Product-led growth (PLG) is becoming an increasingly attractive business model, especially within B2B SaaS companies. According to recent research, an estimated 58% of B2B SaaS businesses are already utilising a product-led growth strategy, with 91% planning to increase their investment in the coming years.
With PLG models, the product is the primary driver of business growth. This differs from many modern growth strategies, which strive to expand through a range of marketing and sales tactics.
In this sense, PLG companies and SEO may seem at odds. One drives growth through the product itself, while the other is a form of digital marketing. However, marketing and sales are still critical components of product-led growth businesses, and these two models are not as different as they may seem.
Of course, both PLG companies and search engine optimisation (SEO) have the ultimate goal of helping a business to grow and increase sales. Moreover, both strategies are user-focused. In other words, they aim to boost awareness, reputation, and transactions by understanding and meeting customer requirements.
Big Tech Platforms SEO works seamlessly with product-led growth companies because we put you and your consumers at the heart of our strategy. Our team knows how search engines work and how they rank results to provide their users with the best experience possible.
In this guide, we'll explain how to get the most from SEO for PLG companies.
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The first part of building an effective marketing campaign for any business is understanding the industry, business, users, and strategies already in place. By gathering this knowledge, we can create a tailored SEO plan.
Let's look at how product-led businesses operate and why this is so successful.
Sales funnels usually begin with awareness before moving on to interest, desire, and, eventually, a sale. Typically, B2B businesses have a longer funnel because more people are involved in making decisions. The price of a product can also affect the length of the decision process, with customers usually moving towards the final sale faster with cheaper products.
Product-led growth companies are a little different. While the sales funnel for these businesses also begins with awareness, it then moves straight to customer acquisition. However, the end aim for this sales funnel is still to make the sale.
Product-led growth companies offer free trials or free versions of their products to move straight from awareness to customer acquisition (which is usually the end sales stage for other business models). This approach encourages people to try the product first and helps reduce buyer decision friction since it offers potential clients something of value before requesting them to invest. People are both more willing to try something if you don't ask them to pay first and tend to be left with an overall better impression of your business and product.
With user experience being so valued in product-led growth companies, customer loyalty tends to improve. In turn, this leads to a more sustainable business model and helps you avoid the high costs associated with customer acquisition.
Of course, even with a business operating under a product-led growth model, finding and converting new customers is still critical. While word-of-mouth recommendations tend to have the highest conversion rates, they also have a smaller net, meaning news of your product reaches fewer people.
This is where marketing tactics like SEO come in. Search engine optimisation (SEO) supports the organic growth model of PLG companies by helping them to reach not just a wider audience but more qualified leads. These leads are people who have already expressed interest in your product, the problem it solves, or a closely related topic.
SEO involves various tactics which aim to improve how high websites and content rank on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Websites with better SERP rankings are more visible and attract more traffic. More people visiting a site leads to greater sales potential. Where SEO really stands out is its ability to attract the right people organically.
People who search for specific terms (related to your business or products) will be more likely to see your website if it ranks higher on SERPs. And you're more likely to rank well if you use appropriate SEO tactics.
Ultimately, the PLG model supports businesses focusing on what matters - the product and your users' pain points. This differs from some sales-led or marketing-led models, which can involve tactics such as cold-calling or non-targeted television adverts.
Traditional, non-targeted marketing methods allow businesses to reach a wider audience but have relatively low conversion rates. This is because they reach people who aren't necessarily dealing with the problem your product aims to solve and, thus, have no interest in the product itself. So most people who see the ad won't act on it.
While the ultimate goal of SEO is to help your website improve its rankings on the search pages, it must enhance various elements of the user experience in order to do this. Search engines reward websites that provide customers with the information they need and offer an overall positive experience.
One way SEO can help PLG companies improve their users' experience is through keyword research. It enables you to discover the interests and questions of your target audience, allowing you to answer them more effectively.
Much as PLG companies reduce the friction involved in purchase decisions by providing free trials or product versions, SEO helps businesses create and publish content that offers their target audience free and valuable information.
No matter what strategies, SEO or other, you are implementing, user experience should always play an essential role. When it comes to SEO, user experience is doubly important. Firstly, people don't stay on sites that are hard to use or otherwise provide a negative experience. Secondly, search engine algorithms are ultimately designed to provide a better user journey and so will rank websites that hit these same targets.
SEO is an umbrella term encompassing various elements, all of which aim to optimise sites for search engines.
Here, we'll look at some of these elements in a little more detail, including how they improve your SERP ranking and why they matter.
It's important to make technical improvements early in the SEO process.
For many, search engine optimisation is synonymous with adding keywords to their website. While this is part of optimising a website to increase its visibility and traffic, it's not the only part. In fact, a business that only focuses on stuffing its website with potential keywords will be penalised by search engines.
Technical SEO involves improving a website's code and architecture to ensure search engines can crawl and index it. For instance, your site's schema markup code lets search engines quickly understand your content and rank your website for relevant search queries.
The simplest way to tackle these technical elements is with the help of technical specialists. Fortunately, most SEO companies, including Big Tech Platforms, have just the tech experts you need to optimise your website (for search engine bots and people).
Did you know that conversion rates are highest when websites load in 2 seconds or under? A page that loads slowly, particularly on mobile devices, will affect your conversions and even increase the bounce rate. People tend to leave pages that don't load quickly. Therefore, you could lose potential customers to your competitors if your website loads slowly.
With so many types and sizes of devices available, a responsive design is needed to ensure all users can use your website. Technical specialists can assist with building a website that automatically adjusts according to the visitors' screen size. Furthermore, mobile's are now the source of most internet traffic. So you'll need a mobile-friendly design which is easy to navigate and improves the overall user experience.
A responsive and mobile-friendly design encourages all visitors to spend longer on your website, which boosts your SERP ranking since search engine algorithms reward this behaviour.
A website's structure, title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, keyword placement and density, image optimisation and content are all part of on-page SEO. Each of these strategies enhances user experience, which is central to product-led growth companies and raises your website's search page ranking. Below, we'll focus on the two most crucial aspects of on-page SEO: keywords and content.
When people use search engines to find products or information, they use keywords and phrases. Conducting keyword research will enable you to find these terms and determine which are the best fit for your business. We recommend considering search volume, competition, and search intent to choose the most relevant keywords.
Targeting the right keywords increases the likelihood of your website being well-ranked by search engines. Higher rankings improve organic traffic and sales potential. Research tools such as Ahrefs or Google trends will help you identify which keywords your target audience is searching.
Of course, you will likely come across some terms that don't suit your particular purpose or product during the keyword research stage. That is why it's essential to consider search intent. You can discover the intent behind various terms through the keyword and the most popular results. These should give you a better idea of what people are looking for when searching, allowing you to decide whether it fits your business and is worth targeting.
When it comes to keywords, it's not only which you choose that matters. You must also consider how you use them. If you stuff your website with relevant keywords, your content will be harder to read, and search engines will penalise you with a lower SERP ranking. So for the best results, it's important to balance keyword placement and density.
Websites require up-to-date and informative copy to improve SEO and user experience. This content raises a website's search engine rankings and attracts more visitors.
Your content must be optimised for the precise terms and phrases your intended audience uses to search. The probability of ranking better in search results and generating targeted traffic to your website rises dramatically when you provide content that responds to their search intent.
Your articles should offer insights and answer your target audience's queries. It should be expressed straightforwardly with minimal technical jargon so that it's easy to understand, especially for those who aren't knowledgeable about your industry. However, it may be worth using some industry-relevant language, especially if these are terms discovered in the keyword research phase.
It's also worthwhile having a content plan that allows you to schedule and publish regularly. Search engines favour new and well-written content because this signals that your website is active and relevant. In addition, new content gives you a chance to target recent search phrases and outperform your rivals.
Not every aspect of SEO happens directly on your website. For instance, acquiring backlinks, utilising social media platforms, and posting content on other third-party sites happen off-page and all impact how search engines rank a website.
These aspects may seem less important for a product-led growth company, but they can affect user experience.
Search engines can tell your website is reliable if it has backlinks. While backlinks are found on other websites and point back to your website, internal links direct visitors to other pertinent pages. Your site's reputation and domain rating will improve as you gain more backlinks from trustworthy websites.
A good rule of thumb is that you want quality over quantity with backlinks. A sudden influx of backlinks from irrelevant or unreliable websites may do more harm than good, potentially resulting in a lower SERP ranking, meaning it's more difficult for people to find your site. Getting these backlinks takes time. But getting assistance from professionals like those at Big Tech Platforms can ensure this procedure goes as smoothly as possible. Our team will work to build these connections naturally.
Publishing content on third-party sites or social media platforms are excellent ways to increase your backlinks while making your product and website more findable.
You wouldn't release a new product without coming up with a solid strategy. The same is true of SEO. Therefore, it's essential to devise a plan of how and when you will implement various search engine optimisation tactics. This will likely include several initial improvements as well as those that will happen gradually over time, such as with publishing new and relevant content.
Many think of SEO as a tool purely for acquiring new customers. But a well-rounded and current SEO plan should promote customer retention as well as acquisition. Search engine optimisation is ultimately centred on the needs and interests of your potential customers, with a heavy emphasis on improving user experiences as much as possible. When people have a positive experience, they are more likely to remain on your site, buy your products, and return.
Big Tech Platforms offers tailored SEO plans for product-led growth companies. We understand that your product and users are central to your PLG business. Our SEO strategy works well with these values because it helps organically grow your business by increasing visibility and attracting customers who are already interested in the problem your products solve.
Our Plans Include the Following:
We keep your users at the heart of every SEO decision we make. Choose Big Tech Platforms for help appealing to your target audience and organically growing your visibility, traffic, and sales.
PLG companies focus on creating products that solve problems and provide their users with the best possible experience, resulting in better retention and higher customer loyalty rates.
In this funnel, potential customers are moved straight from awareness to acquisition with a free trial or version of the product. SEO can be helpful in each of these stages. Firstly, since SEO is focused on user-generated search terms and content, it helps attract more qualified leads. These people are more likely to initially try your product and become paying customers because they have expressed interest in your business or problem-solving product (directly or indirectly).
Prices can vary depending on the type of SEO plan you choose. More complex or intense campaigns generally come at a higher price point. Most Big Tech Platforms clients opt for our high-velocity SEO plan, which costs approximately $4,000 ($5,000). For help deciding what type of SEO strategy is best for your business, contact us today.
SEO takes time to produce results. Generally, you'll see a significant traffic uptake around the 6-month mark. Sometimes it may take more or less time, depending on your plan, industry, and competition.
Big Tech Platforms utilises short, medium, and long-term strategies to promote initial and continued growth and conversions.
