18 Common SaaS SEO Mistakes To Correct Immediately

Although the first SaaS product was introduced in 1999, companies are still contemplating effective marketing strategies. With billions of people using the Internet, leveraging online approaches is a significant aspect of reaching potential clients.

While almost everyone understands the importance of search engine optimization for a better online presence, very few are using it effectively.

If your SEO approach is not fetching the expected results, you might be doing something wrong. Here are 18 SaaS SEO mistakes you must correct if you want your website to perform well. 

TL;DR – SaaS SEO Mistakes

With almost every aspect of our lives becoming digital, having an online presence for a business becomes mandatory to attract potential customers. While the urge to perfect your website is understandable, a lack of SEO expertise can lead to one making certain SEO mistakes that can make or break your website’s growth.

Among such issues, here are the 18 most common SaaS SEO mistakes (we’ll discuss in detail later in the article):

1. Not understanding the user’s search intent
2. Focusing too much on one keyword or phrase
3. Relying on free keyword research tools
4. Optimizing for features and not issues 
5. Focusing too much on the look and less on SEO 
6. Not covering SEO basics for all the pages 
7. Forgetting about the world existing outside of your website
8. Paying for links for your website 
9. Practicing unnatural linking
10. Creating too many pages 
11. Using a Flash website 
12. Not using the customer-first approach
13. Delivering only quantity over quality 
14. Forgetting everything on your website is content
15. Not using data to build content
16. Not tracking behavior from the first click to conversion 
17. Forgetting to conduct regular audit sessions
18. Having multiple Google tracking codes

You can take your time to detect and correct all these issues on your website or get assistance from a team of professionals. 

Trusting SEO experts will not just save you time but also ensure your website performs immaculately. Work with TrioSEO and witness how our expertise will get you better rankings and higher conversions. 

Why is SEO Important for SaaS Businesses?

As a SaaS business owner, you depend heavily on your website to showcase your product’s use cases, features, USP, and other aspects. SEO can help you effectively reach and attract the target audience to your website. 

This, in turn, increases the conversion rate and builds trust as well as loyalty. Since SEO isn’t as costly as paid promotions, it also reduces customer acquisition expenses. 

Apart from offering direct results, SEO also improves your website’s Core Web Vital score, which ensures better ranking for your sponsored ads as well. 

How is SEO for SaaS Different?

There are two key differences between SEO for SaaS and general search engine optimization efforts. 

1. It is “Personas and Problem” Centric

SaaS users are usually working professionals with little to no time to spare. Hence, SEO focuses on its target audience’s problems and how the SaaS product can resolve them. 

2. It Focuses more on “Conversion than Traffic” 

A massive influx of traffic does not always equate to conversions. To get more conversions, you need to attract targeted visitors interested in your SaaS product. This is because it is not a one-time product you are trying to sell but a long-term solution that heavily relies on sign-ups, bookings, etc.

If you want to generate targeted traffic and get quality leads, you need SEO assistance from experts who understand the industry inside out. TrioSEO is a SaaS SEO agency with industry-specific knowledge that can help you grow organically. Work with us and find out how you can grow your website’s performance effortlessly. 

Most Common SaaS SEO Mistakes and Ways to Avoid Them

With numerous resources available in the market, most people have a basic idea of how SEO works. However, due to a lack of practical experience, they might not be able to implement the knowledge they have gained online accurately. 

If you are not seeing your desired results from your SEO approaches, you might be making one or more of the following mistakes: 

Keyword Research Mistakes

Some common mistakes associated with keyword research are:

1. Not Understanding User’s Search Intent

User search intent is the crux of creating compelling content. While researching for keywords, think about what your users want while searching with those phrases. 

Additionally, instead of simply listing keywords with high search volume, use the ones related to your product. It will ensure your audience is not clicking out instantly after being disappointed by what they see.

2. Focusing too Much on One Keyword or Phrase

Not everyone uses the same terms to describe something, especially in a global market where different cultures use different words for the same thing. 

Instead of focusing on just one phrase or keyword, have a list of terms indicating the same core idea and create content around them. 

3. Relying on Free Keyword Research Tools

Many people rely on free tools for keyword research. Although it’s tempting to use free tools, they may sometimes provide incomplete data. 

Hence, it is best to use paid tools that provide more accurate and comprehensive data. Moreover, it’s even better to let an expert oversee the whole process since it’s critical for your growth.

On-Page SEO Mistakes

The most common on-page SaaS SEO mistakes are as follows:

4. Optimizing for Features and Not Issues 

As discussed earlier, as a SaaS company, you’re trying to sell a long-term solution instead of a one-time product. Hence, simply letting one know about its features would not be enough. 

You must also let your audience know how your SaaS product will solve their problems effectively. 

5. Focusing too Much on the Look and Less on SEO 

Although your website’s user experience plays a big role in the SaaS market, it’s not everything. The algorithms cannot see your website. Instead, they rely on tags, signals, links, and other optimization efforts to determine its content and legitimacy. 

Hence, focus equally, if not more, on optimizing your website while putting attractive visual elements onto it. 

6. Not Covering SEO Basics for All the Pages 

Another aspect of SEO best practices is optimizing all the pages of your website. Note that the crawl bots will eventually crawl every page on your sitemap and this kind of negligence will only lead to a drop in your SERP rankings. 

Moreover, as it is a SaaS website, your visitors will navigate through all the pages to better understand your products and services. Proper optimization can ensure a clear customer flow, which can also lead to successful conversions.

So, make sure you use an on-page SEO checklist to see if all the pages are optimized accordingly and make changes if needed. 

Off-Page SEO Mistakes

These are the mistakes website owners usually make when optimizing their SaaS websites:

7. Forgetting About the World Existing Outside of Your Website

You may often fall into the trap of obsessing only over your website and its every minute detail. However, in the pursuit of perfecting on-page SEO, you should not forget its equally important counterpart, off-page SEO. 

You must consider crucial aspects like:

• Influencer marketing: Enables you to collaborate with people having a huge social media following to promote your brand among their followers. 
• Brand mentions: Boosts your company’s online reputation by getting mentions in reviews, educational content, news articles, and more. 
• Social signals: Gives you feedback in the form of likes, shares, retweets, comments, etc., on social media channels like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and others. 
• Guest posting: Lets you write blogs for similar companies in your industry to draw traffic back to your blog or site. 
• Posting on forums: Allows you to answer queries and share your thoughts on topics related to your company and industry, establishing your brand’s presence and authority in that domain. 
• Backlinks: Lets you acquire links to your website from other high-quality domains, improving your search engine visibility. 

8. Paying for Links for Your Website

Building backlinks has been heavily scrutinized by Google as many website owners tend to purchase links from other websites. Although you might see instant growth through such practices, if Google realizes you have purchased links, it might blacklist your site for good. 

Hence, do not rely on such tactics; instead, make your content so information-packed that other websites can’t help but link you to their content.

9. Practicing Unnatural Linking

Unnatural backlinks are from sites that have nothing to do with your niche industry, and they are a big ‘No’ for Google. Always ensure your backlinks go naturally with the content and seem like they belong there. 

Not everyone with a website knows how to create information-rich content that both Google Algorithms and your target audience would like. Thus, companies rely on professional content creation services to ensure optimum results. 

Technical SEO Mistakes

Technical SEO mistakes that website owners might make include:

10. Creating too Many Pages 

Although many say having a large number of web pages is good, we beg to differ. Creating too many pages may eventually lead to pages competing against each other (called keyword cannibalism). 

Do not weigh your website down. Only have pages that are absolutely necessary for your website to function correctly. 

11. Using a Flash Website 

Flash is a platform for creating vector animations for web pages. However, Flash websites are not very friendly and can pose major security issues. Hence, we advise you not to create one. Even search engines cannot read them, which makes them extremely counterproductive. 

Instead, focus on optimizing your website for mobile phones with proper SEO guidance.

12. Not Using the Customer-First Approach

Remember: Google’s primary priority is ensuring exceptional user experiences. So, even though technical SEO best practices are essential, they should not hinder your site’s user experience. 

Therefore, make sure you use keywords naturally and do not choose optimization tactics over customer satisfaction. 

Content Marketing Mistakes

The most commonly made content marketing mistakes are:

13. Delivering Quantity Over Quality 

You might think publishing a lot of content would mean you would reach a wider audience. However, if none of your pages rank high enough, your website will never receive the attention it deserves. 

So, post high-value content by following proper SEO practices and using effective keywords. This way, you will improve your chances of ranking high for your targeted SERP pages and reaching your audience. 

Leverage our article writing services to establish authority in the SaaS industry, nurture your visitors, and increase your conversions organically. 

14. Forgetting Everything on Your Website is Content

A big mistake most website owners make is only considering some parts of a website, like blogs, worthy of optimization. However, every page on your sitemap holds the potential to rank if framed correctly. 

Moreover, proper optimization would also increase the dwell time of all your web pages, resulting in better ranking. 

15. Not Using Data to Build Content

When business owners handle their websites, they tend to get biased with the topics on which they publish content. You cannot post content only about what you like or believe people would like. 

While brainstorming ideas initially is fine, to see long-term progress, you should use data to decide on blog and article topics. See what your audience already gravitates towards and create more content based on that for better traction.

Analytics and Tracking Mistakes

Common analytics and tracking mistakes that website owners make are:

16. Not Tracking Behavior from First Click to Conversion 

You can learn a lot from how your traffic reaches the final “check-out point “after entering your website. Not tracking this would mean you are missing out on understanding what works for your target audience. 

Check these pathways regularly and ensure the pages your audience frequents are always in the best condition.

17. Forgetting to Conduct Regular Audit Sessions

A well-developed website has many plugins and other technicalities associated with it. These can also cause uncalled-for issues. A common mistake is not conducting regular audits that can quickly identify these issues.

Moreover, even when the technical aspects are in pristine condition, you might have data that needs to be updated. 

For example, stats about the number of internet users change almost every year. If you do not edit your content, Google will think it is outdated. 

With regular audit sessions, you can catch such issues early on and ensure your site is always in perfect condition and up-to-date.

18. Having Multiple Google Tracking Codes 

Google Analytics provides a small snippet of code that you need to add to your website’s HTML so that Google can track its progress.

Having more than one tracking code can result in overreporting of data. Such incorrect data will cause you to assess your site’s performance inaccurately. Hence, we recommend having only one Google tracking code for a particular domain.

Frequently Asked Questions

Before we wrap up, let’s answer some of the most frequently asked questions about SaaS SEO mistakes:

How can Duplicate Content Affect SaaS SEO Performance?

If you post duplicate content on your website, Google will rank the one it deems most appropriate. However, that might not be the page you intend your audience to visit. This can lead to a poor user experience, which in turn leads to lower conversions. 

Keeping track of all the pages you publish can get overwhelming. Hence, to prevent your site from posting duplicate content and garner better traffic, entrust your content creation to TrioSEO and let us take the burden off your shoulders.

What are the Consequences of Neglecting Local SEO for SaaS Companies?

Although SaaS companies do not have physical storefronts, neglecting local SEO can lead to poor visibility. Consequently, your target audience will doubt the legitimacy of your business and find it difficult to trust you. Moreover, without local SEO, you will not rank for “near me” keywords and lose potential customers in your area. 

What Impact Does Slow Site Speed Have on SaaS SEO?

Slow site speed can lead to a high bounce rate and lower conversion. Since site speed is a big deciding factor in Google’s Core Web Vitals, a slow speed will also lower your site’s SERP ranking. 

Why is Lack of Quality Content a Critical SEO Mistake for SaaS?

Since most SaaS products tend to be subscription-based, your customers will keep coming back for more insights, to understand how to use your product, or to resolve queries. Low-quality content can affect user experience and drive them away. Here’s why:

• If your readers aren’t satisfied with your content, you will fail to establish a topical authority for your website, hindering its organic traffic growth.
• Low-quality content will also limit your site’s ability to get high-authority backlinks.

To avoid this crucial mistake, hire TrioSEO for high-quality content production. You can then focus on other business aspects while we grow your website.

How Can Ineffective Link-Building Strategies Damage SaaS SEO?

Ineffective link-building can lead to search engine penalties if it fails to abide by their guidelines. Moreover, such links do not lead to credible resources, reducing your audience’s trust in your site.

Conclusion

While SEO plays a crucial role in every website’s pursuit of becoming great, it is especially important for industries like SaaS that do not have any physical product.

Since there are so many resources available in the market, you might get confused and make certain SEO mistakes without even understanding their impact. Use this blog to ensure you don’t make these mistakes and have an error-free and well-optimized website.

Want to avoid the mistakes but don’t have enough time for a thorough check?

We’ve got your back. At TrioSEO, we conduct thorough audits and keyword research, craft compelling optimized content, and offer detailed analytics and reports.

Fill out this form, and we’ll show you how we can help you ensure optimum website health and reach your goals organically.