SaaS Content Marketing Essentials
To consider SaaS a single industry is somewhere between short-sighted and outright reckless. Sure, all SaaS companies provide software-as-a-service to the extent that they all deliver their product in a similar way — i.e. via (probably cloud-based) software. But project management software is as different from a telehealth app as it is from a fintech platform.
Different SaaS products have different target audiences. They have distinct use cases and wildly different value-props. Some are B2B and some are B2C. And while some are niche tools, others are comprehensive enterprise suites.
As unique as different SaaS offerings are, however, they nonetheless share some commonalites across the board — and many of those shared traits extend to SEO and Content Marketing, specifically. Indeed, as much as the audience, messaging, and keywords change from one SaaS market to another, the strategies and tactics available to them are as universal as the need to market their service in the first place.
Keyword Research
SaaS companies understand their products and services better than anyone else. They know their features, value propositions, and USPs down to the finest detail. But the language your SaaS team uses to describe your product is often much more sophisticated than what your target audience uses when searching for the solutions your SaaS product provides.
This is where keyword research bridges the gap. Keyword data ultimately helps SaaS operators uncover how users are actually searching for solutions they offer –– revealing the terms, phrases, and intent behind their queries. This data allows your business to use language and target keywords with both high search volume and high intent, ensuring that you’re ranking competitively on the terms that actual potential customers are searching for.
In short, keyword research aligns your messaging with your audience’s search behavior, driving qualified traffic to your website. Indeed, before investing in content and onsite SEO for SaaS, make sure you’ve done the groundwork and identified the keywords your target audience is actually using — and not the ones you think they are.
Content Funnels
An effective Content Strategy has to support all levels of the Conversion Funnel — top, middle, and bottom. It nurtures users through their journey, engaging their needs every step along the way, and leads them to take meaningful action.
ToFu
Top-of-Funnel (ToFu) content focuses on generating awareness of your brand and its products by speaking to users’ needs. ToFu content tends to appeal to a broader audience than you’re targeting, and is often educational, engaging, and designed to capture attention without a hard sales pitch.
MoFu
Middle-of-Funnel (MoFu) content engages users who are actively in the market for the products and services your brand offers, and engages them by demonstrating a deeper understanding of their needs. It targets prospects who recognize their pain points and are actively exploring solutions, fostering trust and engagement. The middle-of-funnel is where your brand bridges the gap between the top (awareness) and the bottom of the funnel (decision).
BoFu
Bottom-of-Funnel (BoFu) content focuses on specific solutions and products, targeting users who are ready to make a purchasing decision. This high-intent content is designed to drive conversions by addressing final objections and showcasing clear value. While its reach is smaller compared to top-of-funnel content, BoFu pieces are critical for generating sales, subscriptions, and conversions.
Evergreen Ever After
Evergreen Content is timeless and continually relevant, providing foundational value that resonates with your audience long after it is published. Here, your brand should prioritize content types with a longer shelf life, such as how-to guides, industry best practices, or in-depth FAQs.
And because Evergreen Content is so universal, it can also be easily repackaged into different formats, and repurposed across different platforms — increasing both its reach and its ROI. Put simply, the more versatile and modular your Evergreen Content, the easier it is to adapt and distribute across platforms, ensuring maximum reach and long-term impact.
It’s for this reason that SaaS companies should prioritize Evergreen Content early-on, as a strong foundation to build all their future content campaigns on.
Besides, for SaaS businesses, Evergreen Content is especially effective at addressing customers’ core needs and pain-points, and remaining relevant over time. For example, a comprehensive guide on “How to Onboard New Users to [Your SaaS Product]” can serve as a go-to resource for prospects and customers alike.
Product Pages
Product Pages are not just for ecommerce. They are also the perfect example of BoFu content. They represent the final step in a buyer’s journey, and the first one in new users onboarding. They play a significant role in your rankings for product keywords, and should be optimized for short-, medium-, and long-tail keywords, as well as conversions.
Indeed, a well-crafted product page provides users with everything they need to make an informed decision, including product descriptions and features, pricing details, FAQs, and user reviews. And each of these features can be optimized for keyword relevance and marked-up for structured data so your Product Pages better target user-intent at all levels of the conversion funnel.
Product Comparisons
Product Comparison content is especially effective at engaging users. Not only does it compare different product features of your different SaaS offerings, but it is by its very nature keyword dense — which not only ranks well on its own, but also supports your domain’s overall keyword relevance for those products.
For instance, comparing products designed for small teams versus enterprise-level clients demonstrates versatility while clarifying which option aligns best with various business sizes. And in doing so, product features and keywords are naturally reiterated. Indeed, Product Comparisons not only boost engagement, but also help your SaaS business capture rankings and valuable real estate in the SERPs.
Competitor Comparisons
Competitor Comparisons helps SaaS companies in two tangible and measurable ways. First, they help SaaS providers differentiate themselves from their competitors’ offerings, and emphasize both their value-prop and their USP. More importantly, they help SaaS operators capture rankings on their competitors’ brand names by featuring content that speaks directly to those competitors’ offerings.
Competitor Comparison content offers potential customers a clear breakdown of key features, value-props, and USPs, while positioning your brand as trustworthy, authoritative, and transparent. This type of content is designed to highlight unique advantages compared to the competition –– whether it is superior functionality, ease of integration, better pricing, or unmatched support.
But Competitor Comparisons are also integral for SaaS SEO strategies in that they help your business rank on competitor brand names and high-intent comparison keyword traffic. Of course, being that aggressively competitive might not fully align with your brand, but your competitors may already be bidding on your brand name, so the opportunity cannot be overlooked.
Use Cases
Use Case content showcases how your SaaS product solves real-world problems, highlighting practical applications that resonate with potential customers. This type of content is especially important in SaaS industries because it highlights specific pain points and demonstrates how your product addresses them.
For instance, a CRM Case Study might highlight a use case where a business streamlines its operations by automating follow-ups and tracking sales performance. And in doing so, it can leverage both CRM and other contextual keywords to target user-intent.
Ultimately, Use Case content helps SaaS companies build credibility and trust, making it easier for prospects to make informed decisions. Finally, targeting Use Case keywords allows SaaS businesses to expand their brand’s reach beyond their own niche and into the broader market segments they serve.
Industry Content
Where Use Cases provide context for how a SaaS product can be used in the context of different user-roles, Industry Pages can illustrate how that SaaS tool can be used in the context of different industries. Indeed, Industry Content ultimately demonstrates the value that your brand’s SaaS offering can create for users in a specific industry — building both trust and authority with potential clients along the way.
But Industry Pages also play a pivotal role in expanding your SaaS brand’s keyword footprint because they blend product keywords with industry ones, helping you rank on niche-specific search terms that drive highly qualified traffic. Indeed, these pages help position your SaaS solutions for diverse markets, enhancing both visibility and lead generation.
For instance, a SaaS company specializing in project management tools could create Industry Pages tailored to markets like construction, IT, and healthcare, each highlighting how their software addresses specific pain points. This not only helps your brand capture search rankings, but also targets decision-makers in these industries — such as project managers, CIOs, and other administrators.
Case Studies
Where Use Cases and Industry Pages help users envision how your SaaS product can help improve their business and streamline their daily routine, Case Studies demonstrate your SaaS product’s real-world value and successes. Specifically, it provides users with concrete examples of how your SaaS company helped another trust brand reach its business goals — and was satisfied enough with the outcome to let you share those details with the public.
But Case Studies are not only tangible examples of your product’s success that helps build trust with the users. They also help your brand build additional relevance and authority in the SERPs by targeting high-intent keywords in their story-telling, bolstering both the page’s and your overall domain’s relevance for those keywords.
Blog Posts
Blog Posts are such a versatile form of content. They can be ToFu, MoFu, or BoFu. They can be anything from company news and product updates to listicles or thought leadership. And they allow your SaaS brand to tell its story and share its messaging in different ways from a variety of angles. But they also allow your brand to target high-intent keywords at every from everyone of those angles.
Regardless of their format, every Blog Post represents an opportunity to hone in on a collection of targeted keywords, create another page that can rank on them, and in the process, increase your domain’s overall relevance for those keywords. And not only do they help close competitive SEO gaps and attract high-quality backlinks, but they also generate brand awareness, communicate your SaaS product’s value-prop and USP, and address consumer needs along the way.
Best of all, Blog Posts can be easily created by repurposing Evergreen or Product Content, and then later themselves repackaged into infographics, social media posts, or video scripts. This extends the shelf life of your content, maximizing the ROI of your content marketing efforts.
Resources
With every SaaS product, there is a degree of documentation required to help onboard and support users. Whether it be Help Forums, FAQs, or User Guides, SaaS companies must provide their users with some kind of content to help them, well, use the product. And naturally, this content tends to be very keyword relevant.
While FAQs can directly target user search queries at all levels of the funnel (facilitating user acquisition and onboarding), and User Guides support Use Case keyword rankings, Help Forums leverage UGC to rank on any number of long-tail product keywords. And all of these converge to elevate your domain’s overall relevance for short-, medium-, and long-tail keywords at all levels of the funnel.
Resource Content also does more than build rankings and brand awareness. It drives conversions by targeting high-intent keywords that align with users’ needs at critical stages of their journey — making it a powerful tool for ranking, acquisition, nurturing, and conversion.
Greater Than the Sum of its Parts
There are many kinds of content that SaaS brands can leverage to improve their rankings on any given keyword. But when those different kinds of content converge, they become greater than the sum of their parts.
Just like when you put four walls together you get a room, or when you bring enough pillars together you get the Parthenon, content is part of your fundamental marketing infrastructure. It’s not just a strong foundation on which to build, it also provides the background support that helps your SaaS business grow.
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