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6 SEO Content Best Practices

seo content best practices

How do you create content that not only ranks in search engine results but also solves your readers’ problems?

Most B2B SaaS companies struggle to answer this question. According to research, 66% of businesses consider content creation their biggest marketing challenge.

This is because most companies either view content creation solely from an SEO perspective or completely ignore it to focus on branding only.

Neither of these strategies works.

In this article, we’ll share six SEO content best practices to help B2B SaaS companies create engaging content that not only builds your brand but also helps you rank for the most lucrative search keywords in your industry. 

Keep reading to learn more.

Develop Personas to Focus On Your Ideal Clients

You can’t create engaging content without knowing who you’re writing for.

This is why developing buyer personas is a critical part of creating SEO content for B2B SaaS companies.

What’s a buyer persona?

It’s a hypothetical profile of your ideal reader/buyer you can draw from to create your SEO and content marketing strategy.

It contains the details concerning your audience’s demographics, interests, challenges, aspirations, questions, and everything else that can help you understand their needs.

Think of a buyer persona as a compilation of all your audience research. You can refer to it whenever you create a new piece of content or conduct keyword research based on your audience’s problems.

There’s no fixed buyer persona template, and it’s entirely up to you to decide how much information you need about your prospects to create content that solves their problems and targets the right SEO keywords.

But here’s a sample buyer persona to give you an idea of what it looks like.

Source: Hubspot

Once your buyer persona is ready, use it when performing SEO keyword research or writing a new piece of content.

But how do you research your audience in order to create a B2B SaaS buyer persona?

Here are a few methods.

Customer Interviews

If you already have customers, talk to them about why they chose you, what they expected when signing up, and if their expectations were met.

This should give you the bulk of the information you need to create an accurate persona.

Talk to Your Sales And Support Teams

What’s the most common customer complaint about your product? What features do they repeatedly ask for? What’s the number one problem they want help with? What are the top customer issues?

B2B Saas customer support teams are customer information goldmines. You can use their insights and feedback to create unique content that targets your customers’ biggest problems.

Study Your Competitors’ Content

Search Google for your primary product category/industry and analyze the top-ranking content by your competitors.

For example, a project management SaaS can find the top-ranking content by searching for “project management tips”.

As you can see, most of the results in this screenshot are from blogs run by project management companies.

What are the most popular topics that your competitors cover? What are their most frequently shared topics? What topics drive the most traction on social media?

This is an easy way to find the topics your audience wants to learn more about.

Dive Into Forum Discussions

LinkedIn Groups, Quora, and industry-specific discussion groups contain priceless insights you can use to create highly-actionable content for your audience.

For example, if your SaaS is in the healthcare niche targeting clinics and hospitals, a few Google searches will help you find dozens of relevant forums.

Don’t be shy and browse these handy resources, enter a couple of quality discussions, and find out what people in your industry really need.

Check Review Sites

Looking for first-hand customer feedback to develop your personas? Head over to SaaS aggregator sites like G2, Capterra, TrustPilot, etc.

Look your competitors up on these platforms and check reviews to learn what their customers think about them.

For example, here’s a result you might get by searching for GetResponse on Capterra.

Source: Capterra

Pay attention to 2-star and 3-star reviews to find product gaps and loopholes in your competitors’ offers.

These research sources will provide you with more than enough information to create a targeted buyer persona that genuinely reflects your ideal customer.

Target Long-Tail Informational Keywords to Build Authority

Most startups begin their SEO content strategy by targeting high-traffic keywords dominated by other authority websites.

That isn’t the best way to get results.

When your site is new, and you don’t have the same search authority as your competitors, targeting long-tail keywords is more profitable.

What are long-tail keywords? They are keywords that consist of three or more words. Think of them as phrases describing a specific need.

Source: Mangools

Research shows that nearly 70% of all online searches are long-tail. They don’t have high search volumes like the more mainstream keywords, but they describe a specific need due to which their conversion rate is higher.

There are several reasons why targeting long-tail keywords has a much higher ROI than going after the more competitive and high-traffic head keywords.

  • Long-tail keywords have low competition, which means it’s easier to rank for them by creating high-quality content. For example, it’s easier to rank for “best email marketing tool for startups” than “email marketing software”.
  • It’s much easier to understand the search intent behind long-tail keywords, which simplifies content creation. For example, “project management tips for beginners” has a more explicit search intent than “project management”.
  • You can target multiple related long-tail keywords in the same content piece, which collectively increases the search traffic potential of your content.

Most long-tail keywords can be categorized as informational, which means they’re your audience’s questions about your product and the problems it solves. 

By publishing content that answers the most common questions of your audience, you can establish your brand authority and drive thousands of visitors from search engines.

So how do you find relevant long-tail keywords?

Let’s look at a few methods.

There are multiple ways to find long-tail keywords with Google Search.

A good method to use is Google Search Autocomplete. Just type your main topic keyword in Google Search to get suggestions automatically.

For example, here are the search suggestions for “project management.”

As you can see, Google shows different long-tail keywords related to project management. So let’s pick “project management plan” from this list and try autosuggest again.

Again, more keywords, this time related to “project management plan”. Let’s add a preposition to the keyword to see what comes up.

See, so many options you can explore.

Now let’s move the cursor to the start of your keyword to get more of them.

This opens up new angles to project management you can use in your content.

Move the cursor to the middle of your keyword to get even more ideas.

More ideas.

Not all of them will be relevant to your audience. So pick the ones that make sense and evaluate them in an SEO tool to get more insights.

Competitor Analysis

You can use competitor analysis to find relevant long-tail keywords by finding what your competitors are targeting with the help of an SEO tool. 

For example, if you analyze ClickUp.com (a leading project management tool with an outstanding blog) using an SEO tool, you’ll find what keywords are driving traffic to its site.

Source: Ubersuggest

You can already see 3-4 long-tail keywords on the first page. If you go through these reports, you’ll find dozens of keywords you can target.

Create Benefit Driven BOFU Content for Higher Conversions

The goal of B2B SaaS content is to attract search traffic and convert it into leads and customers. To achieve this goal, you need to publish tons of Bottom Of The Funnel (BOFU) content.

If you’re not familiar with this term, we’ll explain what it means. 

To do so, first let’s take a step back.

Earlier, we’ve discussed informational content, which doesn’t mention your product directly. Instead, it addresses your audience’s most common questions about the problems your product solves. 

Such content is based around question keywords, and targets people who are still learning about your industry.

BOFU content is different.

You create it after you’ve already proven your expertise and established trust with your readers, so it talks directly about your product features and shows how they solve customer problems.

It targets users who understand your industry and are actively looking to purchase the right solution. 

This is why it is based on commercial keywords.

These keywords don’t have as much traffic as informational keywords, but they drive much higher conversions because the searchers are ready to buy.

Here’s an example of a BOFU content piece by Timetastic, an online leave management system for modern companies.

Source: Timetastic

Shopify regularly publishes BOFU content that shows how its platform can help users achieve different business goals.

For example, an article on their blog targets an informational topic but is written as a BOFU piece since it shows the readers how to start an online store using Shopify.

Source: Shopify

The key to effective BOFU content is to create it from the user’s perspective. And while you’re doing that, try not to sound too enamored with your product features. Readers are looking for solutions, not products. 

Instead, show your audience how your product features solve their problems by sharing step-by-step guidelines and tutorials that build your authority and increase product sign-ups.

Dominate Your Niche With High-Authority Long-Form Content

Creating high-quality content is crucial to drive search traffic to your site and convert it into leads.

However, quality alone isn’t enough.

Which is why one of the most critical SEO content best practices is to publish high-authority, long-form content at scale.

In simpler terms, both quality and quantity are crucial for a successful SEO content strategy.

Why? Because the more frequently you publish high-quality content, the more keywords you’ll be able to target. 

Plus, long-form content helps you rank for multiple long-tail keywords and their variations which drives additional traffic.

And finally, in-depth content gets more backlinks.

Source: Backlinko

But that doesn’t mean content length is an SEO ranking factor. In fact, Google’s John Mueller clearly stated in a Reddit thread that the mere number of words has nothing to do with rankings.

Source: Reddit

He’s 100% right.

The length itself isn’t a ranking factor. That said, when you write longer content, you cover more keywords and their variations which naturally helps you rank for more search terms. 

Plus, as the Backlinko study shows, longer content gets more backlinks. And backlinks are definitely one of the most crucial rankings factors.

So, in short, don’t write content to meet a specific word count. Instead, your goal should always be to satisfy the searcher’s intent and answer their questions more comprehensively than your competitors.

B2B SaaS companies can publish various types of long-form content to target new keywords and engage their audience.

Here’s a quick look at the most effective B2B SaaS blog post formats.

How-to Posts

How-to posts are the most popular B2B blog post format because they teach users how to achieve a specific goal.

Here’s an excellent example from Vidyard, a B2B video recording app.

Source: Vidyard

They are the easiest way to offer value to your target audience and demonstrate your expertise in one fell swoop.

Comparisons [Your Product vs. Competitor]

Most B2B SaaS customers compare different products before making a purchase. This is why it’s crucial that you rank for all the popular comparison keywords in your niche.

Here’s a good example.

Source: Kajabi

As you can imagine, this type of content is of great value for potential customers still looking for the perfect solution for their needs. It gives them insight into the subtle differences between you and your competitors, helping you reach the kind of buyers your solution would serve best.

Alternatives Post

People routinely look for alternatives to popular (often more expensive) products. So it’s an excellent opportunity to get discovered by your audience by targeting the “[Competitor] alternatives” keywords in your niche.

For example, a new email marketing tool should target “GetResponse alternatives” or “Mailchimp alternatives”.

Source: sendinblue

This is precisely what Sendinblue, an email marketing tool, has done on its blog, as you can see in the screenshot above. 

They showcased the benefits of their solution in comparison to not only Mailchimp, but also 11 other of their competitors, which is sure to make an impression on the consumers.

Case Studies

Case studies give your audience an inside look at your processes and help you establish authority by showing them what your product has done for your customers.

Source: Visme

Visme is a great example to mention here as they use this format a lot, and to great effect. The case study format allows them to educate potential customers on how their product works in practice, as well as offer some social proof of its effectiveness.

Hopefully, this list is enough to prove that you won’t run out of ideas for long-form content very easily. Remember, long-form content is one of the most powerful ways to become a household name in your industry.

Structure Your Content for an Excellent User Experience

Dwell time is a critical yet often overlooked SEO ranking factor.

It represents the time a user spends viewing a page from the search results before returning to the search engine results page.

For example, if a user searches for “best design tools”, clicks one of the organic search results, spends two to three minutes exploring the page, and returns to the search results page, those two minutes constitute their dwell time.

Why is this important? 

Because if the dwell time of your page is low, meaning the users are quickly going back to the search results to look for other solutions, Google determines that your page isn’t answering their question properly.

As a result, your rankings drop.

This is why having an optimized content format is also among the most essential SEO content best practices. The correct format helps you retain the user longer, satisfy their search intent faster, and help you increase your rankings.

So, how should you format your content? Here are a few tips.

Inverted Pyramid Approach

Journalists and news publications use the inverted pyramid style of writing to immediately capture the readers’ attention. This approach advocates putting the most critical information at the top of your content.

Here’s how it works.

Source: Wikipedia

As you can see, with this technique, you start with the basic facts about the topic, to answer your readers’ most immediate questions. Then, you provide a bit more insight into those, ending with background info for those who want to know more.

It ensures that your readers immediately get the information they’re looking for and makes them stay longer on your site.

Examples, Stats, Images, Screenshots

If you want people to trust your advice, use examples and statistics frequently to back the claims in your content. It adds weight to your arguments and increases your credibility.

Similarly, product screenshots, infographics, and relevant videos make your content more engaging and help you keep visitors on your site longer.

Research shows that content with illustrations and images is easier for readers to understand than plain text.

Source: Neomam

You probably already know this from experience, but you may not have realized how much of a difference it makes.

Formatting

Here’s an insider secret. Nobody really reads your content, they only scan it for the information they want.

To make your content scannable, use short paragraphs of 2-3 lines max. Plus, highlight important parts of your content using formatting options like bold, italic, and underlines.

This helps your readers find the relevant information faster.

Internal links are links within your content that point to another page of your site. They’re crucial for your ranking because they help search engine spiders crawl your site faster and distribute the link juice to the other important pages of your site.

But instead of creating internal links randomly, follow a planned structure. In SEO content terms, we call this the hub-and-spoke structure.

Here’s how it looks.

Source: Hubspot

This structure creates topic clusters on your site using internal links. Each cluster has a pillar page which, in the case of a SaaS blog, would be a BOFU article. 

Around that pillar, you create multiple articles related to the topic of the pillar page. Then, each piece links to the pillar page and vice versa.

Let’s take Shopify’s example again. 

Consider their BOFU article on creating an online store with Shopify, which serves as a pillar page that describes the process of creating an online store in extreme detail.

To create a cluster around this pillar page, Shopify can publish shorter informational articles that tackle different questions about the various aspects of creating an online store.

Each article would only link to its cluster’s pillar page.

This way, Shopify can create multiple clusters around different pillar pages, each having its own set of supporting articles that link to each other.

What’s the benefit of this strategy? First, the supporting pages in a cluster mainly target informational keywords. 

So, it’s easier to get backlinks from other high-authority sites. But since every supporting article links to the pillar page, its backlink juice is automatically transferred to the pillar page. 

So, whenever a supporting page gets a backlink, the pillar page gets the benefit. As a result, it ranks higher in search results.

Secondly, creating topical clusters helps build your site’s topical authority in Google’s eyes. As a result, it starts considering your brand an authority on your chosen topics when you follow this strategy.

As a result, your content ranks faster.

Is Your B2B SaaS Using These SEO Content Best Practices?

With so much competition in the SaaS industry, you cannot expect to rank for your target keywords by randomly publishing content whenever you see fit.

As you’ve seen in this article, creating high-quality content to drive organic traffic requires a consistent and coherent strategy.

This is why the SEO content best practices we’ve discussed in this post are a great starting point for your brand’s content marketing strategy.

But if you want to discuss this in more detail, please send us an email to schedule a free consultation call.

Davor Bomeštar

Hey you, I’m Davor - the founder & CEO of Fortis Agency - an SEO & content marketing agency for B2B SaaS. I am a SaaS marketer with 16 years of experience in SEO. I am also a 3 times agency owner, and I’ve helped 50+ companies with their SEO & content strategies. So, if you're a B2B SaaS business struggling with an underperforming blog and you want to turn it into a top revenue channel, don't hesitate to reach out!

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