If you’ve dipped your toes in the world of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), you’re probably familiar with the standard advice which is write good content, use popular keywords and get other websites to link back to you. That playbook works great for a local bakery or a clothing brand or a normal blog. However, if you’re running a SaaS (Software as a Service) company, that traditional advice is a recipe for a flat line in growth.
SaaS SEO is a whole different beast. You’re not selling a one-off physical product like a pair of shoes, you’re selling a software subscription that continues. Your customers need to know what your tool does, believe it solves their specific pain point and be convinced month after month. Your SEO strategy has to be unique because the business model is unique.
Move Beyond High Volume Keywords
In traditional SEO, people chase after keywords with the highest search volume per month. But in SaaS, a keyword that gets only 100 searches a month can be worth thousands of dollars more than a keyword with 50,000 searches.
The secret is understanding Search Intent, the why behind what someone is typing into google. SaaS keywords are generally in 3 distinct buckets and you need to target them differently.
Top Of Funnel
Informational Intent: User asks “how to coordinate team tasks”. They don’t even know your software exists yet. They’ve got a problem. You write a useful blog post to help them manage their tasks.
Intent To Compare
The user is comparing. They Google “Asana vs. Monday.com” or “best project management tools for remote teams.” They are shopping actively.
Transactional Intent
The user searches for your software name + “pricing,” “free trial,” or “sign up.” They are at the finish line with a credit card in hand. Normal blogs are at the very top of the funnel. The final SaaS playbook is to focus on the middle and bottom of the funnel first. Those users are ready to buy right now.
Nail The Product Led Content Strategy
One big mistake that SaaS companies make is disconnecting their product from their blog. They write generic articles about industry trends and slap a random pop up ad at the end asking the reader to try their software. This hardly ever works.
However, winning SaaS companies use Product-Led Content. So, your software is embedded directly into the article as the natural solution to the problem you are discussing.
If your company sells automated invoice software, you wouldn’t just write a blog post called “Tips for Small Business Accounting”. Or, create a post called “How to Automatically Track Overdue Client Invoices.” In the article you display screenshots and step-by-step instructions showing exactly how your tool does this in two clicks.
You’re not a pushy salesman, you’re giving the user a live demo of how your software solves the very headache they just searched for on Google.
Create Comparison And Alternative Pages
SaaS buyers are highly research driven. They will check out your competitors before they convince their boss to buy a new software subscription. If you don’t control the narrative of how you compare to your competitors, your competitors (or third party review sites) will. Which is why building Alternative and Versus pages are a must-play in the SaaS playbook.
Develop dedicated pages on your website for keywords such as:
- Other than
- Compared To
Be fair, honest and objective on these pages. Break down where your competitor is good but make sure to emphasise exactly where your software is the better choice whether it’s specific features, pricing models or target audiences. You’re bringing in highly qualified traffic on these pages that is right at the point of making a purchase decision.
Traditional SEO vs SaaS SEO
To see why you need a different strategy, look at how the core focus differs between a traditional content website and a SaaS business:
The old-school SEO playbook is all about maximising the total volume of traffic and ad impressions, so content creators are obsessed with high-volume informational keywords and broad viral topics. Success is usually measured by simple counts of page views and clicks.
The SaaS SEO playbook’s end game is to drive product sign ups, free trials and recurring revenue. That means you need to target specific product features, comparison keywords and high intent terms. Success is not just traffic but tracking product demos booked and cost of customer acquisition.
The Power Of Programmatic SEO For Features
If your software serves multiple industries, use cases or integrations, trying to write a separate blog post for each one could take years. And this is where Programmatic SEO comes in.
Programmatic SEO is the creation of a high number of quality landing pages using a templated approach and database. For example, if you have a scheduling app, you might create a database that automatically generates optimised pages for:
- Dentists Scheduling software
- Personal trainer software schedule
- Tutor scheduling software
By creating clean, useful templates that can dynamically swap out the industry name and specific use case data, you can target hundreds of long-tail niche keywords at the same time, giving you massive search engine coverage with minimal manual writing.
