Boost Your Qualified Leads and Revenue Through These Software SEO Tips

Steve DiMatteoAuthor: Steve DiMatteo
Updated on 03/30/2023

Are you looking to have more online sales and increase your customer base? With a targeted and effective SEO campaign, your software company can do just that, putting your site in a position to drive qualified leads from prospective customers for years to come.

What Is Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a specific digital marketing strategy that involves improving your overall website performance to increase your business’s rankings on search engines such as Google and Bing. SEO is usually conducted through writing content and optimizing existing content for relevant keywords, as well as building links both on and off your website.

How Does SEO Apply to the Software Industry?

Since the software industry can consist of any company that specializes in the development, maintenance, and overall distribution of software, there are plenty of opportunities for SEO to apply to any niche. Mainly, SEO will allow your business to gain recognition in search engines when people are looking for industry-specific inquiries. This will result in more organic traffic to your website, which will also result in more leads, business, and overall revenue.

“John was someone who came highly recommended to me for digital marketing and SEO. To my surprise he was easily accessible for a telephone appointment. Although I expected his knowledge of a SEO to be far beyond mine (it is) he was also able to speak to me at a level I could understand. He seemed interested in making clear how he could help me and not overpromising. He seems to be a much more straightforward marketing asset that I am used to dealing with. Thank you John!” – Brandon Shroy, Attorney at Law

Four Types of SEO You Should Know

There are various subsets of SEO that you should be familiar with for your software business. Once you are familiar with these different categories, you can start creating your own SEO strategy based on the goals of your organization.

The four different types of SEO include the following:

  1. Technical – Something many do not realize is that your website’s technical structure could be interfering with your site’s potential. Page load time, schema code, and even improper Google Analytics tracking can all be affecting your efforts.
  2. On-page – As you might guess, on-page SEO involves aspects implemented on your site’s pages to help your rankings. With adding keywords, optimizing page copy, incorporating metadata, and more, there are many established on-page tactics for SEO.
  3. Off-page – The opposite of on-page SEO, all of these tactics are enacted off-site in order to help your presence. Building backlinks, creating citations, and other aspects fall under this umbrella.
  4. Local – The best fit for local businesses or franchises, local SEO involves a mix of traditional SEO tactics alongside specialized approaches such as local link building, spam submissions, and more.

The four different types of SEO can all be applied to your software company’s digital marketing efforts and foster successful results.

Eight SEO Strategies SaaS Companies Should Consider

When it comes to SEO, there are several tactics you can try in order to boost your rankings in search engines. Since our company wants to see the best results for you and your business, we have compiled a list of strategies to help you at any step of your SEO makeover.

Competitor Research and Analysis

In order to help get your website where it needs to be, evaluating what your competitors’ websites and marketing efforts look like is crucial. With that in mind, we recommend that your business compare and contrast key metrics on their sites and yours to see what can be further improved.

Strategic Keyword Planning

By working to see which terms are most important to your business, and the areas you want to get more business from, we can compile a list of keywords that we will track as we work on your content and strategize places on your website that could use a boost in keywords.

What type of software do you sell? What industries typically purchase your product? And in terms of developing a long-term strategy, what are other ways prospective customers describe your product beyond just its main name or description? Drilling deeper into keyword usage like this will help us craft a content plan that will benefit your site for years to come.

Content Optimization

With your homepage, product pages, service pages, and just about everything in-between, having optimized content is a major part of a successful SEO campaign for SaaS companies. Here are some things your company can do when it comes to writing and optimizing content for your website:

Apply these tactics to your content optimization strategy and watch a gradual increase in your site’s SEO equity.

Metadata Writing

Metadata on a website is essentially the data about the page itself. It is crucial when writing and optimizing pages because it is how search engines, such as Google, are able to scan what your web page is about, ultimately using that information to index and rank your content. When you do not have metadata included on your web pages, your company is missing out on a key tactic for ranking better overall.

Using our keyword research, you should include a meta title and description on all your key pages to help improve their rank. A beneficial tip for going about metadata implementation can include optimizing the metadata and pages of your website at the same time, making sure both include sufficient keywords.

Building Backlinks for Software Companies

With Google stating that link building is one of its top three ranking factors when crawling and indexing a website, it is essential to put time and effort into acquiring outside links.

Link building is a traditional SEO method that can reap great rewards when done properly. It involves gaining outside links back to your company’s website from sites that have relevance and authority. These aspects can help build up your site and increase its own authority compared to your competitors.

When it comes to some popular link-building tactics we recommend for software companies, you can trust that our team has years of experience in finding sites through various link-building strategies, which include:

  • Unlinked mentions – If there are mentions of your company on different websites without a link back to your website, you should reach out to the website and request them to give your company credit. With approximately 66% of pages having no backlinks at all, you should definitely be able to find at least some unlinked mentions.
  • Guest posting – Did you know that 60% of bloggers write anywhere from one to five guest posts a month? This is a great way to write industry-related content on someone else’s blog and receive a link back to your company’s site.
  • Local link building – If your company is more localized, local link building can absolutely help your business. Simply research websites specific to your area and see if they will link you to their website. This can include local Chamber of Commerce websites, local directories, local sponsorship opportunities, general mentions on local news sites, guest posts, and more.

Site Speed Improvements

Did you know that how fast your site loads can influence your rank on search engines? And not to mention, if your site loads slowly for potential customers, even if there is something as small as a two-second delay in your load time, there’s a good chance they could get frustrated and leave your site. Additionally, Google has found that 53% of mobile website visitors will abandon pages that take over three seconds to load.

So, to help improve your site’s load time, there are various improvements you should make to your images, server, and more. To learn more, visit our blog post on how to improve site speed in 2023.

Mobile-Friendliness

In today’s day and age, mobile devices are more popular than ever. And it is safe to say that your potential customers are likely searching for your products and services from their phones. According to HubSpot, approximately 55% of internet users use their mobile phones in order to purchase products or services.

If your site is not mobile-friendly, much like slow site speed, it can turn people away and even have a negative impact on where you rank compared to your competitors. HubSpot also reports that 73% of web designers believe a non-responsive website design is one of the top reasons visitors end up leaving the website. With these key statistics in mind, make sure that your website is able to function accordingly and accommodate users of various devices for the best results.

Goal and Lead Source Tracking

In your SEO strategy, the agency you work with should always include monthly reporting that breaks down various metrics that are essential to your campaign, including the leads you have acquired through your efforts.

As frequent HubSpot users, we highly recommend it for those looking to invest in a customer relationship management (CRM) software.

Seven Things Software Companies Can Do Right Now for Their Marketing Efforts

Want to get started on improving your search engine rankings with the help of SEO? If so, here are some things you can do right away to help yourself and your team:

  1. Install Google Analytics on your website to start analyzing and tracking your business all in one place.
  2. Compile a list of the services you wish to focus on. From there, you can start planning, writing, and rewriting the copy on your pages.
  3. Research some keywords you wish to rank for with the help of third-party keyword planners.
  4. Take a look at some of your competitors who are ranking for your desired terms and see how you can apply that to your own content.
  5. Ensure you have an SSL certificate on your site to make it HTTPS to boost your site’s technical SEO.
  6. Create a list of companies you currently work with to see if they can link to your site. This is an easy way to receive some qualified backlinks to your website.
  7. Claim and optimize your Google Business Profile to verify it has the correct data entered.

Additional Ways We Can Help

As a full-service digital marketing agency, we are also able to provide assistance with other key marketing channels in order to help your business improve its ecommerce sales.

These services include:

“I’ve worked with Sixth City Marketing on several projects over the past several years and have always found them to be a terrific resource. Not only have they helped my clients realize an exceptional website, but their SEO programs have helped them to be placed high in the rankings of the search engines, both organically and paid. I’d very much recommend Sixth City Marketing when you are ready to take the next step in your web-based marketing program.” – Kim Kershner, Stellar Tech

What Makes Sixth City Different

We pride ourselves on many aspects as a digital marketing agency, including:

  • Our team is entirely in-house, as we don’t outsource anything, which helps us produce better quality work for you.
  • We have 25+ collective years of experience in various industries.
  • We are located in Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago, Houston, and Pittsburgh but have the ability to travel to wherever you are located.
  • Transparency is our top quality, and we will always be honest and upfront in all communications.
  • Showing your ROI in our services is top of mind, and we have developed custom ways to help you see lead source data for all of your inquiries.

Want to Invest in Software SEO Services?

Are you ready to learn more about how we can help your business thrive through custom SEO strategies for SaaS and software companies? Whether you do software for manufacturing, higher education, banks, or anything in-between, we can help.

Reach out to our team to get started!

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