What Is SaaS SEO? How Does It Work?

Businesses that run on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model need a broad reach to continue growing and remain competitive. That is where SaaS search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. SaaS SEO is much like regular SEO except that it leans more heavily on marketing practices.

That is why SEO agency experts have dedicated much time to making SaaS SEO easy to apply.

This guide covers the basics of SaaS SEO, including

• What SaaS SEO is and why it helps your business
• Five best practices your SaaS SEO strategy needs

There’s a lot to discuss, so get ready to take notes.

Let’s go!

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SaaS SEO: What It Is and How It Works

SaaS SEO, like other subsets of SEO, focuses on the application of best practices around a specific topic or for a particular purpose. In this case, that would be your software (service). For instance, SaaS SEO could be as simple as finding latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords.

You and your target users are unlikely to agree on keywords 100% of the time, so banking on LSI terms increases the chance of showing up in front of your intended audience. Suppose your company offers “customer relationship management software.” LSI keywords for this include:

With LSI keywords, you want to have them in your content wherever possible because they lend support to other SEO practices. In other words, ensuring that terms such as “business owners” are present in your article strengthens the context that search engines want to see.

Apart from keywords, SaaS SEO includes other strategies and adjustments that bolster your presence on search engine results pages (SERPs). An example of this is optimizing your snippets through well-written meta descriptions.

5 SaaS SEO Best Practices and How To Apply Them

SaaS SEO is, in a nutshell, a sales-driven pursuit because its primary goal is to attract leads and convert customers. Therefore, it only makes sense that best practices for this subset of SEO lean more on marketing and related elements, such as link-building strategies.

The point is that you should go into SaaS SEO with an appropriate mindset to get the most out of it. Apart from that, it is business as usual because not much else differs from how you apply other subtypes of SEO. That said, read below to learn how to correctly employ SaaS SEO.

     1. Find All the Right Keywords

Keywords form the foundation of any sensible SEO strategy, regardless of what it is for or why. Knowing where to find the best keywords for your SaaS business is vital to establishing a direct line to potential customers. Keyword tools, especially AI ones, are excellent for this exact case.

Keep in mind that every aspect of SaaS SEO calls for different keywords.  Careful research to make sure you are using the best possible word choices and keeping an eye on the terms that others use makes for the best possible SEO. Besides LSI, keywords that match search intent and the buyer’s journey also matter for SaaS. However, there is no need to have all of them simultaneously,

Whichever types of search terms you can obtain first helps immensely to support your overall SEO strategy.

     2. Optimize Snippets on SERPs

A well-made snippet is a low-maintenance yet effective tool for boosting SEO. It takes a while to get the formula right, but it becomes much easier once you identify what language attracts your ideal customers. Three types of snippets appear on Google, each affecting SEO differently.

Regular snippets are simple 155 character summaries that give searchers a general idea of the page’s contents, letting them know whether to open a link or not. Rich snippets display more critical details about the page, making them more useful and appealing to Google’s users.

Finally, there are featured snippets which outrank all entries on SERPs, automatically making them the preferred source, allowing them to draw higher traffic than either of the previous two.

     3. Make a Topic Cluster Strategy

SaaS SEO pairs well with a topic cluster strategy, especially given the focus on marketing. A topic cluster is a collection of related content united under a particular theme or topic — such as your SaaS products. This unlocks plenty of potential SEO posts you can create.

For example, you can discuss how your product’s features provide solutions to attract leads:

A. Pillar Page: How To Effectively Plan And Manage A Consistent Blog Schedule

1. Support Page 1: 5 Tips For Choosing The Right Project Management Tool

2. Support Page 2: 15-Step Checklist To Keep Your Writing Process Smooth

     4. Start a Link Building Campaign

To some extent, all companies today rely on SaaS products for their needs. The popularity and ubiquity of tools such as Slack, Skype, and Microsoft Teams speak volumes about the significance of SaaS in day-to-day business operations. Use that to your advantage for better SEO ranking:

1. Offer product reviewers and bloggers free trials to score genuine backlinks.

2. Join a podcast or seminar to discuss your solutions to common problems.

3. Steadily produce high-quality content related to your product, especially topic clusters.

Be mindful of who and how you acquire backlinks, though, because link quality matters for SEO.

     5. Reach Customers on LinkedIn

Not all social media apps are exclusively for picture-perfect moments. Some apps cater more to business and networking aspects. For instance, LinkedIn is one of the most reliable platforms for B2B marketing, so using it is incredibly beneficial for your SaaS SEO.

It is impossible to overstate how necessary LinkedIn is for SaaS purely because it houses most, if not all, of your ideal customers. Multinational corporations, small businesses, and startups are always looking for the next major innovation in productivity software to improve their workflow.

Use LinkedIn to find keywords, connect with potential customers, and get high-quality backlinks.

Summing Up

SaaS SEO works much like any other specialized SEO approach (healthcare SEO, small business SEO, etc.) because the principles are more or less the same across the board. It just differs in where the focus is placed and how to execute the best strategies—in this case, selling.

SaaS SEO involves many sales- and marketing-oriented tactics, such as investing in B2B marketing platforms and strategies to outshine competitors and increase your market share. Staying on top of all the frequent changes in trends and best practices can be difficult to do.

Need help incorporating SaaS SEO into your business development plan? Contact us to learn more about what we can do to help you.