Is SEO Different For SaaS Companies?

Is SEO different for SaaS companies? The answer might surprise you.

SaaS, or “software as a service,” is more or less a new term for a not-that-new idea. Namely, a company sells software as – wait for it – a service to businesses. What sets SaaS companies apart from previous generations of business software is that they use 21st century technology.

Instead of selling software that businesses then have to install and run (like, say, Quickbooks) the software is made available through cloud computing. You simply log in through a web portal and there you go, or perhaps install it on company servers. The SaaS company does the hosting, maintains connectivity and so on. Perhaps customization is in order, as different companies have different needs.

Is SEO different for SaaS companies, though? Let’s find out…

Online Search For SaaS Is Growing

One of the fastest-growing sectors of the B2B market is, of course, SaaS or software-as-a-service. These companies provide software to businesses, usually on a subscription basis. The nature of the software, of course, is different from SaaS company to company.

Some offer customization and certain levels of services available. Many use a cloud-based system, allowing not only use at their client’s physical location, but workers can access the software remotely. As many more organizations are employing remote workers, this is of course necessary.

It’s a long way removed from business software of yesteryear, requiring installation on every computer, waiting for physical disks to arrive and – let’s face it – how erratic a lot of those programs were. Today’s business software is on the cloud, and can be accessed with an internet browser. Log in, and go.

With more SaaS companies emerging and offering their software solutions to various businesses, those companies – through their websites – need to set themselves apart from the pack. SEO, of course, is one of the best ways to do that.

SEO Is NOT Different For SaaS Companies

The truth is that no, SEO is not any different for an SaaS company than it is for anyone else.

Search engine optimization is search engine optimization. It doesn’t change. What changes is what steps will have to be taken in order to optimize YOUR website for YOUR SaaS company.

Being able to accomplish those steps? That’s where a qualified and experienced SEO services company comes in. They’ll start with an SEO analysis and determine the ranking potential, what opportunities for improvement exist, and what needs to be done to achieve the potential of your site.

Then, they get to work. Up front improvements begin to show results fairly quickly, but real ranking achievements will take a little longer.

This process is no different for an ecommerce site, a SaaS site, or any type of website you can imagine. It’s just that exactly how long it will take and exactly what needs to be done varies from website to website.

Think of it this way: some houses need a lot of work to get ready to sell. Others only need a bit of sprucing up here, some light landscaping there, and it’s basically good to go. The question is what kind of shape your house – meaning your website – is in when the work commences.

Hire The Right SEO Agency for Your SaaS Business

If you need to get serious about rankings for your SaaS company, then you need to hire the right SEO agency.

There are plenty of shady operators out there, without doubt. They’ll promise overnight results, and maybe they’ll even deliver…for about a week or two. You get hit with a massive penalty and they stop taking your calls after they cashed your last check.

However, an experienced SEO services company is going to be able to get your company lasting ranking results. This will mean  increased traffic, increased qualified leads and ultimately an increase in sales…but it won’t happen overnight, and they will tell you that up front.

Any SEO agency that promises instant results is lying to you, or use blackhat techniques that only work for a little while and end up doing vastly more harm than good.

Good SEO means taking the time to see to the details. Making sure your on-page content is optimized, with clean, original copy and correct structure. Metadata for each of your pages. A blog – and yes, you need one – as well as optimized landing pages that will rank as well as move visitors into and further down the sales funnel. Clean code that loads pages quickly in desktop and mobile browsers.

These things take time, but pay off in the long run. It’s easy to buy a bottle of wine, but it takes time to grow a vineyard and the latter is what good search engine optimization, done by an experienced agency, will be able to do for you and your SaaS company.