SaaS can be an extremely competitive field, even more so when search volumes are low. For example, some B2B SaaS keywords only have a few hundred searches a month but they’re so valuable that companies are sometimes paying $150+ per click on Google Ads.
However, the one consistent thing I’ve found is that there’s almost always an opportunity to rank, even for a brand new website.
The trick is usually in finding specific, hyper-relevant, long tail keywords and producing a range of great content for it. For example, instead of trying to rank for a competitive broad term like “Landing Page Software” which might have lower purchase intent, a more specific one might be “Landing Page Software for Google Ads” and producing relevant content like Optimizing a Landing Page for Google Ads.
In the unlikely case that you can’t find direct terms, you can also go after adjacent category search terms.
Before doing any of these things, you’ll need to make sure that you’re doing the fundamentals right for ranking your SaaS website which I’ve listed below.
Contents
1. Amazing Content
Google is looking for great user experience for the person searching on Google. This means amazing content that’s relevant to the search query.
Content that’s long and filled with pictures and videos tend to do better.
If the writing quality is poor, then it really doesn’t matter as much how long the content is.
2. Page Speed
It’s becoming more and more important for your website to be optimized.
If load speeds are slow, users will bounce and that will contribute negatively to your search ranking.
3. Internal Linking
Have good internal linking with keywords that you’re trying to rank for.
If you’re reading this post, you’re probably interested in SaaS marketing. So it’d make sense for me to link to relevant posts like SaaS SEO Keyword Research and SaaS FB Marketing which would add value for you as a reader and also give those posts more SEO juice.
4. Time On Website
Related to the bounce rate is how long a user stays on your website.
If a user browses around and takes a bunch of action on your website, that sends a positive signal to Google.
On the other hand, if they scroll up and down the page, don’t find what they’re looking for, go back to Google then spends 10 minutes on a competitor’s page, that’ll send a negative signal to Google.
This means making sure you’ve got Google Analytics installed and monitoring how people are interacting with your website. You can also use tools like HotJar to get more detailed insights.
The great thing with all of these on-page items is that they’re all within your control. You control the quality of your content and you control whether you provide a great user experience.
There are also off-page items like social signals, backlinks, and clickthrough rates that affect your rank.
SaaS SEO Tools
You can read about general SEO keyword research tools here and SEO Reporting Dashboards.
The ones I consider essential are:
- SEMRush
- RankMath
- BuzzStream and BuzzSumo
- Keyword Shitter
- AnswerThePublic — It’s free and great for getting content ideas
