Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most powerful tools available to B2B SaaS companies that compete for customers on a global scale. SEO is a collection of practices that help businesses maintain a higher rank in organic search engine results.
Nothing beats appearing on the first page of a Google search for industry terms. In the digital age, high-ranking organic search results drive more sales by encouraging consumer trust. Proper SEO requires a lot of effort, but it reduces long-term ad-spend by establishing your company as an industry authority. For B2B SaaS companies in crowded spaces, strong SEO provides the necessary edge to capture a larger market share.
SEO forges an algorithmic connection between a specific URL (your company website) and industrial search terms.
Three common acronyms in the search engine marketing space are PPC, SEO, and SEM. But what’s the difference?
PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click and is related to SEM, but specifically refers to paid “sponsored” placements in search results. PPC is a large part of SEM.
SEO is a practice of investing time and labor into web design and development to make it easy for search engines to connect your website to relevant keywords. SEO is the lower-cost and more labor-intensive cousin of SEM.
SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. Though it once referred to a broad range of paid and free marketing practices specifically related to search engines, it now describes paid advertising tactics that improve SERP rankings.
A search engine is like a card catalog and librarian––with a photographic memory––bundled into one, for the whole internet. Search engines explore, categorize, and rank internet pages based on relevance, security, and user experience, then make recommendations based on user personas.
Search engines work through a combination of four primary functions:
Search engines discover web pages by “crawling.” Developers build simple programs––often called bots––to explore the internet one page at a time. These bots discover new web pages by following links from known pages. When they discover new web pages, web crawlers briefly scan content and automatically submit the webpages for further analysis in the next step: indexing.
Search engines categorize content by “indexing." The index is a catalog of all known web pages, broken out by category and tagged according to relevance across a broad spectrum of terms. The index turns the internet into a searchable archive of content referenceable via simple search terms. However, it’s not enough to simply categorize content––to be truly useful, search engines need to provide content suggestions based on users’ needs. This is where the next step comes in: ranking.
Search engines evaluate content for recommendation by “ranking.” For marketers, search engine ranking makes the difference between winning eyes for their brands or being consigned to digital oblivion below larger brands’ content. Search engines rank content according to dozens of metrics, including breadth, depth, reliability, accountability, usability, and more. Ranking makes the difference between appearing on the first page of search results––where people find content they’re likely to trust––and the tenth page, where people are less likely to go.
Search engines target content delivery at a user level by using “algorithms." Algorithms are complex combinations of digital analyses that help search engines target content to their users. Search engines deliver better content to users over time by building “user personas” based on search history, activity on other sites, click-through rates on search engine content, and, depending on users’ privacy settings, many other factors.
Backlink: A hyperlink from one web page to another web page. Backlinks are a critical component of SEO. The more backlinks to your web page, the higher it will rank in search results.
Blog: A section of a website that regularly posts informational content. Each blog post should be a new page on your website. The more pages your website contains, the more likely it is to rank high on a SERP.
Conversion Form: A form on your website that enables visitors to input information. Gate some of the most valuable information on your website with a conversion form to identify who is visiting your website and qualify your hottest leads.
Domain: The main web address for your website. Search engines favor domains with longer registrations.
Heading: Text on a web page that helps search engines and visitors understand what the text is about. Use keywords in your heading that you want your website to rank highly for.
HTML: The standard code web pages are built upon and that search engines read. Organized HTML code is easier for websites to read.
Internal Link: A hyperlink from one web page to another web page on the same website. Use internal links to keep visitors on your website.
Indexed Pages: The web pages in your website that search engines store and populate on their SERP. Indices rank pages with both desktop and mobile-optimized versions higher than those without mobile optimization.
Keyword: A word or phrase that visitors search for on a search engine. When selecting keywords for your web pages, think like a customer. What questions are they likely to ask about your industry? How will they phrase those questions in search engines?
Link Building: The process of building backlinks to your website. It will take years of a strong content strategy to generate backlinks to your website. Long Tail Keyword: A long, targeted string of keywords that search engine users enter when seeking specific results, like “brown faux-leather sleeper sofa made in US” instead of “couch.” Save money on SEO and SEM by using long-tail keywords to stand out in search results for niche content.
Metadata: A collection of “behind the scenes data” meant to describe web page content to search engines. Metadata is only visible in HTML code. Write brief, unique, specific descriptions packed with relevant keywords to help get your webpage content in front of users seeking it.
Meta Description: The description that often appears in the snippet of search results. The meta description, unlike other data, is one of the first things users see before clicking. Strong copywriting encourages clicks.
Page Title: Also known as “title tags” or “HTML titles,” Page Titles are the clickable title link displayed in search engine results. Titles perform best when limited to approximately 60 characters
PPC: Pay-per-click advertising is a form of digital ad where advertisers lease digital space and pay ad platforms a certain amount of money every time consumers click their ads. Leverage long-tail keywords to reduce the cost of PPC campaigns.
Search Engine Results Page: Also known as SERP, this is the index returned after users enter a query in the search field of a search engine. Stand out on SERPs by crafting informative and enticing Page Titles and Meta Descriptions.
Sitemap: A directory that helps web crawlers explore site content by providing descriptions of and relationships between internal website content. Rank your web pages in your sitemap to signal to web crawlers which pages are of highest priority, like home pages, blog feeds, or other pages with content that updates frequently.
Traffic: The quantity and activities of web page visitors. Web traffic is raw data that can be used in analysis to judge webpage impact and results. While it’s important to drive as many people to your website as possible, it’s also critical to fill your website with enough valuable content to keep visitors engaged. High bounce rates will diminish long-term SEO performance.
URL: A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a unique string of characters connected to a single HTML document viewable through web browsers as a web page. Make your URLs simple and use keywords wherever possible to help with SEO.
When formulating your SEO strategy, you’ll want to take a multi-pronged approach that covers multiple aspects simultaneously. By integrating buyer persona data into your keyword research, you can target your content to those who will find it most interesting and helpful. Keyword phrases are more specific than simple keywords and help you lower the cost of digital advertising by singling out those who are most likely to become customers. And finally, your content strategy depends on combining all of these elements into a single, coherent plan for content generation and publication.
Let’s dig into these tips in a little more detail.
Buyer personas are the bedrock of all marketing strategies––before brainstorming how to market SaaS products, you must envision your customer. Specific buyer personas give SaaS companies an edge over competitors who don’t have a specific market in mind.
Buyer personas are composites of consumer qualities that identify your company’s ideal customer.
B2B SaaS companies need to consider not only the persona of the individual making the purchase but also the company they work for:
B2B SaaS companies are unique because they offer powerful tools for teams at higher price points than B2C SaaS companies. To demonstrate value in a way your leads will understand, you need to think like they do.
A keyword list should start broad and then drill down into specific long-tail keyword phrases. Alongside keywords, list search volume, which you can find with various SEO tools.
A sample marketing keyword list might look like this:
Your keyword list will inform your metadata, webpage copy, internal links, content strategy, and more.
B2B SaaS companies rely on SEO to generate traffic from relevant industry keywords. It’s important to note that keywords are of various lengths. Some keywords are a single word while others are phrases or searchable questions your persona searches in Google.
Here are some examples:
A content strategy encompasses blog topics, blog frequency, social media platforms, engagement practices, copywriting tone, content budget, and much more.
Blog: An official blog provides content packed with keywords and internal links to increase the SERP ranking of your website. Plus, highly engaging and informative blog content helps establish brand authority by demonstrating expertise.
Social Media: Branded social media accounts with streams of valuable content provide several backlinks to aid in the discoverability of your website. Also, active social media profiles give B2B SaaS companies a human element to help inspire consumer trust.
Email: Email is one of the most effective ways to market, convert leads into customers, and maintain relationships to increase customer lifetime value (CLV). Email marketing is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, and it remains highly effective.
SMS: Many modern companies are integrating text messaging into their marketing strategies. Text marketing is still new, but it sees some of the highest click-through and conversion rates out of all forms of retention marketing. Remember, if a customer gives you their phone number along with permission to text them news and offers, that is a rare privilege that you should not take lightly––leverage it to your advantage with a strong RevOps strategy.
SEO can be broken down into three primary, interlocking components: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and Technical SEO.
On-Page SEO: On-Page SEO is customer-facing web page content. Strong on-page SEO content for B2B SaaS companies will be valuable for readers and packed with organic keywords. Some businesses try to game the system by spamming industry keywords in low-quality content––however, this practice actually reduces SERP rankings, so it’s best to focus on the reader first and SEO second.
Off-Page SEO: Off-Page SEO consists of inbound links to your website from other sites. Social media is a great way to build off-page SEO because every post can include a link to one of your web pages. Your B2B SaaS company should have professional profiles on all major social media platforms to build off-page SEO and provide several avenues for customer engagement.
Technical SEO: Technical SEO focuses on descriptive metadata, site mapping, and other behind-the-scenes practices to help web crawlers navigate and index your website.
SEO for your B2B SaaS company can seem intimidating at first glance, but with a bit of time and focus, you can sharpen your SEO to make it easy for customers to find and fall in love with your product. If you want more advice on best SEO practices for SaaS companies, reach out to us––we’d love to chat.