What is the deal with SaaS content writing? What is all this fuss about? I am sure you must have had those questions especially if you work in the SaaS industry. Well, I’d tell you what the fuss is about and why content writing for SaaS is valued so much.
Well SaaS content writing is not like any other form of content writing. It is highly technical and these SaaS content pieces also act as SEO content for the brand.
Now imagine creating highly technical content with the purpose of garnering traffic – that is what the whole fuss is about!
[Source – Medium]
What is SaaS content writing?
You must have heard of HubSpot, Zoho, Zendesk, Asana, and Mailchimp, and now you will be able to name more like them since you know the industry we are getting into.
Now the question is, how do you know about them?
Why is it that when you type email marketing, you find Mailchimp in the top three?
Why is HubSpot dominating the sales market?
How come Zoho became a prefix to the word CRM?
Easy, SaaS content writing. They not only published content frequently but also of unmatchable quality, keeping their audience in mind. You and I know these brands because they told us about themselves through their content.
They have paved the way into our subconscious about their existence through constantly publishing content. So now you relate Mailchimp with email marketing and HubSpot with probably everything sales.
That’s the power of SaaS content writing.
Checkout the upward growing graph of Webflow, another SaaS brand, that is now generating 1.6 M+ traffic with the help of organic marketing consisting of SaaS content writing and SEO efforts like opting for best link building services.
Why should you care about SaaS content writing for your business?
Do I really need SaaS content writing?
If you are looking to scale your business, then yes, you do! SaaS content writing helps you grip a space in your target audience’s mind.
To do that; you need SEO as well to be able to come up in their searches, which brings us back to content since what would show up in the searches if not different types of SEO content?
Let me make it easier for you and share how content creation for SaaS has helped businesses and how it will benefit your business too.
Brand awareness & credibility
Google the term “ai video editor.” What was your search result like? Here is a snapshot of my search result.
Now Google, “text to video ai,” again attaching the snapshot of my search results.
Finally, Google, “ai video generator,” here is what my search result page looks like.
Now, what is common among all the three search result pages? The brand, called InVideo. If until now, you did not know about who they were, then you have just found out through their SaaS writing.
This is called brand awareness.
What’s next is called brand credibility. When you see one common brand popping up for multiple searches which are all different in meanings yet have a common factor to it, then the credibility of the brand increases in your eyes.
For instance, in the above case, now InVideo is officially associated with anything related to video + AI. That is how, by consistently showing up in search results, SaaS content helps your business in building its credibility in the eyes of the customer.
Increased leads
“Okay, now how does SaaS content writing help with leads!?”
Duh! Let me explain step-by-step.
- You build your product.
- You choose organic marketing as the channel to reach an audience.
- SEO and content together are a part of organic marketing.
- Your SaaS content shows up in multiple search results, that content could be anything, a blog, a listicle, or even a landing page.
- Out of 100 readers on one content piece 10 contact you to know more product details – those are your leads.
Now with SaaS content writing and SEO together, the more pieces of your content are ranking, the better will be the number of leads. Similarly, when you write top-tier SaaS content, no one can stop you from ranking in top three on search results. The higher you rank, the better is the lead influx.
And your lead number just keeps on increasing…
Improved customer retention
Of course you are writing and investing in SaaS content writing because you want to promote your brands and get leads. But you cannot do that until it is helpful content as well for the readers, at least that’s what Google says at the moment.
Well, the blessing in disguise here is that helpful content also helps your existing customers stay. Everyone prefers a DIY mode of things these days. Before seeking guidance, everyone would want to search things themselves to get an insight and if possible, resolve the issues themselves too.
Helpful content like how-to guides, listicles with tools and softwares, tips and tricks to apply in a field – if this kind of ranks then it gives you tons of SEO benefits because this content is consumed a lot by the audience.
For instance, check in the snapshot below, how two articles from Microsoft are there, to help me resolve a problem I am facing. Consider if these articles did not exist and you had to reach out to their customer services team for every small issue, then for how long would they have stayed as their customer?
I assure you, you wouldn’t have stuck around more than a quarter. You know why? Because there was no SaaS content of any type (video, images, text) to help you resolve small issues.
Let’s look into another situation, you are using ClickUp, a project and team management tool on a regular basis. You never thought about this tool per say, but one day you need help with something let’s say, drafting an out of office text for your team.
You search, and an article from ClickUp, which is a team management tool comes up in your search results. Then you search for another query a few months later related to project management and then again an article on hacks for project management is there.
What would you think of the tool then?
Well, it would subconsciously deepen your trust in the brand and that’s how you eventually become loyal customers of a brand. If SaaS content writing can do that for ClickUp, then it can help your brand as well in retaining customers better.
12 solid SaaS content writing tips with brand examples
SaaS content is sassy (pun intended). It needs a lot of effort, a lot more research than other forms of content, and most importantly, it needs to be interesting so people can sit through it. Making the technical part interesting yet SEO oriented, that’s a challenge in SaaS content writing.
And I am here to help you with tips on content writing for SaaS brands.
Know your audience’s problems
Before starting your SaaS or SaaS content writing, dig so deep that you know your audience’s problems better than them.
Find out your audience’s “I wish” moments, like Andy Mowat mentioned in the above post and then write content on how your product solves those problems for them. Ask yourself the following questions and also answer those to yourself before beginning the content writing for SaaS.
- What is that one problem that is constantly bugging your customers, and how does your product solve it?
- What acts as a motivation for your target audience?
- What are the challenges that your target audience is facing at the moment?
- If they are not using your product right now, then which alternative are they opting for, and why?
- What makes your product better than the alternatives in the market that would push your target audience to choose you?
Now that you have the answers, pick your audience’s pain points and start spilling how your tool solves it for them. But make sure to do your homework on how to write catchy headlines that will address the pain points directly so that your SaaS writing gets read.
For instance, checkout the snapshot below from one of the pages of Webflow, which is designed to resolve a very specific problem for the users.
This was among the top search results of my query which was “wordpress alternative.” So this page has been designed as a comparison with WordPress, but it is also solving a problem. The user might be facing issues with WordPress or they just might be exploring some options to check out the market.
This piece of SaaS content writing is the perfect example of knowing your audience’s problems and solving it for them.
Keep your SaaS content personalized & conversational
You are the one writing the content, and your reader is the one reading it. There are just two people here, so your content should be written that way too. That’s called personalizing the content.
Technically, personalized content means you know about the demographics, language, and details about your target audience and you use it to structure your content. But I don’t abide by that definition of personalized content.
The only language that can make your content personalized is the language of fulfilling the needs of your reader. Make your reader feel like that piece of content has been written specifically for them. This takes us back to our earlier tip, that asks you to know your customer.
Personalize your SaaS content writing by understanding the problems of your target audience, and then solving it for them through your content while personally addressing them. Interact with them in the first person, use ‘you’ for the reader and ‘I’ for yourself.
This will make your content conversational. The reader would feel as if they are talking to you and not reading your content. That’s exactly the kind of experience we want them to have.
Here is an example of that 👇.
Here is an example of what not to do, from the very same brand ❌👇.
When you read both the content pieces, I am sure you resonated or enjoyed reading the former more. I am sure even Hubspot would agree with that!
Well that’s what conversational + personalized content feels like. Go and give that experience to your readers.
Find your USP & show it off
If you know what separates your product from the rest in the market, then you SaaS content writing will naturally become a little easier for you. Once you know your unique selling point, that’s when you will be able to talk about your product in detail.
Finding out USP is crucial because otherwise what would oblige your customers to choose you over your competitors? For instance, the unique selling point of Canva is its ease of usability and its affordable pricing.
They make it a point to show it off at every opportunity they get.
Add structure to your content and make it scannable
SaaS content writing is an effort to escalate your SEO and enjoy the benefits of SEO. But if not done right, then no matter how amazing your content is, it will not rank.
So how to make SEO and content marketing work together?
Along with maintaining content quality, you also need to make your SaaS writing SEO optimized and a good SEO optimized content has structure to it. You give that structure with the help of heading tags.
For instance, Heading1 will only be used once in your content piece since it is the most important heading and must be used only for title. After that, you can use Heading 2, Heading 3 for subpoints of Heading 2, and so on.
When you make your content scannable, it is not only easy to read for people but also for search engines. When that happens, your content becomes bound to be ranked and you finally start seeing fruits of your labor.
This is what a nicely scannable content piece looks like with only headings which are structuring your content based on their tags. Checkout the example of the same below.
Make your content credible
While selling any SaaS product you have to be very concrete with your value proposition and also the ‘why’ behind your product. This concreteness has to reflect in your SaaS content as well, and that you do by adding industry statistics, quotes, and insights.
When you do that, it makes your content credible, and both the reader as well as the search engine then believe that you know what you are talking about.
Also, adding statistics and quotes can also add a flair to your content and make it more interesting to read. For instance, in the below example, right after sharing what you should do with your LinkedIn profile page, Hootsuite instantly shared a stat to prove their point.
AI content is a big no!
AI is amazing and I use it myself to get answers to so many questions of my own as well. But when it comes to SaaS content writing, I would officially like to shun it!
AI content is not going to rank. Google might make a ton of promises or might beat around the bush saying they don’t mind AI content, but I assure you that they do!
I can tell you because ZeroAdo Crew ran several experiments with AI content which was also human optimized but forget about ranking, the content was not even indexed. So don’t get fooled by the trends and do not use AI content for SEO.
It only paraphrases and shares the content that is already existing on the internet. Trust me you want no part of it.
Good thing is that AI cannot lie. When asked how it shared the information with me regarding my query on “SaaS content writing,” it stated that there is no one source but multiple documents to learn from.
It also provided me with the links. So, all and all, AI is sharing with us only the insights that are on the internet and the data it has been trained with. That’s the clear sign that the content is not original which you cannot compromise on in the competitive SaaS world.
Give examples, the more the merrier
Imagine a highly techy content price full of practical examples, how interesting that SaaS content piece would be to read.
So add examples while content writing for a software company or a SaaS SaaS company. Those are the articles that need these examples the most.
Take real-world examples that everyone can possibly relate to or make hypothetical ones that will be easy to understand. That is all it takes to take your content up a notch.
Examples also make your content more practical, and that’s what we aim for, a more practical content, instead of a theoretical one.
In the above snapshot, you can see that Synthesia, an AI video generator brand has shared a video example to add more value to their SaaS content blog.
Add keyword as much as you can but strategically
You need to make your content both user and SEO friendly. So add as many keywords as possible, both main and secondary, but make them contextual. Not even once the keyword should feel forced!
I know that’s a big ask, but it is what you need to do to help your content rank, and also to be found by your readers. Because the more queries and keywords you have in your SaaS content the better are it’s chances of being found since it can rank for multiple queries then.
The above image is from a SaaS content piece of Slack, a team collaboration and communication application. The main keyword it is ranking for is “team collaboration” and that has been used 8 times in a blog of roughly 1500 words!
By the way, it is ranking on top for this query, along with the quality content, it is also the strategic use of keywords throughout the content. If you do not know how to add keywords to your content and headings, then utilize SEO copywriting tools that will help you add keywords to headings contextually.
Show your product in action
Let’s be real, you are writing, researching,and spending hours curating one content piece just so it can rank and improve your brand’s awareness. Along with increasing awareness the vision is also to get more customers.
But how would you get customers if you don’t show your product in action to promote it?
Make your content helpful, but also promotional. We have a lot to learn from Asana. They wrote an entire blog on project plan templates, and also 30 templates given in the blog have been displayed only in their tool!
They did not even consider adding templates for any other project planner tools. That is the kind of confidence and ‘positive’ arrogance you should do content writing for SaaS.
Nail copywriting
The headings you add in your SaaS content pieces have a huge role to play because they are going to give the crux of your content to readers and the structure of your content to search engines. These headings also help search engines understand your content better.
But these are not just headings, they are creative copies! These copies hold significance both in making your content readable and also SEO optimized. So nailing SEO copywriting is not a want but a need instead for SaaS content writing.
Make your copies SEO oriented by adding keywords to them but also keep them interesting to read. Here is an example of the same where the keyword – “ai in social media marketing” has been strategically placed in the title copy while also keeping it interesting.
Add visual content
Among all that blandness adding some colorful content is only going to earn you brownie points. So add visual content to your SaaS content. Add images and videos and optimize them for SEO as well, you never know your images and videos might as well rank on top in Google search results.
Be it product videos, example videos, infographics, or even an image from your dashboard – it is going to add life to your content!
A Lot of SaaS brands are doing it out there and becoming cult favorites for their informative yet media rich content. If they can do it, so can you. Following are a few examples to inspire you.
Add the ‘X’ factor!
Coke and Pepsi are two of the biggest competitors in the market. Both of them are soft drinks with almost similar tastes, yet Coca-Cola dominates the market share and is preferred. Why do you think that is?
Because Coca-Cola has the ✨X factor✨that Pepsi doesn’t.
I know that was a tad bit extra. But I like to add a little element of ‘me’ to my content. By the way that is the X factor of my content and you should be finding yours too. Scroll through the top ranking blogs on the topic you are working on and find what is that one thing which is missing in those.
Add that missing thing to your content, and that would be your X factor. I assure you that Google loves something new, something extra, and spice in the content. I can tell that because my content has been working and showing up in top search results for 5 years now.
Google likes uniqueness and not duplicate content. I assure you that your readers would like unique content too, so add a flavor to your SaaS content writing and hook your readers.
SaaS content writing + SEO – A tried & tested recipe to success
Things were so slow earlier, that it took Hubspot almost two decades to become a billion dollar company. But with SEO and SaaS content, you can achieve the mark way earlier!
However, just good quality SaaS content is not enough, you need SEO and an entire content pipeline as well to see results. I know it is a lot to take up for yourself, so make your life easier and leave it up to the experts… I meant ZeroAdo Crew 😉.
Feel free to contact ZeroAdo if you are looking to scale your SaaS business with SaaS content writing and marketing.
