conversion happen online.
This is exactly why you need to build a functional and responsive website and optimize it for search engines. With the help of a solid SEO strategy, you will not only rank higher in the SERPs, but also manage to drive qualified traffic to your site, convert this traffic into leads, and increase customer conversions.
Most importantly, seeing you as an authoritative online resource, users will keep coming back for more tips, as well as share your posts and link to them.
