Nick Brown is the founder and CEO of The Fast Company, a SaaS SEO and content company. Working in a company that raises the bar.
What is the most important part of SEO for SaaS companies?
I have an answer, but it's probably not what you expect. But before we get to that, the first thing we need to start with is that every aspect of SEO is really important:
• Good SEO techniques help search engines to better digest your website content.
• Similarly, the SEO site encourages search engines to prioritize your most important pages.
• SEO content written by experts that search engines serve their users.
• High authority links help search engines determine what content is most relevant. Because SaaS is arguably one of the most competitive SEO niches, no aspect of SEO that SaaS companies can ignore. If you leave out the SEO part of your SaaS website, it will quickly fall into oblivion (also known as page 2 of Google search results). Here is an example:
If you have a SaaS business that sells productivity software, a strong SEO ranking going forward can drive away a lot of sales. Your competitors know this, and they will seize every opportunity that allows them to reach you for valuable keywords. Now imagine that your website is built on an old system that makes SEO technology difficult, and Google PageSpeed is registering a measly 85/100. It will be a big problem. You may think that your website speed is good, but remember how difficult SEO is for SaaS. Relying on the power of other SEOs is not enough. You may have great content, but so will your competitors. Your site may have a flawless internal linking system, but with SEO for SaaS, that's normal. And your website may have thousands of links from very important website domains, but guess who else will too? If a competitor with a modern content management system can rank in the mid-90s while yours is in the mid-80s, Google will rank your competition above you. This will result in a huge loss of revenue for your business.
The key here is the competitive nature of SEO for SaaS. If you're working in an area of SEO that's less competitive, like trying to find ads for a barber or an insurance agent, striving for perfection in every aspect of SEO won't work. be important. In fact, the word - "perfection" - is the key. You can approach perfection with many SEO factors. It's the last remaining area where endless competition and SaaS companies need to focus on: high-quality links. There are not enough links.
In the example I mentioned above, I talked about website speed. The standard metric that most people use in SEO is Google PageSpeed , which is measured out of 100. Getting a website above 90 can be a real challenge, and getting it above 95 usually takes a lot of work. . I've never seen a website reach 100 (even Google.com usually gets 97). What I'm saying is that once your website hits around 95-97, there's not much point in continuing the effort. The same goes for other technical and SEO sites. Bringing them closer to perfection is difficult, but possible. Once you've done that, the goal should be just to maintain good grades.
Content SEO is a little different. It is always possible to write more content, but writing too much content can be a real problem. If you're targeting the keyword "productivity software", you want to have one page that Google says covers that topic, not two (and not three or four). Too many pages targeting a single topic confuses search engines and will drop your position in search results like a rock.
The connections are different, however. How many high quality links do you need to outrank your SaaS competitors in search results? There is no clear answer.
Unlike technical SEO, on-site SEO, or content SEO, there is really no point when it comes to links. If your website has 3,678 high links, there is nothing stopping you from getting 3,679th.
What really matters when it comes to links is that your website has more high-quality, more relevant links than your competitors. Getting high quality links is like an arms race.
What you can't be sure of is how many links you need to get to the top of the search results and stay there. No matter how much you earn, your competitors will keep trying to get more and chase you. Like arm racing, the goal is not to reach the finish line, but to stay ahead of everyone else.
Three factors contribute to link value for SEO:
• Number:
How many incoming links does your website have? In general, things are better.
• Quality:
How authoritative are the websites that link to your website? A link from a reputable source written by an industry expert will count more than a link from a newly created blog.
• Importance:
Is the website link important to your company? For SaaS startups, a link from a website that regularly covers business technology will do more to increase your rankings than a link from a website that distributes revenue.
Getting thousands of high quality links from a very important website is a big challenge. I wrote another article recently about this process, and it can be difficult to do it well without the support of a professional company.
Rest assured, in a highly competitive SEO environment like SaaS, as hard as it is to get links, some of your competitors will be good at it. If they are older than you, all other things being equal, they will start ranking higher than you in the search results. The question is: will you let them go?
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