7 Common SEO Mistakes SaaS Startups Make (And How to Fix Them)

1. Not doing proper keyword research

Many SaaS startups start writing without researching the right keywords. Without proper keyword research, you might target the wrong terms, making it harder for potential customers to find your content. Even if your content attracts traffic, it may not convert into revenue if it doesn’t align with the right audience.

Before writing, research keywords relevant to your SaaS product using tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs. Run a competitor analysis to see what keywords they rank for. Analyze top-ranking blogs and pages for your target keywords, noting their use of LSI keywords with tools like SEMrush. This will improve your content depth and help search engines rank your startup more effectively.

Pro Tip: Focus on long-tail keywords—they’re more specific and usually have lower competition, which means it’s easier for your content to rank. According to Ahrefs, long-tail keywords make up 70% of all web searches, making them a valuable asset in any content strategy.

2. Overlooking mobile optimization

Tech startups often overlook mobile optimization, assuming most users will be on desktops. But with mobile devices making up around 62% of global web traffic and desktops only 36%, this is a big mistake. People frequently search on their phones—often on impulse—so your site needs to be optimized for speed and usability. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check if your blog is mobile-optimized.

Pro Tip: Google ranks mobile-friendly sites higher, so optimizing your blog for mobile isn’t just a user experience issue—it’s an SEO priority. In fact, Google’s mobile-first indexing means it looks at the mobile version of your site for ranking and indexing, which can have a significant impact on SEO performance. Amazon found that every 100ms increase in load time cost them 1% in sales. Therefore, ensuring your site is both mobile-friendly and fast-loading is crucial for maintaining and boosting your bottom line.

3. Forgetting about on-page SEO

New SaaS startups often focus on creating great content but forget the essentials of on-page SEO—such as optimizing your title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags. These elements are important for search engines to understand what your content is about.

•  Title Tags: Include your main keyword in the title (under 60 characters).
•  Meta Descriptions: Write a concise, compelling description (under 160 characters) that includes your target keyword.
•  Header Tags: Use H1, H2, and H3 tags to structure your content and make it easy for both users and search engines to read.

Pro Tip: If you’re using WordPress, plugins like Yoast SEO or RankMath can help you optimize these elements automatically. A study by Backlinko found that content with optimized title tags sees an increase of 20-30% in click-through rates from search engines.

With the rise of AI-driven search tools like ChatGPT, it’s also important to improve visibility in AI search results. In 2023, approximately 13 million U.S. adults used generative AI as their primary tool for online searches, a number projected to exceed 90 million by 2027.

4. Not adding internal links

One of the most overlooked SEO mistakes is not having an internal link-building strategy. Internal links can increase the time a user spends on your website. This helps users find more helpful content and improves your SEO by helping search engines crawl your site and, in turn, improve your revenue.

So, before writing a blog post or a piece of content, think about how you can link to related posts that already exist on your website. This keeps visitors on your website longer and helps Google understand the structure of your site. Studies from Moz suggest that sites with internal linking can boost their rankings by up to 40%.

Pro Tip: Create a content silo where related blog posts link to each other. This improves SEO by grouping content on similar topics and signals to search engines that your site has in-depth coverage on specific subjects.

5. Skipping alt text for images

Another lazy SEO mistake SaaS startups make is uploading images without proper alt text or having generic image file names. When uploading images or video content, try to be as descriptive as possible without overdoing it. This helps search engines understand the image and can help your image rank in Google Image Search for the keyword you focus on.

Pro Tip: Keep your alt text concise and relevant, and where appropriate, include a keyword. SEO expert Neil Patel claims that image optimization can increase traffic by 30% in some cases.

6. Ignoring backlinking opportunities

If Content is King, backlinks are the Kingdom. Getting quality backlinks is one of the hardest SEO endeavors. Quality links from other trustworthy and relevant websites to your content are crucial for boosting your blog’s SEO and visibility. Many SaaS startups fail to actively build backlinks, missing out on opportunities to improve their domain authority.

But don’t fall for shady link-building tactics or black-hat link-building networks. Focus only on gaining quality backlinks. You can do this by reaching out to influencers, writing guest posts, or creating highly valuable content that others will want to link to.

Pro Tip: Aim for quality over quantity—one backlink from an authoritative site can be more powerful than many from low-quality sites. If you find it difficult to acquire backlinks, turn to your network and find similar startups that can benefit from sharing them with each other.

7. Duplicate content from reposting on other platforms

Republishing your blog on platforms like Medium, Substack or social media can create duplicate content, which may negatively impact your SEO rankings if not done correctly.

If you choose to republish, make sure to add a canonical link back to the original post on your website. So Google or search engines know which content is the original. Also, avoid simply copying and pasting the content, but tailor it for the specific platform and audience, update the SEO target keywords, and use a different title and keyword than the original blog. This helps prevent SEO cannibalization and can improve the rankings of your original content. By doing this, you signal to Google that your website is the primary source, preserving the SEO value of the original post.

Pro Tip: Use Google Search Console to monitor for duplicate content and ensure Google recognizes your original post as the authoritative version. You can also use Search Console to get some easy seo wins.