This quick guide lists expert tips in doing Local SEO for your SaaS or tech company to effectively increase your subscribers and expand your software business.
Competition is fierce in the world of SaaS. The industry has been growing steadily every year, and Gartner expects software spending to increase by 11.3 percent in 2023.
If you have a tech company that offers SaaS, here’s some good news: there are Internet-based marketing tactics that work in line with a net-based software model.
Fortunately, SaaS SEO is an actionable strategy for growth. And since most SaaS companies (especially B2B ones) are not limited by geographic location, you’re likely to have a large market of people to target as prospective users of your software. You can do so through Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
However, suppose that you’d like to test out the waters by targeting people in a specific geographic location, or maybe you’re offering a promotion (like a 90-day free trial of your app) for people in a certain city that you’d like to have more users in. In such cases, doing effective Local Search Engine Optimization (Local SEO) can be very helpful.
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The Basics of Building Links for SEO
The popularity of SaaS has greatly ballooned due to the increasing demands for business hyperspecialization in modern times. If you want to have a successful SaaS or tech business, you can start by paying more attention to your company’s Local SEO strategies.
One of the essentials of SEO-based exposure for your SaaS company is link building. To start building links, you need to get high-quality backlinks from respected local sites (sites that are in the same city or state as your business) that are considered as “authorities” by Google and other search engines.
You can also build an organic and diverse link profile by getting links to your pages from local directories that are specific to the SaaS industry. In addition, another tactic for link building is doing collaborations and publishing guest blogs linking to your site on websites that are relevant to your business or the software industry.
If you can, reach out to modern-day tech gurus, thought leaders, and influencers in the SaaS community. They work like celebrity endorsements in traditional marketing.
To ensure your organic and local backlinks won’t be marked as spam by the Google algorithm in the future, pay close attention to the quality of your links. Besides being placed in high-authority websites, your links should not be excessive or spammy.
Try to make shareable and compelling content behind those backlinks as well, whether it’s on the topic of SaaS or how your SaaS offerings in particular stand out. If you need help with this, feel free to reach out to our team, as we’ve had lots of experience in handling SaaS digital marketing.
The Importance of Mobile Optimization in 2023
Mobile optimization has not yet gone the way of curated web directories like the old Yahoo of yore. It’s because mobile phones have become and remain extremely popular.
In fact, 60 percent of people worldwide use mobile phones instead of desktop or laptop computers to browse the web. About 85 percent of adults use smartphones in the United States, with 51 percent of American smartphone users preferring Safari and 44 percent browsing on Google Chrome.
Most importantly, 46 percent of Americans spend 4-5 hours on their smartphones on a daily basis!
Therefore, it’s important to have a mobile-responsive (or at least dynamic) website for your SaaS company. In Local SEO terms, this means taking advantage of the customized preferences of mobile users compared to desktop users.
You can more effectively advertise your SaaS products by making your website itself mobile-friendly in order to get better results in your lead generation campaigns.
You should strive to make the transition from desktop to mobile as seamless as possible, which might mean de-cluttering an involved desktop user interface to look more like its mobile version.
SaaS companies should have mobile-friendly websites that can seamlessly transition from smartphone to desktop screen.
This means optimizing your multimedia and image content for mobile to minimize page load times. Experts recommend going for a modern minimalist design that favors smaller screens. We also recommend using Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to make lightweight versions of your main web page while making it lightweight on desktop.
Even better, try to have a SaaS mobile app available for your customers on the app store or on your website in case your visitors wish to avail of your services on mobile. Apps are extremely popular among mobile users and can serve as a great marketing tool for your SaaS or tech company as well.
Optimizing the User Experience (UX) for SEO
Overall SaaS spending was forecasted to go up to $176.6 billion in 2022. It’s also predicted that SaaS cloud applications alone will gain a value of over $143.6 billion in 2023. In other words, the SaaS industry remains lucrative and promising.
To better market your SaaS offerings amidst stiff competition, you need to ensure that the user experience (UX) in your website is the best it could possibly be. Spam links disappoint users who come across them, and SEO experts believe Google’s algorithm takes note of such users’ reactions.
Spam links with poor UX tend to result in less engagement, irrelevancy, and quick click-offs. Even relevant links that contain bad grammar or poor formatting can get the same negative reception as spam.
To avoid getting your SEO links and marketing material marked as spam, you should fill your site with engaging, easy-to-digest, relevant, and credible content.
Make sure that your website UX won’t lead to users closing the page in seconds. Reassure the Google algorithm bots that they’ve correctly ranked your site on its search engine ranking page (SERP).
In addition, improving the user experience for Local SEO involves local keyword relevancy, info consistency, correcting errors and redundancies, and the like.
Avoid letting any customer or prospect come across outdated and/or contrasting info about your tech or SaaS company, such as having your old phone number in your Facebook page compared to a newer number on your homepage. Simple mistakes like this can greatly impact your Local SEO rankings.
The presentation of your website’s landing page is also important. Ensure that you have an easy-to-navigate website with intuitive menus and an impressive internal linking structure. You can let the experts here at Zero Company take care of shortening your site’s loading time to reduce bounce rate. A high bounce rate can also cause demerits to your search engine result ranking.
Content Marketing and Local SEO
Nearly half of SaaS clients cite vendor lock-in as a challenge when it comes to SaaS adaptation. In light of this, you may choose to advertise customizable SaaS packages that allow users to choose which features they value the most.
You can win over more users for your SaaS product by developing a marketing strategy that supports your SEO goals. Make sure that your content marketing campaign is aligned with your Local SEO campaign. Create and share valuable content that addresses your target audience’s pain points, like how vendor lock-in leaves them with mediocre software services by obligation. For instance, if your tech company created an app that connects dog owners with dog walkers, give them the opportunity to try it out for a month or two (i.e., a trial period) before requiring them to commit to a longer (e.g., 1-year) contract. Offering things like this can make your app stand out against other similar apps.
By making your marketing and SEO messaging clear on how your specific SaaS company delivers highly customizable content, products, or services without installing anything, being beholden to a major vendor, or at the fraction of your rivals’ prices, you can gain more sales, greater brand loyalty, and higher revenues in return.
The results of your SaaS company’s Local SEO depends to a large degree on the quality of your content, branding, and messaging.
You can spread the word about your SaaS or tech product in email newsletters, industry forums, and social media. Those platforms can also engage your audience through content discussions and commentaries.
Finally, the foundations of Local SEO entail the use of schema markup on your webpage to provide more details about your SaaS business, including operating hours, contact information, and location. In addition, make sure to conduct on-page SEO for all of your pages’ title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and internal linking structure for good measure.
The Value of Staying Updated on SEO Trends
Whether it was 10 years ago, two weeks ago, or today, it’s always wise to stay updated with the latest SEO trends. After all, the valid SEO strategies of today might be rendered ineffective or even “spammy” in the future.
Try to keep up with new knowledge regarding algorithm updates, best practices, and latest Local SEO trends to make sure you’re optimizing your SaaS website for the best Local SEO results. SEO must be maintained regularly in light of the changing times and the dynamic nature of the World Wide Web.
In Need of Local SEO Help For Your SaaS or Tech Company?
Those are some expert tips in Local SEO that can propel your SaaS or tech company’s website higher in local search results.
Book a free call with Zero Company’s Local SEO experts if you need extra help in doing effective Local SEO!
