SaaS SEO in 2025: How to Build a Strategy That Wins Customers (Not Just Clicks)

If you’re serious about growing your SaaS in 2025, you can’t afford to sleep on SEO.

Sure, PPC and outbound have their place — but while they’re burning cash faster than a bad Netflix reboot, SEO is quietly building the kind of compounding growth that actually lasts. With SEO leads closing at 14.6%* (compared to a measly 1.7% for outbound), it’s pretty clear where the smart money’s going.

And it’s not just about cheaper leads. 70%* of marketers say SEO drives better sales results than PPC. As SaaS companies shift from growth at all costs to growth that actually makes sense, SEO is no longer optional, it’s the engine behind sustainable MRR.

But let’s get one thing straight:

Search engine optimisation isn’t just about vanity metrics like hitting #1 on SERP or pursuing traffic spikes like a clout-chasing influencer. It’s about real, revenue-driving results.

🎯 Piktochart improving signups by 10x in just 3 months

🚀 Foyr increasing organic product free trials by 22x

📈 Attest improving product signups by 8.5x year-on-year

Not bad for a channel that some people still call “free traffic,” right?

If you’re ready for a scalable, sustainable way to drive more SQLs, activations, and long-term SaaS growth — without playing “guess the ROI” every quarter — you’re in the right place.

Below, we’ll walk you through exactly how to build a data-driven, no-fluff SaaS SEO strategy for 2025 and beyond.

TL;DR

1. Lock in your go-to-market motion
2. Set SEO goals that align with your GTM motion
3. Ensure you are tracking key SaaS SEO metrics
4. Map out your buyer personas, product, use cases and jobs to be done (JTBD)
5. Use the customer awareness framework
6. Perform in-depth SaaS keyword research
7. Create content clusters based on your topics and ideas
8. Build an SEO model in Google Sheets
9. Conduct competitor research to reverse engineer effective SEO tactics
10. Create E-E-A-T worthy SaaS SEO content
11. Select pages you can optimize for quick wins
12. Kickstart an always-on strategic SaaS link building program
13. Ensure your website is sound from a technical SEO perspective
14. Turn your user base into a content-generating community
15. Effectively measure SaaS SEO ROI

How to kickstart your SaaS SEO growth strategy in 12 steps

Hopefully you’re now convinced that investing in SEO for your SaaS business is an important pillar of your go-to-market strategy. Here are 15 steps you can take to kick-start your SaaS SEO growth channel.

1.  Lock in your go-to-market motion

Before you even think about SEO, you need to get your go-to-market (GTM) strategy straight. Are you gunning for volume with a self-serve model, building traction with SMBs, or playing the long game with enterprise deals?

Whichever you choose, it’s going to shape your SEO from the ground up from how you structure your content to which SEO metrics matter most. This is your “choose your fighter” moment, and each one plays by different rules.

Let’s look at each of these go-to-market motions:

This approach is all about scale. Think tools like Notion or Canva where users discover the product, sign up, and get started without needing to speak to anyone. It’s a low-touch model that relies heavily on product-led growth.

👉 SEO focus: High-volume, top-of-funnel content designed to attract and educate at scale. 

SMB (small and medium-sized businesses) 

Targeting small and medium-sized businesses often involves a mix of self-serve options and light-touch sales support. The goal is to cater to the unique needs of SMBs while maintaining a balance between SEO automation and personalized support.

👉 SEO focus: Educational content, templates, and use case-driven pages that help buyers make confident decisions.

Enterprise

With enterprise, you’re focused on selling to large businesses and corporations. In this GTM motion, you will play a longer game. Sales cycles are slower, deal sizes are bigger, and multiple stakeholders are involved. Relationship-building is key.

👉 SEO focus: Trust-building content like case studies, ROI calculators, and strategic whitepapers. Bonus points if a CMO would actually read it.

2. Set SEO goals that align with your GTM motion

Once you’re aligned on GTM strategy, it’s time to define what success looks like from an SEO perspective. Clear, focused goals will help your team prioritise effectively.

SEO can (and should) look very different depending on whether your priority is signups, product activations, or sales-qualified leads.

When setting your SaaS SEO goals, here are some questions to consider:

• Who is the target audience for the SaaS product?
• Which go-to-market motion (self-serve, SMB, or enterprise) aligns with your target audience?
• What are the specific business objectives or desired outcomes for the SaaS product?
• Are you aiming for qualified signups and activations, or qualified pipeline and closed-won deals?
• What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will reflect the success of your SaaS product?
• What are your current SaaS growth metrics and how can they be improved?
• What are the relevant keywords and search terms that your target audience is likely to use?
• How competitive is the SaaS market niche in terms of SEO, and what strategies can you implement to stand out?
• What is your desired level of brand visibility and online presence through SEO efforts?
• How can SEO be integrated with other marketing channels and initiatives to maximize results?

By considering these questions, you can set meaningful and actionable SaaS SEO goals that align with your business objectives and target audience.

3. Ensure you are tracking key SaaS SEO metrics 

Once your goals are locked in, the next piece of the puzzle is knowing which metrics actually matter.

You don’t want to just celebrate higher rankings or more traffic, you want to track the numbers that show real business impact.

Here’s what to keep an eye on if you’re serious about scaling your SaaS through SEO.

Metric	Definition
Organic traffic	The number of visitors who reach a website through unpaid search engine results. This indicates the effectiveness of SEO efforts in attracting users.
Keyword ranking	The position of a website or webpage in search engine results for a specific keyword or phrase. This helps to assess visibility and competition.
Conversion rate	The percentage of website visitors who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form. This reflects the effectiveness of a website in generating conversions.
Return on investment (ROI)	The profitability of an investment by comparing the gains or benefits achieved against the costs incurred. This provides insights into the financial performance of a marketing campaign or initiative.
Backlinks	Links from external websites that point to a specific website. This influences search engine rankings and is an indicator of the authority and credibility of a website.
Click-through rate (CTR)	The percentage of users who click on a specific link or ad out of the total number of impressions. This speaks to the effectiveness or the relevance of a particular piece of content.
Bounce rate	The percentage of website visitors who leave a webpage without interacting or navigating to other pages. A high bounce rate points to sub-par levels of engagement or issues around content relevance.
Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)	The total revenue generated by a subscription-based business model on a monthly basis. This provides insights into the recurring revenue stream and stability of the business.
Churn rate	The rate at which customers or subscribers cancel or discontinue their subscriptions or services. This reflects customer retention and the health of a business.

4. Map out your buyer personas, product, use cases and jobs to be done (JTBD)

To build an effective SaaS SEO strategy, you need to go beyond surface-level targeting and truly understand who your audience is and why they use your product. This is where buyer personas, product use cases, and JTBD frameworks come in. 

Develop detailed buyer personas 

Before you can optimise for search, you need to know exactly who you’re trying to reach. That starts with creating buyer personas.

Think of personas as your customer cheat codes. They’re semi-fictional profiles based on real data, built to help you understand your ideal users’ goals, frustrations, and what keeps them doom-scrolling at 2am. 

Are they decision-makers at fast-scaling startups? Hands-on marketers juggling five tools? Whoever they are, you need to know them better than their Spotify Wrapped.

This level of insight is essential for effective SaaS SEO. When you know what your target audience cares about, what challenges they’re trying to solve, and how they search for solutions, you can align your content with the topics, keywords, and language that resonate with them.

But it doesn’t stop at content. Knowing your personas’ behaviours and preferences helps shape everything from your website UX to how and where you distribute content. In short? Don’t skip this step. Without personas, you’re basically shooting arrows in the dark and hoping to hit a unicorn.

Determine product use cases and jobs to be done (JTBD)

Once you’ve nailed who you’re targeting, the next step is figuring out why they’d even consider your product in the first place. This is where the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework steps in — and no, it’s not just another marketing acronym to collect dust in a Notion doc.

JTBD is all about shifting your mindset from what your product does to what your customer is trying to achieve. It’s not “we sell project management software.” It’s “we help fast-moving teams finally ditch messy spreadsheets and hit deadlines without breaking a sweat.” Big difference.

By focusing on the job — the actual outcome your customer wants — you can uncover the real reasons people search for solutions like yours. These jobs could be emotional (“I need to prove to my boss this new strategy works”), functional (“I need to automate this manual process”), or even social (“I need a tool that makes me look good in front of the team”).

Understanding these use cases helps you reverse-engineer your SEO strategy. You’ll know what keywords to target, what content formats to prioritise, and how to position your product. 

How to uncover your most valuable use cases and JTBD:

✅ Talk to customers. Interviews are one of the richest sources of insight. Ask how they discovered your tool, what problem they were solving, and how their workflow has changed since adopting it.

✅ Dig into product metrics. Look at how different segments use your product. Are certain features or workflows consistently tied to better retention or higher expansion revenue?

✅ Collaborate across teams. Product marketing, sales, customer success, and data teams all hold pieces of the puzzle. Bring them together to build a full picture.

✅ Read your G2 reviews (and your competitors’). Customers will often literally tell you what job they’re trying to get done in their own words. This information is invaluable.

5. Use the customer awareness framework

Now that you know who your customers are and what they want to achieve, it’s time to meet them where they are in their journey. This is called the customer awareness framework. It’s a framework that helps you figure out what to say and when to say it.

Let’s break it down below. 

Problem unaware

These potential customers don’t know they need help yet. Your job? Gently shake them awake. This is where educational, insight-driven content shines. Most of these guides answer a specific question, like this Zapier blog post on what customer segmentation is or this guide on how to create an online store by Hotjar. 

It’s important to know that you’re not selling, you’re planting seeds. This is the top of the funnel and it’s a great way of reaching your ideal customer profile (ICP) before they’re in-market.

Problem aware

They know something’s broken, but they’re not sure what the fix is. Content here should help them define the issue and recognise the stakes. 

For example, this guide on 12 ways to stop customer churn by SuperOffice is ideal for a start-up that has a high level of churn, and sets SuperOffice up as experts in this area. 

Solution aware

They’re actively exploring options and need guidance. Comparison guides, pros and cons posts, and “what to look for in a [product category]” content fits perfectly here. A great example is this article by Zapier that compares Shopify and Squarespace to help a customer make a decision between the two.

Remember. You’re not pitching (yet), but you are setting the criteria and ideally shaping it in your favour.

Product aware

They know your brand and might even be halfway to buying. This is where content gets sharper and more persuasive. Case studies, customer testimonials, deep dives into features, pricing breakdowns that help them pull the trigger.

TL;DR? Don’t treat your audience like a monolith. What works for someone who’s just realised they have a problem won’t land with someone comparing pricing pages. Build content for every level of awareness, and you’ll stay top of mind.

6. Perform in-depth SaaS keyword research

This keyword research will form the basis of your SEO strategy and content roadmap. You can do this in a multitude of different ways.

Start with switch moments

Before you dive headfirst into keyword tools and search volumes, zoom out and ask a bigger question: What is your ICP currently using to get the job done, and what are they trying to move away from?

These are known as switch moments, and they’re absolute gold for SaaS SEO. By identifying what people are switching from, you can show up exactly when they’re looking for a better way. There are two main types of switch moments.

A) Switching from a competitor

These are customers unhappy with their current SaaS solution so they begin searching for alternatives. For example, if someone is unhappy with Mailchimp, then they’ll search in Google for “Mailchimp alternatives”. Ahrefs shows that this keyword has a global search volume of 8,600 per month! 🤯

Additionally, it’s always good to understand that each stage of the funnel will have different keywords. 

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You can protect your own turf, too. Create a landing page optimised for “[your brand] alternatives” — like Zendesk did with their genius “Zendesk Alternative” campaign. If someone’s researching a switch away from you, it’s your chance to intercept and reposition.

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B) Switching from non-software solutions

Not every prospect is coming from one of your SaaS competitors. Plenty of businesses are still using a pre-cloud solution to solve their current job to be done. These folks might be searching for things like:

• “[job to be done] Excel template”
• “manual way to [do X]”
• “how to [job] without software”

This is your opportunity to educate — and upgrade them. Create content that acknowledges their current setup, highlights its limits, and introduces your product as the obvious next step. You’re not just solving a problem; you’re upgrading their entire workflow.

How to find your best switch moments

The best way to uncover switch moments is to ask your customers how they were doing things before. Also, dig into your onboarding data, live chat logs, and even G2 reviews — both your own and competitors’. You’ll uncover patterns that keyword tools just won’t catch.

Sales call n-gram analysis

Your sales calls are a goldmine for real-world language — especially the kind your target customers actually use when describing their problems. Start by collecting recordings of your most successful sales conversations and transcribing them (tools like Otter.ai or Fathom work well for this).

Once you have the transcripts, run them through an n-gram analysis. This is a technique used to identify frequently occurring word combinations whether that’s individual keywords (unigrams), two-word phrases (bigrams), or longer patterns. 

For example, you might spot recurring phrases like “too many spreadsheets” or “manual reporting pain,” which can spark ideas for long-tail keywords and content topics.

Customer support tickets

Just like sales calls, your support tickets are packed with useful insights. These are real people, in real situations, explaining exactly what they’re struggling with or trying to do. 

The approach here is similar: pull together a set of support tickets (especially ones that come up often), and look for recurring questions or phrasing. Tools like Zendesk or Intercom, make it easy to export and tag conversations.

Once you’ve got the data, run an n-gram analysis to surface the phrases that come up again and again. Maybe customers keep asking how to “export data to Excel,” or they’re confused about “setting user roles.” Those phrases can spark ideas for blog posts, help docs, or product-led content that solves problems before users even have to ask.

The beauty of this tactic? You’re not guessing what people need — you’re using the exact words they’re already using to describe their pain points.

Software review websites

Platforms like G2, Capterra, and Trustpilot are full of honest, unfiltered feedback which makes them perfect for keyword research. Scan both your own reviews and those of your competitors to spot common pain points, use cases, and desired outcomes.

Look at what people love, what frustrates them, and how they describe the job they’re hiring the tool to do. These insights can reveal long-tail keyword ideas that speak directly to buyer intent.

Competitor PPC data

Paid keywords can reveal keywords your competitors really care about and what’s converting for them. Tools like Ahrefs make it easy to see which keywords they’re bidding on. Here’s how to do it: 

1. Go to Site Explorer in Ahrefs.
2. Enter a competitor’s domain.
3. In the left-hand menu, click Paid search > Paid keywords.
4. Browse the list of keywords they’re bidding on, along with ad copy and traffic estimates.
5. Identify any relevant or high-intent terms you’re not currently targeting in your SEO strategy.

Don’t forget to map keywords to funnel stages

Once you’ve built out your keyword list take it one step further: map each keyword to a specific stage of the buying journey. This helps guide what kind of content to create — and ensures your messaging fits the user’s intent.

🔽 TOFU keywords (problem-unaware):

These are broad, informational keywords like: 

• “how to increase organic traffic”
• “what is SEO”

🔽 MOFU keywords (problem aware):

At this stage, focus on evaluation-focused keywords such as 

• “best SEO agencies in London”
• “top-rated SEO platforms”

🔽 BOFU keywords (solution aware):

This one is important, because at this stage, a customer is ready to act. Use high-intent keywords like

• “Skale case study”
• “Skale vs [competitor]”

A solid content marketing strategy must include building out content for solution-aware audiences who have an almost immediate need to use your SaaS product. 

These pages will not just have high signup rates, but the signup to customer conversion rate will be higher both in terms of rate and velocity. 

In addition to the examples we shared above, here are some more types of keywords you can include.

Keyword types	Examples
Maker / creator / builder	Survey maker, form builder, presentation maker
Templates	Social media templates, sign up form template, email template
Software / tools	Generative design software, email marketing tools, OKR software

Understanding the differences between these keyword types helps optimize your B2B keyword research by tailoring keywords to meet the needs and intent of users at different stages of the buying journey.

7. Create content clusters based on your topics and ideas

At this point, you’ve probably got a strong list of keywords and content ideas. But having a bunch of disconnected blog posts isn’t enough. To rank consistently, your content needs to work together.

That’s where content clusters come in. Instead of targeting individual keywords in isolation, focus on building out full topics. The reason for this is that Google rewards topical authority, which are sites that cover a subject comprehensively and in a structured way. 

This means creating a central “pillar” page for the main topic, supported by related articles that dive into subtopics. All of these pieces should link to each other, helping both users and search engines understand the relationship between them.

At Skale, this is how we build content strategies that compound over time. On Skale.so, you’ll find clearly defined hubs built around core topics we want to own, like:

➡️ SaaS SEO
➡️ SaaS marketing
➡️ B2B SEO
➡️ Demand generation
➡️ B2B content marketing

Each of these clusters helps Google see Skale as an authority in our niche and makes it easier for readers to explore related topics and move further down the funnel.

8. Build an SEO model in Google Sheets

Let’s be real: winging your SEO strategy might work for a while… until it doesn’t. If you want to scale SEO as a customer acquisition channel, you need to create a structured growth model. 

This model helps you map out content opportunities, estimate business impact, and prioritise where to focus efforts for the greatest return.

Start by listing all existing pages that currently drive SEO value. For each one, identify the head term, map its stage in the awareness funnel, and ensure there’s no keyword cannibalisation. Then, plan additional high-opportunity pages using keyword research (see step 4).

Each row in your sheet should represent a page-level opportunity and include the following data points.

Category	Field	Description
Page details	Page URL	Existing URL, if the page is already live
	Page title	The title or H1 of the page
	Head keyword or topic	Primary keyword the page targets
	Awareness stage	Funnel stage: problem-aware, solution-aware, product-aware, etc.
	Topic cluster	Group or theme the page belongs to
	Search intent	User intent: informational, navigational, commercial or transactional.
Performance and SEO metrics	Current organic clicks (past 30 days)	Click data from Google Search Console
	Traffic potential	Estimated monthly search volume and CTR (e.g. from Ahrefs)
	Current referring domains (RDs)	Number of unique domains linking to the page
	Estimated RDs needed to rank	Benchmark based on SERP competitors
Conversion and business impact	Visit → signup conversion rate (CVR)	Based on page intent or historical data
	Signup → paying conversion rate (CVR)	Conversion from free to paying user
	Estimated signups per month	Projected from traffic and CVR
	Estimated customers per month	Signups × signup → customer CVR
	Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) potential	Estimated customers × average MRR per customer

9. Conduct competitor research to reverse engineer effective SEO tactics

There’s no need to start from scratch or fail just to learn the hard way. One of the fastest ways to uncover high-impact SEO opportunities is by analysing what’s already working for others in your SaaS niche.

Using tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush, and even Google itself, you can reverse-engineer the strategies of both direct competitors and broader content leaders.

Here’s how to structure your competitor analysis:

1️⃣ Identify who you’re up against

Start by defining three key types of competitors:

• Direct competitors: Other SaaS companies offering similar products or targeting the same audience.
• Replacement solutions: What were customers using before your product? (e.g. Google Sheets, manual workflows, legacy tools)
• Topical authorities: Non-SaaS sites that rank well for your key topics (think: media sites, communities, bloggers).

2️⃣ Analyse their content strategy

Next, dig into their content to understand what’s working for them.

• What types of content are they publishing? (e.g. guides, “alternative to” pages, glossaries, templates, tools)
• How have they structured their content architecture? (e.g. clusters, hubs, landing pages by persona or industry)
• Which content formats are driving the most traffic? (Check top pages in Ahrefs in “Top Pages” or “Best by Links” reports)
• Are they speaking to specific personas or verticals? (Niche targeting can reveal content gaps or messaging ideas)
• What CRO techniques are they using to convert readers? (Demo CTAs, comparison tables, intent-based CTAs across TOFU–BOFU)

3️⃣ Investigate their link acquisition

Backlinks are still a big part of SEO and understanding how others are earning them can spark ideas for your own strategy.

• How are they building links and how fast are they acquiring them? (Check referring domains growth trends.)
• Are they running content collaborations, digital PR, or appearing in roundups?
• Have they created a link-building growth loop via community, user-generated content, or integrations? (More on this below!)

It’s important to note that the goal of competitor analysis is not to copy your competition. It’s to learn what is working, adapt it to your own ICP and find gaps you can own.

10. Create E-E-A-T worthy SaaS SEO content

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is a set of criteria used by Google’s search algorithms to evaluate the quality and credibility of web content. 

In order words, it’s what Google looks at when deciding which content to rank. In other words, something you should really be paying attention to.

The most recent addition to Google’s E-E-A-T is the last E, which stands for Expertise. So, how can you add this to your content? 

You can do this by interviewing experts (subject matter experts, or SMEs) in your niche and working with top-league SaaS-experienced content writers. 

Additionally, building trust with your audience is essential. This can be done by having clear and transparent communication, displaying customer testimonials or reviews, and ensuring the security and privacy of user data.

By focusing on building E-E-A-T in your SaaS SEO content, you increase the likelihood of attracting organic traffic, establishing credibility in your industry, and ultimately driving conversions. 

11. Select pages you can optimize for quick wins

SEO isn’t just about creating new content. It’s also about making the most of what you’ve already published. In fact, some of the highest-impact opportunities come from small, strategic improvements to existing pages.

The goal here is to identify pages that are already performing reasonably well but have the potential to deliver better results with minimal effort.

To do this, identify pages that are already ranking on page one or two, especially those sitting between positions 5–20. Once you’ve spotted them, focus on quick, high-leverage optimisations like:

🏆 Updating the title tag and meta description to improve click-through rate

🏆 Refining keyword targeting and on-page relevance

🏆 Refreshing outdated content or adding new internal links

🏆 Improving mobile experience, load speed, or addressing technical SEO issues

A few focused updates can be enough to lift these pages into better positions and start generating more organic traffic almost immediately. Also, these quick wins help build momentum and show early returns while your longer-term content strategy takes shape.

12. Kickstart an always-on strategic SaaS link building program

You need to build authority to the content you’ve published, by having other websites link back to yours. Without links, you will not be able to build a scalable SEO growth engine. 

We’ve proved this a multitude of times at Skale by securing 1,000s of links to a myriad of different SaaS brands. Check out how we managed to get a €1 cost per signup for HappyScribe through strategic SaaS link building. 

Here are some SaaS link-building tactics to get you started: 

Unlinked brand mentions 

Look for websites that have already mentioned your product or brand but haven’t linked to your site. You can use tools like Google Alerts to surface these. Reach out and politely ask for a link. Since you’re already referenced, it’s usually a quick win.

Guest posting 

This involves researching high-quality websites in your niche and pitching topic ideas for their blog. You create high-quality content for them for free, in exchange for adding a relevant link back to your website, which helps boost your search engine results position. 

Conferences and podcasts 

When you speak at events or appear on industry podcasts, your name and company gets featured on event websites or episode pages. These mentions frequently include a backlink, and they carry weight thanks to the domain authority of the hosts.

Product reviews 

Offer free access to your SaaS product (e.g. a 3-month trial) in exchange for a review from a relevant influencer, content creator, or industry expert. This builds credibility and often results in a natural backlink from their blog or YouTube description. 

Build a link-building growth loop into your product 

Of course, not all links need to come from outreach. Some of the most effective link-building strategies are built directly into the product itself to create a “growth loop” that generates backlinks automatically as customers use your tool.

Let’s take a look at how leading SaaS brands are doing exactly that:

➡️ Mixpanel: Mixpanel is giving away free usage of their product if you embed a Mixpanel badge somewhere on your website. Not only are they getting a link back to increase their DR, but they are also getting a tonne of brand exposure for their product. It’s not just a link growth loop, it’s also a brand marketing growth loop.

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➡️ Typeform: Typeform includes a subtle attribution link outside its form embed code. Whenever users publish a Typeform on their site, a backlink is automatically generated. These links are contextually relevant — tied to use cases like forms, surveys, or quizzes — and add up quickly.

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➡️ Oliva: Oliva, a mental health SaaS org, encourages customers to mention them on their company careers pages. The idea: “We support our team with Oliva.” This approach not only earns backlinks but also strengthens their brand as an employee benefit.

If your product delivers clear value to your customer’s business or employees, this approach can work well. Partner with your Customer Success team to create a lightweight ask — and turn product usage into ongoing link growth.

13. Ensure your website is sound from a technical SEO perspective

Before you can scale your SaaS SEO channel, you need to go deeper. Inception-levels deep. Because even if your site looks fine on the surface, weak technical foundations can quietly sabotage everything — from rankings to crawlability to conversions.

Without solid technical SEO, even the best content and backlink strategies will struggle to perform. 

Alongside improving on-page and off-page SEO, it’s essential to work with a technical SEO expert who can spot hidden issues, patch the cracks, and get your site into proper shape.

Here’s where to focus. 

Perform a full technical SEO audit

Start with a quick surface check using Google Lighthouse. It’s built into Chrome DevTools and will help flag some of the most obvious issues like slow load speeds, poor mobile performance, or accessibility problems. It’s not the full picture, but it’s a solid first step.

You can also use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush. They’re helpful, but they won’t catch everything. We recommend working with a technical SEO expert to do an in-depth technical audit and dig deeper using custom crawlers, log file analysis, and manual checks tailored to your stack. That’s where the real impact comes from.

Improve your internal linking structure

Internal links are a powerful but often overlooked part of SEO. Run an internal linking audit to improve your site architecture and make sure link equity flows properly between key pages. 

A strong internal linking structure makes it easier for both users and search engines to discover your content and significantly improve rankings.

Conduct a content cannibalisation audit

Content cannibalisation happens when multiple pages compete for the same search intent and weaken your chances of ranking.

Perform a cannibalisation audit to identify overlapping pages, then either consolidate them, update them for different intents, or rework your targeting. Cleaning this up can help individual pages climb much higher in search results.

14. Turn your user base into a content-generating community

This might sound obvious, but it’s one of the most underused growth levers in SaaS. Your users are your community — and they can fuel your content engine. But they won’t do it on their own. You need to nurture and engage them.

You’ve probably heard the term community-led growth thrown around. Basically, it’s about using the people who already know and love your product to help spread the word, create content, and build trust. Done right, it helps you scale organic visibility, improve product adoption and strengthen SEO performance.

Here’s how SaaS brands are leveraging their user base to generate content that ranks and converts.

Figma

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Figma is a masterclass in community-led growth. Its Figma Community gives users a space to share design templates, plugins, wireframes, icons, and full design systems. 

Each shared asset creates a new indexed page that boosts SEO by targeting long-tail design queries. 

At the same time, contributors gain visibility and recognition. This creates a self-sustaining loop of content and community engagement. This not only drives traffic but deepens product adoption, as users rely on and learn from community-generated resources. 

It’s a win-win — users showcase their work, while Figma builds a powerful, SEO-rich content ecosystem.

Maze 

Maze taps into its user base to build resources that both activate users and drive SEO results.

Here’s what they’re doing.

🔥Template libraries: Maze co-created hundreds of templates with its community, helping new users get started quickly while capturing search traffic for high-intent, long-tail keywords.

🔥Expert-led content: They also collect expert quotes from their audience to enrich their blog and resources. This improves authority — aligning with Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines — and helps content rank better.

Maze proves that you don’t need to outsource everything to freelancers. The most credible, valuable insights often come straight from the users who rely on your product.

ℹ️ Other great examples include Miroverse and Airtable Universe.

15. Effectively measure SaaS SEO ROI

Sooner or later, your CFO or board will ask the big question: “What’s the return on our SEO investment?”

And they’re right to ask. Your marketing budget is finite and SaaS SEO isn’t just about traffic — it’s about impact. Measuring ROI properly lets you prove that SEO is driving pipeline, not just pageviews.
But measuring SEO ROI isn’t always straightforward. You’re working with a channel that has a lag, a long sales cycle, and a compounding effect — which means you need a smarter way to model performance.

Here’s a brief explanation of how you can measure SaaS SEO ROI and some tools that can help.

What makes measuring SaaS SEO ROI different? 

There are three key characteristics of SaaS SEO that you need to factor in when measuring success.

🤔There’s a lag between action and impact. On average, it takes about 3 months for SEO activities (like publishing content or earning links) to show results. That delay needs to be built into your reporting models.

🤔Sales cycles are long. Especially in B2B SaaS. You can’t look at a snapshot of new customers in the same month you launched a piece of content. Instead, run a cohort analysis — track how signups from organic search convert over 6–12 months. The best way to model this is by using data from organic cohorts created 12+ months ago to predict customer acquisition over time.

🤔SEO is compounding. Unlike PPC, SEO doesn’t stop when you pause spending. Good content and backlinks keep delivering value over time — so build a model that reflects this long-term impact.

Remember that SEO ROI is not solely about immediate revenue. It can also encompass long-term benefits such as brand visibility, customer acquisition, and customer lifetime value.

How to measure SaaS SEO ROI effectively

Here’s a step-by-step framework to build your ROI model:

1️⃣ Set clear goals

Define specific SEO goals aligned with your business objectives, such as increased organic traffic, higher conversion rates, or improved keyword rankings.

2️⃣ Track organic traffic and conversions 

Use website analytics tools like Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics to monitor organic traffic trends, referral sources, and user behavior on your site. Track conversions or goal completions, such as sign-ups, downloads, or purchases, to determine the impact of SEO efforts on driving valuable actions.

3️⃣ Attribute revenue 

Implement conversion tracking and assign a monetary value to each conversion. By analyzing the revenue generated from conversions attributed to SEO, you can estimate the ROI.

4️⃣ Monitor keyword rankings

Utilize SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool, or Moz to track keyword rankings. Measure improvements in organic rankings for target keywords and assess their impact on organic traffic and conversions.

5️⃣ Analyze cost and investment

Evaluate the costs associated with SEO activities, including tools, content creation services, and any external SEO services. Compare the investment against the revenue generated to calculate ROI.

6️⃣ Use ROI calculators

Some SEO platforms provide ROI calculators that help estimate the return on investment based on various factors like traffic, conversions, and revenue. A good one is HubSpot’s Marketing ROI Calculator. 

7️⃣ Compare before and after performance

Benchmark key SEO metrics pre- and post-implementation to measure uplift in traffic, leads, or revenue.

If you’re willing to do it right, SaaS SEO will change your business

SaaS SEO is one of the most powerful growth channels out there — but it is not a quick win or a one-person job. It pulls together a mix of technical SEO, content strategy, product understanding, and smart outreach. To make it truly work, you need a team that knows how to build and scale every piece of the engine.

Here’s what to keep in mind as you put your strategy into action:

• SEO takes time. Real results don’t happen overnight. Compounding growth rewards patience and consistency.
  
• You need expertise across multiple disciplines. Without it, you risk spinning your wheels, chasing the wrong metrics, or missing high-leverage opportunities.
  
• Execution matters. Following the tactics outlined in this guide will set you on the right path — but success ultimately comes down to how well and how consistently you implement them.

Done right, SaaS SEO doesn’t just drive leads. It builds brand authority, deepens customer trust, and creates a scalable growth machine that pays dividends long after the first click.

And if you want a head start, partnering with an experienced SaaS SEO agency can help you move faster, avoid common pitfalls, and turn organic search into one of your highest-performing acquisition channels.

SaaS SEO FAQs

*101 SEO Statistics You Should Know in 2025, WebFX 
*SEO vs. PPC: Which Channel Generates More Sales?, databox