Today, we stand on the threshold of 2022 with the effects of the pandemic lingering in the background. The threat of further virus outbreaks and more economic challenges are loud and persistent. In such a scenario, startup and SaaS founders are connecting with experts and other successful entities in the field of automation to face the challenges of tomorrow. They are looking out for and adopting new technology processes and methods to improve revenues and retain their customers.
Through this article, we intend to throw light upon the importance of content and SEO in 2022. We will show how SaaS founders and others with managerial posts are using smarter digital marketing tactics to get the initial traction. Read on to know the significance of content generation and SEO integration in marketing strategies to move to the next levels.
Table of Contents
Why are SaaS founders integrating content and SEO in their growth strategies?
In the current scenario, the top priority of most SaaS companies and their executives is to uphold the morale of their teams working from forced work-from-home or remote environments. Apart from the usual collaboration and communication tools, they are using SEO and content to take their projects to a successful conclusion.
Another important priority is to get first users to understand and buy their products and services. This is a difficult task in itself, especially when the costs of acquisition are at an all-time high. Most marketing channels, both online, and offline are already saturated. In this situation, SEO and content marketing strategies are coming to the aid of SaaS startups and founders.
Here, it is important to mention that only content may not be the best option to combat the rising costs of acquisition. According to Zachary Hoffman, CEO, Digital PR, “Search Engine Optimization (SEO) serves to be an integral part of new-age digital marketing strategies. With SEO strategies, users can search for products and services easily. They can find the most appropriate companies online and lookup websites.”
Hoffman believes in creating scalable and targeted SEO campaigns to address the marketing goals of startups and organizations. He says, “In case you have a great service or product, look for someone to optimize your website so that those searching for similar results can find what you have on offer in Google.”
More successful companies are using affordable combinations of both these marketing elements depending on their need and business growth strategies. Some of the commonly used ways of going about the act include (and are not restricted to):
-
- Paid advertising comprises social and searches advertisements
- Partnerships
- Referral and affiliate marketing plans
- Direct sales, etc.
In today’s competitive scenario, most companies tend to dive headlong into SEO and content strategies without weighing their pros and cons. This may result in hasty decisions that may or may not serve their cause. That’s why it becomes important for them to connect with experts in SEO and content-driven strategies. These professionals are always on the watch out for new and better tools and processes to improve business outcomes.
What exactly is SEO for SaaS Founders?
When we analyze the growth patterns of some SaaS companies that are ahead in the race, it’s evident that they gained greater mileage because of their SEO strategies. The key drivers of success, their perfect SEO plans, and implementation strategies gave them higher visibility. The basic and advanced SEO elements in use brought them close to their target audience, thereby reducing costs and increasing sales and revenue figures.
Roy Morejon, President & Co-Founder of Enventys Partners, opines, “You can accomplish escalated growth patterns by gaining more insights about your intended audience. Over time, you will be able to choose the best channels to publish your story bites.”
He adds, “Soon, you will figure out how websites can prove to be the most impactful messaging channels for marketers. A high percentage of marketing professionals are using SEO for their core business strategies along with email and social media marketing.”
Keeping this in mind, SaaS founders prefer to look up different social media channels and websites where they expect to find their target audience. Once the SEO metrics are in place, it is essential to develop optimized content that caters to all those channels and can address the needs of intended customers.
What is SaaS SEO?
This brings us to the question, “What exactly is SaaS SEO?”
In layman’s terms, SaaS (Software as a Service) SEO helps in escalating organic traffic for the websites of SaaS startups and companies. It helps them earn higher rankings on popular search engines. Usage of the right and most relevant SEO keywords paves the way for top rankings on SERPs to provide SaaS founders with the much-needed push.
To increase their new customer acquisition metrics, many SaaS organizations are incorporating performance marketing in their business and growth strategies. They are turning towards affiliate marketing, social ads, PPC, and other SEO-backed processes to scale up rapidly. The downside of such paid advertising is that they are costly and cannot be relied upon as the sole means of generating positive outcomes through SaaS SEO. For example, in paid advertising, if you reduce or turn this SEO channel down, the traffic to your website will stop in spurts or completely.
This is the reason why SaaS founders invest time, money, and resources in building stronger SaaS strategies. They are readily investing in solid SEO channels to drive exponential organic growth and consistent traffic. They are also pumping in additional resources to diversify traffic sources and reduce the costs of acquisition to enhance sustainability.
How Does SEO in SaaS Increase Organic Search Visibility?
SaaS founders and managers of SaaS startups can increase the organic search visibility of their platforms with SEO. SEO service providers brainstorm with their clients to understand their target audience and search engine visibility requirements in detail before triggering off their strategies. If you are wondering how to position your company in front of your existing or prospective customers in an altogether new way, then it is important to reach out to SaaS SEO specialists. They will increase the traffic and reach of your platform in front of the following categories of customers who are:
-
- Searching for the products, services, or software provided by you.
- Desirous to know more about your organization, teams, what else you do, etc.
- Looking for similar products, services, and software like yours. They are already aware of their existence and wish to know why they should link up with yours.
- Willing to gain knowledge about you through your website but are not ready to buy readily.
- Already fully aware and are looking for the best pricing and deals to freeze their purchase.
- Exploring content related to yours so that they can connect with you in the future if needed.
- Improving visibility of your content by winning your featured snippets.
According to Karl Hughes, Founder of Draft.dev, “There are several companies that start marketing campaigns by asking their engineers to script content. In most cases, they make the mistake of believing that this will provide results forever. This is not true.”
He explains, “Let’s say you have a continuous integration tool that has gone to market. You wish to develop content that showcases to developers the way your tool works and why they should consider it as a good option. Your marketing teams would reach out to developers and ask them to put in random blogs here and there to extend your reach. This is not the right way to build consistent content, especially when your engineers are busy building the product or are dealing with stringent production deadlines.”
This effectively means that there is much more than just generating content through any source. It is important to use the right resources to get SEO-enabled, targeted and relevant content to increase your reach, visibility, and sales. Read our tips on creating interactive content.
Difference between SEO and SaaS SEO
If your business belongs to any other industry or vertical rather than the SaaS niche, then the SEO elements recommended to you would be different from SaaS SEO. However, it is important to note that the main ranking factors laid down by Google would remain unchanged for all industries and business verticals. The following ranking factors are also applicable to your SaaS business:
-
- Backlinks
- Content
- RankBrain, etc.
Given the importance of these Google ranking factors in SaaS startups, you must start developing a scalable SEO strategy with relevant content. The published content should have answers to most search queries. Whatever you publish should be capable of earning backlinks naturally. With the right content in place, you will find it easier to connect with the audience of your choice. They will understand your products and services better. With a proper understanding of your capabilities, products, services, and all that you do, they will not hesitate in dealing with your capabilities and products.
What Else Can You Do with SaaS SEO and Content?
Paid media and performance marketing have already changed the fortune of several SaaS companies. You can also drive organic growth for your business with the help of solid SaaS SEO and content strategies.
1. SaaS SEO and content helps in exponential growth
Proper content-led SaaS SEO strategies are the drivers of exponential growth for SaaS businesses like yours. Experts in SEO-driven content stacking can drive in more traffic and escalate your search engine rankings. Pipedrive, HubSpot, and other SaaS beacons have already used these methods and tools for their growth.
To create a predictable, organic growth path, it’s important to:
-
- Develop value-adding content that addresses topically connected keywords.
- Start promoting and sharing the content to get links.
- Keep a close watch on the increase in organic traffic and search engine rankings
- Use the data accumulated from the first launch of your content to drive further growth.
- Attain higher rankings and keep driving in more traffic to your website.
- Repeat the steps to target various keyword groups that can increase your organic growth.
2. Reduce Cost-Per-Acquisition with SaaS SEO and content
SaaS founders gain new customers with the help of paid media. They generally invest in paid social media promotions and PPC, wherein they have to pay for all single clicks leading to their website. More clicks through such channels translate to more payments. Over time, you will find that the cost-per-acquisition becomes higher than expected.
Your cost-per-acquisition will be high in the initial period. However, this will start reducing with compounded growth patterns. You may need to push in investments regularly to keep your SEO strategies alive, but the overall cost will not increase as in PPC or paid media channels. With SEO and content traffic balancing out the costs, your cost-per-acquisition will gain equilibrium over time.
3. Start converting customers belonging to other channels with SEO driven content
SaaS founders are now aware that SEO cannot be restricted to its silo. They also know that SaaS SEO strategies require investments for content creation. Despite the costs involved, they readily invest in SEO and content to derive the following benefits. You can expect the same.
-
- Higher ranking for target SEO keywords
- Better outcomes from email marketing, social media, and other SEO-driven paid traffic strategies
- Improved referral traffics and more backlinks through content promotion
Conclusion
Play your SEO and content cards properly. Reach out to SEO and content experts who can propel your business into the future. Along with various benefits of digital marketing, you will be able to rope in and convert customers from various other marketing channels to increase your reach, traffic, sales, and revenue figures.
