7 Costly SEO Mistakes SaaS Startups Can’t Afford to Make

About two years ago, I conducted a fun experiment on Indie Hackers.

Here is what I did…

I offered to do a free content audit for SaaS companies that want to grow their business using SEO and content marketing.

And guess what?

I got bombarded with requests from different SaaS founders, eventually making me busy for some days.

My major reasons for doing this audit were to learn the challenges that my target audience is facing and to understand better how to serve them.

In the long run, I got more than I bargained for.

The free audit sessions gave me first-hand experience of how most SaaS companies currently run their SEO programs.

One of the most surprising things I discovered was that most brands made similar SEO mistakes.

These mistakes often proved to be a stumbling block in their quest to achieve better SEO results, leading to missed opportunities and potential revenue loss.

And to my utmost surprise, they were A LOT!

Not only that...

It was difficult to see any company that wasn’t falling into at least any of them.

So, in today’s email, I want to discuss the seven common SEO mistakes of SaaS startups.

Plus, highlight how to address each of them. 

Before we continue, here’s a message from this week’s sponsor.

Back to today’s newsletter…

Let’s dive in…

1: Lack of SEO Strategy

This is the most common SEO mistake of SaaS startups.

In most cases, I found out that companies were investing in SEO without any strategy behind it.

This makes you wonder why they're investing in SEO in the first place.

Truth is…

SEO without a strategy is like building a house without a solid foundation.

What happens to the house in the long run?

It will collapse and won’t stand the test of time.

I love the way Erin Balsa puts it in this LinkedIn post: 

Indeed, investing in SEO without any strategy behind it isn’t just about getting to your destination or not. 

You might get there eventually, but it will take time, effort, and resources.

2: Neglecting Proper Keyword Research

Many SaaS startups create content that is positioned to rank high on Google without performing thorough keyword research.

Doing this is a recipe for failure.

You must always conduct appropriate keyword research unless you’re creating opinionated content pieces.

If you don’t, you won’t get any traffic from Google, no matter how hard you try, as succinctly put by Ahrefs CMO Tim Soulo.

Contrary to popular belief, conducting keyword research for a SaaS startup is much easier than you think.

The first thing you must do is to identify the main topics and themes that your audience is interested in and searching for.

Once you’ve figured that out, you should plug that main topic or keyword into Google.

By doing this, Google auto-suggest will show you the exact keywords people are searching for related to this topic.

And you can take things up from there.

Here is a quick example.

Let’s say your customers want to identify the customer journey of their users.

Here are some auto-suggested keywords for searching for the main topic, “customer journey,” on Google.

• Customer journey map

• Customer journey stages

• Customer journey in digital marketing

And so on.

That’s not all…

You can take it further by adding the preposition “for”  after it. Once you do that, here are the newly auto-suggested keywords.

• Customer journey for SaaS

• Customer journey for B2B

• Customer journey for ecommerce

• Customer journey for an app

And so on.

And guess what?

All these are potential keywords you can search for and rank for on Google.

While keyword research doesn't end here, it’s an excellent place to start, especially if you’re a new startup.

If you perform keyword research before creating any content, you’ll usually get results.

Other keyword research tools you can use for this purpose  include:

• Google Keyword Planner

• Keywords Everywhere

• Ubersuggest

• Ahrefs

• SEMrush

• Moz

3: Tiny Content Portfolio

Here is a fact…

SEO is “a numbers game.”

So, the more content you publish on your website, the more your chances of ranking on Google.

While getting results with a tiny content portfolio is possible, this is very rare.

Invest in consistently creating high-quality content pieces to see a lift in your SEO results.

Creating content on your website today and waiting 3-6 months before publishing another one isn't a viable strategy.

Nick Jordan, founder of Content Distribution, believes that websites that publish more content get better search results.

If you’re just starting, I highly recommend publishing at least 1-2 SEO content pieces every week.

When you consistently do this, you’ll gain the trust of your audience and also show the right signals to Google.

But if you publish infrequently, you won’t stay at the top of your mind with your audience, eventually making them less interested in learning from you.

That’s not all…

It will be difficult for you to show Google what your website stands for, which could hurt your rankings in the long run.

4: Insufficient Backlinks

Backlinks are the currency of the internet.

Except you’re creating content with no intent to rank high on Google.

In that case, you might not need them.

While ranking with little to no backlinks is possible, it’s becoming more challenging, especially in competitive niches.

More backlinks typically show that your company has more authority in the eyes of Google.

The more authority your company has, the better your chances of ranking quickly for any content you create.

Even if you rank without backlinks today, a bigger competitor can dominate your niche tomorrow due to their high authority.

Many SaaS startups underestimate how essential backlinks are in their overall SEO strategy.

For something that can make or mar your SEO program, that’s a costly oversight.

As John-Henry Scherck, Principal Consultant at Growth Plays, puts it: 

“Link generation is core to ranking well in search. SEO is much easier if you have a strong brand that naturally generates backlinks.”

What You Should Do Instead? 

Invest in earning (not building) backlinks for your website to acquire high-quality backlinks at scale.

With this approach, websites in your industry will link to you instead of begging them for backlinks.

Some examples you can try out include:

• Statistics pages

• Surveys

• In-depth study

• Original research

5: Search Intent Mismatch

If you want Google to rank your content, make sure that it meets the search intent of your ideal target audience.

The reason is simple…

No one wants to spend time reading content that doesn’t satisfactorily answer their query.

In most cases, if they don’t find what they’re looking for after stumbling on your content, they will leave immediately.

Brendan Hufford, the founder of Growth Sprints, recommends answering these four (4) questions to nail the search intent for any piece of content.

• Are they searching for a solution to a problem?

• Does the search phrasing include a possible solution?

• Does the search phrasing include your product?

• Do they already know your solution is best for them?

These questions can be further classified into:

• Problem Aware

• Solution Aware

• Product Aware 

• Most Aware

How To Address This Common SEO Mistake?

Before creating any content, put yourself in the shoes of your future reader.

Ask yourself: 

“When X types this query on Google, what exactly do they want to know?” 

You'll easily nail the search intent if you can identify and answer that in your content piece.

6: Lack of Proper On-page SEO

How do you tell Google the exact keyword(s) you’re targeting with a specific page on your website?

Simple.

By optimizing that page to target a specific keyword phrase or query.

Otherwise, Google bots will not understand what your page is about and might not rank it.

This is where on-page SEO comes in.

As important and straightforward as this is, many SaaS startups don't take it seriously.

And they end up creating content that isn’t indexed on Google and wondering why that’s happening.

Listen to me...

• Do not be that SaaS startup that doesn’t include relevant heading tags for your subheadings.

• Do not be that SaaS company that doesn’t use the keyword you want to rank for in the slug URL.

• Do not be that SaaS startup with multiple H1s on a page with no H2s - H4s.

What You Should Do Instead?

Keep these in mind before you publish that next piece of content on your SaaS blog:

• Include the main keyword in the H1 and the title tag

• Include the main keyword and its variations in the H2 - H6 tags

• Sprinkle the main keyword and its variation naturally throughout the content

• Include the main keyword in the first 100 words or so of your content

• Add an alt text with the keyword or its variation in the images 

• Link to relevant external sources from your content pieces

• Inter-link between pages on your website.

• Make sure that the content is reader-friendly and easy to navigate.

7: Underrating Zero Volume Keywords

Ranking for multiple high-volume keywords is a vanity metric that shows that you’re doing something right SEO-wise. 

That said, in most cases, it will not help drive conversions for your startup.

If you’re a SaaS startup, chasing high-volume keywords shouldn’t be the core of your SEO strategy.

Instead, focus on targeting pain-point keywords.

The reason for this is simple…

When you target pain-point keywords, you’re meeting the immediate needs of your target audience.

That makes converting them from readers into buyers (customers) easier.

However, if you don’t create content that targets their pain points, it might take time before they convert into a paying customer.

To recap… 

These mistakes negatively impact the results you get from investing in SEO. Avoid them if you want to increase rankings and drive signups from organic search.

Hope you found this helpful and valuable.

To your startup success,

Shehu AbdulGaniy 

Founder, Your Content Mart

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