Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often viewed as a top-of-funnel marketing tactic, great for generating traffic and not very useful in driving leads. Despite this, SEO can be an extremely impactful tool for all stages of the marketing funnel from awareness, through conversion, to retention for SaaS companies.
There is sustainable, repeatable growth in a successful SEO strategy that lowers customer acquisition cost (CAC), raises lifetime value (LTV), and builds real brand credibility over time.
In this blog, we are going to discuss the stages of full-funnel organic growth through SEO for SaaS brands and the importance of a full-funnel mindset to search optimization in today’s market.
Understanding the SaaS Marketing Funnel
In order to understand how SEO can facilitate full-funnel growth, you need to understand the stages in the SaaS marketing funnel:
1. Top of Funnel (TOFU): Awareness & Discovery: Users are looking for information, solutions, or trends. Example: “How to connect with companies using SaaS platforms”
2. Middle of Funnel (MOFU): Consideration & Evaluation Users are comparing options, looking for reviews, case studies or product features. Example: “Comparing Asana and Trello”
3. Bottom of Funnel (BOFU): Conversion & Decision. They’re ready to buy, and they are looking for a free trial, demo, or pricing details. An example might be a search: “Trello pricing plans”
4. Post-Funnel: Retention, Upsell, Advocacy. Customers are looking for help with the product, advanced use-cases, or integration. An example might be searching “how to integrate Trello with Slack”
SEO at the Top of the Funnel (TOFU)
SEO is connecting SaaS brands with users who are just becoming aware of a problem or solution. These users want to gain some knowledge and get more information. They are focused on educational content and broad keywords. SaaS brands should create the right traffic to build trust and engage users in the funnel. This is where the content pieces must be informative, easy to find, and address user challenges.
Primary TOFU SEO strategies:
• Write blog posts about frequently asked questions and “how to” topics.
• Create topic clusters and pillar pages around topics that speak to industry challenges.
• Optimize a glossary or resources hub designed for broad keyword searches.
• Publish thought leadership content to generate backlinks and credibility.
SEO at the Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)
Creating Engagement in the MOFU stage, prospects are aware of their problem and are actively comparing solution options. At this point, you have an opportunity to demonstrate your unique SaaS solution. SEO helps brands to build trust and show the value of the product with tailored content. Create content around the relevant comparison and solution-based keywords to guide ideal customers towards choosing your products.
An optimized MOFU content strategy allows a brand to maintain presence while purchasing decisions are being made.
Important MOFU SEO strategies:
• Build product comparison pages that go after alternative keywords
• Publish case studies that provide real-world success metrics
• Create detailed use-case content that explains how your product works
• Optimize gated assets like eBooks or webinars by creating SEO landing pages
Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU) – SEO
Converting Leads At the BOFU stage, users are prepared to make a purchase or take the next step in their buying journey. SEO at this stage should target keywords and content related to high-intent user searches of conversions. The goal of SEO at BOFU is to remove as much friction as possible to get your prospects to take that final step, whether that be signing up, booking a demo, or Buying.
Effective BOFU SEO makes sure users can easily find your brand when they are searching for the right solution or pricing options and will help lower customer acquisition costs and convert leads that are ready to buy.
Here are some BOFU SEO strategies:
- Optimize pricing and feature comparison pages for keywords and clarity
- Create dedicated landing pages for demo or trial offers
- Include customer reviews and testimonials to increase credibility
- Target branded search terms to attract converted traffic
SEO Beyond the Funnel: Retention, Upsell & Advocacy
SEO is more than lower-funnel user acquisition; it’s also about keeping existing customers engaged and happy. For SaaS companies, writing content that includes ‘keywords’ can help keep customers, reduce churn through upsells, and expand customer support and loyalty. Designing helpful, searchable content that speaks to your existing users not only improves their experience but also can help you drive ROI through long-term growth of users who can come back to your site.
Content like this that is helpful in a great way to build loyalty, repurchase intent, and referrals through positive user experiences and engagement.
Some important SEO activities are:
• Provide a support center and FAQs answering common support questions
• Publish tutorials around advanced features and use cases
• Create guides for third-party integration
• Support community forums and user-generated conversations
Why SEO is a Game-Changer for SaaS?
SEO keeps delivering results over time, unlike paid channels. It provides long-term, scalable growth that simply cannot be matched. At its core, SEO opens the door for SaaS companies to attract, convert, and retain customers across the entire funnel without the reliance of continual ad spend.
SEO builds credibility; it’s powerful to show up for potential customers when they are searching for answers; it brings in high-quality leads. And it allows for continual optimization by utilizing existing user data. SEO is intelligent, sustainable growth for a SaaS business.
Main Reasons SEO Trials Are Unique:
• SEO traffic grows and does not end when the spend ends
• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) will be low when compared to paid advertising
• High-ranking pages also build brand authority
• SEO tools help test and improve every stage in the funnel
The Necessary Metrics to Evaluate Full-Funnel SEO Performance
Now that you know how SEO supports each stage across the funnel, let’s take a deeper dive into what metrics matter for what actions. At the top, there are important metrics to track your organic sessions and engagement to determine if you are attracting the right audience. As you funnel down through the middle of the funnel, you will want to analyze how users engage with your deeper content, like downloads or opt-ins.
At the bottom of the funnel, you will assess your conversion metrics, which are usually something like a sign-up for a trial or demo. Following conversion metrics, you need to monitor retention-related metrics like support page views and return views. Correlating the SEO information you uncover with sales and customer success information will help the business better understand the ROI of SEO, but also consider new ways to optimize the entire user journey.
Best Practices for SaaS SEO Execution
An effective SaaS SEO plan also takes keyword targeting, site performance, and content upkeep into account. Collaborating with your teams will help ensure your SEO strategy adapts as users and your organization continue to change.
- Keywords and Funnel Stages: Ensure that you match your keywords to the funnel stages, and create content to suit what the users are searching for.
- Site Performance: Ensure that your site is crawlable, quick, and easy to navigate.
- Use Schema Markup: You should optimize your pages for the results pages and increase your click-through rate.
- Content Maintenance and Expansion: You need to do regular upkeep of your content to keep the old pages fresh and refine the great pieces to help gain momentum.
- Collaborate with Internal Teams: Work with product, support, and sales teams to ensure that your SEO strategy matches the user needs, product road map, and sales targets.
Conclusion
SEO is now more than just the funnel’s top; it’s about attracting the audience you want to sell to, guiding them through the buying process, generating conversions, and enabling retention. When aligned with the buyer journey, SEO becomes an engine for full-funnel growth. When a SaaS business drives organic traffic strategically and holistically, not only can it mean getting better results than paid channels, but also the effectiveness vs cost can have you getting more positive results in the long run without focusing purely on cost.
