In this case study, you'll uncover how we were able to help a SAAS website explode throughout the ranks of Google.
This site generates over $10,000 a month in estimated organic traffic value alone!
Overview
This business is a SAAS business, which stands for software-as-a-service.
Even though most of the keywords they want to target have a small search volume, it's OK because they are highly valuable.
This site had a few solid content pieces with first-page rankings, but this is such a profitable industry that just getting a few more clients could easily mean a $100k+ a year difference per client. For example, some of the PPC costs on Google Ads were around $130 per click!
They had potential but weren't seeing the organic traffic yet - that's where we come in and help.
The Initial SEO Audit
Whenever we take on a new SEO client, we always audit the website to check for existing issues and what the site may lack.
We look at existing keywords rankings, organic traffic, backlinks, anchor text diversification, and more.
This site had no previous penalties by Google. It did have some previous organic traffic, but it wasn't growing.
There was no over-optimization, which is good news, and overall they didn't have enough quality backlinks to help them move the needle.
We wanted to increase their backlink equity and continue making sure we created consistent, high-quality long-form content. Five hundred-word articles were not going to cut it for this client, so we needed 1500+ words.
Keyword Research
Finding Keywords We Could Win Quickly
We found 114 keywords with a search volume between 10-40 searches a month, with an average CPC of $20. These are not large volume keywords because this is a very niche software business, but this can be very lucrative, as mentioned earlier in this post.
For most of these keywords, our client's site was already ranking on pages 2-3. We knew from the beginning we probably wouldn't see great traffic graphs for easy wins, but it would make them lots of money if we could rank them for these particular keywords.
Looking At Competitors
The competitive gap analysis we run helps us find the keywords your competitors are currently ranking for and that you are not.
We usually use these keywords to spark great ideas for creating new content and helping you differentiate from your competitors.
We found 301 keywords between 300 – 10,000 searches a month, all with CPC's. There were many gems in the list, and we shared these all with the client.
SEO Strategy
This relationship was a straightforward, fully managed SEO strategy without many variations.
Here's what we did:
Month 1
1 Guest Post – exact match with quick win keywords
1 Guest Post – exact match with other quick win keywords
1 Medium Diversity Links – naked, brand, & partial match
1 Blog Content x 1000 words – Focused on keywords from the content gap analysis
Month 2 – Same thing without repeating keywords
1 Guest Post – exact match with quick win keywords
1 Guest Post – exact match product page 2 from quick win keywords
1 Medium Diversity Links – Branded, URL, & partial match
1 Blog Content x 1000 words – keyword from the content gap analysis
Month 3 – Same thing without repeating keywords
1 Guest Post – exact match keyword
1 Guest Post – partial match product page 2
1 Medium Diversity Links – Branded, URL, & partial match
1 Blog Content x 1000 words – keyword from the content gap analysis
SEO Campaign Results
In this screenshot, we have only completed two months of link building, and they haven't even taken full effect yet, but look at this huge increase in keyword rankings:
and the $$$:
Takeaway
If you have quality content but aren't getting any keyword rankings, build high-quality, diverse backlinks, and you can start realizing the organic traffic.
Remember, content and authority links are the key to any SEO strategy, regardless of budget.
Month 4+ started getting exciting because we began to see the results from the linking, have more content to target and push more to page one of Google.
Conclusion
As you can see, by following a great plan, you can get some pretty impressive SEO results in a short period. Still, overall, SEO takes time and patience, especially in a competitive niche like SAAS businesses.
Whenever we partner with a new client, we encourage everyone to be consistent in their SEO efforts and stay on for at least three months to start seeing results.
If you're interested in doing SEO for your SAAS company, contact us to get started.