Optimizing your B2B SaaS company's online visibility through SEO can significantly impact your success in the long term as an early-stage startup. However, many founders put it off because it's one of those 'important, but no urgent' tasks, or because they are unfamiliar with it.
But SEO is not that hard to kickstart, even if SEO for B2B SaaS startups can be a bit different from traditional SEO strategies. In this article, we'll explore the basics for B2B SaaS SEO and what you should start thinking about in order to kick off SEO.
SEO recommendations that only apply to early-stage startups
Early-stage startups typically have a constrained marketing budget, and only one or two marketing team members, whereas their competitors - usually incumbents in the market - have had years to build up their online presence. Therefore, they need strategies that will allow them to get initial results quickly, even if they are not enough to take them all the way to market domination.
Usually, early-stage B2B SaaS startups have a better chance of getting SEO results if they explore ideas at the intersection of the three following areas:
Focused, niche content subjects related to their product where there is less competition
Topics they can conveniently generate content for, owing to their internal expertise or experience
Content that engages their prospective audience and garners their interest
Staying too niche and only targeting one specific type of content will generate great conversions at the start, but will not make it easy to address the wider market, which is why this sort of approach is more relevant at the early stage.
That said, it's important for founders and early-stage marketers to master the basic principles of SEO early on, not matter who they apply to. Those will help them not only with their blog content, but also with their website building and their initial paid search campaigns.
Understanding the basics of SEO for B2B SaaS
Before we dive into the best practices, let's first understand what B2B SEO is and how it differs from traditional SEO.
What is B2B SEO?
B2B SEO is the process of optimizing a B2B company's website and online content to improve its visibility and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). This involves using targeted keywords, creating high-quality content, and building backlinks to improve the website's authority and relevance in the eyes of search engines.
How is B2B SEO different from traditional SEO?
While the basic principles of SEO apply to both B2B and B2C companies, the way these principles are applied results in different content and search strategies.
Firstly, B2B SEO tends to focus more on long-tail keywords and niche topics, as B2B products and services are often more specific and targeted than those offered by B2C companies.
Secondly, B2B SEO often involves targeting multiple decision-makers within a company, rather than just one individual. This means creating content that appeals to different roles and departments within a business.
Lastly, B2B SEO may also involve targeting specific industries or verticals, as B2B companies often have a more defined target market than B2C companies.
Best Practices for B2B SaaS SEO
Now that we have a better understanding of B2B SEO, let's explore some best practices that can help you improve your B2B SaaS company's online presence.
1. Conduct Keyword Research focused on long-tail keywords
Keyword research involves identifying the keywords and phrases that your target audience is using to search for products or services like yours. Sometimes, especially if your product offers a different approach to an existing solution, or defining a new product category, then you might want to target keywords that describe the problem your solving instead of the solution you offer. You might also want to target topics that are adjacent to your target category, simply because it will help you build awareness with the right audience.
For B2B SaaS companies, it's important to focus on long-tail keywords that are specific to your industry and target market. These keywords may have lower search volumes, but they are more likely to attract qualified leads who are actively looking for your product or service.
Tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ahrefs can help you identify relevant keywords and their search volumes.
2. Optimize Your Website
Once you have identified your target keywords, it's time to optimize your website to improve its visibility on search engines.
This goes from optimizing your website's title tags, to meta descriptions, to URLs with your target keywords. You'll also have to ensure that your website hits other technical SEO criteria, such as low load speeds, good HTML-to-text ration, and mobile-friendly experiences, as these are important ranking factors for search engines.
3. Create High-Quality Content
Creating high-quality, informative content not only helps improve your website's ranking on search engines, but it also establishes your company as a thought leader in your industry.
When creating content, focus on topics that are relevant to your target audience and incorporate your target keywords naturally. This can include blog posts, whitepapers, case studies, How-to articles, comparisons, reviews, interviews of industry experts... the list goes on.
However, no matter how naturally a keyword occurs when writing about any topic, you still have to check that it appears often, and in all the right places, like your URL, the start and the end of your article, your header and sub headers, throughout the body, and even in the meta description or in the metadata of your attached media.
4. Leverage Social Media
By sharing your content on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, you can attract more traffic to your website and improve your website's authority.
Additionally, social media can also help you engage with your target audience and build relationships with potential customers.
5. Build Backlinks
Backlinks, or links from other websites to your own, are an important ranking factor for search engines. They not only help improve your website's authority, but they also drive referral traffic to your website.
To build backlinks, you can reach out to industry publications, influencers, and other websites in your niche and offer to contribute guest posts or collaborate on content. You can also create valuable content that other websites will want to link to naturally.
6. Use Local SEO
This is rarely relevant for generating direct leads for a pure B2B SaaS business, but if your product has a local services dimension to it, you definitely need to optimize for local SEO. This can include creating a Google My Business listing, optimizing your website for local keywords, and getting listed on local directories.
7. Think About On-Page Optimization
On-page optimization includes optimizing elements such as meta tags, headers, content, images, and URLs to make a webpage more search engine-friendly and user-friendly. By implementing on-page optimization techniques, startups can improve their website's visibility, relevance, and authority in search engine results.
We've mentioned these tips a few times, but it doesn't hurt to get a reminder. You can use the list below as a checklist before publishing any new piece of content:
Keyword Placement: Incorporate relevant keywords naturally throughout the content, including in headers, meta tags, and body text.
Optimized Meta Tags: Create compelling meta titles and descriptions that include target keywords to improve click-through rates from search results.
Quality Content: Produce high-quality, informative content that addresses the needs and interests of the target audience while incorporating relevant keywords.
Mobile Optimization: Ensure that the website is mobile-friendly and responsive to provide a seamless
Internal navigation: make sure to link back to existing pieces of content on your site that have relevant content to the piece you're publishing
Schema markup: when relevant, structure your page content using schema markup tools, or add content types that are more likely to appear as rich search results, such as FAQs or short definitions.
8. Monitor and Analyze Your Results
As with any marketing strategy, it's important to monitor and analyze your results to see what's working and what's not. This can help you make data-driven decisions and continually improve your B2B SaaS SEO efforts.
Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console can provide valuable insights into your website's traffic, keyword rankings, and more.
Real-World Examples of B2B SaaS SEO Success
Let's take a look at some real-world examples of B2B SaaS companies that have successfully implemented SEO strategies to improve their online presence and drive more leads.
1. HubSpot
HubSpot, a leading marketing and sales software company, has a strong online presence thanks to their effective SEO strategies. They consistently create high-quality, informative content that targets long-tail keywords and attracts qualified leads to their website. They have done this for years and now rank for over 2 million keywords!
Over time, they have managed to rank in top positions for keywords that seem to be far away from their core value proposition, but that is only further proof that SEO is a compounding tactic that helps not just with lead generation, but also with general brand awareness.
2. Buffer
Buffer, a social media scheduling platform, used a combination of guest posting and content curation to get on the radar of its target ICP. By creating valuable guest posts that included details on how Buffer itself could improve the readers’ social media strategies, Buffer was able to drive targeted, organic, and affordable traffic.
Who is Responsible for B2B SaaS SEO?
In most B2B SaaS companies, the responsibility for SEO falls on the marketing team. However, it's important for the entire company to understand the importance of SEO, especially engineers who have an impact on the company website's, or sales people who can help spread content wider.
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In today's digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial for the success of any business, including B2B SaaS companies. By implementing these SEO for B2B startups best practices, you can start building your the top of your marketing funnel and drive traffic that will eventually convert into leads.