A lot of software companies in their early stages don’t have a lot of resources to get their sales and marketing efforts going. This is why it is crucial for them to be able to focus their resources on one or two channels that work. Of all those channels, the one every software company should focus on immediately is SEO. Here is why:
Why SEO is the Best Inbound Marketing Channel
When it comes to digital marketing or marketing period, SEO is a channel that provides the best ROI of them all. Not only does it help you bring free organic traffic to your site, that others are paying thousands of dollars for, but it also has the ability to scale exponentially when done right. Even once you slow your efforts own, if you did SEO right, your rankings will remain. Those visits can turn to customers, partners, and even a viral moment if someone big shares your content.
SEO for SaaS, Getting the Job Done Right
Here are a few tips and tricks to help you run a good SEO campaign for your software.
It All Begins With Keyword Research
The first step is always keyword research. You don’t want to blindly start writing things for your blog that have cool titles when there is no email list and no visitors coming to your site. That content is a large waste of resources that could have been utilized better. What you want to do is to plan your content calendar by seeking out keywords that have:
- Good search volume
- Revenue generating opportunity
- The ability to expose your brand to a potential customer base
The How to of Keyword Research
Before we got to what you should be researching, you will need to know what tools to use.
Here are a few recommendations.
- Google Keyword Planner – this is a tool provided by Google and is absolutely free. It will give ideas and volume for a given set of keywords.
- SEMRush or Ahrefs – these are two different tools but both have similar functionality. They are paid tools that give you the ability to research your competitor’s keywords, as well as track all your efforts.
- Keywords Everywhere – this is a really affordable keyword research tool that comes as a chrome extension. It allows you to see keyword volume data within the search engine itself. A very valuable tool that is very affordable.
Doing the Research
When doing research you want to focus on keywords relevant to your business. If you’re a sales software, talk about different tools or tips that salespeople can use, as that can help attract the right audience. You also want to maybe include things that attract exec or decision-makers in those companies. Brainstorm what your customers might be Googling, let the data back it up, and create a content calendar around it.
Writing the Content
When beginning to write the content the first thing you want to do is check out what’s being written about the topic in the SERP’s. Read all of the content and see what it is that you can improve on and then do it. Make sure to take notes and add them to your content outlines so that you don’t forget. It’s hard work but its worth it, you don’t want to cut corners with SEO.
Focus and Add Depth
Don’t create really long-winded articles that are about multiple topics or multiple aspects of one topic. Instead, create really long-winded articles that focus on ONE thing. One keyword, one topic, one aspect of whatever it is you’re trying to explain. Articles that go in-depth on something specific have a much higher chance of ranking than an article that vaguely covers multiple things.
For example, creating an article about “SaaS SEO” will give you a much higher chance of ranking for that keyword than if you were to make an article about SEO and mention SaaS SEO within it.
Call To Actions
Always remember to include yourself as a solution within all your posts. Driving traffic to your site isn’t enough, you have to remember to convert that traffic. Add call to actions for your software throughout the post pages and remember to build your email list as well.
Link Building – The Most Important Thing You Will Do
Your content has a small chance of ranking if your website doesn’t have links pointing to it. Links are how search engines determine the trustworthiness of a site. With this, like with the content, quality over quantity is the winning strategy. There are a few things that make a high-quality link:
- It should be a contextual link
- It is on a relevant website
- It is within relevant content.
- It should have a varied anchor text.
- It is on a high domain authority site with a low spam score, as measured by Moz.
For more detail, please refer to the Infographic made my Frootful Marketing:
Building Links
With link building, it is also all about content. What you will be doing is reaching out to other websites and telling them that you want to give them a free piece of high-quality content, and in exchange, all you ask for is a link within that content pointing to your site.
When doing the outreach efforts, make sure to be clear about your intentions and have topics ready. Website owners get a lot of these requests daily and don’t have the time to go back and forth.
You can use tools like Link Prospector, Buzz Sumo, and Buzz Stream, as well as Ninja Outreach to get your outreach efforts going. These tools will help you find sites and manage them during the outreach process.
Reach Out for Reviews
There are many websites on the web that developed a dedicated and trusted following by reviewing software for their audience. One great way to build links is to reach out to these sites and ask to be reviewed. Not only will you get a link, but you will now be seen by all the people that visit their site.
Get to Work
Getting your target users to find you is a hard task but can be made easier with SEO. Give it 6 months of a concentrated effort and you will find yourself where you need to be. Once you start getting traffic, it’s time to turn it up a little harder and scale those efforts. Track everything you’re doing and double down on what is working. Good luck!
About the Author
Sean Dudayev is the Founder of Frootful Marketing who is passionate about all things related to business growth. After selling his first company, he chose to take what he’s learned and help other entrepreneurs scale their start-ups to the next level.
