Keyword strategy for SaaS has changed beyond recognition over the last few years. The old approach of choosing a keyword, optimising a page around it and hoping for the best is long gone.
Today’s SaaS SEO landscape is more competitive, more complex and far more intent-led. To succeed, you need to understand how your customers think, what they’re searching for at different stages and how your product fits into the challenges they’re trying to solve.
In other words: an effective SaaS keyword strategy is no longer about “keywords” at all. It’s about context, problems, motivations and journeys.
Why traditional keyword research no longer works for SaaS
If you’re still approaching keyword research like it’s 2020, you’ll fall behind quickly. Single-keyword optimisation doesn’t reflect how people search, especially in SaaS, where buying journeys are non-linear and involve multiple stakeholders with different levels of awareness.
Google has become far better at understanding intent, relationships and entities. It knows when several queries relate to the same underlying topic, and it can recognise the difference between someone who is simply learning and someone who is actively seeking a solution.
Keyword research that fixates on individual phrases ignores the fact that your potential customers are navigating a problem, not chasing a specific term.
Your strategy needs to optimise for the problem, not the keyword.
Think in keyword groups, not isolated terms
Modern SaaS SEO is built around keyword groups. These are clusters of related queries that revolve around a core theme and represent the many different ways users express the same challenge. Rather than fighting for one exact phrase, you build authority across an entire topic. This opens up more search entry points and gives you resilience when algorithms shift.
Grouping keywords also helps you create more complete content. You’re no longer trying to force everything into one tidy phrase; instead, you’re addressing a broader problem space, which naturally allows for richer, more helpful pages.
AI knows what you’re talking about; you don’t have to be too specific with keywords.
Build topic clusters around problems, not product features
A common mistake in SaaS content is overemphasising features. Your buyers don’t start there. They begin with frustrations, inefficiencies, bottlenecks and questions. They want to know how to reduce churn, automate tasks, improve customer experience or streamline workflows. They want to know how to fix the problem. Only once they understand the solution, do they start comparing tools to implement it.
By building topic clusters around problems rather than features, you align with the way people actually search. A challenge becomes the centre of the cluster, with supporting content that explores causes, solutions, methods, comparisons and, eventually, how your product fits.
Instead of forcing your tool into the conversation, you allow it to appear naturally as the answer to the problem the reader is already trying to solve.
Use query fan-out to understand how customers really think
When someone faces a business challenge, there’s rarely just one way they express it. Query fan-out refers to the many different paths a searcher may take from a single starting point. For example, if someone is looking for better workflow management, they might search for remote team organisation, the best project tools, automation ideas, comparisons between top platforms or ways to reduce delivery delays.
Each of these queries sits under the same umbrella problem, but they capture different mindsets, roles and levels of urgency. Understanding this fan-out allows you to craft content that genuinely reflects how people think, not how search volumes look on a spreadsheet.
Query fan-out allows you to create content that reflects real user thinking rather than just keyword data.
Align keyword strategy with business intent, not vanity metrics
High search volume may look impressive, but it doesn’t always translate into quality SaaS traffic. What matters far more is intent. A keyword that appears modest on paper may reflect a user who is actively seeking that keyword to find a solution, exploring software options or ready to commit.
Intent in SaaS typically moves through education, solution discovery, product exploration, comparison and finally technical or pricing validation. A strong keyword strategy acknowledges these stages and maps content to them.
When the content aligns with business intent, you create pathways for conversions rather than just page views.
Map your strategy to the user journey
A powerful SaaS keyword strategy mirrors the way real customers buy. During the early awareness stage, they’re exploring symptoms and pain points. In the consideration stage, they’re looking at potential approaches and tool categories. When they reach the decision stage, comparisons, features and pricing take centre stage. Finally, they validate the finer details, such as integrations, security and implementation.
Effective SEO supports each stage with content that removes friction and builds confidence. When someone moves naturally from one stage to the next (guided by your content of course) you create momentum that leads directly to sign-ups, demos or conversions.
A strong SaaS keyword strategy mirrors the customer journey by providing the right content for each stage.
Structure content to achieve multiple search features
Modern search results aren’t just blue links. Your content needs to be structured in a way that allows Google to pull individual chunks into immediate results for their homepage. This doesn’t mean turning every paragraph into a list; it simply means presenting clear, well-organised information that Google can understand and reuse.
Dividing content into structured, digestible elements means Google can use them across:
- Featured snippets
- People Also Ask
- Short answers
- Knowledge panels
- Video results
- How-to blocks
Chunking your content, that is, breaking it into clear, purposeful segments, increases your visibility across different result types, strengthens your authority around a topic, and gains visibility on multiple fronts, not just rankings.
Modern search requires well-structured, clearly segmented content that Google can easily extract and display.
Cover topics fully, not repetitively
Depth has become one of the strongest ranking signals in SaaS SEO. Google favours content that thoroughly addresses a topic from multiple angles, giving readers everything they need in one place. This is not about repeating keywords; it’s about anticipating follow-up questions, providing examples, including relevant context and offering practical insights that demonstrate expertise.
By covering topics comprehensively, you reduce the need for users to return to search, and that’s exactly what Google wants.
Google doesn’t want users to have to go back and keep searching, lest they might use a different search engine.
Measure success with meaningful SaaS metrics
Rankings matter, but they’re not the goal; the goal is always more business.
In SaaS, your keyword strategy should be judged on metrics that reflect actual business impact. That includes demo requests, trial sign-ups, time on page, scroll depth, multi-page sessions and assisted conversions. These metrics tell you whether your content is moving people closer to becoming customers, not just driving traffic for the sake of it. Being top of Google is a nice brag, but what good is it if you’re not getting more clients?
An effective SaaS keyword strategy isn’t built around individual terms; it’s built around people.
When you understand their challenges, map their journey, and create content that informs, reassures and guides them, your keyword strategy becomes a direct lever for growth.
If you want help building a SaaS SEO approach that aligns with real customer behaviour and drives meaningful conversions, get in touch. We’ll be happy to have a chat about where your business is at, where you want it to be, and how we can help get you there.
We’ve been doing this for years, and we’re good at it.
No, scratch that, we’re great at it.
