A marketing manager is confused about a 200% increase in the number of searches for a product he is marketing after launching a search ads campaign. This increase in searches will not yield any new leads for the owner of the product because the results were generated through a very low-cost method (not paying per click) that takes time and effort on the part of the parent company.
In fact, the typical (search) lead generation campaigns yield little to no revenue. I will break down the campaign data of several successful and unsuccessful search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns to build a complete saas seo case study. You can compare and contrast these results to better show you how some companies convert the value of their search visibility into closed-won revenue through a proven operational framework.
SaaS SEO Case Study: The Difference Between Search Traffic and Actual Sales
Most campaigns fail to properly measure the real value of their paid advertisements for SaaS products by only focusing on generating search traffic. They promote the myth that if you have an increasing amount of traffic hitting your landing page each month, then the conversion ratio will rise and you will have more sales.
While that is true in some cases, when you look at the metrics of each campaign from a holistic viewpoint, it is easy to see that the metrics of each campaign differ significantly.
The only factor that should be considered when estimating the actual value of an existing paid advertisement is how many customers will click the active status button within their user profile. For the entire campaign lifecycle, the total number of clicks to active status buttons is a great measurement for estimating the total value of that advertisement, as opposed to simply counting the total number of clicks that result in a paid conversion.
Therefore, if the only metrics used to estimate the ROI of an active advertisement are the total number of clicks to active status, then the total return on investment for that active advertisement should be estimated as having a significantly lower ROI than what it really deserves.
The key takeaway here is to stop estimating the value of paid advertisements by tracking only keyword positions; start tracking the number of activated users instead.
Looking at a Typical SaaS SEO Case Study
When you review a typical case study from an advertisement campaign, it is easy to fall into the trap of believing what the articles say about the campaign's success because they generally say the same thing about almost every campaign that has been launched. Most of the time, the article will state that the keyword generated an increase in pageviews to an existing landing page of more than 100% and/or that the number of visitors from organic search will continuously increase as a result of having paid for an advertisement placement.
Unfortunately, the articles do not provide any real documentation of actual success unless you own the reported advertisement. The majority of advertisers use these types of articles to create awareness of their services or products without providing an actual expectation of future success when it comes to advertising.
To accurately measure the value of a paid advertisement, we need to utilize the data associated with our customer base in order to determine what works and what doesn't work. This information can then be used to inform our decision-making process, so that we can successfully track the amount of clients generated as a result of the advertisement.
Traffic can dramatically grow with the help of someone who comes in, fixes a few broken links, and adds a few blog posts. However, the data tells a different story. This type of surface-level reporting sets a dangerous precedent for finding out what is important. As a result, founders and marketers begin to look for results based on the number of referring domains instead of the retention rates and customer acquisition costs.
Understanding Search Intent
The truth is that the way we search and identify intent is much more complex than that.
Based on our review of recent performance, we found that there are a variety of types of intent in any given search. In the case of a search on examples of growth, users may be looking to identify a growth system that they can use, or they may be looking for confirmation from the agency that they will be able to successfully execute the growth strategy identified. However, too often, what they end up finding are claims about a large percentage increase but no baseline data.
When a company claims that they have "increased traffic by 300 percent," it does not have a meaningful context.
For example:
Was the increase from a total of 100 visits to 400 visits? Or was it from 10,000 visits to 40,000 visits?
How long was the period of measurement: 3 months or 3 years?
Without these specifics, it is nearly impossible to replicate the success of a company unless one knows the starting point.
Spotting Weak Growth Claims
You can identify a weak case study as soon as you look at the numbers presented by the publisher.
The publisher promotes a large percentage increase but does not provide the actual starting point. They may provide a significant rise in organic leads "in a year," but they have not provided the starting date or the effects that seasonality impacts could have on the growth. The publisher uses Search Console impressions to detail the large percentage gains that the company achieved.
Impressions alone will not provide an influx of revenue.
The Problem with Hiding the Client
The client's anonymity is another clear warning sign. If a case study does not show the client's name, software type, or specific challenges they had to overcome, you cannot put any faith in the information.
There will be no way for you to determine whether the increase in traffic is a result of search engine optimization (SEO) or if the client received a large amount of press after securing a large amount of financing.
Good Data is the Best Proof
The strongest evidence for what works in a saas seo case study will consist of multiple data points that tell a story.
It should connect search visibility with converted signups and qualified leads and the generated revenue.
For example, Ahrefs publishes a detailed case study of their actual data that illustrates how Ahrefs use their own tools to increase user growth.
They do not write about generic topics, but rather, they construct content that forces users to understand the value of their tools. In addition, Ahrefs distinguishes general blog traffic with the traffic generated from free tools and comparison pages.
The type of information they provide allows competing marketers to emulate their success.
When a marketing team sees the exact decision rules used by another person's business, they can take those same rules and implement them on their own websites. Visual evidence such as screenshots of a marketing team's CRM or GA4 dashboards will add credibility to the statement being made by the competing team.
Real Examples of a Winning SaaS SEO Case Study
Let's now look at an example of an actual case study that has produced numbers and a method for conducting the work performed by those companies.
We will analyze what those companies did correctly. When looking at the precise way they structured their internal linking and how they set their content in accordance with the purchase process, one can clearly see the contrast between a vanity project and a revenue generator.
HelloSign and Toast are examples of companies that have shown great results from restructuring their websites and creating targeted funnels for their businesses through the use of targeted keywords.
By restructuring the architecture of their website and implementing appropriate internal linking strategies often found in a successful saas seo case study, they have accomplished this feat, as evidenced by a 200% increase in organic traffic directed toward their websites via Google searches on 37 unique and highly targeted keyword phrases (i.e., words/phrases that users search for on Google).
The strategy used by HelloSign was to create a very strong focus on converting browsers into leads through effective lead nurturing; thus, they utilized an extensive 17-month search engine optimization strategy that generated a 1,308% increase in organic traffic and an increase of 571% in generated leads. This resulted from creating detailed buyer personas, mapping their buyer’s journey, creating gated offers based on each stage of the buyer’s journey, and driving leads to gated offers.
Generating a B2B Pipeline
Notabene and Workvivo utilized a very specific approach to generating a B2B pipeline. The focus for both companies was entirely on conversion rather than page views (or clicks).
To accomplish this, each company targeted specific departments for their human resource technology-focused content and implemented strict 180-day growth plans to optimize their core pillar pages to attract buyers exhibiting high purchase intent.
Whereas most companies measure success using site traffic as an indicator of success, both Workvivo and Notabene had success with creating high value from organic search in exchanging their paid advertising efforts into replacement value.
Thus, instead of measuring clicks, they were able to determine how their organic search growth replaced their cost for paid advertising and estimate an increase rate of 48% (from $4,000 to $19,000) in monthly equivalent value of leads generated by their website that were ultimately converted into customers in their respective businesses. The data confirms that 55.4% of booked demos were generated by organic search only.
How Product and Automated Growth Work Together
The idea of simply writing basic blog posts is no longer effective or productive.
Winners in the software industry today design and develop scalable ideas with a product-focused approach. Companies are building platforms that allow customers to identify immediate pain points without having to complete any kind of payment process.
The Value of Free Tools and Unique Data
Ahrefs currently sees approximately 1.2 million visitors to their website from all their free resources (via Google).
By providing an instant solution for prospective customers, Ahrefs' free resources serve as a lead magnet to their paid product offerings.
The ability to create and publish original research builds an additional defensible moat for businesses.
As an example, Zapier's published research received 691 backlinks from 477 different domains. They created valuable content that other authors wanted to reference. Consequently, through the publication of proprietary data, they generated authority to their website automatically. Proprietary research cannot be easily replicated or imitated.
Automated Page Templates Help You Grow
Using programmatic structures, software developers are able to monetize thousands of long-tail terms by generating automated page templates.
As an illustration of this, Zapier's app integration pages receive over 263,000 monthly visits. They have developed an architecture that allows them to create a unique page for each app that they support. As a result, when someone types in "How to Connect Slack to Salesforce," Zapier has prepared a dedicated webpage for this query.
How Notion and 4Core Drive Traffic
Notion is built on a different programmatic strategy but is still based on a huge programmatic engine.
They get about 355,000 visitors to their site per month through a template directory created by their customers (users). Instead of creating all the templates themselves, Notion has built a marketplace where customers create templates for each other and share them. Each time a template is created, it becomes a new landing page that can rank in search engines.
The agency 4Core has used similar strategies mapped out in their saas seo case study to move their client from 8 to 540 marketing-qualified leads a month.
Missing Information
Even with these well-known examples, there is still a lot of incomplete information available in the industry.
Most articles are missing key pieces of information that allow you to make a judgment as to whether the programmatic strategy worked or not. Articles with large numbers often do not include enough detail to provide the business context of the numbers.
Missing Baselines and Seasonality Factors
BigLeap has reported on two separate occasions that their agency took a client from fewer than 6,000 sessions per month to greater than 340,000 sessions per month.
Position Digital has also reported taking a client named Outbuild from 3,653 to 10,853 sessions per month in one calendar year. While these numbers are impressive when viewed on a sales page, they can be very misleading for a company's marketing team that attempts to create realistic goals without having the specific definitions of what they mean when they refer to "organic traffic".
Is "organic traffic" measured as new or returning users?
Does "organic traffic" include branded searches? When a business spends millions of dollars on a national television advertising campaign, they will see their branded search traffic increase dramatically, which will not be attributed to the search team, as they did not create or earn the increase in traffic.
The Problem of Only Seeing the Winners
You only ever hear about the campaigns that are successful.
The agencies that provide marketing services, such as RankMax, are seeing huge successes, such as taking their client up to 1.31 million dollars in total revenue in a year with a staggering 1909% ROI.
What they don’t mention is the client that lost 40% of their traffic due to bad site migration, creating a significant level of survivorship bias throughout the industry. Survivorship bias makes growth appear simple and straightforward, whereas in reality software sites face significant amounts of cannibalization (e.g. two pages trying to rank for the same keyword), as well as technical problems related to JavaScript and complex navigation which prevent pages from being indexed accurately.
True transparency includes providing the data supporting failed investments and information regarding the rules used to remove dead pages.
Building a Sales-First Organic Engine
You must change your mentality from that of a traditional media company to that of an analyst.
Every search action should connect back to a business result; if a page does not lead to a demo request, signup, or repeat user, it does not belong on your site.
Mapping Content to the Buyer’s Journey
Top-of-the-funnel content generates interest, whereas middle and bottom of the funnel content generate revenue.
You need to develop comparison pages, alternative pages and guide users on how to integrate your products together. When users are searching for direct comparisons between tools they will have their credit cards in hand and are ready to make a purchase. A guide from Semrush discusses how to map content to ideal customer profiles and track competitor gaps and product offerings.
Most people think about tracking page views, but the most important metric is how many people booked a demo after reading the page.
Essentially, you should prioritize the bottom of the funnel when it comes to tracking conversions and generating demand for products; only once you've captured the people who actively want to purchase your product should you consider expanding into additional subject matter.
Technical Limits of Software Websites
The technical limitations of a software website will differ substantially from those of a traditional website.
Many software directories use faceted navigation, which creates millions of "thin," duplicate pages. If an SEO crawler crawls through these pages, it uses up your "crawl budget," so it's important to configure every aspect of how search engines access your website via well-organized technical documentation and placing strict file directives on every single page.
While technical execution is rarely the only growth lever for a company, neglecting this aspect will severely limit the overall growth of the business outlined in any saas seo case study.
In addition to the above examples, documentation systems create challenges for many businesses. Many businesses experience a lot of long-tail traffic driven by their help center and technical documentation. However, most of that long-tail traffic is actually from current users trying to resolve an issue, not prospective buyers looking at their options. Because of this, if you do not segment this long-tail traffic in your reporting, your conversion rate will appear artificially low.
Connecting Data to Track Real Sales
Without the right systems to connect your various data sources, it will be impossible to obtain information regarding revenue.
You should connect Google Search Console to your GA4 account to receive consistent traffic data, and then link that data to your CRMs. When doing a site audit with everyday online tools, you’re only going to observe what was available at first glance.
The real value is when the keyword ranking data is connected to real pipeline opportunities.
Attributing the journey of a B2B customer is exceedingly difficult. For example, a software buyer may find your blog article in January, leave the website, see an advertisement in March, and search for your company’s name in July to request a demo.
To see all aspects of a customer’s journey, the appropriate measurement model must be built.
Tracking AI Mentions
At this point, blue link results alone may no longer suffice in the software marketplace.
With conversational chat interfaces, locating new business software is changing. The solutions for your prospects must include a measurement of citation accuracy in these chat interfaces. You want to identify whether or not your product was forwarded in a customer specific request or if a competitor received the referral.
This requires measuring your brand presence across the language model.
Secondly, whenever your architecture conforms to schema markup, your website can assist the chat interface in providing accurate data, when users request assistance. These AI platforms offer an additional opportunity for visibility but you cannot use this method to replace strong foundational components, such as speed and internal links.
Rating the Proof Objectively
There is a significant need for an evidence-rated database in the marketplace.
Rather than provide an aggregate, the industry must create an even system separating traffic sources from pipeline sources. All published evidence must be rated based on reproducibility. Are reproducible benchmarks included and do they have an explicit time period available for results?
If an article scores poorly in these areas, then your best course of action is to reduce your expectations regarding evidence for this article.
Never base your quarterly budget upon evidence that cannot be independently validated. Always assume there are unaccounted variables such as the presence of a very large and well-established email list or a large sales force that is supporting that inbound flow.
The Shift Beyond Meaningless Traffic
The majority of the growth articles provided to the marketplace are developed to sell agency services, not create a long-term revenue-producing business.
The data shows that those companies earning market share in software searches are not providing generic articles for high-volume keyword searches. Those companies are building product-led franchises. They are creating programmatic directories that can grow organically. And they are actively mapping their search intent to hard revenue-generating activities while ignoring the noise associated with page views.
You must be held to a higher standard of proof.
Expect baseline metric requests. Require that your team creates a separate identification of branded traffic versus organic traffic. Create a bridge to track your search and CRM channel data, allowing you to follow your customer from the first click to the final closed-won transaction.
Stop building your website to fit Google's algorithm and instead build to fit your target customer.
