Avoid These Common SEO Mistakes in SaaS Marketing

SaaS, more elaborately referred to as software as a service, is basically when a company sells software that provides a service or multiple small services related to a particular domain or sector. They allow you to connect and use cloud-based applications on the internet. There are many SaaS products in the market; for instance, Microsoft 365 is a great example of SaaS. But today we are going to talk about the common SEO mistakes in SaaS marketing that affect business growth.

Now, we know that these are not intentional mistakes but are made by the companies in the process of trying to grow in the SaaS market and take advantage of the opportunities.  Even when having a clear plan or strategy, a company might end up making some common SaaS marketing mistakes that can jeopardize its growth. 

Let us look at a list of some common SEO mistakes in SaaS marketing that negatively impact growth. 

#1 - Product-Market Fit and SEO Mismatch

The search volume is not the product-market fit. Most people do not understand this. People searching for something and willing to pay for it or buy it, are two totally different things. Before performing SEO, try to talk to real users, conduct surveys, do social media promotion, run ad campaigns and try to understand the narrowed-down target and real audience of the SaaS product.

#2 - Customer Trip Stages Get Overlooked

Most companies trying to do SEO or availing of SEO services forget about the customer trip stages. No customer will just appear out of nowhere and simply buy your SaaS product. There is a whole journey of a customer involving different stages that require optimization via SEO activities. If you are not sure what to do, you can rely on an efficient SaaS SEO agency like Nine Peaks that can help you with relevant SEO services to boost your SaaS product’s sales in the market. 

#3 - Marketing Channels Need Better Integration

Tragically, people believe it is just the responsibility of SEO activities to elevate the product in the search engine results. A lot of people forget that multiple marketing channels need to collaborate, and with continuous and collective efforts, the SaaS product will outshine the SEO activities. Improved integration of marketing channels via a unified approach is not only good for SEO, but it is for offline marketing as well.

Let us look at some noteworthy content strategy mistakes that you can fix immediately with the help of an SEO agency. 

#1 - Missing Product Use Cases

Use cases are processes and methodologies that review and analyze systems, particularly software platforms. They offer many benefits, such as providing the best possible solution, establishing goals and targets and elaborating on features and elements. If SaaS use cases are missing in your SEO strategy, you are making a huge blunder and must rectify it immediately.

#2 - Neglecting Bottom-of-Funnel Content

Persuasion is the key to sales. Now, you have a good website, it is well integrated with other marketing channels, and the content and SaaS product are amazing, but still, you can't neglect bottom-of-funnel content. In a nutshell, it represents a designed piece of content strategically placed to persuade leads to take the final step or buying decision. It addresses any last-minute concerns that most potential customers have before making the purchase. If you are neglecting it, you are making a common SEO mistake in SaaS marketing, which is why you might be missing out on a lot of sales.

#3 - Weak Call-to-Actions in SEO Content

Gone are the days when businesses used to use "sign up," " Download," buy now," or "learn more” as anchor texts. When you are writing content, it has to be creative and must come naturally to the audience so that you indirectly direct them to perform your desired action. Think out of the box and bring in new ideas for strong and focused call-to-action directions. Always try avoiding SEO mistakes in SaaS, especially when related to call to action links.

Let us explore some noteworthy conversion optimization oversights negatively affecting the marketing of SaaS products. 

#1 - Not Optimizing Free Trial Pages

This is one of the most witnessed SaaS SEO errors. Suppose there is a free trial page on your website. Do not ignore it. If you do, you will let go of a great opportunity to conduct some good SEO practices using the trial page. Remember that you should never leave a single webpage of your website unoptimized. 

#2 - Missing Feature Comparison Pages

When you are selling something, unless and until it's a rare product, every customer would like to do a comparative analysis. If they are going to do it going out of your website, it is highly unlikely that they will return. Instead, why don't you provide them with a feature comparison page so they can see for themselves? It gives you an opportunity to make your SaaS product stand out by listing its key features and explaining how it is different from others. This automatically increases your chances of converting leads into customers.

#3 - Poor Landing Page Experience

This is yet another common problem mostly expressed by many customers across the world. If you offer a poor landing page experience, customers will remember that and won't come near you. Poor landing page experience usually occurs because of irrelevant content, distracting elements, slow page load speed, bad mobile usability and weak transparency. A business can assess the landing page experience by checking indexability with Google Search Console, the website speed, and Google Ads Quality Score. Based on the assessment, businesses can take measures to rectify this SEO Mistake in SaaS marketing.

In the next section, we will take a look at some of the mistakes often made regarding ROI measurement. 

#1 - Wrong Success Metrics

Most businesses do not understand that success metrics are predominantly related to the product. Here we are talking about the SaaS product. If you are an SEO analyst, you cannot go after the wrong success metrics. Otherwise, it can bounce back and impact the entire SEO strategy. Choose the right SEO metrics to check on the performance of your website.

#2 - Not Tracking User Acquisition Costs

The customer will give money when they buy the product, but before that, unknowingly, you as a company may have already invested a lot of money in the acquisition cost. Not tracking user acquisition costs can be a huge mistake. Every business should keep track of such expenses, not just because of SEO practices but because it is vital for optimizing the strategy concerning customer acquisition. 

#3 - Missing Attribution Analysis

Attribution analysis involves assigning different points to different elements of the user journey and then evaluating which touch points bring in the best marketing value and influence the target audience. It can be a significant metric from an SEO point of view to help businesses understand which part works for them, which doesn't, and which element does have room for improvement. At the same time, you can add more of the best attributes that work to get better SEO results.

At last, we can only tell you to keep on doing what you are doing, but, of course, don't repeat or make the above SEO mistakes in SaaS marketing again. SEO for any website helps them grow on the internet, and with the right process, practices, and mindset, it can provide exceptional benefits in the long term. Think of these mistakes as SEO tips for SaaS businesses so you not only know what to do but also know what you should never do in your SEO strategy. Start optimizing your website correctly.