In 2021, I joined a SaaS startup to grow website traffic — and ultimately, inbound demo requests. In the past three years, I increased website traffic by over 30X — from under 3,000 visits per month to over 100,000 — and grew inbound demo requests by 1500%.
Content marketing can be a powerful tool for SaaS marketing teams. An effective content marketing program will drive website traffic, increase brand awareness, position your brand as a thought leader, educate prospective customers, and drive inbound conversions.
It’s not a new strategy. Yet, many SaaS brands fail to achieve consistent, measurable results from their content marketing program.
I’ve been doing content marketing and SEO for over 10 years now. In this guide, I’ll cover everything I’ve learned — including the strategies and steps I used to create a content machine that increased traffic by over thirtyfold.
This is a DETAILED guide. It’s over 9,000 words. But it’s worth the complete read-through, especially if you’re starting from scratch or struggling to get results from your current content marketing efforts. I’ve also organized this guide so it’s easy to skim and navigate between sections.
Why Should You Listen To Me?
I started blogging in college over 10 years ago. In fact, a blog I created during college still earns thousands of dollars per year in ad and affiliate revenue. Shortly after, I started my career as a freelance writer, quickly created a boutique content marketing agency for B2B SaaS companies (which I later sold), and now I run content marketing for CloudZero, a Series-B tech startup that has 10Xed revenue in the past three years.
I’ve been doing content marketing and SEO for over 10 years and I’ve worked with numerous B2B SaaS brands including Zapier, Instapage, Landingi, Wonderflow, Pingboard, Nutshell, and many others.
At CloudZero, I’ve taken our organic search traffic from under 3,000 visits per month to over 95,000 (with overall website visits over 120,000) — building a consistent, content marketing program from the ground up. I’ve completed this process several times throughout my career. I’m rarely bashful nor do I brag often, but if it’s one thing I know well, it’s content marketing and SEO.
“Cody has prepared for us a bunch of well-researched and written articles, which improved our online visibility. I can 100% recommend him as a professional content creator and will come back for more in the future!” — Andrezj Bieda, Former CMO at Landingi
I wrote this blog post as a step-by-step, how-to guide — covering in detail as much as I can and providing specific screenshots, case studies, examples, and more to make the process as clear as possible.
I one hundred percent believe that if you read through this guide, end-to-end, that you will find value, whether you’re starting your own content marketing program from the ground up or simply looking to improve your process. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Before we get into all that, though, let’s cover if content marketing is even the right strategy for you …
Is Content Marketing The Right Strategy For Your SaaS Company?
Content marketing has many benefits (which I’ll cover below) but that doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone, especially early on as a small startup with limited time, budget, and resources.
So is it right for you? Consider these factors:
Content marketing is a long-term strategy
It takes time to see results. That goes for any medium related to content marketing; SEO, social media, email marketing, etc. For instance, it can take 6-12 months to start seeing results from SEO. It also takes time to build up a social following on LinkedIn or increase your email subscriber database size.
You need to set your expectations and understand that content marketing might not deliver results (i.e., inbound conversions) for several months, maybe longer. Patience is key.
If you don’t understand this, you may be tempted to quit after a few months of limited success. But if you have the right strategy, content marketing can be one of the best ways to drive consistent conversions, create brand awareness, and position your brand as an authority in your space.
If you can’t afford to be patient and give content marketing the time it needs to develop, you might want to look to other channels where it’s possible to achieve results sooner, like paid ads, cold outreach, in-person networking, etc. (I say “possible” because these are all still difficult channels to get results in)
Content marketing takes focus and amazing execution
Content marketing is not a new strategy. Thousands of companies, particularly SaaS brands, use content marketing as one of their main marketing channels. Meaning, it’s highly competitive.
Unless you’re in a new industry or relatively boring market, there are tens to hundreds of other companies that have already written on the topics that you want to write about. Fortunately, many companies suck at content marketing. This gives you the opportunity to beat them out.
But, doing so will take focus and exceptional execution. You need someone on your team (internal or external via a contractor, agency, etc.) who understands content strategy — and has proven to be successful in executing content marketing programs that drive results.
Many companies create content because they know it can be an amazing way to drive business but lack the strategy and execution that leads to actual results. SO MANY companies create content that goes largely unseen.
But if you can execute well, you can stand out in the ever-growing sea of mediocre content, position yourself as an authority, grow your traffic, and drive more inbound conversions. Of which, conversions should be at the top of your list. So how does content marketing drive more conversions?
What Are The Benefits Of Content Marketing? 4 Ways To Drive More SaaS Signups Or Demo Requests
As a marketer, ultimately you care about one thing: increasing your number of customers.
As a SaaS company, this originates in a few different ways: pipeline, demo requests, signups, etc. Still, the goal is to get more paying customers — and whether you care about demo requests or signups, these are both inbound conversions.
So how can content marketing lead to increasing conversions?
Convert visitors in the buyer stage
The most obvious way is to meet buyers when they’re ready to buy — or actively looking for a solution. Today, nearly 70% of B2B buyers conduct their own research before contacting sales.
This means the majority of their time is spent researching and coming to their own conclusion on the available solutions they can find. If you don’t show up (and they don’t already know about you), you won’t be considered.
So, you need to show up when and where people are actively researching solutions.
One of the best ways to do this is to target high-intent keywords. These are Google searches where it’s clear someone is in a buying motion. Here are a few examples:
- Comparison searches (e.g., “WordPress Vs. Wix”, “HubSpot Vs. Salesforce”, “Ahrefs Vs. SEMrush”, etc.)
- Tools or alternatives-based searches (e.g., “The Best SEO tools”, “Best CRMs”, “Email Marketing Software”, “HubSpot Alternatives”, etc.)
There are searches like this in every industry. These terms indicate someone is actively searching for a solution — or currently evaluating several options. Even if search volume is low, ranking for these terms can often drive the most inbound conversions.
For instance, one for CloudZero is “Cloud Cost Management Tools”. We rank #1 for this search:
The search volume is huge (relatively speaking). Yet, it’s consistently one of the top posts for generating demo requests from our blog. This is a search where buyers are actively researching products. They’ve identified they have a pain or challenge they need to solve and need to find a solution.
The process looks something like this:
Someone searches “Cloud Cost Management Tools”, they land on our blog post targeting this keyword, they learn about CloudZero (we’re the top tool mentioned in the post), they decide we could be a solution to their problem, they navigate to our demo page and request a demo.
Reach buyers early and often
Not everyone will be ready to buy from you when they land on your website. They may not even have the problem that your product solves yet. But, if they’re part of your target audience (e.g., senior-level marketers for a martech platform), they may eventually need a solution.
You need to reach these people early on to give your company a chance later down the road.
If you can capture the attention of these potential future buyers, or even better, get them to sign up to your email database, you stand a chance of being considered when they do need a solution. If you can’t, they may never know you exist or may not fully understand the benefits of your product, and thus move on to a competitor.
This is where Top of the Funnel (TOFU) content comes into play. This type of content won’t immediately drive conversions but it does help achieve several other goals:
- Educating your audience
- Building trust and authority
- Generating brand awareness
If you create helpful, engaging content, visitors will begin to respect and remember your brand. They’ll trust that you have the expertise and knowledge to help solve their challenges.
And if you consistently show up for TOFU topics your target audience is searching, you’ll generate brand awareness (every appearance in search is a brand impression). All of these factors put you in a better position when the time comes that this person needs a solution that you offer.
Additionally, if you can use your TOFU content to capture emails (e.g., via a lead magnet or eBook), you can share content with subscribers and nurture them to conversion. For instance, you could add subscribers to a drip campaign that nudges them to request a demo.
We use a similar strategy at CloudZero. We have several lead magnets that we promote on our blog. For example, we have an eBook called “The Cloud Cost Playbook”.
We have several CTA positions on each blog post. This one shows at the very top of the page when someone first lands on this blog post.
Visitors sign up for this eBook and get added to our email database. We know that around 2.5% of people who sign up to our email database convert into demo requests.
So the more people we get to signup, the more we can convert. We can further enhance this strategy with dedicated email workflows for each lead magnet. It’s a long-term strategy that helps us capitalize on TOFU traffic, even if visitors aren’t ready to convert when they first land on our blog.
Build a content machine that drives long-term results
When done right, content should drive consistent traffic to your website month-over-month, even if you turn your “content machine” off and cut spending. I’m not saying you should do that, but this is not the case with Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Pay-Per-Click (CPC) Advertising, Performance Marketing, or whatever you want to call it.
When you pause your ad campaigns and stop spending money, your ads stop showing. Which means people aren’t clicking through, they’re not visiting your website, and they’re not converting. But if you have content ranking in Google, and you stop creating new content, you won’t suddenly lose your traffic. With content marketing, you create long-term value.
Improve website authority
Website authority is ultimately a combination of reputation, authoritativeness, trust, expertise, and experience. If Google sees you as a reputable, authoritative source, you stand a better chance of ranking highly.
There are several metrics that have been developed by leading SEO tools to gauge the authority of a website. One is Domain Authority by Moz. Another is Domain Rating by Ahrefs (DR). Earlier in my career, Domain Authority seemed to be the one that everyone used, and now Domain Rating seems to be the preferred metric by most SEOs.
Both metrics aim to gauge how authoratives a website is. These metrics are largely based on the number of high-quality backlinks a website has. Authority is influenced by other factors too. For instance, if you’ve created a lot of content around a specific topic, Google recongizes that you likely are an expert in that topic.
But DR is most influenced by backlinks. The higher your DR, the better chance you have of ranking in Google. For example, sites like HubSpot, Forbes, Business Insider, etc. all have really high DR scores. It’s easier for these brands to create a piece of content and rank quickly for the target keyword — and often rank in the top results.
I know what you’re thinking, “That’s all good and geat, but how does a high DR help with driving more conversions?”
Well, if you’ve been following along so far, one of the best ways to get inbound conversions is through high-ranking content in Google, particularly for high-intent keywords.
If you can create content that ranks for high-intent searches, there’s a high chance you’ll drive conversion through that content. Having a high DR makes it easier to rank your content. Content marketing can be one of the best ways to improve your DR. Strategies such as link-building and creating content that naturally attracts more links will help improve your DR (which I’ll cover later in this guide).
For now, the takeaway is this …
Higher DR = Higher probability of ranking in Google = Ranking high-intent content in Google = More inbound conversions
Content Marketing Mistakes You Need To Avoid
I’ve seen many B2B SaaS companies struggle with achieving consistent results through content marketing. Here are some of most common mistakes:
Creating content first, then finding keywords that fit
I see this approach all the time, especially from content marketers who are not experienced in SEO.
They’ll write an article because they think the topic is a good idea (nothing wrong with that) but then they’ll try to find target keywords after the article is written — and try to fit them in where possible (e.g., in the body copy, meta title, meta description, etc.).
This is not a good approach. Simply including a few keywords here and there will not lead to ranking successfully. Sure, you can get lucky but most of the time, these articles will fail to rank. It’s not a reliable strategy — and you’ll fail to grow consistent traffic from Google.
Target keywords need to be defined before writing begins. That’s because there are many factors to consider that will influence whether you can rank or not — and shape the form of that content:
- What keyword should you target and why? Does this keyword even make sense for you to target? Will it bring in traffic (i.e., what is the search volume)? Will it lead to more demo requests (i.e., is it a high-intent keyword)?
- Keyword difficulty. How difficult will it be to rank for this keyword, and do you actually stand a realistic chance to rank for it?
- Search intent. When people search this keyword, what type of content are they looking for/expecting?
- Subtopics. What subtopics do the top five to ten top-ranking articles for this search include? What suggested searches show up?
All of these factors will influence what type of content you create, what information you should include to beat the competition (i.e., other top-ranking results), and whether or not you can actually rank for that search term. This should all happen BEFORE you start writing.
Not tracking results and keyword ranking
Another common mistake is not tracking the right metrics. Most content marketers will look at website traffic. Is website traffic going up month-over-month and/or quarter-over-quarter?
But you need to get more granular.
If one of your goals is to get more traffic from Google then you need to understand where you are showing up in Google (i.e., where do you rank?).
You should keep track of every keyword you’re targeting with each article. Choose one main target keyword — and track its ranking. It’s likely if you rank highly for the target keyword, you’ll also rank for other similar or related keywords.
I like to use Ahrefs but there are other platforms out there (SEMrush, Moz, SE Ranking, etc.). Here’s an example of how rank tracking looks in Ahrefs:
You also need to track how your content influences real results (i.e., signups, demo requests, etc.). Traffic is a vanity metric — it only matters if an increase in traffic leads to tangible results.
Sure, there’s a bit more nuance to it than that (e.g., more traffic can create brand awareness, which is overall a good thing), but would you rather have more traffic or more inbound conversions?
If traffic goes up and inbound conversions remain flat, you might have a tough conversation with your higher up. So, you need detailed reporting that will track inbound conversions — and how your content marketing drives those conversions, month-over-month and quarter-over-quarter. I’ll cover specific reports and metrics you should be tracking later in this guide.
Not having a content promotion strategy (for every blog post)
Another mistake content marketers make is not having a clear strategy for promotion — or simply not promoting enough. You should know how you’ll actually get people to read the content you create. Where will people see it? How will they find it?
If your strategy is to publish new articles and hope people somehow stumble upon it (through Google or social), you’re in for a rude awakening.
This is not uncommon, too. Many content marketers publish new content and hope it will show up in Google. We’ve already established that’s a poor strategy.
And if it doesn’t show in Google, how else will people see it?
Most writers spend 5-6 hours to write a blog post. A detailed, lengthy will take a lot longer than that. I’m sure you don’t want to spend all that time (or waste money on paying someone) for your content to ultimately get no traction.
Most SaaS companies, especially early on, have small social media followings. Combine that with the fact that it’s very difficult to get organic reach on most major social media platforms, and it’s not likely you’ll get much, if any, traffic from one post on your LinkedIn company account.
You should have a strategy for routinely sharing content (i.e., sharing a blog post more than once) — and have a clear idea how each blog post will be promoted.
Having unrealistic expectations and goal-setting
It takes time to see results from content marketing. This is true of almost any marketing channel, but even more so of content marketing.
With paid ads, you can get an ad campaign up and running fairly quickly — and if you know what you’re doing — you can likely at least get a few conversions in the first few months (you might just pay A LOT for them). The same can be said of cold outreach or referrals, you can likely start seeing results within a few months.
But content marketing takes a lot of time to set up and be effective. Especially if your main goal of content marketing is to get traffic from Google. It can take six months to start seeing noticeable results. Even longer if you’re a fairly new company that hasn’t created much content before.
But social media and email marketing aren’t any different. It takes a long time to build up a social media following or a large email database.
Make sure your expectations are realistic. If you’re not ready to commit to a content marketing strategy for at least six months, I probably wouldn’t even recommend you start. I say this because it might be tempting to abandon this strategy if you don’t see results within the first few months.
Patience will be key. Understand that it will take time to see results.
10 Steps To Creating A SaaS Content Marketing Strategy That Actually Works
I’ve been doing content marketing for over 10 years. I’ve set and established new content marketing strategies over and over, both for companies I’ve worked for and companies I’ve taken on as clients throughout my career.
The steps below outline the process I’ve taken each time to establish an effective SaaS content marketing strategy that produces results (i.e., increased traffic and inbound conversions).
Step 1. Find writers worth their salt
First, decide who will create your content. This could be internal team members, freelance writers, and/or a content marketing agency. But I recommend starting here as this will impact your monthly budget, affecting other factors like the number of blog posts you can create each month, weekly publishing frequency, expected growth, etc.
Finding good writers can be a difficult and lengthy process.
For instance, I recently set out to find a writer for my own blog. After an application process, I decided to try out three different writers.
One writer accepted the assignment and then I never heard back (even after multiple follow-up attempts). Another completed the article and the quality of writing was just average. It was clear the writer did not properly research the topic or they simply weren’t experienced enough. And one writer turned out to be really good! (I am currently working with them)
These are the types of issues you’ll face when finding a writer.
Additionally, this all occurred after a detailed vetting application process. I plan to write a detailed guide on the process I use to find writers, but for now, here’s a quick summary:
- I post a job posting on a few freelance writing job boards including Indeed and the Hire a Writer Reddit board
- In the job listing, I then link to a Google Form — asking writers to submit writing samples and their per-word writing rates. This way, all applications are organized in the same place. For instance, if someone submits an application on Indeed but doesn’t fill out the Google Form, I don’t consider them (it’s not a good sign if they can’t follow basic instructions).
- All of the responses can then be compiled in a Google Sheet, where I can quickly review all submissions.
- I then evaluate the submissions based on writing rates and the quality of writing — grading writers on attributes like “Good, great, decent, poor, etc.”
- I’ll then pick a few writers to do a trial piece (which is paid, don’t expect writers to do a free article), which allows me to evaluate the quality of writing, the level of effort they put in, if they meet deadlines, and how they handle revisions/feedback.
In the above example, I’ve highlighted responses by color (Red = No/Pass, Yellow = Maybe, Green = Good, etc.). I’ve done this process in several ways in the past. For example, in the past, I’ve also added a column where I would write “Great”, “Good”, “Decent”, “Poor”, etc. to evaluate the writing quality of each writer (after reading their writing samples). The general idea is to weed out poor-quality writers, find the best possibilities, and try a few of the top writers.
If this sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is. But spending the time now will pay dividends later. You should take the time to find a quality writer who is a good fit for your industry (i.e., has experience writing in your space). Ideally, they should submit published article samples on relevant, industry websites (e.g., if you’re a Fintech company, you’d want writers to submit article samples that are published on other Fintech websites/blogs).
It’s best to take the time to find a good writer now than work with a writer whose work you have to constantly adjust — and that you’ll likely end up having to let go several months later anyway — causing you to have to stall your content production.
I went through this process when I first joined CloudZero. I tried out multiple writers before finding a good fit. I’ve now worked with the same writer for 3+ years and I rarely have to make any major edits to her work. She’s a good writer, she’s knowledgeable in our space, and she turns around work on time.
Put in the time now to find a good writer (or agency) that knows what they’re doing.
Step 2. Set a publishing frequency you can stick to
When I first started at CloudZero, the company’s publishing strategy was infrequent and inconsistent.
To be fair, the marketing team was small and resources were limited. But, we only published one to two times per month, with no consistent schedule as to when blog posts went live — posts were simply published when they were ready.
I see many SaaS companies struggle with consistency. Yet, you won’t get results publishing like this. You need to be consistent.
Early on, I set a strategy to publish two blog posts per week (this is what I felt we could consistently manage given our budget and my available time). Now three years later, we publish four blog posts per week (sometimes more).
Consistently publishing content accomplishes a few things:
- You signal to Google that you update your blog frequently.
- It ensures you’re consistently publishing new content every week.
- It gives you a chance to continually target new keywords. You may struggle to rank for some keywords at first, but continually creating content helps you diversify and increase your chances of success.
- It provides you with new content you can share through marketing channels like social and email.
Step 3. Target the right keywords
Easier said than done. But what exactly are the right keywords?
Certain keywords will lead to more immediate results for your business (i.e., inbound conversions). These should be your priority, especially when you’re first starting out. Traffic is great, but what you really care about is new customers.
High-intent vs. high-volume keywords
High-intent keywords are search terms where someone is actively looking for a solution (e.g., COMPETITOR Alternatives, COMPETITOR 1 Vs. COMPETITOR 2). Searchers are in an active buying motion, which means they’re more likely to convert immediately after landing on your website.
These are the keywords you need to prioritize.
That said, there are a limited number of these keywords. At some point, you’ll need to branch out. Additionally, some of these high-intent keywords might be difficult to rank for, so you’ll need to improve your chances of ranking.
You can do this by creating more TOFU content relevant to your industry. This will help signal to Google that you are an authority on this topic (if you create a lot of content around one topic, you’re more likely to know what you’re talking about). You can also build backlinks to specific blog posts or pages — and increase your Domain Rating as a whole (which I cover in-depth later in this guide).
High-volume, TOFU content serves a few other purposes as well. It helps create brand awareness and educates people in your target audience early on in the buyer funnel. You can also use high-volume content to help build your email database to educate and nurture subscribers.
Finding high-intent keywords
So, how do you find these keywords? There are lots of ways to do keyword research. Here are a few of my favorites, from simple to complex:
1. Start with a seed keyword in Google and look at suggested or related searches
For instance, here I search for “content marketing”. As I type, Google will show other common searches involving that keyword:
You can also look at the related searches at the bottom of the page:
These are other popular searches related to the original search. You can click through to one of these results and repeat this process as you find new, interesting keywords.
2. Use Keyword Explorer in Ahrefs
You can use a similar process in Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer. Start with a seed keyword:
Then, navigate to one of the options under “Keyword Ideas”. In this case, I chose “Related terms”:
You can further refine results using filters such as Keyword Difficulty (KD) and Word Count. I like to focus on keywords with a KD of 30 or less. The lower the number, the less competitive it is and the more likely you are to rank. If your company is very new (e.g., launched in the past year), I would stick to a KD of 10 or less.
I also like to apply a word count of two or more words. This helps filter out brand keywords, and really high-level, competitive keywords.
3. Use Site Explorer in Ahrefs to find competitor keywords
Another good strategy for finding keywords is to look at your competitors. With Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, you can enter a competitor’s website and see all the keywords they rank for:
Again, you can filter keywords by KD, Word Count, (Search) Volume, and more. Scan through the list and find keywords that look like a good fit for your target audience (i.e., are these keywords your target customers would search?).
You can also find high-intent keywords this way by filtering by searches that contain a specific word or phrase:
Remember that keywords for industry tools and alternatives often signal someone is actively searching for a solution. You can find these keywords using this filter.
4. Use Ahrefs’ Content Gap analysis
Take your competitor analysis a step further by comparing multiple competitors. With Ahrefs’ Content Gap feature (I promise I don’t work for Ahrefs, I just really like their platform 😅), you can input multiple competitor websites, and see which keywords all of these competitors rank for that you do not rank for.
If all your competitors are ranking for these keywords, that might signal a good keyword idea for your blog.
5. Look at your competitors’ blogs
Lastly, another way to evaluate your competitors is to simply look through their blog and see which topics (i.e., keywords) they’re targeting (and that you might also want to target).
Scroll through their blog archives. What topics have they written about? Would any of those topics be a good one for you to write about?
Avoid zero-click searches/keywords
A zero-click search occurs when Google displays the answer to a query at the top of the SERP – the answer does not require a click-through to any of the listed results.
For example, a user search query converting miles into kilometers is a zero-click search because the calculation is performed in the SERP and then provided directly to the user.
These searches are now even more prevalent with Google AI Overviews — where Google provides an AI answer to the person’s search query at the top of the page, potentially “stealing” traffic from the search results below.
This will likely be the trend over the next few years. You should avoid these keywords. Even if a keyword has a high search volume, it’s likely that most searchers won’t click through to any of the results if the AI Overview answers their search query.
Certain types of keyword searches seem to be more vulnerable. Higher-level or more TOFU topics appear to be at risk. Think searches like “What is TOPIC?” or “TOPIC Best Practices”.
You can test this by simply searching the keyword in Google (ideally in a new Chrome profile or Incognito mode, as your search behavior can affect whether or not these are shown). Does an AI Overview show when making this search? If so, you might want to find another keyword to target.
Step 4: Determine search intent and create detailed content outlines
Before you assign or start writing a new article, you should understand the best way to approach each target keyword. Start first by evaluating the search intent behind each keyword.
What are searchers looking for when they search that keyword? What are they expecting to see? What results come up when you search that keyword in Google?
If you search a keyword and all of the results are listicles, it probably doesn’t makes sense to write a guide or how-to article to target that keyword. Searchers are looking for a list of ideas.
So, how can you target that keyword while also improving upon the current results?
Maybe you can create a listicle that includes more ideas/examples, or maybe organize the ideas by category, or organize the details for each idea in a more comprehensive way (e.g., include pricing, pros and cons, key features, etc.).
You won’t know the best way to approach the topic unless you search the keyword first and understand what searchers are looking for. From there, you can create a detailed outline that you can use to assign to writers.
I recommend being as thorough as possible, especially if you’re first starting out with a writer. Over time, you can maybe become more lax if the writer is good at being independent and researching the topic without much guidance, but a thorough outline will help you get to the end result faster. Including a few recommended readings (for the writer to research first) can also be beneficial.
Here are a few example content outlines I’ve used in the past:
The third outline is much more detailed since I wanted this article to be more of a thought leadership piece — and provide more of my own personal insight. The first two are more SEO-focused. Additionally, I’ve worked with the writer who I assigned the first two outlines to for several years now. I don’t need to be as detailed now as I used to when we first started working together (i.e., she’s more self-sufficient now after understanding our brand better).
When deciding on word count, I’ll usually evaluate the top five results and determine roughly how long each of those articles are. Often, I want my article/guide/blog post/etc. to be more comprehensive, which likely means including more subtopics and a larger word count than the current results.
But, take this with a grain of salt. This really depends on the current ranking results. If the top result is already 10,000 words, creating a longer article might not be the play. A longer article doesn’t always equal better. Find other ways to improve upon the current top results. Can you provide unique, expert-driven insights that the current results don’t have? Quotes from team members? Unique images or diagrams?
There are other ways to beat out the competition beyond word count, but it all starts with evaluating the current top results and considering areas of improvement.
Keyword difficulty plays a role too. If a keyword isn’t difficult to target (i.e., KD is lower), I’ll use a lower word count, as a longer article likely isn’t needed to beat out the current competitors. This will just result in a higher cost and more time needed to write the article.
Step 5: Organize your content production flow
Once you start creating all this content, you’ll need a way to stay organized. It can quickly become overwhelming to keep track of every content piece you create if you don’t have a clear, organized workflow. Using Google Sheets can be a good starting point. But I like to use a combination of sheets and Trello.
I use Trello to keep track of the step-by-step content production and promotion flow. I use Google Sheets to organize our content calendar from a high-level (e.g., when blog posts are scheduled to go live).
Here’s how our Trello looks:
This Trello board is organized by stage:
- Queue. Articles ready to be assigned to writers.
- Writing. Articles actively being written by writers.
- Editing. Articles to be reviewed by our team.
- With Publishing. Articles with our content publisher (who takes articles from a Google Doc and converts them into a draft in WordPress).
- In WordPress. Articles ready as drafts in WordPress (we review everything again in WordPress for formatting, style, and SEO details like meta title and description before scheduling).
- Scheduled. Articles that are scheduled to be published live.
- Promoting. Articles that need to be shared via email, social, etc.
- Done. Articles that have been published and all promotion activities are complete.
Each article is a card in Trello. We simply use the article title for the title of the card. When an article is ready to move to the next stage, we move it to the appropriate list in Trello.
Within each card, are checklists. We have checklists for activities related to publishing and promoting:
This helps us ensure we never miss a step. For our content calendar (from a high level), we use Google Sheets:
This lets us know when each article has been published or is scheduled to be published.
There are many project management tools to choose from: Trello, Asana, Favro, etc. I like Trello because of its clean UI and simplicity. The combination of Trello and Google Sheets keeps us organized and helps me know exactly where each content piece stands. I suggest you set up something similar to stay organized.
Step 6. Promote your content
Just because you hit publish, doesn’t mean the process stops there. You need to promote your content. Even if your strategy is to get most of your traffic from Google, promotion can help kick-start the process. Here are a few activities I recommend:
Send to your email database
This one is an easy way to share your content to the people most engaged with your brand. Sharing new blog posts to yourl database can be a good way to nurture your subscribers and get initial traffic to your post.
This process doesn’t need to be complicated. At CloudZero, for example, we often send out two weekly emails: One email that promotes one specific blog post we want to emphasize (often, a thought leadership piece or maybe an upcoming webinar) and another email that is a roundup of our best and latest content (e.g., the best three to five blog posts we published in the past week).
Above is an example of a roundup email. We typically include 3-5 blog posts.
When one of these blog posts is shared via email, I mark it complete on our Trello board. I suggest creating a few templates in your email marketing platform to make this process easier.
Share on social
I share every blog post on social. At CloudZero, we focus on LinkedIn and Twitter. We’re still a relatively small team and honestly, social media isn’t exactly my thing. We want to share on social and increase our following, but I don’t want it to be a big part of my day.
Some companies have roles dedicated to social (e.g., Social Media Manager), but we’re not there yet. And I imagine most SaaS brands are in this stage.
So, you need to get the most out of your social channel while being time-efficient. We use SmarterQueue to do just that.
SmarterQueue helps me create time slots for specific social categories. Any posts that are in these categories are then automatically shared at the appropriate time.
For instance, we have a category dedicated to blog posts. I have several time slots set to share social posts from the blog post category throughout the week:
The platform will automatically pull any posts I’ve added to these categories and share them in the appropriate time slots. This also makes it easier on me since I don’t have to mess around with scheduling posts at specific times — and having to remember when other posts are manually scheduled.
Lastly, SmarterQueue will cycle through this category, so posts are re-shared. If you have a lot of posts in this category, it could be months before a post is reshared. But that’s fine (even ideal, so it doesn’t create social feed fatigue) — and this ensures that we get more value out of one blog post by sharing it multiple times on social.
Share on Quuu Promote
Quuu Promote is a social media platform that enables users to share content on other social accounts in a specific topic/industry. The platform has over 39,000 real accounts that use its sister platform, Quuu, to automatically curate and share content on their social media accounts.
For instance, when I added a new blog post to Quuu Promote, I might select the “Information Technology” topic. The post will then be shared on social accounts that share content from that topic. This helps get eyeballs on our content that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to reach.
It’s an easy promotion tactic that only takes a few seconds to do and is pretty affordable.
Step 7. Measure results
You’re not doing all of this work for nothing. The ultimate goal of content marketing is to drive new business. It does that through a variety of means including generating brand awareness, increasing trust, or even directly leading to inbound conversions by ranking for high-intent searches. But again, the goal is to generate new business.
So, you need to understand how your content marketing efforts lead to tangible results (i.e., signups, demo requests, or whatever inbound conversion metrics matter most to you).
Here are a few metrics to consider tracking:
- Organic search traffic. Traffic from Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.
- Owned traffic.Total combined traffic from your owned marketing channels including total website traffic (direct and organic), traffic from your social media accounts, and email newsletters.
- Monthly total demo requests/signups. I lump pricing and demo requests into total demo requests since we treat them primarily the same.
- Total demo requests/signups by source. For example, direct, organic, social, email, etc. This can help identify which channels are most effective.
- Blog subscribers. Are total blog subscribers going up?
- Blog subscribers by blog post. Which blog posts lead to the highest number of blog subscribers?
- Opportunity source by number of deals. For example, how many deals were sourced by Inbound, Outbound, or Channel? This can help identify your most effective sources.
- Opportunity source by deal amount. What about for deal size (e.g., dollar amount)?
- First page seen by demo request/signup. Which page did conversions first visit on your website? You can limit this further by blog posts to compare pages vs. blog posts.
- First page seen by demo request – X day comparison. I’d recommend a 60-90 day comparison to the previous period. This can help let you know if any of our top converting pages are beginning to slip.
- Keyword ranking. Where are you ranking for each of your target keywords?
You should track most, if not all, of these metrics monthly and quarterly. Monthly reporting will indicate if you’re moving in the right direction. But, you will have down months even if you’re doing everything right. There are factors out of your control.
Summer months (June to August, particularly July) tend to be down months for SaaS companies since many people are on vacation. Same for November to January because of the holidays. People just aren’t as actively searching for solutions during these times. Additionally, things like Google updates can impact your traffic.
Having all of these reports on one dashboard will help you keep a close eye on how each of these metrics are trending.
For keyword rank tracking, I use Ahrefs. But other options like SEMrush, Moz, and SE Ranking are also available. Here’s how that looks:
We track the target keyword for every blog post we create. We choose one keyword per post. I recommend you do the same. It simplifies tracking and it’s likely that if you rank highly for your target keyword, you’ll rank for other related keywords.
It’s also a good practice when outlining what content to include in your blog post (e.g., you can search the target keyword and see what subtopics other top-ranking results include).
Tracking keywords this way provides a history of their ranking — and can help you make informed decisions on how to improve your content. If a post does well, great! No need to change it (yet).
But if it’s been six months or more, and it’s struggling to reach the first page of Google for your target keyword, it might be time to refresh and republish it. Updating the article could give it the boost it needs to get to the first page. It’s the same story if a post is ranking in the 5th position of Google, and you want to get into the first three results. Updating could give it the boost you need to get there.
Refreshing content leads me to my next point. The seven steps above lay the foundation of your content strategy. Once you get this process down, you should look to more advanced techniques to uplevel your strategy …
Advanced steps to further enhance your content strategy …
Step 8. Establish a motion for updating outdated content
As I mentioned above, tracking keyword ranking gives you the insight you need to make informed decisions around which blog posts to update.
Updating content should become a routine part of your content strategy, especially if you’ve been blogging for a year or more. Google wants fresh content, and if you’ve been blogging for a while, your earlier posts will become outdated.
A simple strategy is to update blog posts that are 1+ years old.
While some posts might be fine being a year or more old (e.g., the topic may not have any new developments), you will likely at least have some that have out-of-date information (e.g., blog posts around pricing, industry tools, etc.). Still, even if the content looks solid, it might make sense to make subtle changes and republish the post (while also updating the publish date), to signal to Google the content is up-to-date.
Another way to find posts to update is to look at your keyword rankings. As I mentioned above, if one post isn’t performing as well as you’d like, it could be a good candidate for an update.
Reevaluating the existing content, finding subtopics that other top-ranking articles mention that you missed, etc. can all be good ways to find areas for improvement. Update the post with these missing subtopics and republish. Doing this could be the boost it needs to move up in ranking.
Step 9: Improve technical and on-page SEO factors
Many SEOs might suggest prioritizing this step earlier in the process. But the reality is, if you’re a small brand, and as long as you don’t have any glaring issues with your website (e.g., it’s not indexable, it takes forever to load, etc.), your website is probably good enough to get results in Google.
But once you establish the core of your content strategy, you should consider areas where you can improve your technical and on-page SEO.
Technical SEO refers to the backend structure and functionality of your website. Think website navigation, website layout, performance (i.e, load speed), crawlability (can pages on your website be crawled properly, site maps, internal linking, etc.).
On-page SEO refers to the factors you control on your website pages, blog posts, etc. Think titles in a blog post, optimizing meta descriptions, keyword optimization, permalinks, etc.
Technical and on-page SEO can affect your ranking. I won’t dive too deep into the weeds for each of these, but here are a few areas to evaluate and consider improving:
Technical SEO
- Website navigation. Does your website navigation make sense? Could it be more intuitive? Improving navigation can help visitors more easily find what they’re looking for, which could equal more time on your website.
- Page performance. Does your website load quickly? How does it compare to your competitors or other websites you’re trying to beat out in search? You should at least be comparable (but ideally quicker than) to your competitors.
- Crawlability. Is your site map up-to-date? Can Google properly crawl your website? You can look to Google Search Console to identify any possible crawl issues.
- Internal linking. Do you frequently link from new blog posts to other related posts on your website? One tactic to help boost key pages on your website can be to internally link from pages on your website that have lots of backlinks to a page on your website that you want to improve in Google (e.g., a high-intent blog post) — thus, passing “Link Juice” and improving that page’s chance of ranking.
Here’s a good guide if you want to explore technical SEO further.
On-page SEO
- Meta titles. Are your meta titles compelling? (i.e., would they entice people to click on them in a Google SERP?) Are your meta titles being cutoff in search?
- Meta descriptions. Do your meta descriptions provide context around what visitors can expect if they click your result? Do they “sell” the value that visitors can expect to gain by reading your blog post?
- Permalinks. Do your permalinks include your target keyword? Are they clean and simple?
- Image optimization. Are you using web-friendly images in your page/blog posts (e.g., WEBP vs. PNG)? Oversized images can negatively affect page speed, which can create a poor user experience.
Improving items like your meta titles and descriptions can help improve your CTR in a Google SERP, which is a factor in ranking.
Here’s a good guide if you want to explore on-page SEO further.
You can gauge the health of your technical and on-page SEO by running a site audit.
Source: Ahrefs
Step 10. Build backlinks to improve your Domain Rating
Link building is considered an off-page SEO tactic. Building high-quality, relevant links to your website can improve your Domain Rating (which is a measure of a website’s backlink profile) — and can help improve your ranking in search.
Generally speaking, the higher your Domain Rating (DR), the higher your chances are for ranking high in Google.
For instance, sites like HubSpot, Forbes, Business Insider, etc. all have a high DR.
These are well-known, authoritative websites that have been operating for a long time — with many other websites linking to them. These sites will have a MUCH “easier” time ranking for a difficult keyword than a relatively new website with few other websites linking to it.
So, how can you build backlinks to your website and improve your Domain Rating?
These are three tactics I recommend most SaaS brands start with (especially if your marketing team is small):
Create content that attracts backlinks
If you are consistently creating content, you will naturally build backlinks. Especially after years of blogging. If your content is good, other writers will link to it in the articles they write (as long as they can find it).
For instance, a writer might find your article on “industry best practices” after searching in Google. They like one of the tips you mention, so they decide to paraphrase your content and link back to it.
This is just one example but this type of thing happens all the time. A writer researches a topic, finds content that supports their article (like a tip, stat, example, quote, image, etc.) and they include it while linking back.
With that in mind, there are ways to pour fuel on the fire. There are specific types of content that will attract lots of backlinks …
- Statistics blog posts, e.g., 124 SEO Statistics for 2024
- Deep dives into types, e.g., The 4 Types Of Cloud Computing: Choosing The Best Model
- Examples, e.g., 14 Content Marketing Examples to Inspire Your Strategy
To find content ideas that attract backlinks, you can use Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar. Enable the “search tools” functionality, then start searching seed keywords.
Below each result, look at the “RP” (Referring Pages) metric. The more Referring Pages a result has, the better — this means many websites link to this page, and it’s potentially a good topic to attract natural backlinks.
Remember: If you can create a piece of content that beats the top-ranking result (or, at least manages to get in the first results), you stand a high chance of attracting backlinks to your page.
Find a good link insertion agency
Link insertion is a process of having another website add a link to one of their existing pages or blog posts back to your website. It’s best to work with an agency as you will benefit from their relationships with bloggers and websites, allowing them to easily insert links into posts on those websites.
Just be careful who you go with. There are a lot of spammy agencies out there that will build low-quality links to your website. A good link-building agency should allow you to review any backlinks before they’re placed (so you can ensure the websites are a good match for your industry — and that they don’t look too spammy).
Use Digital PR
Companies should also capitalize on a Digital PR approach to building backlinks.
Be sure to work with a Digital PR agency that has a large list of quality media contacts, then strategize a piece of content that you believe will get the attention of publications. The agency will pitch this to journalists to help secure mentions and links back to your content.
Data-driven content typically does well — original reports, studies, and white papers. Here are a few examples of data-driven content we created at CloudZero (and that have led to attracting a high number of links and media mentions):
- The State Of Cloud Cost In 2024
- Best Global Cities For A Career In Tech
- The Leading Countries Breaking Barriers For Women In STEM
Conclusion: Go Create A Successful SaaS Content Marketing Strategy That Drives Real, Measure Results
Phew! That was a lot to get to. Honestly, this guide took me a long time to write, but I wanted to be as detailed as possible. I hope that you’ve found the steps and examples included in this guide helpful!
The process is long and the road to success can take time. Remember, content marketing is a long-term strategy. Don’t expect results overnight. But, if you have the right strategy and execution with focus and determination to stick with it, you will be successful.
If you have any questions about this guide or creating an effective content marketing strategy for your SaaS business, don’t hesitate to reach out! I also provide services and consultation to help out SaaS brands but I’m happy to answer any questions you might have. I can be reached here. Or, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.
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