With over 30,000 SaaS companies worldwide, making your online presence known can be a whole science. In this highly competitive market, capitalizing on SEO for SaaS companies is the key to organic growth. Here’s what SEO can do so your business gets the visibility it very much deserves.
How Important Is SEO in a SaaS Business?
Last year alone, nearly 700 SaaS (Software as a Service) companies were founded. The industry is expanding like a viral video – only, it seems like we won’t forget about this one anytime soon.
The SaaS market is on track to reach 908 billion by 2030, and the competition is becoming increasingly fierce. In this growing whirlwind, it takes a lot to keep your finger on the pulse of digital marketing trends and grow your business at the same time.
The good news is that investing in an SEO (search engine optimization) strategy can do wonders for the presence your company creates online. The right strategy can be the difference between soaring above the competition or staying hidden in the cyber shadows instead.
What Are the Benefits of SEO Marketing for SaaS Companies?
You’ve got a good product on the market, working to resolve a specific problem. It’s a comprehensive solution, one that deserves an equally comprehensive strategy to get it out there. After all, you and your team have put a lot of effort into this software. Why let all of it go to waste by skipping on the benefits SEO can add to the mix? Here’s where search engine optimization truly shines:
- Boosting rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs), which improves online visibility and gets people to your website organically,
- Enhancing the overall website structure, which is great for both engaging your potential customers and improving ranking,
- Improving lead generation, which means a good SEO strategy will not only help people reach your app but also increase the chances they’ll buy it,
- Helping you assert your company as a thought leader in the industry, further building trust and authority among your potential customers,
- Creating organic growth over a longer period, unlike the short-term pay-per-click (PPC) advertising strategies, which last only as long as you’re willing to pay.
SEO for SaaS Companies Can Solve Some Unique Challenges This Industry Poses
Nobody likes to wait, and sometimes, SaaS SEO can take its sweet time. Because of that, plenty of marketers and owners try to take a shortcut with Google Ads and similar PPC platforms. It makes perfect sense – your software will get the chance to appear at the very top of search results.
However, the click-through rate (CTA) of the first shown ad is only 2.1%, while the first organic result gets a 39.8% slice of the search engine pie. What does this mean? Well, most people ignore ads and scroll further to find what they are looking for – you’ve probably done the same thing before. It just goes to show that no matter how much advertising is intertwined with our daily lives, quality content always comes on top.
SaaS Has Longer Sales Cycles – Here’s How SEO Can Help
According to HubSpot, the average sales cycle lasts 84 days when it comes to buying SaaS products. Unlike those impulsive shopping sprees, investing in software entails a long decision-making process – as it rightfully should. A lot of research, comparing, and scrolling goes into the whole ordeal.
During this time, it’s good to pop up here and there, staying at the front of your potential customers’ minds. This will show that you’re a trusted source for an app that will solve a particular problem they have, bringing consistent growth for your business over time. And that is what SEO is all about.
Quality Content Can Make Your Company Stand out From the Crowd
A good SEO strategy always starts with keyword research but goes well beyond just implementing them into product pages and hoping for the best. Let’s say you’re targeting the keyword “software for selling online”. You’ll see that most of the results from the first page aren’t product pages – they’re blog posts, reviews, lists, and comparisons.
This brings us to a crucial strategy – content marketing. In most industries, business owners are just starting to realize how important it is to invest in quality content – simply put, it draws people in. With SaaS companies, in particular, a blog page can be as rare as flawless Wi-Fi at a tech conference. Capitalizing on this wave of opportunities that others are missing out on can be a great way to reach the right audience.
Intent-Inspired Content Is the Way To Go
One of the biggest perks of working with an experienced SEO marketing agency is the fact that you’ll be getting quality, in-depth content, no matter the niche your company is in. It’s a great upper hand you can hold over your competitors, showing thought leadership and brand authority.
A good content writing agency goes beyond mere keywords and narrows down what your intended audience actually wants when they’re googling something. This depends on where they are exactly in the buying cycle, and as we’ve mentioned, it usually takes a long time to reach that final decision.
Quality Link Building Improves Thought Leadership and Trust for Your App
Internal links are great, but backlinks are the stars of the show when it comes to ranking on Google. This is especially effective when you’re trying to find your place in the global market with your software. It’s fairly simple – the more quality links you get from other respected websites, the more trust you’ll get from the algorithm that’s always on the lookout for authentic content.
Fortunately, there are so many link-building avenues SaaS brands like yours can explore. Creating content meant to be shared, establishing partnerships, publishing reports, running surveys, and guest blogging – the possibilities are endless.
A Well-Structured Website Can Boost Both User Experience and Rankings
No one sees a chaotic mess of a website and decides to stick around for more, especially when it’s filled with intricate topics concerning your SaaS product. A visually appealing and well-structured website is a feast for the eyes, no doubt. Letting your company’s site talk the HTML (HypertText Markup Language) fluently will help the crawling bots understand the content and purpose behind your brand.
As Google’s crawling bots travel through the web, jumping from one webpage to another, they are doing their best to understand your content and the story behind your brand. This process can be facilitated with the help of the sitemap file and robots.txt file, the secret weapons of technical SEO.
A sitemap helps display your website’s structure, speeding up the process of page indexing, while the robots.txt file helps point out the pages that shouldn’t be indexed, helping the bots stay clear of those dreaded “Error 404” pages. Together, these files make the whole crawling ordeal that much more efficient, ultimately having a ripple effect on your ranking prowess.
Don’t Overlook the Importance of Responsive Design and Page Speed
Desktop, tablet, or mobile – we all have our preferences for the daily scroll. Google has a mobile-first indexing philosophy, but that doesn’t mean your web pages should be optimized for this alone.
A good SEO agency for SaaS companies will consider all three, making sure all of your potential customers can easily reach what they’re looking for, no matter the device they’re tapping on. After all, when you’re trying to sell software, the last thing you want is for your visitors to scramble through the website, zooming in and out, trying to read about what you’re offering.
This World Is Built on Speed of Information – Your Website Should Reflect That
People don’t like maneuvering a cluttered website, and they especially don’t like waiting around for it to load. These days, it’s all about instant gratification – getting the info you need, fast. Statistics show that around 40% of users dip out if a page takes longer than three seconds, and nearly 70% of them feel like site speed influences whether or not they’ll buy the product.
A speedy website is a must-have for several reasons, and it’ll further improve your chances of ranking. An experienced website development agency will help you create a quick, mobile-friendly website. With it, both users and the crawling bots will have an easier (and more engaging) time on your company’s site. Here, every second counts, so make sure you make the best of it.
Our Organic SEO Agency Can Help Your Business Reach the Ranking It Deserves
From writing quality, in-depth blogs to optimizing your website for crawling efficiency, a good SEO digital marketing agency can bring it all together. Contact us today at Made Online to book your free SEO consulting for SaaS companies. Let’s talk about how we can help you grow your business by boosting your online presence and attracting clicks that can mean something in the real world too. If you believe in your product, let’s help other people believe in it too!