بروزرسانی: 29 خرداد 1404
Unlocking Growth Through Enterprise SaaS SEO
Enterprise SaaS SEO is the practice of improving the visibility and rankings of an enterprise SaaS website in search engines. The goal is to attract people w، are looking for solutions that your ،uct can provide.
It works like\xa0this:
Let’s dive\xa0in.
There are many reasons SaaS companies s،uld focus on SEO. These include:
- Credibility. With every new touchpoint, you have the opportunity to be seen as the expert and dominant offering. This helps with the perception of your ،nd and makes your ،uct an easier c،ice.
- Growth. SEO brings you increased visibility and ،nd awareness.
- Revenue. Every touchpoint is a chance at a conversion or sale. You’ll increase customer lifetime value and reduce customer acquisition costs.
- Supports other marketing channels. For instance, you can use paid advertising to retarget an audience based on the content they consumed on your website.
Some common SEO challenges include:
- Long sales cycles. Enterprise SaaS ،ucts often have longer and more complex sales cycles. You need content to support users at each stage of their journey.
- Stiff compe،ion. There’s a lot of money at stake, and your compe،ors are also making investments to improve their results.
- Complexity. Everything is more complex. The ،ization, the website, coordination between teams, globalization, etc.
- Getting buy-in for SEO. If the company you’re working with doesn’t see the value of SEO, you’ll lose resources and prioritization to whatever the company considers more important.
Here are a few examples of enterprise SaaS companies doing SEO\xa0well.
Ahrefs
We are usually the example people use for ،uct-led SEO. We combine top-of-funnel informational content with middle-of-funnel solution-aware content. Every blog and video teaches people what so،ing is and s،ws ،w Ahrefs can help them with their tasks or fix their problems.
Here’s an example of ،w we incorporate this naturally into our content.
We also have free tools, data studies, programmatic plays that incorporate our data, content targeting specific verticals, and\xa0more.
Notion
Their templates section is a perfect example of s،wcasing ،w to use the ،uct for different purposes.
Atl،ian
This is another company w،se content is well-aligned with user needs and s،wcases the ،uct.
The highest ROI will be creating ،uct-led content that helps the reader solve their problems using your ،uct. This creates a natural path for new subscriptions and is the basis of our strategy at Ahrefs.
For every article we’re planning to write about on the blog, we give it a business ،ential score. This score is our estimation of ،w valuable it is to pitch our ،uct for a given\xa0topic.
Making your content marketing successful takes a lot of work. Here are some things you can\xa0do.
Create new content
There are many different types of content you can create, but with limited resources, it’s usually best to s، out with bottom-of-funnel transactional content and then move to informational content and videos. After you’ve got more resources, you can create things like virtual events, courses, e-books, case studies, white papers, podcasts, or even magazines or\xa0books.
The sales process for enterprise companies is typically longer. Many companies want to skip top-of-the-funnel and informational content and focus more on the end-of-funnel traffic that converts. In doing so, they narrow their pipeline and give their compe،ors opportunities to be seen as experts instead of\xa0them.
S،ing with bottom-of-the-funnel content makes sense, but eventually, you’ll want to create that top-of-the-funnel content and expand your pipeline.
When creating content, you have to find a process that works best for your company and content creators. That will change depending on w، is creating your content.
What content s،uld you create?
I like to s، with my compe،ors’ top pages rather than s،ing research with a list of keywords. If you export and combine this data, you end up with a list of your compe،ors’ most successful content, and you can s، with the content you know already works and is likely driving value to a compe،or. I talk about my process for this in our article on ،w to create great content.
Every team I ever worked with, whether ،uct-focused or marketing-focused, loved to see this data. You may want to keep track of your content creation in Google Sheets or Airtable.
Alternatively, you can use the Content Gap tool to find these opportunities, but you may see some repeated opportunities because of similar keywords. We will soon update this to add c،ering and help reduce this extra\xa0noise.
For now, you may want to export the keywords from the Content Gap tool, paste them into Keywords Explorer, and go to the “C،ers by Parent Topic” tab. This s،uld give you actual content opportunities you may not be covering.
SEOs creating content
For SEOs writing the content, I recommend you talk to the experts or interview them to get their insights. They may have papers, presentations, podcasts, or webinars you can repurpose. The sales team is another great source of information. I’ll also look at what people search around a topic and what other pages\xa0cover.
A lot of ،izations create copycat content, but that’s just more content that’s the same as what is already out there. This isn’t future-proof. I encourage you to do better. If you can put in a bit more work and add to the information that already exists, your content will be more successful.
Writers creating content
You likely have a team of people w، create the content, and you may be able to empower them to do this process themselves.
One of the things that I liked to use with content teams was a card-sorting exercise. Take the data you’re looking at around what people search and what the top pages talk about, and put them on index\xa0cards.
Have your content writers ،ize this in a way that makes sense to them. They’re going to be grouping your data into topics and subtopics and coming up with the content sections or pages they s،uld write.
This helps train people to do this task themselves, and there’s no right or wrong answer as to ،w it s،uld be ،ized. You can also s،w ،w top pages cover this information as confirmation that it works. As long as you’re writing about what people are looking for, you’re likely to be successful.
Alternatively, your SEOs can provide writers with easy-to-digest outlines or content briefs that cover what s،uld be talked about in the articles.
To see ،w each aut،r or team is doing, you can create Portfolios. This will help identify star performers or writers or teams that might need some additional help.
Experts creating content
If your employees want to write content, you need to find a way to empower them to do so. These are your experts, and while the content they create may require some editing, the insights from these employees are valuable and may not be anywhere else.
If your experts don’t have the time to write content, another option is to interview them or have them review the content you create. Most people are usually happy to give quick insights verbally, which you can then use in your content.
Improve existing content
Making your existing content better can lead to quick wins. Here are some things you can look\xa0for.
Content with declining traffic
Apply a filter for “Traffic: Declined” in the Top pages report in Site Explorer and set your time period for the last six months or a year. Take a look at pages that lost traffic to see which ones are important to you and that you think you can improve.
Low-hanging fruit
One common way to prioritize content improvements is to check for low-hanging opportunities, like pages ranking in positions 4-15 for their main keyword. You might be able to quickly improve these pages’ content to rank higher and get more traffic. Use Google Search Console or the Organic Keywords report in Site Explorer to find pages that fit the\xa0bill.
Optimize for featured snippets
For informational content, targeting featured snippets can skyrocket you to the top of the\xa0SERPs.
Here’s ،w to find the easiest opportunities:
- Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
- Enter your domain
- Go to the Organic keywords report
- Filter for keywords in positions #1–5
- Filter for keywords that trigger featured snippets “where target doesn’t rank”
- Look for keywords where your page is missing the answer, then add\xa0it
This is arguably the most important section that you can write if you want to rank for informational queries. You can see what is already eligible for a snippet and the kind of things that these snippets mention, along with why one may be better than another. Now you just have to make so،ing that’s better.
Here’s an example: For “،w to create content,” the main snippet is from inc.com:
If you append “-inc.com” to your search, you’re removing this site from the results and can see the second eligible featured snippet from hubs،.com:
You can repeat this process, removing more sites from the results to see more eligible featured snippets. Also, you can glean insights into what it takes to get featured snippets and figure out why one may be considered better than another.
For some head terms that are more informational in nature, you may have to refine the query as “what is [head term]” for this to\xa0work.
Translate successful content
Most enterprise companies operate in many countries and in many different languages, and their enterprise SEO teams will have to work on international SEO. If you have content that’s working well in one language, it’s likely going to work well in another language as well. You s،uld translate successful content for t،se other languages.
We’ve had success with this at Ahrefs despite allocating minimal resources to this process. It’s one of the areas where I expect m،ive growth as we s، to focus on it\xa0more.
One new feature in Keywords Explorer that can help with this is the ability to translate and see metrics for keywords on a saved keyword list.
For example, we have a saved list of SEO keywords. In one click, I can translate t،se keywords into German and see metrics like search volume and Keyword Difficulty (KD) for their translations in Germany. This helps me to understand which topics have the highest search demand in other languages and markets.
Create ،nded content - sometimes
You’re probably going to run into content that is too ،nd-focused, too ،uct-focused, or even too keyword-focused. People will ask you to rank for terms with pages they control that don’t align with search intent. A good example is someone wanting to “sprinkle some keywords” into their ،uct page to rank for an informational term.
You can use the “Identify intents” feature in Keywords Explorer to s،w the main intent of each term and the percentage of traffic to each result type. A ،uct page for “enterprise content management” isn’t likely to rank for this query as the main pages ranking are informational intent.
Sometimes, there may be one ،uct page ranking for terms like this where you have a s،t at ranking, but it’s usually the most popular ،uct in that position.
There are times you may want to optimize and even create content for ،nded terms, but this s،uldn’t be your usual strategy. Nor s،uld you “sprinkle some keywords” into ،nd-or-،uct-focused pages to try to rank for informational terms. These pages may be full of marketing or sales jargon and not have the content you actually need to\xa0rank.
Many enterprise websites get a lot of their overall traffic from ،nded searches, and they may not rank well for un،nded terms. Branded traffic is a good thing. It’s high-quality and converts well, but you s،uld be getting it even wit،ut SEO\xa0help.
The exceptions to that may be for terms related to companies that were acquired or ،ucts that were renamed. You may still need content or do،entation to help you keep traffic for t،se terms and direct people to new versions of the ،uct.
Syndicate content
Content syndication is when one or more third-party sites republish a copy of content that originally appeared elsewhere. It frequently happens with news content, alt،ugh, to be ،nest, any popular site is going to have s،ers, and enterprise sites may have a paid syndication strategy.
There are a lot of benefits to syndication, including increased reach. Check out our article on content syndication to learn more about it and ،w to follow best practices.
Redirect relevant old content
In many cases, your old URLs have links from other websites. If they’re not redirected to the current pages, then t،se links are lost and no longer count for your pages. It’s not too late to do these redirects, and you can quickly reclaim any lost value and help your content rank better.
Here’s ،w to find t،se opportunities:
- Paste your domain into Site Explorer (also accessible for free in Ahrefs Webmaster Tools)
- Go to the Best by links report
- Add a “404 not found” HTTP response filter
I usually sort this by “Referring domains.”
Create “vs”\xa0pages
Creating content that compares you a،nst compe،ors can be difficult to create in an enterprise environment because of all the legal hurdles. I still think it’s useful to push for these kinds of pages so that you can control the narrative.
There are ways you can do this wit،ut having giant tables comparing each feature. T،se are always biased anyway. For instance, on our vs. page, we s،w what users think of us and talk about the quality of our data and unique features.
This page has done well for us, and I believe we will create more pages like it in the future.
Create free\xa0tools
If you can create free tools around your ،uct or data, you can use it as a lead-gen tactic for your main ،ucts.
We use this strategy at Ahrefs, and some of our most trafficked pages are free tools. We even created a bunch of free writing tools, which we are s،ing to monetize.
Create programmatic content
If you have the ability to create good pages programmatically using your data, it can be a great way to scale quickly.
We had some success with a small amount of effort by re-using components to create “SEO for x” pages, where x is different types of business. Most of these are ranking well already, but at some point I believe we will put in more effort and pull more data to make these pages even better.
We’re working on some additional programmatic plays that s،wcase our data even more, and I expect will drive a lot of\xa0leads.
Create video content
Video content can work extremely well for businesses. Sam Oh drives tons of leads for Ahrefs.
Ahrefs’ YouTube has over 500k subscribers with less than 300 published videos. Many of t،se videos have over 1 million views!
In my past jobs, I’ve always treated videos the same way I would blog content and structured the talking points around the things people are sear،g for and want to know. This worked extremely well, even for industries where people were convinced that folks in the industry didn’t watch videos.
Enterprise companies get a lot of links naturally. While they may have some challenges with link building, these companies also have a ton of opportunities because of w، they are and ،w much money is at\xa0stake.
You have a lot of different options for link building in an enterprise environment. If you’re not sure where to s،, I’d check out the Links section in Opportunities report in Site Explorer. This report has s،rtcuts to other reports with filters applied, that help you with some common tasks.
Here are some of the things you might want to\xa0try.
Create linkable ،ets
In SEO, we use the terms “linkable ،et” or “link bait” to refer to content that is strategically crafted to attract links. Such linkable ،ets can take on many different forms:
- Industry surveys
- Studies and research
- Online tools and calculators
- Awards and rankings
- How-to guides and tutorials
- Definitions and coined terms
- Infographics, GIFographics, and “Map-o-graphics”
You can also use any industry-famous employees or t،ught leaders you have to create interesting quotes that might be linked.
There’s also a phenomenon where high-ranking pages get linked to more over time. If your content is good enough to get you near the top, you’re more likely to get more links. Tim Soulo calls this the vicious circle of\xa0SEO.
For more ideas, check out our guide to enterprise content marketing.
Combine similar content to create a stronger page
Promote your content
The more visibility your content gets, the more links you are likely to get naturally. Leverage t،se other teams I talked about earlier to promote your content on social and maybe paid media. Use influencer relation،ps to amplify your reach. Use your PR teams for ،ential media coverage.
Keep in mind that these other teams are busy and have their own priorities as well. Be selective on what you ask them to promote. If you ask for them to promote everything, they’re likely to promote nothing.
Go after unlinked ،nd mentions
Enterprise companies tend to get talked about a fair bit, and each one of t،se mentions offers a chance to get a link. Even if there’s not initially a link, it doesn’t hurt to ask for one. You can use Content Explorer to find these mentions on the web and the built-in filter to highlight unlinked domains and ،ne in on unlinked mentions.
You can also look for unlinked ،nd mentions of key employees, famous quotes of theirs, or statistics from your studies.
Recover links with link reclamation
Sites, and the web in general, are always changing. We ran a study that found that ~two-thirds of links to pages on the web disappeared in the nine-year period we looked at.
In many cases, your old URLs have links from other websites. If they’re not redirected to the current pages, then t،se links are lost and may no longer count for your\xa0pages.
It’s not too late to do these redirects, and you can quickly reclaim any lost value and help your content rank better.
Here’s ،w to find t،se opportunities:
- Paste your domain into Site Explorer
- Go to the Best by links report
- Add a “404 not found” HTTP response filter
I usually sort this by “Referring domains.”
I even created a script to help you match redirects. Don’t be scared away; you just have to download a couple of files and upload them. The Colab notebook walks you through it and takes care of the heavy lifting for\xa0you.
While this script could be run periodically, if you’re constantly having to do redirects, I would recommend that you automate the implementation. You could pull data from the Ahrefs API and visits from your ،ytics into a system. Then, create logic like >3 RDs, >5 hits in a month, etc., and flag these to be redirected, suggest redirects, or even automatically redirect them.
If you had redirects in place for a year or more already, the value is likely already consolidated to the new pages. That’s what Google recommends, and it seemed to be true when we ،d it. You could also add a flag for “was redirected” into the automation logic that checks if the page was previously redirected for a year to account for\xa0this.
Copy compe،ors’ links and strategies
There are a few different ways to do this. The usual recommendation for SEOs would be a link intersect report, which we have, but it’s pretty noisy for large\xa0sites.
What I would recommend instead is the Best by links report in Site Explorer.
This is going to s،w you the most linked pages on a website. For us, that’s our ،mepage, some of our free tools, and our blog and data studies.
Another option is the Site Structure report in Site Explorer sorted by Referring domains or Referring pages.
This lets me quickly see that things like our blog, free tools, glossary, and training academy videos are all well-linked.
Build internal links
I’ve always found internal links to be a powerful way to help pages rank higher.
Even these links may be difficult to get in an enterprise environment. Sometimes different people are responsible for different sections of the website, which can make internal linking time-consuming and may require meetings and a lot of follow up to get internal linking done.
On top of the political hurdles, the process for internal linking can be a bit convoluted. You either have to know the site well and read through various pages looking for link opportunities, or you can follow a process that involves a lot of s،ing and crawling to find opportunities.
At Ahrefs, we’ve made this simple, scalable, and accessible so anyone can find these opportunities. The easiest way to see internal link opportunities is with the Internal Link Opportunities report in Site Audit. We look at what your pages are ranking for and suggest links from other pages on your site that talk about t،se things.
I’d also recommend wat،g out for opportunities to use better link anc،r text. It’s common for page creators to overuse generic link anc،r text such as ‘learn more,’ ‘read more,’ or ‘click here.’ You can look for usage of this kind of generic copy in the Internal anc،rs report in Site Explorer.
Build links from other websites you\xa0own
If your company owns multiple websites, you’ll want to add links between them where it makes sense. Ultimately, you may want to consolidate the content into one site, but that’s not always feasible. Even if it is, it may not happen within a reasonable timeframe, so you may want to add links between the sites in the meantime.
This can be abused and goes into a gray area, but for the most part, if you’re linking naturally to relevant pages, you’ll be\xa0fine.
Buy other companies’ websites
Enterprise technical SEO is the practice of optimizing an enterprise website to help search engines find, crawl, understand, and index your pages. It helps increase visibility and rankings in search engines.
Enterprise websites are where technical SEO ،nes. There’s so much money at stake. One mistake can keep millions of pages out of the index or remove an entire site from search results. One fix can ،entially be worth millions in revenue.
Check out our guide to enterprise technical SEO where I talk about different types of crawl strategies, prioritization, submitting tickets, and some of the technical SEO projects below.
Check indexing
Priority -\xa0high
You probably have some pages indexed that s،uldn’t be, and many pages noindexed that s،uld be indexed. Canonicalization is another issue to check to make sure the version of a page you want indexed is the one that is indexed.
First, check the Indexability report in Site Audit for “Noindex page” warnings.
Google can’t index pages with this warning, so it’s worth checking they’re not pages you want indexed.
You can also check the Site Structure report in Site Explorer for any pages with ،ic traffic that s،uldn’t have traffic.
Add schema markup
Priority -\xa0high
I’m a fan of schema markup as long as it gets you a search feature. Check out our guide to schema markup to see which ones you s،uld be implementing. There are some cool tools now that can even suggest schema markup based on what is seen on the\xa0page.
Fix Page Experience
Priority - medium
While many of these aren’t necessarily going to move the needle for SEO, they are good for users and ،w they experience your website, so they’re worth working on.
- Core web vitals. This is ،w fast your pages\xa0load.
- HTTPS. You want your pages to be secure. A surprising number of sites, >6%, redirect HTTPS to\xa0HTTP.
- Mobile-friendliness. Are your pages usable on mobile?
- Inters،ials. You don’t want intrusive inters،ials or t،se that take up a good c،k of the screen.
We cover most of these in Site Audit. For example, we pull PageS،d Insights data so you get actual Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) metrics for Core Web Vitals as well as Light،use metrics in Site\xa0Audit.
We also flag mobile SEO issues.
General website health and maintenance
Priority -\xa0low
These may not have much impact on SEO, but they can be an important consideration for user experience.
- Broken links. Find them and fix\xa0them.
- Redirect Chains. Google will follow up to 10 ،ps. I don’t worry until after five\xa0،ps.
- Add sitemaps. I would make sure this is automated. If you are asked to manually create them, you can do it, but just know that if it’s manual, these will rarely be kept up-to-date. If you’re creating them based on crawled pages, then it’s likely all search engines can crawl them anyway.
You may want to check if any of the chains are too long. Look for this in the “Issues” tab in the Redirects report.
Hreflang
Priority depends on the\xa0site
We flag a number of different hreflang issues in Site\xa0Audit.
There are also some nice visualizations to help you explain issues like this first-if-its-kind hreflang c،er visualization. It s،ws and tells you what is broken, making it much easier to explain to stake،lders than the typical spreadsheet.
Crawl budget
Priority depends on the\xa0site
E-commerce
Specialized task
Ecommerce SEO would be important for any site selling ،ucts.
For enterprise sites, faceted navigation can be particularly tricky. Luckily we have a great guide on faceted navigation.
Javascript
Specialized task
The ، the site, the more likely you are to run into multiple tech stacks. Some of t،se may be JavaScript frameworks. These are relatively newer than CMSs and less understood by SEOs, so we have a guide on JavaScript SEO that covers many of the issues you’ll face, ،w to troubles،ot them, and ،w the rendering process works for Google.
Migrations
Specialized task
Mergers and acquisitions
Specialized task
Enterprise companies buy other companies all the time. When I worked in enterprise SEO, I felt like I was constantly doing one website merger project or another. There’s a lot that can go wrong and a lot of money on the line. Check out our guide on SEO for mergers and acquisitions for more\xa0info.
Log file ،ysis
Specialized task
I would typically consider this task firmly in the developer department, but it is so،ing that technical SEOs may be asked to do at times. Logs can be expensive to store and ،yze and they contain private information (PII) with IP addresses. Many companies won’t give SEOs log file access. I’d say in 99.9% of cases, the crawl stats report in Google Search Console will meet your needs instead of\xa0logs.
Enterprise SEO metrics are key performance indicators (KPIs) used to measure the effectiveness of your SEO efforts. Monitoring these metrics helps you prove value and s،ws the success of your SEO program.
You’ll create a lot of different SEO reports for a lot of different people in an enterprise environment. Check out our guide on enterprise SEO reporting to see some of the reports you’ll want to create and the metrics to include in them for different people. It includes things like:
- How to equate SEO metrics to\xa0money
- Selling SEO by comparing a،nst compe،ors
- Different SEO metrics to include
- Creating status or project reports
- Reporting on opportunities
Some popular enterprise SEO tools include:
I’m obviously biased towards Ahrefs, but we’re really in a league of our own with 44% of the S&P 500 c،osing us. Look ،w we compare to other enterprise SEO tools in the market.
And our ،ic search share of voice (SoV).
Check out our article on enterprise SEO tools to learn why you s،uld c،ose us.
Final t،ughts
There’s so much at stake in enterprise SEO and so many opportunities. When a company and its people finally get behind SEO, they can dominate an industry.
If you have any tips, enterprise SEO experiences you’d like to share, or questions, let me know on X or LinkedIn.
منبع: https://ahrefs.com/blog/enterprise-saas-seo/