I`m gonna share a case study for our SEO work in SaaS space and how we actually succeed? Basically things written online doesn’t reflect the reality of SaaS marketing cause people who post online they mostly try to sell their own services on Digital Marketing.
So step by step let me explain: first let`s cover our situation after I will show you what we did in our SEO journey
What is our product?
Page Ads
In this case calling a service instead of product is more correct and for the actual goal is the service offering Entire Digital Marketing in one Page, also the name of the company comes from here.
Specifically which services we offer?
In general, headlights as a marketing channel:
| Category | Services |
|---|---|
| Web | Page Ads, UCA (Unified Content API), Quickblog, Indexer, Backlink Gateway, Page Business, Ad Autopilot, Prog Cloud |
| Marketplace | Page Marketplace |
| Tools | VIDAi+ (AI Video Automation Tool), Micro (Scraper Tools), SERP (Search Engine Result Page), V2T (Video Analytics AI), Task Cloud, Object Storage, Envelope (Marketing Email) |
| Research | Keyword Research |
| Social | Page Direct, Page Social, SCA (Cross Platform Social Media Connectivity) |
| Micro Services | CTA (Comment Text API), PUMA (Page Unified Messaging API) |
| Media | Page Media (Scraper Tools) |
| Paid | Paid (Paid Ads) , Prog Cloud – Programmatic Network Advertising Platform |
Page Ads
What people are recommending and what we actually find out ?
Web is full of information on SaaS marketing which pretty much the same, here is a detailed analysis of recommended marketing strategies and their effectiveness:
| Stages | Recommendation on Web | What We Find Out? – Effectiveness |
| Market Research | Identify audience, Analyze competitors, Track trends | Analyzing the backlink and content (keyword) strategy is the key. |
| Branding | Develop value proposition, Create brand identity | Branding in the beginning shouldn`t be a thing to focus on. |
| Content Marketing | Blog, Whitepapers, Videos | Content is should be targeting a problem, and you should offer a solution. |
| SEO and SEM | Optimize site, Use ads | Paid Ads is crucial but only generates a small amount of leads. |
| Social Media | Choose platforms, Share content | Who follows you? and how many followers you have? |
| Email Marketing | Build list, Send newsletters | Sharing discount information brings traffic. |
| Partnerships | Collaborate, Form partnerships | It`s super hard to find good ones. |
| Customer Acquisition | Free trials, Referral programs | Free trials is a great way to gain users. Referrals not so much. |
| Analytics | Track performance, Optimize | Churn Rate is should be the main indicator. |
| Feedback | Gather feedback, Improve | Make sure feedbacks entering online sites like Google Reviews or Trustpilot. |
Lets Analyse:
Backlinks: After the latest 2024 Core Update we learn small sites with high competition keywords (Keyword Difficulty) have slight chance to getting ranked unless getting links from high authority websites.
Content: Every content you generate needs to point out a question people asking for online and you can start connect them to your main service or product in our case first we settle with basics like a glossary then wrote the essentials after that we answered commonly asked questions. Google also loves informational content and ranked them the most recommended ratio on a website is %80 Informational %20 Transactional.
Keep in mind using Google Trends is super helpful to getting your content ranked. Cause newly generated unique contents getting ranked very easily on top of Google Searches.
Branding: Branding is not something you should spend money and time in the beginning for one simple reason cause you have a high chance to optimize or change your products or services along the way and second no one knows you anyhow so they don`t have brand image in their mind yet. So whom you branding off anyhow?
Instead focusing on conversions and don`t spend unnecessary money from the operating budget. In time people will recognize your company name and with operating income you can invest slowly on branding.
Paid Ads: Platforms like Google, Meta, Youtube etc. all have their own targeted audiences and each serve a different purpose when it comes to marketing. Youtube is good for explaining a long service, Meta is good for targeting mobile device users and lastly Google for instance good for complementing organic searches or supporting them cause it will reappear thanks to Google Ads algorithm.
SEO: There are lot thing to cover but in short:
For beginning:
First 10-15 Article must explain what is your website is about as a content (If you doing Web Development you should generate content about Web Dev.)
-Establish basics as a keywords (Research your competitors and start generating content with those keyword to eliminate Keyword Gaps)
-Build links same as your with competitors to eliminate Backlink Gaps (Try getting backlinks from the same Websites)
-Write content to cover basics of your product or service like FAQ`s (Frequently Asked Questions) or write a glossary.
-After reaching certain organic traffic (1000 Impression + 15 Clicks Average):
Start building links or get guest posts from second degree websites meaning not your industry (SaaS) but closely relevant ones (IT, Web Development, Fintech etc.) Google values this expansion very much and frankly as long as you are getting good links, Google won`t care about where you getting at.
-Post Organic Traffic (After getting clients):
And this part is a must! you need to register your platform into SaaS Review or Marketing Platforms
Such as: Product Hunt, SaaSHub, IndieHackers, SaaSWorthy and so on please check the detailed list from below:
With these sites you assured three things with one stone:
First: Categorizing your website relevant category in front of Search Engines
Second: Getting high DR (Domain Rating) backlinks to your main Domain.
Third: Getting a little bit a direct traffic and users whom interested in your service or product.
`Make sure register your website those platforms believe me it will paid off.`
Also forum sites like Black Hat World and many others is a good way to get users to your SaaS.
Challenges of SaaS Marketing?
How much should you spend on your Campaign? that`s the main question I assume obviously you operating with limited budget and you want to succeed in this business frankly SaaS is the sweetest money earning business ever. As long as you have a enough users and stable product you can enlarge your business to infinite cause transactions are super smooth compare to any other physical business and there is no shortage of supply only question is how many people can reach your product or change their current provider over yours?
That is the main challenge of any SaaS business cause people don`t like to switch other providers so easy you need to assure two things! either pricing and better service if you can do both like Page Ads does you able to gain users all the time. And more importantly if you gain users and make them stay your business will operate for years in profit zone. That`s many SaaS businesses missing these days they building a product bringing users and so forth but maintaining that customer base is a different story. Competition is super high and every day a new service is born so how can you assured you stay in place? easy build the best service and give the best customer support. No matter what problem your clients facing if you give them fast responses they don`t leave you so easily.
By fast customer support I mean under 30 minutes is a must and get the whatever is the problem in one shot, design your ticket form that way, check Page Ads ticket system highly recommended!
Subscription or Pay-As-You-Go – Which pricing model should be choose by SaaS Companies?
This is a Mexican Stand-off for each SaaS business when it comes steady income for the company obviously Subscription based model wins over. But there is a slight problem users paying for a service which they didn`t tried yet and you telling them I`m gonna charge you every month even you don`t use it!. Purchases like these is a obstruction for the users based on Page Labs Research data showed us Pay-As-You-Go model (%76 more likely) is on the users mind, much more likely to continue on the purchase compare to Subscription Model.
What can I do if my Service only be selling with Subscription?
Make two options first Pay-As-You-Go (Wallet) and second Subscription based, this way you offer both solutions and for the users don`t mind or don`t wanna deal with monthly deposits you cover that and for the undecided audience you offer easy way out with Pay-As-You-Go pricing model, like Page Ads does.
On your general marketing budget not more than %5 cause paid ads is always a factor of cost and you need to invest on SEO so you can generate content all the time without spending any money constantly but only the time establishing a good organic traffic.
What will be the Marketing Costs of SaaS Marketing?
Depends on your marketing budget but here is the basic cost not less than 20k USD over 6 months of time.
Spending mostly on Link Building and content generation activities (Make sure your team writing the content, content writers these days using Ai and generates non-useful content which brings no attraction and no organic visitors.)
And secondary is gonna be Paid Marketing but we have an alternative check Prog Cloud to do Advertising with friction of a cost compare to Google and Meta.
Prog Cloud
Here is the recommended costs and what we find out for Marketing Budget on these channels:
| Marketing Budget Ratios | ||
| Category | General Ratio | Our Ratio (Page Ads) |
| Branding | 5% | 2% |
| Content Marketing | 20% | 22% |
| SEO | 15% | 37% |
| Social Media | 10% | 2% |
| Email Marketing | 10% | 4% |
| Free Trials | 15% | 12% |
| Paid Marketing | 15% | 21% |
As you can see as a highlight we spared huge percentage to free trials also cause best type of marketing in this business is reference people talk so they also recommend or criticize your product take especially those criticism to improve your product cause if you solved the recurring problem you have two benefits first less time consumed on operating the SaaS second happy customers tend to stay in your service more likely.
You can divide your marketing budget into these ratios and construct your own, remember this is beneficial for Page Ads Digital Marketing SaaS business, It can be vary depends on your SaaS type.
