Why Is Choosing The Right Keyword
Important For SaaS Businesses?

When it comes to marketing a SaaS product, most of the battle is fought online. You compete for your target market’s attention on different online platforms—social media, email, and search engines.

Especially search engines.

Did you know that around 93% of all online experiences start with a search query? And that the first result on Google gets more than 25% of all traffic for a given keyword?

So if you’re asking “Why is it important to choose the right keywords?”, That’s the answer.

But what exactly is a keyword? And how do you choose the right ones?

In this article, we will talk more about what a keyword is, why it is crucial to choose the right ones, and how to choose the right keywords for your online content.

What Is A Keyword?

A keyword is a word or phrase that someone types into a search engine when they are looking for something.

For example, imagine that you have a gardening business. Some of the keywords you would want to target might be “gardening tips,” “how to garden,” and “garden ideas.”

Why Is It Important To Choose The Right Keywords?

As we mentioned earlier, ranking high on search engine results pages (SERPs) can boost your visibility in search engines.

But let’s talk about more reasons why you need to choose the right keywords:

1. It Is Essential For SEO
2. It Ensures That Your Content Topic Is Relevant
3. It Helps You Understand Your Target Market
4. It Can Build Brand Awareness
5. It Attracts The Right People To Your Website
6. It Helps You Get Ahead Of the Competition

1) It Is Essential For Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing your website so that it can rank higher on search engine results pages.

And one of the most important aspects of SEO is choosing the right keywords.

Why? Because if you want to rank for a certain keyword, you need to include that term or phrase on your website content.

That’s how search engines know what your website is about and whether or not it is relevant to a searcher’s query.

2) It Ensures That Your Content Topic Is Relevant

If you want to rank high on the SERPs, you need to make sure that your content is relevant to the keyword you are targeting.

This means that your keyword should appear in your title, in the body of your text, and in your tags and descriptions.

If you are writing an article about “sales tips,” but you don’t mention the keyword “sales” anywhere in your content, it’s unlikely that you will rank high for that keyword.

What’s more, researching your target keywords can show you how many people search for those keywords every month.

This can give you an idea of how popular your chosen topic is and how much competition you will have.

3) It Helps You Understand Your Target Market

Choosing the right keyword also helps you understand your target market—what they are interested in, what their needs are, and what terminologies they use.

When you know this, you can create content that is more relevant and tailored to their needs. This, in turn, will help you attract more leads and convert more prospects into customers.

4) It Can Build Your Brand Awareness

If you want to build your brand awareness, you need to make sure that your target keywords are associated with your brand.

For example, if you are a SaaS company that specializes in bookkeeping solutions, you want to be associated with keywords like “bookkeeping software” and “online bookkeeping.”

By optimizing your website and content for these keywords, you can make sure that when people search for these terms, your brand is one of the first things that comes to mind.

5) It Attracts The Right People To Your Website

The right keyword doesn’t just get as much traffic as possible. It will also help ensure that you’re attracting the right people to your website.

And if you want to attract the right visitors to your website, you need to make sure that your target keyword is relevant to your SaaS business or brand.

For example, let’s say you’re offering a social media marketing SaaS solution. You wouldn’t want to target the keyword phrase “project management tips” because it’s not that relevant to your business.

People who click on your website after searching for that keyword phrase would be disappointed to find that you don’t offer what they’re looking for.

Not only will they leave your website right away, but they may also develop a negative impression of your brand.

Another way of looking at this is that the right keywords bring in high-quality leads to your website.

Since you’re using a relevant term or phrase, it would attract people who are more likely to purchase your SaaS product in the near future.

6) It Helps You Get Ahead Of The Competition

Okay, this comes as a result of using the right keywords on your SEO strategy. If you are able to target the right keywords, you are more likely to rank higher on the SERPs than your competitors.

Why? It’s because you have taken the time to understand your target market and what they are looking for.

Ideally, you have also optimized your website and content for the right keywords. This shows search engines that your website is relevant to what people are searching for.

As a result, you are more likely to get ahead of your competition and attract more leads and customers to your business.

How To Choose The Right Keywords For Your SaaS Business?

Now that we’ve talked about why it’s important to choose the right keywords, let’s talk about how to choose them.

Here are some tips:

Use A Keyword Research Tool

One of the best ways to find the right keywords is to use a keyword research tool.

There are many different kinds of keyword research tools available, but some of the most popular ones are Google Ads Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz.

These tools can help you identify which keywords are most relevant to your business and which ones have the highest search volume.

They can also help you understand your target market better and get insights into what language they use when searching for products or services like yours.

Choose The Keywords With High Search Volumes

When you’re doing keyword research, one of the most important data you can see is the search volume.

This data tells you how many times people are searching for a specific keyword every month.

In general, you want to target keywords with high search volumes because they have the potential to bring more traffic to your website.

But then again, you also want to make sure that the keyword is relevant to your business. 

There’s no point in targeting a keyword with high search volume if it’s not going to attract the right people to your website.

Consider The Keyword Difficulty

Another important piece of data you will see in your keyword research is keyword difficulty.

This metric tells you how difficult it would be to rank for a specific keyword.

This is based on a few factors, including how many other people are targeting the keyword and how well-optimized their websites are.

Various keyword research tools have different ways of presenting this data.

For example, the Google Ads Keyword Planner rates the keyword difficulty as low, medium, or high. But other paid tools like Ahrefs can assign a numerical value to indicate the difficulty.

In general, you want to target keywords with low to medium difficulty because they would be easier for you to rank for.

Of course, this is not always possible or practical. Sometimes, the keyword you really want to target has a high difficulty level.

In such a case, you may need to put more effort into your on-page SEO strategy for that keyword. Sure, it’s quite a gamble, but it would be worth it if you have a chance to rank for that keyword and get more traffic to your website.

Prioritize Question & Long Tail Keywords

If you want to get more traffic from your keywords, you should prioritize long tail and question keywords.

Question keywords are those that people use when they are looking for answers to their questions. They usually start with words like “what,” “how,” and “why.”

For example, “why is it important to choose the right keywords” is a question keyword.

Long tail keywords are usually 3 or 4 words long and they are more specific than short tail keywords. One example is “marketing strategies for SaaS businesses.”

It’s a long tail keyword that is highly targeted toward SaaS businesses, in contrast to the short tail keyword “marketing strategies.”

Both question and long-tail keywords tend to have lower search volumes than short tail keywords. But they are often easier to rank for because they are more specific.

And when people use these keywords, they are usually further along in the SaaS sales funnel and are more likely to convert.

Think About The Search Intent

When choosing keywords, it’s important to think about the intent behind the search.

In other words, what are people looking to do when they use that keyword?

There are four main types of search intent: informational, navigational, commercial investigation, and transactional.

Informational Intent: People use these keywords when they want to learn something. They are not necessarily looking to buy anything.

Looking at it as the buyer’s journey, these searchers are in the early stages.

Examples of informational keywords include “how to do keyword research” and “what is content marketing.”

And since most people who look up these keywords are only after information, your content for these keywords should be educational.

You don’t have to be aggressive at promoting your SaaS product yet. In fact, doing so might even turn people off.

Navigational Intent: These keywords are used when people want to find a specific website or web page.

For example, someone might use the keyword “Facebook” when they want to go to the Facebook homepage. Or they might search for “HubSpot blog” if they want to read HubSpot’s blog posts.

As you can see, it usually contains the name of the brand or website that the searcher is looking for.

Commercial Investigation Intent: People use these keywords when they are considering a purchase but they want to learn more about their options first.

They are usually comparing different products or services before they make a decision.

Examples of commercial investigation keywords include “best CRM for small businesses” and “SaaS pricing comparison.”

When creating content for these keywords, your goal should be to provide as much information as possible to help the searcher make an informed decision.

This means including things like product features, pricing, reviews, and case studies on your website.

Transactional Intent: These are the keywords that people use when they are ready to buy something. They usually contain words like “buy,” “purchase,” and “Sign up.”

For example, someone might search for “HubSpot sign up” if they want to buy the software or at least get the free plan.

If you want to rank for transactional keywords, you need to make sure that you have a strong sales funnel in place. This means having things like product pages and checkout forms on your website.

You may also want to add a call-to-action (CTA) to your pricing pages and more aggressive content pieces.

For example, if you have a case study of your SaaS product, you might want to add a CTA that says “Sign up for a free trial” at the end of it.

Research Your Competitors’ Keywords

Choosing the right keywords may also involve finding out which ones your competitors are targeting.

There are a few ways you can do this:

Look At Their Website And Blog Content: The simplest way to study your competitor’s keyword strategy is by looking at their content pages.

To do this, just go to their website and look at the titles of their blog posts and web pages. You can also check out their meta descriptions to see if they’re using any keywords there.

Use A Keyword Research Tool: Another way to research your competitor’s keywords is by using a keyword research tool like Ahrefs, Moz, or Semrush.

These tools will allow you to see which keywords your competitors are ranking for in organic search results. You would see how much traffic they are getting for each content page and what keywords they are using to drive that traffic.

This would give you some ideas on which keywords you should be targeting for your own SaaS business.

Analyze Their Paid Search Ads: You can also study your competitor’s keyword strategy by looking at their paid search ads.

If they’re running any Google Ads campaigns, you can go to “Auction Insights” in Google Ads to see which competitors are bidding on certain keywords that you’re interested in.

Final Thoughts On Choosing The Right Keywords

Choosing the right keywords is an important part of any SaaS marketing strategy. In fact, it could make or break your content marketing and paid advertising campaigns.

When choosing keywords, you need to make sure that you’re targeting ones with the right intent. You also need to consider your competition and what they are doing.

By following the tips in this guide, you should be able to choose the right keywords for your SaaS business.

Looking for more guides to help you take your SaaS business to the next level? Visit our blog here.