Creating High-Converting Landing Pages for SaaS Products: An SEO Perspective
A SaaS landing page is one of the core marketing elements you need to convert prospects into loyal users. The only question is how do you make your landing page convert more people?
Though it may not be too obvious, search engine optimization is one of the tactics that can make your landing page bring the best results. Continue reading to learn how.
Understanding SaaS Landing Pages
Simply put, a landing page is a standalone page designed specifically for marketing purposes that people “land on” after they click a link, usually in an ad. Respectively, their core purpose is to encourage visitors to make a purchase decision (aka convert).
On a SaaS website, your conversion goals might be slightly different compared to conventional product pages. Instead of making a purchase straight away, you might want your prospects to start free trials, request demos, or subscribe.
To accomplish these conversion goals, a real SaaS landing page needs to be incredibly product-focused. It needs to take a problem-solving approach to emphasize your unique selling points and the benefits users can gain from your software.
It needs to explicitly demonstrate the functionality of your software, often, through additional materials like interactive tours, videos, and screenshots. And it has to state a clear call-to-action (CTA) to convert visitors.
The key characteristics users expect to find on your landing page are:
- Clarity and focus on details
- Fast loading speed
- Emphasized value they can gain
The Role of SEO in SaaS Landing Pages
A successful SaaS business needs a complex omnichannel marketing strategy to get ahead of the competition and attract potential customers. Search engine optimization (SEO) undoubtedly plays a massive role in this, especially when it comes to creating landing pages that serve as entry points for prospects. It helps make your business visible in organic search, drive high-intent traffic, create better content, and build trust through backlinks.
If you want to create high converting landing pages for a SaaS site, SEO can work together with your conversion optimization efforts. While search engine optimization drives steady, high-potential traffic to your site, conversion rate optimization (CRO) focuses on turning this traffic into action. Thus, these two should work together rather than against each other.
Okay, but how do you get started with your SaaS landing page optimization? SEO is a rather complicated and dynamic field that takes a holistic approach and ongoing effort. The easiest way to kickstart your optimization process is by exploring the available free SEO tools that will set you on the right track. These tools can be used to perform basic SEO checks of your landing pages to help you gain an idea of where to start your optimization.
Key Elements of High-Converting SaaS Landing Pages
Now that you know why you need SEO in your marketing strategy, let’s move on to the practical part. Here are the key elements you need to pay attention to while crafting your landing page:
Solid and Clear Headline
Once visitors hop on your site, you need to capture their attention instantly. Studies show that you only have 15-30 seconds to get them interested because that’s how much it takes 60% of users to decide if you offer what they are looking for or not. A clear and powerful headline that highlights your SaaS product’s core benefit is a great way to capture attention.
Here’s an example of an effective heading—“Create at the speed of imagination.” In this heading, Adobe emphasizes the fast speed and responsiveness of its Photoshop, which sets it in good light in users’ eyes.
Engaging and Relevant Visuals
SaaS companies often need to leverage multimedia to provide clear explanations of their software and its functionality. High-quality product screenshots, explainer videos, and animations are must-haves on a landing page.
When it comes to SEO for landing pages, visuals can also help you rank higher. Different media elements are shown to drive user engagement and, thus, enhance the time users spend on your site. Besides, if you provide descriptive, well-optimized image alt texts, you can make your images rank in search and improve your overall visibility.
Compelling Call-to-Actions
Every high converting landing page needs to have a powerful CTA that encourages users to take the needed action. CTAs must be short and clear, for example, “Book a demo now,” “Start your free trial today,” etc. CTAs should be placed logically on a landing page and stand out from the rest of the content to ensure that visitors see them.
Benefits-Oriented Content
Lastly, content plays a pivotal role in search engine optimization. Content performs several core goals at the same time:
- It tells search engines what your landing page is about.
- It allows you to integrate your target keywords to get ranked for them.
- It allows you to entice clicks and engage users, which also leads to higher rankings.
A SaaS landing page needs to contain benefits-oriented content that taps into the problem (pain point) of your visitors and offers them a solution (your product).
5 Tips for Optimizing a SaaS Landing Page for SEO
Now that you know more about search engine optimization, here is how to optimize a landing page effectively:
1. Target Keywords for SaaS Landing Pages
Leverage tools like Keyword Planner by Google to target relevant keywords for your landing page. Search for keywords that are directly related to your business and product and pick them based on their search volume (preferably high to medium) and competition (low to medium).
For maximum impact, blend short-tail and long-tail keywords. While short queries tend to have the highest search volume, long keywords (3+ words) tend to have more specific intent and thus, drive visitors who have a higher likelihood to convert.
2. Implement On-Page SEO Tactics
Once you target the right keywords, implement the following SEO for landing page best practices for success:
- Locate your keywords into headings. Also, structure your content with the help of h2, h3, and other levels of subheadings and integrate keywords.
- Write descriptive and engaging meta titles and descriptions that will encourage users to click. Keep titles around 55 characters and descriptions around 155 characters to ensure they are displayed fully. Insert your keywords into them.
- Place your target queries into the body of your content naturally, without hindering the quality and value of the text. But avoid excessive keyword stuffing and keep the number of keywords moderate.
- Complete your on-page optimization by placing internal links in your content for better navigation and user engagement. Where possible, integrate external links to reputable sources to enhance the value of your content.
3. Optimize Site Speed
The loading speed of your SaaS landing page directly influences your user experience. Today, consumers expect sites to load quickly and leave if they don’t. Thus, optimizing loading speed is crucial not only to make your SEO bring results but also to drive conversions.
To get your landing page to load faster, try implementing these tips:
- Choose a reliable hosting provider
- Minimize the number of HTTP requests
- Minimize redirects
- Enable browser caching
- Leverage a content delivery network
- Compress images and other media files
4. Add Schema Markup
Schema markup is basically bits of code added to your site to make its data more structured and help search engines understand your content better. In terms of SEO, markup is crucial for making your search results look more informative and drive more traffic.
Some helpful schema types for a SaaS landing page include:
- FAQ
- Product
- Reviews
To eliminate unnecessary work and make this process simple, you can create these and other types of markup Structured Data Markup Helper.
5. Optimize for Mobile
Lastly, to make your landing page fully optimized, you need to make sure that it looks and works great on all devices. Nowadays, Google ranks websites based on their mobile versions, making mobile-friendliness a pivotal factor for SEO. So be sure to test your landing page’s mobile-friendliness and implement a responsive design to deliver seamless experiences to all users.
Measuring Success: SEO and Conversion Metrics
Now that you know how to optimize landing pages, one last tip we want to give you is to continuously measure your success and refine your strategy to achieve better outcomes. Leverage tools like Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and similar to set up SEO analytics and keep an eye on the following core metrics:
- Organic traffic
- Keyword rankings
- Bounce rates
- Conversion metrics
Conduct A/B tests and monitor conversion metrics, such as click-through rates (CTR), demo sign-ups, and trial conversions, to assess the effectiveness of your landing page.
Summary
A high-converting SaaS landing page needs to meet a variety of requirements to bring the results you are looking for. It has to be engaging, clear, and detailed to encourage users to take action. At the same time, it should be well-optimized for search engines to double the effectiveness of your marketing and drive lots of high-intent traffic organically, bringing more opportunities for conversions.
Now, you have a complete guide to optimizing your landing page. Implement this knowledge in practice to get your SaaS product visible!