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If you have a digital marketing agency, you have to personalize your selling strategies.
SaaS companies are a lucrative market, so you’ll have to find out what makes them tick.
In our previous article, we shared how we increased inbeat.co (SaaS) traffic from 500 to 70,000+ per month.
Everything started with an audit.
So read this guide to determine why SaaS SEO audits are different and how to sell SEO audits to SaaS companies.
Besides, we’ll discuss what key metrics to include and the best strategies to hook more SaaS clients.
TL;DR
- Personalize selling strategies: SaaS companies are a lucrative market. Personalization is essential given their distinct needs.
Why SaaS SEO is different:
- SaaS companies require higher commitment and user engagement due to their subscription model.
- Focus of SaaS audits should be on conversions and user engagement.
- E-commerce brands are more transactional, focusing on technical SEO and image/video search.
Charging for SaaS SEO audit:
- While some offer free SEO audits, premium charges are justified by the use of advanced tools and comprehensive analyses.
- Tools like Ahrefs, Moz, SEMrush, and Website Auditor have costs.
- In-depth audits may take up to 16 hours, accounting for multiple SEO factors.
Metrics for SaaS SEO audit:
- Traditional metrics plus user engagement metrics, conversions audit, internal linking audit, onsite content.
- Consider heatmap audits for sites with significant traffic to understand user behavior.
Conclusions & selling tips:
- Check out our SaaS SEO audit services proposal checklist.
- SaaS companies operate on a subscription model, often with premium features.
- Selling strategy: Clients pay first for audit, followed by a working agreement if satisfied.
- Pricing based on website size (indexed pages): Small ($250), Medium ($500), Large ($1000), Extra-large ($2000).
- Highlight the importance of initial audits to potential clients: transparency, precision, cost and time-saving, clear priorities.
- Offer a free phase 1 SEO audit for clients with significant SEO budgets as an attraction strategy.
Actionable Step: Direct potential clients to a sales page where they can choose packages and book a time.
Why is SEO Audit for SaaS Different?
SaaS SEO audits differ from SEO audits for e-commerce brands, for instance, because SaaS companies are unique.
You already know that SaaS brands retail their software subscription services through websites, just like e-commerce companies.
However, SaaS businesses need recurring payments, aka subscription plans.
Thus, they need more commitment and user engagement.
To achieve these goals, SaaS companies produce awesome content, including videos and actionable blog posts. The longer people spend on their websites or reading their blogs, the higher the conversion rate.
That’s why a SaaS company audit should focus on analyzing conversions and user engagement metrics.
By comparison, e-commerce is more transactional.
So, these websites don’t focus on producing original, funny, and highly actionable content. Instead, they need to optimize for technical SEO, image search, or video search.
As a result, your packages will feature different services which don’t cost the same.
That means you will have to personalize your selling strategies, too, according to your client.
Why should you charge for SaaS SEO Audit?
Some agencies boast free SEO audits. That’s not necessarily wrong.
You can provide this service for free if the client buys from you other services.
For example, you can offer SEO audits as a bonus, along with content optimization and link building.
Now’s the point where you furrow your eyebrows.
Just like you, we’ve seen plenty of agencies boasting free or dirt-cheap SEO to SaaS companies – and other companies too – no strings attached.
But here’s the catch:
Agencies who are doing that are probably using very standard tools and doing extremely basic SEO.
Techy SaaS founders can do that themselves with a very mild learning curve. All they need is the right tools.
Of course, free standard audits are an excellent hook. A low-grade SEO audit costs very little, and you can give your client a taste of your services.
If they like what you’re doing, they can opt for the premium stuff.
Just remember this:
Nothing good is free, especially if you want in-depth actionable audits.
Thus, charging a premium price for your audit service is the right solution if you want your company to expand. This fee shows your clients that you’re using premium tools and doing a fantastic job.
What does a fantastic job mean?
Well, it means hiring the best people and nitpicking a particular website thoroughly. That means building a reliable action plan with key performance indicators and using premium auditing tools such as:
- Ahrefs
- Moz
- SEMrush
- Website Auditor
These tools cost around $500/ month, plus you’re also charging for your time.
Depending on the website’s size, a standard audit requires at least three hours of your time.
But it may take up to 16 hours if you’re also assessing page speed and page optimization, which includes:
- Meta descriptions
- Title tags
- H1s
- Redirects
- Internal linking
- And more stuff we’re sure you know about
Remember: SaaS founders are tech people, so they understand that this industry isn’t cheap.
That’s your best way in. Now, let’s see what to include in your audit:
Metrics Included in the Audit
Except for traditional metrics like technical SEO, on-page, off-page, you should include the following for SaaS websites:
- User engagement metrics
- Conversions audit
- Internal linking audit
- Onsite content
- For sites with over a thousand visitors per month, consider heatmap audits to understand how users interact with your pages.
Let’s detail these a bit:
User engagement metrics assess how people engage with the SaaS Company’s website. The most significant variables include:
- How long they stay on your website
- Where they click and how they interact with particular content
- What pages they view and what they read
- What pages they close
- If people heat backspace to get out of that website quickly
Remember: Google values user engagement metrics the most because these mean a stellar user experience on that website.
Conversions audits assess whether a SaaS website sells or not. Therefore, you should explain to your clients that they need to optimize their conversion rates to become (more) profitable.
Thus, the key performance indicators to consider here are:
- How much traffic they have
- Bounce rates
- How much time visitors spend on their website
- What actions do visitors usually take?
- How many micro-conversions happen, and what these are
Internal linking needs to work correctly because it helps create more engagement on a SaaS company’s website. If you remember, SaaS brands need this engagement to hone in more sales.
That means you’ll have to check:
- The link structure, especially to pages your client wants to rank high on search engines.
- The anchors should include the main keyword
- Relevant backlinks from authoritative sources
- Link equity to ensure value for money
Tools like SiteBulb are a reliable place to start, but remember that their free version is relatively basic.
Heatmap audits are part of risk assessments.
These visual tools will help you to define and organize the threats and opportunities. Thus, your clients will be able to understand these things quickly.
Together, you can build an action plan effortlessly starting from this heatmap.
You’ll assign different colors from green (low-risk) to red (very high-risk) to show your clients the impact and likelihood of a particular problem.
You can read more about that here.
In Conclusion. How to Sell Your SEO Audit Services to SaaS Companies
SaaS companies are initiators of this innovative subscription-based business model where they charge people for using their software.
Of course, customers pay for premium features like support.
Explaining how you work to SaaS founders should be easy:
- You pay first
- We do the audit
- If you’re happy, we start working together
But first, consider the prices.
Use your intake process; the prices depend on how many indexed pages there are on a client’s website. Here are some fees you can use as a guide for your offers:
- Small (under 500 pages) - $250
- Medium (under 5000 pages) - $500
- Large (under 20,000 pages) - $1000
- Extra-large (under 50,000 pages) - $2,000
Of course, you can personalize your offers with additional packages, such as on-page and keyword packages.
Every time somebody messages you, explain to them why initial audits are essential.
Make sure to touch these points:
- This initial audit is crucial to analyze your website’s stage and how much effort it needs first.
- Firstly, we want to be transparent and straightforward.
- Secondly, you can save money in the long term because a well-done audit is precise.
- The initial audit saves us from mistakes, doing useless things, and lost time.
- Another advantage is that we can establish priorities.
- There are no strings attached. You can hire another company or an in-house auditor, but you already have a comprehensive audit to start from.
- You can also include a free offer for a phase 1 SEO audit if the client has a substantial SEO-dedicated budget. This part of the audit should take up to an hour, so it’s a wise investment to attract serious potential customers.
Next, include a link to your website.
The clients should be directed to your sell page, where they can choose the right package and book a time.
That’s it. Happy auditing or contact us to help!
