The competition for SaaS space in the marketplace has become thicker.
With a lot of software companies out there, staying ahead of your competitors is a must if you want to succeed. Searching out for leads and attracting traffic to your website are a few things, to begin with, but one very effective strategy to keep organic leads coming is through SaaS SEO.
Today, we will discuss why your SaaS company needs to start optimizing your site for search engines ASAP. We also included 5 case studies that you need to read to prove that SEO is real and your SaaS will benefit from it.
But first…
What is SaaS SEO?
SaaS, or Software as a Service, is undeniably a rapidly booming business model. It earned not only fame but also the trust of enterprises and companies in the digital era. It’s a tool that delivers services and solutions without the trouble of hardware and maintenance-proving to be very efficient for those who choose to work and transact business matters remotely.
SaaS SEO is a process wherein you increase your SaaS website’s traffic through earning top ranks on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for a list of related keywords.
Attracting more traffic to your website helps convert visitors into leads, and turn these leads into customers. For this to happen, your website must be optimized by applying changes like adding, editing, and updating content, link, building, HTML modifying, and more. An optimized website has more chances of going up in the search engine ranking. A good ranking means your product is visible to your target audience.
More and more software businesses are emerging in the marketplace, and online exposure is needed to make your SaaS business visible to your target audience. Here are several reasons why SEO is needed in your business.
7 Reasons Why Your SaaS Business Needs SEO
1. SEO gives you an edge among other similar businesses
Having a good SEO strategy converts most of your competitors’ potential customers into yours. People trust companies or businesses that appear at the topmost section in the SERPs, so it’s important to invest in inbound SaaS marketing.
Inbound marketing is the method of enticing potential customers through content marketing or SEO. This is a long-term strategy that keeps your business visible in the online market.
2. It helps publicize your SaaS business
No matter how prodigious your product is, it will just be put to waste if nobody has heard about it. Get your business out there and grab your target audiences’ attention by publicizing it. SEO can help you spread the word about your business.
Once you earn the top rank in SERPs, customers will be more familiarized with business. Referrals will then slide in fast.
3. SEO also helps drive traffic to your website
SEO is one of the most in-demand methods to grow your SaaS business. Customers now find your products on their own by browsing the internet and searching Google and other search engines.
Visitor searches on SERPs create organic traffic. Hence, the more you optimize your website, the more it will be searchable and appear as a top-ranking page in search engines for relevant keywords.
4. Good SEO enables a positive user experience.
Good user experience, which is essential for website success, should be a top priority alongside your SEO’s useful content, website speed, and backlinks.
To ensure that your customers have a good user experience, make sure that your content is credible, useful, and informative. Keeping your site easy to navigate and pleasing to the eyes can also draw in customers.
5. Dependence on paid advertisements is reduced.
As much as paid advertisements are advantageous for many SaaS businesses in terms of attracting traffic faster, they consume large expenses of your marketing budget.
When you reduce or stop paid ads, lead generation also comes to a halt, unlike in SEO where customers are still driven to your site even after you stop optimizing. As organic traffic adds up, the marginal costs to gain customers with the use of SEO decreases.
6. An effective SEO strategy builds credibility
The main goal of SEO is not just to attract more viewers but also to build a sturdy foundation for a generally amiable and trustworthy website. A good way to gain credibility is to make your business name appear on the first page of a search-which is an outcome of an effective SEO). Good website content and optimized page elements also have a strong impact on gaining your customers’ trust and loyalty.
7. SEO helps consumers choose a product to buy
According to studies, 70 -80% of customers browse for products or services online before deciding to purchase them. A lot of people, including business owners, refer to search engines when looking fr products for personal or business use.
With the help of SEO, your online ranking is boosted and you earn a good reputation in search engines. Increased online exposure wins you a lot of customers.
SaaS SEO Case Studies You Can Check
You can check out these case studies to learn more about how SaaS SEO helped businesses thrive in the online marketplace:
1. Veed.io’s Story
From rejections to $1 Million Annual Recurring Revenue
Veed.io is an online video editing tool that lets people edit their videos without the complications of popular editing software. It lets users cut, crop, and add subtitles with ease.
Read on how Tim and Sabba managed to grow their SaaS startup from their humble hackathon beginnings to becoming a company with $25k monthly recurring revenue. Check out growth hacks done by their digital marketing team.
2. Removal.ai’s Story
From 0 to more than 400k traffic in just four months
Removal.ai is a background removal tool. But it is not just any background removal software. It uses the power of artificial intelligence to detect the foreground pixel and instantly separate it from the background.
This tool was launched only last December 2020 and after only four months into the SEO campaign, it successfully dominated the search terms it ranked for and amassed around 400k organic traffic per month. Now, as of this writing, its monthly visitors are hitting the 700k mark.
3. Canva’s Story
Turning traffic into users
In a matter of fewer than 7 years, Canva gained over 15 million subscribers, 300,000 customers that pay. They reached 2 million users in the first two years. This averages at 3,600 signups per day or 111,111 signups every month.
Canva’s growth spurted with the help of an acquisition strategy that relies on a starving crowd and a company vision. The company aligned the starving crowd’s needs by showing how they can achieve the task they try to complete. Their growth is a result of a mixture of paid ads, social media ads, SEO, content marketing and more.
4. Hubspot’s Story
The big player that keeps on getting bigger
Hubspot is a name to reckon with in the marketing world. It is a major player in the SMB software industry and it just keeps getting bigger. From a revenue of $181.9 million last year, it increased to $271 million this year – a 49% jump! Learn how Hubspot stays in the game by reading its marketing story.
5. Buffer’s Story
From 0 to $5 million annual revenue
Buffer was pitched to big players in the tech blogging industry but the founders were initially rejected. Now, this SaaS product, which started as a tweet-scheduling application, developed into a more inclusive social-media scheduling tool used by marketers and social media managers worldwide. Read how they grew their revenue from 0 to $5 million annually!
Your Turns…
The growth and survival of your SaaS business rely on online traffic. The more your product is known by people, the more chances of staying afloat in the industry. Building a strong SEO foundation is the most important step to climb up the ladder of success.
It would undeniably take a lot of time and effort to get a good SEO, but take it as an investment. You can start by understanding your audience and what your product has to offer and map your journey from there.
SEO functions as a key component for your SaaS business’ growth. The sooner you formulate a solid strategy, the sooner your organic traffic goes up, and the higher your rankings go.
