SaaS SEO Has One Job: Signups
Traffic is nice. But for SaaS companies, the only metric that matters is signups. (Well, signups that convert to paid. But start with signups.)
Your keyword research needs to reflect this.
The SaaS Keyword Funnel
Bottom of Funnel (Highest Value)
"[Your product] pricing" / "[Your product] vs [competitor]" / "[Competitor] alternative" / "Best [category] software"
These keywords drive signups directly. Prioritise them. They're classic transactional keywords.
Middle of Funnel
"How to [solve problem your product solves]" / "Best tools for [use case]" / "[Category] comparison"
These keywords drive awareness and consideration. They need CTAs pointing to your product.
Top of Funnel
"What is [concept]" / "How to [broader topic]" / "[Industry] best practices"
These build authority and audience. They're the long game.
SaaS-Specific Keyword Types
Alternative keywords: "[Competitor] alternative." High intent. The person is actively looking to switch.
Comparison keywords: "[Product A] vs [Product B]." Create honest comparisons featuring your product.
Integration keywords: "[Your product] + [popular tool] integration." People search for how tools work together.
Use case keywords: "[Category] for [specific industry/team size/role]." These are gold. They're the niche keywords of SaaS.
The SaaS Content Engine
The best SaaS companies build a content engine:
What We've Seen
After 500+ campaigns, including plenty of SaaS clients, the companies that own the comparison and alternative keywords consistently grow fastest.
Because they're capturing people at the moment of decision. This is the same approach we detail in our B2B SEO strategy guide for companies with longer sales cycles. SEMrush has a strong framework for mapping keywords to the SaaS funnel.
Build Your SaaS SEO Process
SEO Checkup helps SaaS teams build systematic SEO. 113 tasks. Free. No credit card. 30 seconds. We should know — we built it for exactly this purpose.