Marketing for SaaS Business
In this blog, we talk about inviting relevant leads to your website/business using organic methods, in other words, we discuss about SEO for your SaaS company. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and this term plays a very vital role in accelerating your business in the right direction. Organic enquiry for SaaS product/service is different from the usual SEO that is applied by other non-SaaS companies. Hence, we need to delve deeper into details and figure out the best methods that will yield optimum results.
First and foremost, let us define the objective of doing SEO for your product/service. While most companies target high rankings on popular search engines, the ideal goal of your business must be to attain maximum conversions and not high rankings. Let us take an example of Company XYZ. Company XYZ is a small sized company that is looking to do SEO for its product. In an extremely competitive industry, it would be a herculean task to achieve a spot in the top 3 rankings of Google’s SERPs. Hence, it decided to look for ways that could translate into better conversions and thus, higher revenue for the brand. Let’s see what means did XYZ resort to and how did it achieve its aim.
The most important thing as mentioned earlier, is to measure results. We are now clear that the end goal is increased conversions. Now, to reach to that, let us simplify the process and understand the concept using an easy formula.
Total Search Volume x Your Brand’s Share x Your Average Conversion Rate = Total Conversions
For a particular keyword, the equation looked something like this for XYZ - 10,000 Total Search Volume x 15% Share x 3% Clickthrough Rate = 45 Conversions. These conversions were entirely from organic activities that included forms, phone enquiries, SEO practices etc. If you analyze the above formula clearly, you’ll realize that the Total Search Volume, although under your control, you can not significantly do much to change that number. However, your brand’s share for those keywords can be increased by doing good SEO including Keyword Research, Content Development, Backlink Strategy etc. and influencing your industry with your presence. The Clickthrough rate can also be controlled by making your website more interesting and engaging for customers to convert when they land on your destination.
Organic Lead Gen
To increase your share in the total search volume, you ought to follow certain hygiene factors. XYZ identified these factors correctly and changed their marketing activities. These are the parameters that were altered to achieve the goal -
- There are plenty of keywords that you need to target as opposed to traditional businesses that have fewer keywords to target.
- This results in various segments of audience for your campaign activities making it a little complex for targeting.
- Understanding this and getting a hang of selecting the perfect keywords for your product is the key to success here
- Follow your competitors and keep an eye on what they are doing in this space.
- You could use some tactics that are being employed by them, but in a better way
- Craft attractive search result text that allures your potential leads to click on your link and visit your website
- Assign keywords to appropriate landing pages to improve relevance and offer the best results to your visitors
- Include your brand name wherever possible in the most seamless way.
- An ideal way to do this would be to write meaningful blogs and sharing them with social influencers for PR or posting relevant content on niche forums and groups that have a good chunk of your target audience.
Performance Optimization
Having learnt a little bit about increasing your brand share in total search, let us now take a look at what XYZ company did, to improve its clickthrough rate.
- Optimization of website design and content to suit the tone, sentiment and appeal of your product and your brand as a whole
- Make your site responsive on every kind of device that is popular among your target audience. A mobile-friendly site/mobile application is a must these days as every Tom, Dick and Harry is using a smartphone
- Creating compelling content that is relevant to what your leads want to read and at the same time urges them to trust your product and make the purchase
- Including powerful and prominent Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons on your main/landing page that makes it easy for viewers to click on and convert
- A/B testing your website for different features and troubleshooting all aspects of your site. You may take feedback from experts or others in the industry to deliver the most user-friendly website for your product/service
- Keep your website URL clean and easy to remember. Do not have too many dynamic parameters mentioned in the URL. It’s a serious put-off for many
You need to ensure that your targeting is perfect and your destination is clear. If you have the above mentioned parameters in place, then you stand a very good chance to increase organic enquiry for your SaaS product/service.
That was all about interpreting the equation and figuring out how to tweak its elements to achieve best results for your business.
Increase Organic Enquiries for your SaaS business
What more should you do to increase Organic Enquiries for your SaaS business?
- Give your audience what they want to see not what you want to show them.
Channelize your content strategy in showcasing your features and how your customers can benefit out of your product rather than simply stating jargon and facts. Present something new to your potential customers and make it interactive.
- Introduce interesting elements in your site
Company XYZ benefitted a lot from introducing a simple quiz on its website. This quiz was nothing but an engaging survey to figure out what the customers were looking for in terms of its product pricing. XYZ analysed the results and structured its pricing based on the results achieved and voila, its conversion increased by almost 15%. You could have similar quizzes or contests to give-away free samples or free trials of your products to winners and make them review your product. Take their valuable feedback and incorporate the same in your product design.
- Go Social
Social media is the richest source of user-generated content and it is imperative for you to include social share buttons to organically reach out to maximum people. Have prominent buttons positioned correctly, so that viewers read your content and find it worthy enough to share with their contacts immediately.
- Variety is the spice in life. Have varied content pieces on your site
Images, videos, posters, slideshows, infographics are all different types of content and it is always a good practise to offer something new and different to your future customers. Give your audience various reasons to keep coming back to you for content or for sharing your content and making it viral on social platforms. This can boost organic enquiry for your SaaS product way more than your expectations
These were some ways to increase organic enquiry for SaaS products in the market. Doing SEO for SaaS may be different but not difficult. It’s always interesting to face challenges and think of ways to tackle them. If you have that spirit of overcoming any obstacle that may come your way, then, you sure have a successful recipe in hand. As Steve Jobs puts it - Always Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!