SEO is often used as an abbreviation for search engine optimizer or search engine optimization. This is considered as modifying a website to increase the ranking from organic search engine result. Saas or software as a service companies typically need seo services more than other companies due to the fact that they need a steady flow of traffic coming to their website in hopes of generating customers to subscribe to their software. Marketing and sales for saas is typically done online and not having the right kind of seo services can hinder the company’s growth. A good company will always want to have the best of services available in the market, same goes for seo services, a saas company will feel the need to engage a SEO service which is the best match for them without having to spend too much of money. The reasons and importance of seo services are as follows: Target Audience. Seo is one of the best marketing strategies in saas companies. Seo services will be able to ensure that the company’s website is able to reach out to target audience. For example a new saas company offering property management software, they would want property owners or property agents to visit their website and eventually subscribe to their software. Visitors from targeted audience are the most likely people to subscribe. Engaging a seo service ensures that there is a steady flow of traffic coming in from the targeted audience. Cost Effective. Seo is considered better than offline advertisement such as news paper, magazine, flyers and brochures. This is because those kinds of advertising are often considered costly and hard to measure in terms of effectiveness. Seo service providers would be able to track where and how the company’s targeted audience finds about them and how effective the seo campaign has been. Another reason is that online marketing is always up 24/7 and is able to reach clients globally.
What are SEO services?
The term SEO, which stands for “search engine optimization,” is the method of enhancing a website or a specific web page so that it’s found and read by Google and therefore attracts the audience of the brand or specific topics the website offers when a user searches for relevant keywords related to the content. SEO generally offers a pretty good return on investment, due to the fact that organic traffic is free. The aim of SEO is to work on the website, building internal links and backlinks, optimizing the content, keeping relevance to the audience, and increasing the user experience on the website (which affects the site’s position in the SERPs). SEO services help to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and helps to improve the chances that the site will be found and ranked highly by the search engine. SEO service providers offer a wide range of packages and options for search engine optimization, ranging from one-time fees for smaller sites to monthly subscriptions for ongoing SEO efforts and support. There are many ways in which SEO services can benefit SaaS companies. Increasing the company’s visibility is a major long-term strategy. When potential customers are simply conducting research on specific topics, having an article or blog post that answers the user’s query will increase brand visibility, and it is more likely that if the content is good, the user will become a frequent visitor of the site. A higher quality of SEO also contributes to the reputation and credibility of the brand. Positioning the brand amongst the leaders in the industry with relevant keywords and topics will increase the credibility of the company in the eyes of the customer. This is especially important if the SaaS company is in a high-competition industry, and customers are often looking for similar solutions to their problems. High-quality SEO makes it easy for potential customers to find information on the company’s product and understand why it is a better solution than its competitors.
Importance of SEO services for SaaS companies
Search engines are an integral part of every internet user’s life. It’s used to find information and at times buy products. In order for businesses to have a piece of the search traffic, they need to appear on the first page of search results. Research has shown that most searchers do not go beyond the first page and the ones that do, do not go past the third page. Thus, it’s important for a services-based company to rank within the first three pages. Compared to e-commerce sites, SaaS companies can sometimes find it harder to obtain search traffic due to the lack of a tangible product. What they are really offering is a solution to a problem, hosted over the internet. Usually, this is in the form of a web application. The moment someone uses a search engine to search for a solution to a problem, the traffic is highly targeted. If the SaaS company can manage to get in front of that traffic, ideally they will have a new client trying out their software. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an ongoing process of improving a website’s visibility in search engines’ search results. There are two areas in which SEO traffic can be obtained: free or organic listings and paid advertising. For SaaS companies, I recommend focusing on SEO for the free traffic through organic listings. This is because the lifetime value of a customer is generally quite high, which makes it worthwhile spending time on SEO. Learn about the importance of SEO for SaaS companies.
Overview of Sotavento Medios, a digital marketing agency in Singapore
Sotavento Medios aims to provide efficient, effective, and customized service to their clients. Unlike larger marketing firms, clients receive individual attention from the company founders themselves, who are involved in every step of the process. As a smaller and more specialized company, Sotavento Medios is able to differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace and can offer services not available elsewhere. The company first began by specializing in SEO services and has since expanded to offer a wider range of marketing services. With a sound understanding of search engines and how behavioral patterns affect the outcome of specific searches, SEO remains its flagship service.
Keyword Research and Optimization
There are two considerations that are unique to SaaS companies when it comes to keyword research: the buying cycle is usually much longer, and the product itself is often trying to fulfill a need that can be hard to express. According to Ed Fry of Inbound.org: “The keywords around what-you-really-do category are useless because nobody knows what things look like. You should focus on keywords around problems-you-solve category because people know the problem and can search for it.” An early mistake we made at KISS was to try to rank for terms like ‘CRM’ or ‘sales database’. We thought we sold a CRM, but nobody wakes up and decides to go buy a CRM. They have a problem within their business (e.g., sales is chaotic and you need to get organized) that they know is a pain and they will search to try to find a solution to that problem. SEO is at its most powerful when you can match hotly searched keywords with a solution to a problem — something that people need. Figure out what you want your users to do in your app after solving those problems, and align keywords to those stages of the buying cycle. Keyword research starts with using tools like the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and over time, a great analytics package. You’ll probably want to focus on long-tail keywords where there is less competition because even if they do generate less traffic, it is of higher quality. Conversion rates for visitors from long-tail keywords are typically much higher. If you are a new website, try targeting ‘mid-range’ keywords to begin with because they are easier to rank for. High ranking for a keyword with some itty-bitty traffic is still more beneficial than low ranking for a high traffic keyword. After you have created a hierarchy of keywords to target, make a spreadsheet and allocate a handful of keywords to each of your pages in a way that makes sense. This will make your efforts for the next point a lot easier.
Identifying relevant keywords for SaaS companies
Unfortunately, many SaaS marketers take the first (often only the most basic) keywords that come to mind when brainstorming. While this might be an OK start, it is far from the most efficient way to go about identifying the best keywords. After brainstorming, it is a good idea to ask a few customers which keywords they would type into a search engine to find your product. This will give you an initial understanding of the search terminology that is being used by your target audience.
The goal of keyword research is to identify which keywords are the most relevant and then competitively assess which keywords will be easiest to achieve a first page rank for. Searchers in different industries use different terminology to describe the products and services they are looking for, so it is necessary to be aware of what language your target audience uses to describe what they need.
Conducting competitor analysis for keyword selection
The best data is PPC (pay per click) data which can tell you which keywords are most competitive and being bid on and the value of a click for a specific term. There are several tools for this, the most popular being AdWords by Google and Wordtracker. Plug in the keyword and find out the terms KEI (Keyword efficiency index) which basically tells you the competitiveness of a keyword. High search count and low competition equals high KEI. The goal is to identify highly competitive keywords being bid on by companies. This is a good indication that a specific term will draw business because businesses are only going to bid on terms that bring targeted traffic with the possibility of creating new customers. This in turn means that the same term will eventually draw SEO traffic to the site assuming it is also highly competitive. The higher the value of a click the more likely the term is to bring business. All of this is valuable data that can later be used to determine which keywords to optimize for using SEO.
To achieve durable rankings through organic search, one must select the correct keywords to optimize a site for. A common failing is to guess what the optimal keywords are instead of doing informed research to identify them. One of the best ways to do this is to find out what the successful online businesses are doing and one can do that through competitor keyword analysis. This involves selecting 4-5 competitors and identifying their Meta tags, which are only visible in the HTML code of their site, and the keywords they are optimizing their site for. This can be done quite simply by visiting the site, right-clicking on the page and selecting “view source”. This will pull up the HTML code. The next step is to analyze the keywords in the Meta tags and determine which are the most competitive and likely to return targeted traffic using a keyword analysis tool.
Optimizing website content with targeted keywords
Once the right keywords have been identified through the process mentioned above, the next step is to optimize the website so that the search engines can understand its content and intent. When the search engine crawlers can understand what is on the website, they can then index it for specific keywords. This in turn will enable the website to be served up as a result when someone searches for those specific keywords. With the use of Google keyword tool and selecting 2-3 word phrases that have been identified as popular keywords, the website copy should be rewritten to include these keyword phrases a few times for each page. It is important not to overdo it as the search engines will pick up on this and it could hinder the website’s performance. The keywords should be placed in the title tags, header tags, and meta tags as well as in the alt image attribute. An internal linking structure should also be set up to link the keyword phrase to the most relevant page. The final step is to then create quality, optimized content for these keyword phrases. This part of the process is often outsourced to an SEO copywriting company. The copywriters should be given the keyword list and for each page, they should include the keyword phrase 3-4 times in the body content and also in the headings. It is important that the copy is still of high quality and reads correctly as clickbaiting content will not retain visitors to the site or result in successful conversions. High-quality content will also increase the chances of the content being linked to and shared via social media, both of which are off-page factors that will increase a website’s organic rankings.
On-Page SEO Techniques
Implementing structured data markup for enhanced search visibility Structured data is a standardized format of providing information about a page and classifying the page content; such as providing specific names and dates rather than a page which has unstructured info on events which just contains a list of events. This allows search engines to understand the content of the page and can provide richer search results via this info. For example, the following image shows how a rich snippet was used in search to display recipe information based on the structured data it contained. Google Structured Data Markup Helper and Testing Tool are invaluable resources for implementing structured data, as well as this article which guides you through the whole process.
Optimizing website speed and mobile responsiveness Website speed and mobile responsiveness are now huge factors for on-page SEO, and should both be primary focuses when developing a website. Search console allows you to check for mobile usability issues and will inform you of any issues on any given pages for mobile users. Google PageSpeed Insights will guide you to make changes which improve loading times for both desktop and mobile. This is a very technical topic and should be thoroughly researched to make sure all aspects are covered.
Meta tags such as title tags and meta descriptions are still very important for on-page SEO. Title tags are shown on the search results page and are the clickable headline for a given result. It is often best to keep title tags under 60 characters so they do not get cut off in the SERPs, and include your brand name or URL. Meta descriptions are a brief statement about the content of the page and should be kept to under 160 characters.
Creating SEO-friendly URLs and meta tags Your primary focus should be on creating URLs which are friendly for both search engines and users. This means making them as descriptive as possible without going overboard or being spammy. Avoid using the default URLs from some CMS which can be full of numbers and confusing. Include target keywords in the URLs, and keep them as short as possible without keyword stuffing.
3.1 Creating SEO-friendly URLs and meta tags
The most optimal URL consists of either just the name of the website or the title of the article that the page is about. Using query strings or parameters leads to URLs that are less user-friendly. If you are going to use parameters, make sure they are not too long and don’t have too many. A good suggestion is to use URL rewriting. Avoid using session IDs in URLs. These can be a hassle when it comes to search engine indexing, and more and more users are turning off cookies. Static URLs usually rank better in search engines than dynamic ones. For example, it is preferable to use [Link] rather than [Link]
URLs are one of the fundamental aspects of good search engine optimization. They reflect your website structure and affect your performance in search engines. Here’s a visual guide that will help you understand the parts of a URL.
3.2 Optimizing website speed and mobile responsiveness
Responsive Web Design – This is recommended by Google as it aims to serve the same HTML code on the same URL regardless of the user’s device (desktop, tablet, mobile, etc.), but can render the display differently based on the screen size.
There are a few options for creating a mobile-friendly website:
Entering into the world of IT business, the SaaS companies have to make sure that their website is operative and mobile friendly. The IT world has seen a lot of change in these past few years, with more and more people using smartphones to access data. Mobile usage has taken over PCs and laptops and is expected to grow even more in the coming years. As a result, IT companies need to work really hard on optimizing their mobile website. A study suggested that half of the internet usage is through mobile devices. So if your mobile website is not working as expected, half of the users will leave your website.
Implementing structured data markup for enhanced search visibility
Structured data is a way of delivering added data to search engines, so they can understand what your content is about. It’s like revealing more information about the content of your page, so search engines can return highly informative results. There is not an official relationship between structured data and Google rankings. However, it is true that by using the information provided by Schema.org, you can help search engines to understand and achieve better representation on the search results. In some cases, rich snippets can greatly improve click-through rates. In order to implement structured data, you must first understand the vocabulary from Schema.org. This vocabulary forms the basis for markup to give Google a more detailed understanding of the content on your website. For those who are not familiar with coding and programming, the process of markup can prove to be a difficult task – sometimes enough to put a person off attempting to do it. Incorrect implementation of markup can be detrimental, so for those who are not proficient with coding, looking for tutorials or seeking advice is recommended. Many content management systems like WordPress, Drupal, or static HTML offer plugins in order to simplify the process involving no more than copying and pasting the data, and in the future, it is likely that structured data will become more easily implemented for SaaS.
Off-Page SEO Strategies
Building high-quality backlinks for SaaS websites. Off-Page SEO strategies mainly revolve around building high-quality backlinks to your website. Backlinks are important for SEO, as search engines have stated that quality backlinks from authoritative sites are a very strong ranking factor. However, many SaaS websites have struggled with link building as many are skeptical about linking to a tool/solution they weren’t familiar with. If you have had success with getting backlinks to your SaaS website, feel free to skip this section. Step 1: Defining your target audience Your first step is to define what your target audience is (i.e. Find site owners that monetize online space, bloggers, etc.). After which, compile a list of domains whose website visitors would consist of your target audience. Step 2: Creating link-worthy content In the SEO world, we have this tactic that if you have a really awesome article, people will naturally link to it on their own. However, from experience off-page, that doesn’t simply happen. So, with your list of domains, you want to decide what type of content would be the easiest to get a link from their webmaster. A: Infographics and data Most sites are always looking for infographics in the same niche to put onto their blog post. This is where you would save a TON of their time and link them to the infographic you had just created. Data is another one, as some data may make an interesting topic and the person writing about it could cite your study in their post.
Building high-quality backlinks for SaaS websites
One effective method of building links is to start writing link bait articles. A link bait article is written with the intent of drawing incoming links from other websites. The key to link baiting is to write something unique that will grab people’s attention. It’s no secret that humor works great on the internet, with an endless supply of jokes and humorous media. Another effective form of link bait is simply to make a well-informed post on a timely issue. Many articles addressing high-impact issues are picked up by national news and widely distributed, then linked and re-linked again from various news sources. An in-depth how-to article can also help, by providing a solution to a common problem. Link baiting is highly effective, but it’s also a hit-and-miss approach. Not everyone has success with this method, and it requires creating a proper infrastructure to support the increased traffic that popular articles will bring.
Getting high-quality backlinks is perhaps the most difficult and important part of off-page SEO. The reason for this is because the vast majority of good backlinking methods are not free. Participating in good link building creates a site reputation with search engines. The stronger a site’s reputation, the higher it will rank.
Leveraging social media platforms for SEO benefits
It’s quite facile to say that one should publish more content and build more links. This can work, but it’s not the best exploitative use of time (unless employing some outsourced cheap labor) and it can be very hard to continuously keep on making more and more content, notably of high quality and interest. If you have already made content that is good, amusing or resourceful stuff that exerts people to link and share it, part of your social media time can be spent on causing attention to this content using varied means. This does amplify the potential of warranted links being built to your content, which many times can exceed the rate in which one can build links using direct link building. Any kind of lively discussion can result in people quoting or referencing what you have said, so one should always try to engage presence with expected clientele in a very targeted and empathetic way.
If your main idea of social media marketing is to increase conversions, this doesn’t mean one can ignore using social media for increasing the potential of your search engine rankings. It’s obvious that every post and tweet by your company on these platforms will not directly help improve your website’s search engine rankings. Up to 2014, Google has officially twisted off and on the concept of using social signals like Facebook “likes” and Twitter “tweets” to help rank listings. Regardless of the same, it’s not probable that they will ever abjure the nature of power of social media act in increasing visibility of your brand or content, which ultimately do result in search engine ranking improvements. This particular strategy has to be done connoting to the ideology “less is more”.
Engaging in guest blogging and influencer outreach for brand exposure
One highly effective method for building up a SaaS brand is to tell brand stories on other websites. This can involve hiring a blogger or journalist to write interesting stories about how the company is helping customers, offering solutions to common industry problems, and showcasing the culture and human side of the company. Instead of publishing these stories on the company blog, they are published as guest posts on other blogs and news sites, with a link back to a feature about the same topic on the company website. This method allows for brand promotion with minimized keyword usage, avoiding penalties and getting the content directly in front of the target audience. A great story can and will be syndicated to many other websites and social media channels, giving it an even greater exposure. Due to the new post-Panda importance of content quality and domain authority, this method can be very effective if executed properly.
Branding and exposure are facets of marketing that are often overlooked by SEOs and online marketers, despite the fact that they are crucial to any marketing effort, online or off. In the world of SaaS SEO, the strategy for developing a recognizable brand follows a slightly different path than the tactics used by offline businesses. Traditional online brand development involves utilizing the company’s own website and on-site content to convey brand image. Unfortunately, in the world of SEO, this can be very risky, especially for newer sites. Filling a website with optimized brand-related terms can attract a search engine penalty, and no brand can afford to be de-indexed and lose organic search traffic. As such, SaaS SEOs will need to find creative methods for brand exposure off-site.
