How important is SEO for your B2B SaaS business?

Search engine optimization (SEO) and a content plan are usually key parts of a solid marketing strategy. However, for B2B software as a service (SaaS) companies, SEO is a must-have and a fundamental piece to driving sustainable growth.

B2B SaaS SEO is the process of increasing organic traffic of a B2B SaaS company website by ranking in top positions on the SERPs for relevant keywords with the objective of putting themselves in front of the right audience. The overall goal is to give the website the right type of exposure and visibility to ensure not only organic traffic but high-quality website visitors. 

For SaaS businesses, that means people searching for: 

• Information about software 
• Software products similar to yours 
• Pricing of software
• Content related to a software product

Learning how your audience searches for your solution is vital to building a strong keyword and content strategy. If you target the wrong people, you might find website visitors engaging with your content but they won't find their way down into your sales funnel. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) can likewise help you optimize your website for conversions once you have driven the right type of traffic to it.

Focus on personas and their pains

Consider how decision-makers and their teams discover software. They have a need they need to meet. This pain is the one thing they will all have in common regardless of where they are in the buyer's journey, and your job is to tell them how your solution can solve it.

B2B SaaS businesses must develop keyword strategies that focus on the problems buyers need to solve. A key and differentiating aspect of SaaS companies is that their product or service is accessed and bought online. For SaaS companies, your website is the place where prospects form an opinion about the product, where they learn if the product is for them or not, and where they make the decision to become customers.

There are different types of keywords that reveal a different type of intent and your keyword strategy should target the different stages of the funnel to meet the prospect where they are. 

• Top of the funnel keywords
• Middle of the funnel keywords
• Bottom of the funnel keywords

Top of the funnel keywords (TOFU) 

The objective of these keywords is to drive awareness of your product/service. They usually have high volume but they drive low conversions since they are not high-intent. Blog content is a great type of content to rank for keywords in this funnel stage. 

Middle of the funnel keywords (MOFU) 

These keywords reveal intent to purchase, but the prospect is usually not quite ready. In this funnel stage, the prospect is considering options, studying alternatives, and comparing features and prices. The "solutions" page, "features" page, and specific landing pages tend to rank very well for these types of keywords. 

Bottom of the funnel keywords (BOFU) 

From a keyword perspective, these keywords tend to be around pricing, specific integrations, and features and are search queries that have a clear purchase intention. High-intent website pages like your pricing, book-a-demo, and trial sign-up pages should facilitate the decision to increase the chances of action and conversion. 

So, how important is a strong B2B SaaS SEO strategy?

SEO is a must-have SaaS marketing strategy because it accompanies prospects during the decision process, offering them the content they need at the right time and at the right stage of the journey. However, when working on your content strategy, focus first on adding value to your audience and on driving interest by creating great, relevant, and contextual content; SEO will simply help you put that content in front of the right readers.