For SaaS founders and solopreneurs, mastering on-page SEO is like setting the stage for your digital storefront.
Imagine your website as the welcoming entrance to your business, where every page is optimized to guide potential customers through your offerings easily.
In this post, I’ll share actionable steps to improve your website’s on-page SEO, ensuring it’s seen and valued by search engines and users alike.
With the fundamentals of On-Page SEO, your site can climb the search rankings, attract more qualified leads, and convert visitors into loyal customers.
On-page SEO isn’t just about visibility; it’s about building and optimizing your content only for customers. An optimizing system that works tirelessly to get paying customers for your business.
This post is for you if you don’t want to get overwhelmed with SEO jargon and fancy strategies that don’t work anymore & are covered to death on the internet.
Simple, actionable steps that work every single time.
Let’s begin.
If you want to:
- Fix hidden SEO errors draining your revenue before Google notices
- Turn every blog post into a traffic magnet (no guesswork)
- Beat competitors using their own SEO playbook
- Future-proof your SEO with AI that learns as you scale
- Get expert-level audits without hiring a $200/hr consultant
#1 Find The Right Balance With On-Page SEO & Off-Page SEO
Search algorithms have evolved enough to ignore any website that overdoes SEO. This means that if you rely only on SEO, you’ll naturally ensure that every page is optimized for search.
If you don’t want to get published by search engine algorithms for overdoing SEO.
How to Find The Sweet Spot Between On-page & Off-page SEO?
Neither on-page nor off-page SEO alone will be enough; both must be executed well for optimal results. Understanding this balance means recognizing that on-page SEO enhances your site’s content and structure while off-page SEO builds your site’s authority and trustworthiness through external signals.
Here’s how you can strike the right chords to find a balance between on-page & off-page SEO.
Step 1: Audit Your Current SEO Strategy
What to do: Conduct an SEO audit.
How to Do It:
- Use tools like Google Analytics or Semrush to analyze your site’s current performance in terms of on-page SEO (content quality, keyword usage, site structure) and off-page SEO (backlinks, social signals, mentions).
- Look for areas where your site might be lacking. Are there pages with poor keyword optimization? Is your backlink profile weak or of low quality?
Step 2: Start optimizing for On-Page SEO
What to do: Enhance your on-page SEO elements.
How to Do It:
- Keyword Research: Use keyword tools to find relevant keywords. Focus on long-tail, less competitive, and highly relevant keywords to your niche.
- Example: If you’re in the SaaS space, look for keywords like “best SaaS for small businesses” or “SaaS solutions for project management.”
- Content Optimization: For each page:
- Integrate keywords naturally into your content, titles, URLs, meta descriptions, and alt text for images.
- Ensure your content is structured with H1, H2, and H3 tags for readability and SEO.
- Update or create content that provides value answers user queries and aligns with user intent.
- Technical SEO:
- Check for mobile-friendliness and site speed, and fix technical issues like broken links or improper use of canonical tags.
- Use tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test and PageSpeed Insights for this.
Step 3: Strengthen Off-Page SEO
What to do: Build links the right way.
How to Do It:
- Quality Backlink Acquisition: Focus on earning high-quality backlinks:
- Guest Posting: Write guest posts for reputable sites in your industry. Include a link back to your site naturally within the content.
- Outreach: Contact industry influencers or related businesses for backlinks or mentions.
Content Promotion: Create shareable content (infographics, in-depth guides) that naturally attracts links. - Social Media Engagement:
Repurpose your content regularly, engage with your audience, and encourage shares and mentions, which can indirectly affect your SEO through increased visibility.
- Local SEO if Applicable: If your SaaS has a regional component, ensure you’re listed in local directories, have local citations, and engage in local community events or sponsorships.
Step 4: Monitor and Adjust
What to do: Continuously monitor the effectiveness of your SEO strategy.
How to Do It:
- Use Google Search Console and Analytics to track changes in keyword rankings, organic traffic, and conversion rates.
- Set up alerts for new backlinks or mentions using tools like Semrush.
- Conduct regular reviews (monthly or quarterly) to assess:
- Which on-page optimizations are driving the most traffic or engagement?
- Which off-page efforts are yielding the best quality backlinks?
- Adjust your strategy based on data:
- If on-page SEO is strong but traffic isn’t converting, perhaps focus more on conversion-oriented content or user experience.
- If off-page SEO is lacking, double down on outreach or link-worthy content.
Step 5: Finding the Sweet Spot
What to do: Integrate and balance your efforts.
How to Do It:
- Content Strategy: Ensure your content strategy supports both on-page and off-page SEO. For instance, create content that optimizes for keywords but is also shareable and linkable.
- Link Building with Content: Use your optimized on-page content as the foundation for off-page SEO. High-quality, well-optimized content is more likely to earn backlinks.
- Feedback Loop: Use insights from off-page SEO to inform on-page improvements. For example, if a particular piece of content earns a lot of backlinks, analyze why and replicate its success.
- Balance Monitoring: Keep an eye on the balance by ensuring neither aspect is neglected. If one area starts to outperform significantly, it might be time to adjust resources to maintain equilibrium.
#2 SEO Doesn’t Mean Building Links At Scale
Begin Creating Content Without Building Irrelevant Links
Step 1: Conduct a Content Audit
What to do:
Before improving your content, you need to know what you’re working with. Marie’s advice emphasizes the importance of high-quality content over relying solely on link building, which requires understanding your current content landscape.
How to do:
Review all existing content on your SaaS website. Identify which pages provide value, answer user queries effectively, and which might be outdated or irrelevant. Use tools like Google Analytics to see which pages have high bounce rates or low engagement, suggesting they need improvement.
Step 2: Optimize Existing Content for Keywords
What to do:
Marie indirectly suggests that on-page SEO has become crucial post-Penguin, which includes proper keyword usage. Optimizing for keywords ensures your content is relevant to search queries.
How to do: For each page identified in the audit:
- Research keywords relevant to your SaaS niche using tools like Google Keyword Planner or Semrush.
- Integrate these keywords naturally into your content titles, headings (H1, H2, etc.), URLs, meta descriptions, and image alt texts. Avoid keyword stuffing; the goal is to enhance relevance and readability.
Step 3: Enhance Content Quality and Depth
What to do:
High-quality content is at the core of Marie’s advice. This means content that uses keywords and provides comprehensive value, engaging users and answering their questions.
How to do: For each page or blog post:
- Expand on topics where you can offer more depth or unique insights.
- Use case studies, examples, or user testimonials to add credibility and depth.
- Regularly update content to keep it current, relevant, and valuable, signaling to search engines that your site is active and helpful.
Step 4: Improve User Experience (UX) through Structure and Design
What to do:
Although not directly mentioned, Marie’s response implies that SEO isn’t just about content but also how that content is presented. User experience affects SEO metrics like bounce rate and dwell time.
How to do:
- Ensure your website is mobile-friendly, as mobile usability is a ranking factor.
- Use clear, logical headings (H1 for main titles, H2 for subheadings, etc.) to structure content, making it easy to read and scan.
- Optimize load times by compressing images, using efficient coding, and leveraging browser caching. Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can help identify issues.
Step 5: Implement Schema Markup
What to do:
Schema markup is part of modern on-page SEO practices that enhance how search engines understand and display your content. Schema Markups make your content more discoverable.
How to do:
- Identify types of schema markup relevant to your SaaS business (e.g., SoftwareApplication, Product, Review).
- Add schema markup to your product pages, blog posts, or any content where it can provide additional context. Use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to ensure correct implementation.
- Focus on areas like product features, pricing plans, or customer reviews to make your listings stand out in search results with rich snippets.
#3 International SEO is Not Just About hreflang tag
Get Your International Pages Right
What to do:
Implement crawlable cross-linking between language/country versions of your website. This means, for each page, ensure direct links to the equivalent pages in other languages or regions rather than just linking to home pages.
This practice helps with search engine crawlability and distributing internal link popularity across your international site versions, which is often overlooked but crucial for SEO success in multiple markets.
Crawlable cross-linking between different language or country URL versions is a crucial, often overlooked aspect of international SEO.
This practice helps with crawlability and passing internal link popularity, which is beneficial, especially when launching new language/country versions.
Many websites with international versions fail to implement proper cross-linking, often linking to the home page of each language/country rather than the alternate versions of the current page.
This reduces SEO effectiveness for these international pages by not effectively facilitating search engine crawlers or passing link equity.
Proper internal linking is crucial for SEO, especially in an international context. It helps search engines understand the structure of your site and the relationship between different language versions and aids in distributing link equity (SEO value) across various versions of your site.
How to do:
#1 Identify Your International Pages:
List all the pages across different languages or country-specific versions of your site.
#2 Cross-Link Properly:
For each page, ensure there are links to the corresponding pages in other languages or country versions. Instead of linking to the home page of another language/country, link directly to the equivalent page. For example, if you have a product page in English (/en/product), link it to the same product page in Spanish (/es/producto), French (/fr/produit), etc.
#3 Use Hreflang Tags:
Complement this practice by using hreflang tags to specify language and regional URLs. This helps search engines serve the correct language or regional URL in search results.
#4 Ensure Crawlability:
Make sure these links are crawlable. Avoid using JavaScript for these links if possible, or ensure they are accessible to search engine bots. You can check this by reviewing your site’s crawlability in Google Search Console or using tools like Screaming Frog.
#5 Test and Monitor:
Use tools to check if search engines are indexing these cross-linked pages correctly. Monitor the performance of your international pages in Google Search Console to see if there’s an improvement in visibility.
Ready To Qualify Paying Customers From The Visitors?
To convert readers into paying customers, start by identifying which pages on your site get the most organic traffic. These are your money pages. Install heatmaps on these pages to see where visitors click and scroll.
Watch for patterns – do they leave after specific sections? Do they ignore your CTAs?
Next, check your Google Search Console to find queries bringing visitors who stay longest on your site. These are your qualified leads.
Create content clusters around these topics. When someone searches these terms, they’re likely ready to buy.
Most importantly, add exit-intent popups on pages where visitors spend over 3 minutes. These readers are invested in your content.
Offer them something valuable – like a free audit or consultation. It’s better to convert 10 qualified leads than chase 100 tire-kickers.
Good SEO isn’t about more traffic. It’s about attracting people who’re actively looking for what you sell.