The Ultimate Guide to SaaS SEO Content Marketing

SEO content marketing tips and best practices can’t be the same for all types of businesses. For SaaS companies, we’ve outlined the most effective SEO content strategies to garner increased traffic and better sales.

What is SEO content marketing for B2B SaaS?

The key is understanding that we’re working with business-to-business (B2B) software-as-a-service (SaaS). This isn’t the same situation as selling T-shirts online (business-to-consumer or B2C). Marketing to individual people browsing for something that piques their interest is completely different from targeting decision-makers in businesses looking for a solution to a specific problem.

The target market

B2B SaaS content marketing targets people who are either looking for:

• A product that solves a problem
• A different product to switch to because the current product isn’t ticking all of their boxes
• More information about the company to learn more about it
• A brand to purchase with because they’ve done their research and they’re ready

The content strategy

SaaS content marketing normally has a lot of content to share. If they’re marketing advanced technology to solve a problem, there’s likely lots of information to publish like how-to’s, case studies, tutorials, and problems it solves. To do this, there are blog posts, guides, and FAQs that can be SEO optimized for the search engine as well as for potential customers in various stages of the sales funnel.

This kind of content is most successful when built up from keywords that customers are already searching for. Articles can be created based on a keyword to answer a common search query or address a relevant topic.

Generally, in B2B marketing, it can take a lot longer for a lead to travel from the top of the funnel to the bottom which is why crafting relevant content is important—especially if there are other options.

The importance of implementing a B2B SaaS SEO strategy

1. Drive more organic traffic

As opposed to paid ads, SaaS content marketing can attract organic traffic. Traffic is important for B2B SaaS businesses because they often have fewer leads than B2C businesses.

Regularly optimizing web pages and publishing new material with rich keywords will show search engines that the pages are relevant to search queries and place them above other sources. The higher the ranking, the more clicks it will receive.

The sales funnel

As mentioned previously, customers must journey through the sales funnel to make a purchase. This happens quickly in B2C marketing but can take months for B2B due to the nature of the product or service.

A SaaS SEO strategy helps create content specific to each stage of the funnel so customers get information most relevant to them that can drive them further through the sales process. It focuses on the needs of people in the different stages of the funnel and caters to that.

2. Create brand awareness and authority

Well-informed and developed content does two things. One, it builds a brand identity that can be spread across the market. Two, it establishes the brand as an authority figure in the industry.

Brand awareness is improved with more content that can be accessed by a wider segment of the audience. It can attract new leads that weren’t aware of the business before.

Educational and specialized content shows customers and search engines that the brand is knowledgeable in the industry and can be a thought leader. Brands with higher awareness and authority see more lead traffic because people tend to buy from businesses they know about and feel they can trust.

3. Earn more backlinks

Partnering with other businesses from backlinks benefits both parties. The key is producing content that other businesses also find valuable. They have to feel that sharing backlinks will benefit them as well.

A great content strategy includes content that earns backlinks due to its informative and engaging nature. If there’s great content, other companies will want to take advantage of that too.

4. Offer more value to users

This relates to the customer journey. If customers aren’t getting what they’re looking for, they’ll move on. A successful SEO strategy will include content that provides continuous value to users.

Value leads to customer retention. Retention leads to a purchase. And successful purchases lead to more customer retention and referrals.

SaaS content marketing can outline product or service features and updates so users are always in the loop and don’t miss out on important aspects. There’s a problem if users aren’t satisfied simply because they don’t know about a feature they could be using.

5. Save on lead acquisition cost

This can be one of the most expensive costs for B2B businesses if they aren’t leveraging SEO content marketing. Instead of spending more and more trying to acquire new leads, let the content strategy create evergreen content and improve customer retention.

Once a piece has been posted on a website, it can produce leads continuously, so long as it’s occasionally optimized to suit market trends. SEO content is like a gift that keeps on giving.

As time goes on and SEO is improved on a website, eventually businesses end up with an arsenal of resources to build more backlinks, earn more featured snippets, and gain more traffic as their ranking rises.

SaaS SEO content best practices

Research

• Target audience: Know what your target audience is searching for and what the average buyer persona is. Gathering intel on the audience informs businesses where they should be posting content, how often, what questions they should be answering, and how they should be speaking.
• Competition: Don’t fall behind others just because the content strategy is already working well. Keep up-to-date with competitors to offer more, infringe on their audiences, and create the best customer experience in the industry.
• Product: Know your product and other similar products. Find out where the product or service sits in the market and promote it accordingly. If there are similar products, how does it stand apart? What is the unique value proposition?
• Keywords: Because of the competitive nature of SaaS content marketing, keyword research has the potential to be a gold mine. Target keywords that the audience is already searching for and keywords that competitors aren’t taking advantage of. Don’t stuff keywords into content though. Google does not like that.

Backlinks

As discussed, backlinks boost the authority and reach of a business. Backlinks should be used to provide more in-depth information on a topic discussed. Aim to answer more specific questions that customers have when they’re further down the pipeline. Use only authority links or search engines will give it a lower score.

Establish a content strategy

There’s a lot going on in B2B SaaS businesses. Keep everything organized and productive by establishing a content strategy. With all of the pages, links, and platforms, there must be one central strategy that governs all.

The SEO strategy will outline goals, timelines, keywords, topics, responsibilities, and more. This ensures SaaS content marketing campaigns remain on track and aligned with brand messaging, voice, and keywords.

Leverage SEO specialists

Assign SaaS SEO to specialists so everyone can focus on what they do best. At Pedestal Search, not only do we write SEO content for different industries, but we also have the technical experience to manage site speed, structured data, metadata, site audits, and more. If you want to remain competitive in your field, reach out to us at Pedestal Search today.