Research Your Top Competitors to Enhance Your SEO Strategy

Thoroughly analyzing your top SaaS competitors provides invaluable insights to strengthen your SEO strategy. Learn how they attract and convert organic traffic to uncover gaps and opportunities.

Identify Direct Competitors
These offer similar solutions to your SaaS and serve the same target customers. Compare features and pricing.

Identify Indirect Competitors
While their product is different, it solves the same user needs and challenges. That understanding is crucial for SaaS SEO.

Research Their SEO Performance
Use tools like Semrush and Screaming Frog to analyze:

• Top organic landing pages driving traffic
• Highest ranking keywords
• Traffic volumes and growth trends
• Link profile strengths and referring domains

This reveals the SEO tactics working well for them.

Analyze Their Content
Study their blog, guides, and other content. How are they positioning themselves? What topics do they target? Look for missing or poor-performing content that presents an SEO opportunity for you. Can you do better with your personas?

Evaluate Their Product Pages
How do they showcase features, benefits, and unique selling points? What can you learn to optimize your pages? Follow SEO best practices that deliver results for competitors. Then, refine and innovate to stand out. Monitoring competitors gives data-backed direction for your SaaS SEO strategies. Learn from their wins and gaps to attract your target customers.

Build a Keyword Strategy Based on Problem-Solution Approach

A strong SaaS keyword strategy targets searchers' problems that your product solves. Ranking content that positions your solution will convert these high-intent visitors.

Identify Common Buyer Problems
Analyze the pain points and challenges your target personas face. What problems can your SaaS help overcome?

For example, a social media marketing platform can solve:

• Onerous manual reporting
• Difficulty tracking many accounts
• Struggling to demonstrate ROI

Uncover Related Questions
What questions do personas ask while researching solutions online?

For instance:

• How do I report on social media performance?
• What's the best social media management tool?

Use Tools to Find Opportunities
Leverage keyword research tools like Semrush to find high-volume, low-competition queries related to these problems and questions.

Create Problem-Focused Content
Develop blog posts, guides, and videos optimized to rank for these keywords. Craft compelling titles and meta descriptions.

For instance:

• How to Report on Social Media ROI [Guide]

Present Your Solution
Within each piece of content, explain how your product solves that specific problem or answers that question for your personas. Consider wider topics and keywords around your SaaS business while keeping your focus on personas. Know your target audience well and target keywords that align with your ideal personas’ challenges and solutions to position your SaaS as the go-to solution. This keyword strategy will convert visitors into leads and customers.

Find Keywords to Optimize Landing Pages of Your SaaS Platform

Optimizing your SaaS product and pricing pages for commercial keywords helps you attract motivated visitors ready to buy. You should target online searches for specific solutions to maximize your conversions.

Include your main SaaS product names and variations as target keywords.
For example:

• [Brand] CRM
• [Brand] CMS
• [Brand] project management software

Include relevant modifiers like "for small businesses" or "for agencies" to find searches for tailored solutions.

For example:

• [Brand] CMS for architects
• [Brand] CRM for real estate
• Small business CRM
• Free CRM
• Best CRM for small businesses
• Open-Source CRM

You can also target keywords for your key features like live chat, help desk, lead generation, etc.

For example:

• Live chat software for support
• Affordable help desk system

Leverage keyword research tools to uncover more commercial keywords your personas are searching. Look for low-competition gaps as it can make it easier for you to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). Update page content to naturally incorporate these terms in headlines, descriptions, alt text, etc. This boosts relevance. The more closely you can align pages with actual search queries, the better. Monitor keyword performance to double down on the highest converting terms.

Incorporate a Comparison Keyword Strategy

Bottom-funnel keywords comparing your SaaS to competitors are powerful for capturing motivated shoppers ready to buy. Optimize comparison content to stand out as the superior option.
Make a list of your main competitor brands. Prioritize those offering similar solutions for your target personas.

Brainstorm Comparison Terms
Come up with "[Your Brand] vs [Competitor]" keyword variations.

For example:

• [Brand] vs. Salesforce
• [Brand] vs. Zoho
• [Brand] vs. HubSpot

Use keyword research tools to get new keyword ideas and analyze search volume and keyword difficulty to rank for these terms. Target low-hanging fruit first as they are easy to rank for.

Create Dedicated Comparison Pages
Develop pages that deeply compare your solution to competitors. Focus on differentiating strengths and wins for your personas.

For example:

• Headline: [Your Brand] vs. Salesforce CRM Comparison
• Sections on features, ease of use, support, etc.

Include your brand name prominently on the page. It is crucial because on-page mentions and branding boost organic rankings for your brand name. The goal is to persuade searchers that your SaaS is superior for their needs. Monitor clicks and conversions to improve comparison messaging and grow qualified traffic.

Create Pillar Content to Outshine Your Competitors

Developing exceptional pillar content is crucial for SaaS brands to stand out from the competition and rank highly.
What does exceptional content mean for your SaaS brand? It means your content answers the searcher’s query better than other search engine results. How? For that, you can:

• Create long-format content
• Content that discusses a topic in great detail
• Add images or videos to make the content easy to understand and more engaging
• Formatted in an easy-to-read manner to make it more skimmable

Follow these tips to create exceptional SaaS content that delivers true value and converts visitors:

• Conduct keyword research to deeply understand user motivations and questions for each target keyword. Build content tailored to these needs.
• Review competitors' content ranking on page 1 in Google and other search engines. Identify weaknesses and gaps where you can better address search intent through your content.
• Work closely with subject matter experts like your support team to create accurate, in-depth content. Include actionable advice real users want.
• Aim for long-form, 3,000+ word posts with visuals like infographics, charts, videos, etc. This drives engagement and time on the page.

For example:

• An in-depth guide to scaling your sales process with process mapping
• How to build an effective employee onboarding program [Complete Guide]

Use section headers, bullet points, tables of contents, and clear formatting to make complex topics easily digestible. Market your content through email, social media, PR, and paid ads. Internally, share with sales to distribute to prospects. The payoff for creating truly differentiated content is earning high rankings and conversions. Continuously improve content by monitoring keyword positions and traffic over time.

Pay Attention to Technical Optimizations (Technical SEO)

Technical SEO focuses on how search engines access, crawl, and index your SaaS website. Optimizing these technical elements enhances user experience and improves organic rankings and traffic.

Improve Site Speed
Faster page load times boost conversions and search rankings. Compress images, optimize code, and leverage caching to accelerate speeds.

Optimize Site Architecture
Use a simple Information Architecture (IA) with logical, organized page hierarchies when it comes to creating optimized site architecture. Avoid deep nesting and broken links. This improves crawlability. Implement Responsive Design
With increasing mobile usage and Google’s preference for mobile-first indexing, having a site optimized for all devices is crucial for SEO and UX. Make sure to test across platforms.

Fix Crawl Errors
Identify and eliminate crawl errors using tools like Google Search Console. Common issues include blocking bots via robots.txt.

Create XML Sitemaps
XML sitemaps make pages easy for search engines to discover. Generate and submit sitemaps to the Search Console.

Use Structured Data
Adding schema markup enhances how your pages appear in SERPs. Implement structured data like FAQ schema.

Optimize On-Page Elements of Your SaaS Website (On-Page SEO)

On-page SEO strategies focus on enhancing individual web pages. Follow these on-page SEO best practices:

Optimize Title Tags
Keep titles under 60 chars. Include relevant keywords that capture page focus and entice clicks.

Meta Description
Craft compelling meta descriptions under 160 characters and incorporate keywords naturally to boost CTR. Use Target Keywords in Content
Seamlessly integrate terms in headers, content, alt text, etc., and avoid over-optimization.

Add Multimedia
Images, graphics, videos, and other media boost engagement. Also, optimize their alt-text with keywords.

Format for Scannability
Use headers, bullet points, numbering, and bolding for easy skimming to improve readability.

Check Mobile Optimization
Review content presentation to adjust font sizes, column widths, and CTAs as needed for website’s mobile-friendliness.

Continuous technical and on-page optimization establishes authority and improves SEO performance over time.

Build Internal Links for Improved SEO (Internal Linking)

Internal links are crucial for optimizing on-site navigation and directing link equity to boost your most important SaaS pages.

Leveraging internal linking for SaaS websites offers several benefits:

• Direct your site visitors to relevant pages within your website and make it easier for them to find what they are looking for
• Improve user engagement on your website as a site visitor hops from one page to another
• Help search engines like Google Search better understand your website’s internal structure, positively impacting your website’s ranking in search results
• Allow you to create a meaningful hierarchy on your website, providing more link value to key pages and helping those pages rank higher in search results.

Follow the best practices shared below to strengthen the internal linking of your SaaS website:

Use Descriptive Anchor Text for Internal Links
Avoid vague phrases like "click here." Use keywords or summarize the page focus instead.

Internally Link to Relevant Pages Only
Point internal links to pages related to the context. This improves user experience. Establish a Link Hierarchy
It is a good SEO practice to link more to your most vital pages like product or pricing to pass authority.

Diversify Anchor Text
Don't over-optimize with the same anchor text. It is better to diversify terminology for natural linking.

Prune Irrelevant Pages
Remove or update outdated, irrelevant pages so they don't pass poor-quality signals.

Monitor and Adjust
As your site evolves, review internal links to maintain relevance and optimize flow for improved SEO.

Promote Your Content to Earn Backlinks and Referral Traffic (Off-Page SEO)

Securing backlinks to your content remains crucial for ranking well in competitive SaaS niches. Without backlinks, your content is most likely to struggle for ranking, at least for competitive keywords. Thus, you will need a solid link-building strategy to earn relevant quality links to your content.
Apart from ranking on Google and other major search engines, robust link-building strategies also place you in front of target customers, bring more referral traffic to your website, and position you as an industry leader.

Here are different link-building strategies that you can follow to promote SaaS content:

Digital PR
Pitch high-authority publications for product reviews, expert quotes, and contributed articles.

Resource Link Building
Create resources like tools, research reports, and quizzes to get placed on industry hubs.

Broken Link Building
Find and replace broken links on other sites with your content where relevant.

Guest Posting
Publish posts on niche websites with a link back to your site using nofollow.

Content Promotion
Distribute and promote content through email, social media, paid ads, press releases, etc.

Link Insertion
Seek opportunities for organic editorially given links within an existing article's flow.

The more quality links you can earn, the more search engine visibility and referral traffic you'll gain over time.