Early-stage SaaS startups often face huge competition that may affect their online visibility. With so many SaaS companies on the market, being new in this field feels like fighting against the giants, hoping to win some small battles first. We won’t sugarcoat this – startup SaaS companies need to try really hard, be patient, and be dedicated to their SEO efforts (and everything that SEO includes) to gain organic growth and visibility.
So, to help you out with this initial struggle, we compiled this guide full of practical tips and actional tips. We’re sharing our knowledge to help you with the early-stage SaaS startup SEO.
If you’re ready, it’s time for a journey through the SERPs!
Table of Contents
Know Who Your Enemies Are
SERP stands for Search Engine Result Page, the one that appears once you enter a search term on Google. We can compare it with a battlefield where the giants conquer the largest part of the land while the newbies only take the crumbs until they grow more.
At this point, you must know that:
- The SaaS industry is competitive
- Your competitors rely on SEO strategies, too
- Google’s algorithms have regular updates
- There are relevant keywords waiting for you
- Competition analysis is a must
Once you know your competitors, you can start working on the SEO strategy. Monitor their performance, and try to reverse-engineer their strategy to see if something works for you. Don’t copy their job, but use them as inspiration to make your SaaS brand better.
This way, you can spot the gaps and use the opportunity to turn their weaknesses into bigger or smaller wins.
Find the Essential SEO Weapons for Startups
Every SEO strategy includes a few elements you can’t go on without. You may already know this, but here they are:
On-Page SEO
Keyword targeting is essential at this point, as you sprinkle all those queries throughout the content, meta details, headlines, etc. Quality content means a lot, too! Publish educational blogs, case studies, infographics, and user cases.
Improve the website structure and navigation for a more convenient user experience. Still, never forget to fix the technical SEO issues like broken links, mobile responsiveness, and submitting sitemaps to webmaster tools.
Off-Page Optimization
The industry outreach can boost your expert network. That way, you grow your circle of supporters who can mention you or your brand in their content, articles, podcasts, and videos. Additionally, social media engagement helps you connect with the audience. You only need to find the channel where your audience is mostly present and start creating for them.
Don’t forget the backlinks, too, as they’re the best way to enhance your online ranking. Earn backlinks from high-authority and relevant websites through guest blogging, directory submissions, and online engagement.
Content Marketing
Without content marketing, no SEO strategy can work out. Share your expertise or hire writers who can turn the technical language into engaging words that encourage the audience to act. Keyword-focused blogs are great for being informative and educational.
The guides and tutorials position you as a trusted resource in the industry. Case studies and testimonials show that even in the early stages of your SaaS startup, you demonstrate value and build trust. Visual content engages the audience, especially those who don’t prefer reading long-form articles.
And don’t just publish on the website. Make sure you spread your expertise on social media, forums, email newsletters, etc.
Be Patient While Trusting the Process
When communicating with SEO consultants or agencies, you’ll often hear the very common phrase that SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. As an SEO agency, we can confirm it’s true, no matter how cliche it sounds. Indeed, results won’t appear overnight.
Why?
We aim to gain an organic presence for relevant queries and position your SaaS startup as a leader in the industry. We know it’s a long process that requires patience, consistency, and adaptability, but that’s the only way to figure out what is working and what’s not.
Also, we can share additional quick tips that will help you in the early stages, like:
- Integrate SEO with your SaaS startup from day one because it’s a solid foundation for long-term success
- Measure and analyze the progress so you can move the strategy toward success
- Stay up-to-date with SEO trends, algorithm updates, and SaaS news
- Network with SEO professionals to extend your first-hand learning experience
- Communicate with experienced SaaS owners who have already gone through the early startup stages
How to Get Better at SaaS SEO?
As your product grows and gains more active users, it will get more authoritative online. That means the old SEO strategy may get outdated and irrelevant, so you will have to do these things:
- Refine the keyword targeting by focusing on relevant long-tail phrases
- Improve the content by switching the narrative if needed and including rich visual content in articles and blogs
- Reach out to relevant publishers to negotiate guest posting for higher authority
- Don’t underestimate the power of social media to boost your network
- Build an online community on forums or social media channels
- Make decisions based on data because SEO for SaaS startups should never be based on gut feeling
And most importantly! SEO is not something you can do alone. Maybe if there are nine days in the week, you may perform keyword research alone, map the keywords, and build a topical map for the website’s content.
In any other case, you need to build a strong team around you, including web developers, content creators, and SEO experts, to strengthen your online position.
Not sure about that? Check out how we gain exceptional results with SEO, and schedule a meeting if you need an SEO agency with all of this!
