SEO is one of the best long-term marketing strategies you could implement for your B2B SaaS business. It has compounding performance over time and an ROI that will scale with your business. But your B2B SaaS company does face some unique challenges in SEO.
For an effective strategy, you cannot use the same SEO methods that businesses in other industries use. Your business must sell a new product that solves complex problems to customers with high expectations. No other industry is quite the same. While your SEO strategy will look similar to other strategies, it must have some key differences to meet the demands of the industry and bring potential buyers to your website.
One of the most significant differences in the B2B SaaS industry is the complex nature of the problems they try to solve. As Mitchell Causey, the CEO of Demandwell, explains, it’s not like the customers are looking to buy a new T-shirt. Instead, they want high-tech and advanced solutions to real-world problems—solutions that are not always straightforward or immediately achievable.
These complex problems often lead to technical vocabulary and industry jargon when describing solutions. So, SEO for B2B SaaS companies can involve long-tail keywords with technical phrases, and buyers can often search for specific and challenging problems. It is the job of marketers in the B2B SaaS space to meet these buyers where they are searching and to provide the value they are looking for.
B2B SaaS marketers are also in a unique position because they are creating a new category in SEO and introducing a new product to the market. Potential customers will not search for their content organically because they have never heard of it before.
To approach SEO with new category creation, you have to think about what your customer may be searching for besides your product. What problems do they have, and what solutions will they look for? Target these categories with your SEO.
Next, you want to guide them to your new solution. Make sure you provide them with the information they were looking for and then educate them on how your new solution is better than existing solutions. With this focus, you can direct potential customers from the old categories to the new market you are creating.
B2B SaaS buyers have different expectations for their buying experience than customers in other industries. Instead of expecting a sale-pitch approach, these buyers want to be educated thoroughly on the product. They also want to be guided through the decision-making process so they can find a solution to fit their specific needs.
Thus, SEO strategies for B2B and SaaS companies should include this educational focus and decision-making process. You have to meet your customers’ expectations to keep your customers happy, and SEO should support this goal.
SEO looks slightly different in each industry, but the B2B SaaS industry has special considerations that you should remember when building an SEO strategy for your company—from the complex nature of SaaS solutions to the buyer’s expectations. With these considerations, your SEO can drive website traffic and generate conversions in your unique industry.
