Keyword research is the foundation of any successful SaaS SEO strategy.

Our keyword research process always starts with reviewing your business model, product features, target customer, and your customer’s JTBD (jobs to be done). 

It’s crucial that we don’t start from a place of keyword specific data points since all of your competitors have access to that same data. What will set you apart and result in an ROI positive campaign, will be your uniqueness approach to solving customer problems. 

Once we’ve identified what you do best and who you do it for, we’ll go through an analysis of keyword volume, difficulty, competitive landscape, your existing content strategy, resources we have at our disposal, and the search engine results pages themselves to determine which keyword opportunities you have the right to own. 

“Right to own” is both a quantitative and  qualitative process that all of our SaaS SEO strategists have been trained to calculate before we write a single word of content or update a single page title. 

Even if you find relevant keywords that you think have good volume and low difficulty (the traditional lazy way of thinking in SEO), you’ve still got to consider so much more to determine what’s worth spending money on for your campaign:

• What is your existing topical authority on the subject?
• Do you have access to an SME in house that can speak to the topic as an expert?
• Do the SERPS return content types that we can produce in scope?
• How many referring domains do our competitors have on average to the top ranking content assets?
• What is our time to value likely to be? How much work will we have to do to start seeing the content make significant gains?

All that and more should go into selection of your keywords prior to any implementation. A few rounds of gathering data, analysis, discussion, and strategic planning can be the difference between success and lighting your money on fire.

No solid SEO strategy has ever been built in a hurry. Every successful keyword optimization effort was built on the back of thorough planning.

Yes, SEO is extremely important for SaaS companies. If you want to improve your organic sourced ARR at any point in the future, then you’ll need solid SEO foundations to get you there. Unlike outsourced SDRs or paid ads, SEO takes time to build authority and capture demand from your right to own keyword targets. So it’s not only important to do, but crucial that you get started as soon as possible if you have the desire for it to be a winning marketing channel in the near future.

We’re obviously biased, but for many of our clients, working with an agency like ours is their best bet for building the correct foundations and scaling their organic growth.

That being said, it depends on the agency in question and your unique situation. If you have a team of 40 marketing FTEs, 5 of which are trained SEO strategists who are already generating a positive return on investment, and all you need is a few more blog posts per month, then an agency isn’t necessary. SaaS SEO agencies come in all kinds of different flavors in 2024.

Here’s a great resource on how to identify the ways an agency can help and how to find the right one for you.

Google ads and SEO can be a match made in heaven when done correctly.

We believe that Google Ads can be used to scale lead generation and new customer acquisition from your SaaS website if you have a firm grasp on the following:

• Target customer profile
• Target customer Jobs To Be Done
• Content and messaging defined for each stage of the customer journey
• Most lucrative bottom of funnel keyword targets identified and validated

You can then deploy your Google Ads campaign to more rapidly test the performance of those keywords, landing page copy, landing page templates, and more. While that’s going on, you can work to improve your organic visibility for those same terms so you can shift budget from paid to organic over time.

SaaS SEO differs from ecommerce, local business, and even professional services SEO for a few key reasons:

1. There is a high degree of competition from business directories and review aggregators for lucrative keywords. These sites are hard to compete with because they do a great job of satisfying search intent when customers are in their decision stage.
2. Highly technical products. Unlike a T shirt or accounting services, SaaS buyers often have to make complex decisions about highly technical platforms. So aspects of the SEO strategy like content production require more time and focused effort to engage with the target audience.
3. Lack of historical data for keyword research. Most B2B SaaS companies are pioneers and have carved out their own niche in a saturated space or invented a new space altogether. This means that gathering keyword data, competitive gap analysis, and auditing existing website messaging needs to go beyond surface level considerations and get creative about opportunities.

That being said, SaaS brands also have an advantage over other industries because they are used to moving quickly, they prioritize growth, and utilizing the best technology possible for the SEO campaign isn’t a barrier to entry.

SEO works best for those who are looking for a marketing channel that offers sustainable growth over time. It’s great for SaaS brands that want to attract and convert new customers who are already actively looking for what they offer. With SaaS SEO, you turn your website and content into a salesperson who can guide your potential customers through every stage of their customer journey. So if any of that sounds like what you want to do, then SEO is right for you.

Every SaaS business has it’s own metrics for success, from more online visibility all the way to gaining a competitive edge.

Goals like that can be fine to round out planning, but these KPIs are what we recommend you track for an effective SaaS SEO growth strategy:

• Google search console impressions/clicks
• Target keyword search rankings
• Unique website visitors (also known as organic search traffic)
• Lead to conversion rate
• Monthly website conversions (demos, sign ups, etc)
• Top content by conversions
• Website visitor to customer rate
• Organic sourced MRR/ARR

The term “best SaaS SEO agency” can be misguiding since different agencies excel at different things. We wrote an excellent guide breaking down the top players right here.

That being said, here are a few things to keep in mind to determine who you should partner:

1. They have a proven track record. You should easily be able to find them on LinkedIn, Clutch, G2, Google, etc. They should also have positive reviews on these platforms as well as testimonials and case studies. 
2. They practice what they preach. Drink their own champagne. Eat their own dog food. You get the picture. They should generate their own website visitors, leads, and sales through SEO. 
3. They will focus on your individual needs, challenges, and opportunities. Not one sized fits all deliverables to pad their margins and they’ll focus on broader strategy vs individual tactics. 
4. They are completely transparent with their process, deliverables, and what kinds of outcomes to expect. Any company that promises the world but won’t or can’t explain how they’ll do it…is not your friend. Run, run quickly.

Yes, we do offer Technical SEO audits and implementations for SaaS businesses. That being said, every scope of work we put together is based on your specific needs.

If you have high impact technical issues that are confirmed ranking factors or critical user experience considerations, we’ll use our SEO expertise to quickly get them fixed. 

If we think you can get more out of conversion rate optimization or increased content creation, then we’ll suggest that. 

Our technical SEO chops run deep, but every single audit we run is done with a purpose.