Why Your SEO Isn’t Driving Demos, Trials, Or Revenue

If you’re trying to do SEO for a SaaS, chances are you’ve landed on this article because you’re not seeing any results.

Whether:

• SEO feels like it’s taking way too long

• Your content isn’t converting despite investing tons of resources into it

• Your competitors always seem to outrank you

You’re not alone.

When I polled 50 SaaS marketers, 40% said that their biggest pain point with SEO is that it takes too long to see results from SEO.

While that may be true, SEO is still one of the most effective long-term growth channels for B2B SaaS companies.

It just requires the right approach. 

Source: Bentega

If you’re struggling to generate signups, demos, or revenue from SEO, this article will help you find and fix the gaps in your strategy. 

I’ll tell you why SaaS companies struggle with SEO (from personal experience) and what you should do to correct them.

Why Most SEO Campaigns for SaaS Go Wrong

SEO for SaaS is easy to get wrong.

It’s probably the easiest industry to botch an SEO strategy in. 

It’s not like local SEO, which is pretty rinse-and-repeat.

With SaaS SEO, you have to:

• Avoid siloing SEO from your other marketing channels

• Consider the full audience journey and how users research your brand

• Know how to give a mini-demo with each article you create

Some of this has to do with SEO.

Others have to do with conversion rate optimization (CRO).

I’ve found it to be a mix of both.

If your website is targeting irrelevant keywords, then it’s going to bring irrelevant organic traffic.

Organic traffic that doesn’t lead to conversions.

And if you avoid conversion rate optimization, you’re not taking advantage of users while they’re actively on your site.

I’ll go through most of these throughout this article, but the common culprits are usually:

• Lack of audience research

• No keyword research or SEO strategy

• No sales enablement content

• No social proof

• Lack of direct CTAs

• Focusing way too much on “SEO content”

• Overprioritizing keyword rankings

Problem #1: Lack of Sales Enablement Content and Conversion Rate Optimization

A main reason your SEO isn’t driving demos doesn’t even have to do with SEO.

It has to deal with conversion rate optimization and a lack of sales enablement content.

While this is strictly CRO-related, I think it’s a common issue most brands ignore when they’re doing SEO.

A user looking into your product wants to see what it has done for others. 

Even if you’re bringing in qualified traffic from SEO, what good is it going to do you if you’re not convincing users that your solution is right for them?

So when you build out sales enablement content, make sure you have:

• Easily accessible CTAs

• Clear CTAs that tell leads how to proceed/what they’re getting

• Competitor comparison pages to educate those “most-aware” users

• Pricing information (if possible)

• Testimonials sprinkled throughout the site

• Mentions of brands you’ve worked with

• Options for video or interactive demos

• Multiple CTA options

Having some type of sales enablement content will give your website visitors an idea of what your product can do for them.

It’s all about showing them the value of your solution and how it solves their problems.

Once they understand your product’s value, then they’ll take the next step of signing up or requesting a demo.

But you have to make that process of converting as easy as possible for them.

Bonus Tip: When you take this approach, you’re treating your site as a landing page. Not just for SEO, but all other channels that can help drive traffic to your website. So consider the full journey, not just how they found you through SEO.

Problem #2: Lack of an SEO and Content Strategy

The worst culprit here is a lack of a clear SEO strategy. 

It’s more common than you might think, too. 

Source: Andrew Holland

It’s exactly what we saw with that poll earlier in this post.

Issue #1 was the time it took to see results.

Issue #2 was a lack of a clear SEO strategy.

And this is coming from in-house SaaS marketers.

They know they should do SEO, yet they don’t know how to structure an exact strategy.

And with SEO, there are a few different areas you can focus on.

Technical SEO, content, and/or link building.

If you avoid starting with an SEO or content marketing strategy, how do you know which area needs your attention most?

Like if:

• Your site barely has any authority, you should prioritize link-building

• You’re having crawling/indexing issues, you should prioritize technical SEO

• Your user and content experience is completely out of whack

• Your site is authoritative, but your content still isn’t ranking

An audit will tell you how to exactly structure your SEO strategy.

While I’d love to explain how to run an audit, I have this article here that contains 225+ ways to audit your site for SEO.

But while you might be publishing endless content, there’s a chance it’s hurting your SEO and doing absolutely nothing for actual conversions.

For SEO, Google has metrics in place to measure the quality of your content across your website.

Including user engagement metrics like bad clicks, good clicks, clicks, last longest clicks and site-wide impressions.

If you’re pumping out low-quality content that’s not engaging visitors, you risk having your site devalued or, in an extremely rare case, receiving a manual penalty.

And what would your users think about that content?

Does it leave a lasting impression?

Does it help get users interested in your brand? 

What’s the point of creating this content if it’s not doing anything for you?

Your traffic increases, but it’s not the kind of visitors you want.

Luckily, fixing your content and SEO strategy is easier than it seems.

It all starts with audience research.

And having an actual SEO strategy.

Knowing who you’re writing for and how you’ll reach them.

Understanding:

• Their search intent

• How they want to consume information

• What they’re tired of

Once you have that, you’ll have a better understanding of:

• How to tie your audience research with keyword research

• The core conversion pages you need to build out

• How to drive organic traffic that actually matters

This is what guides your SEO strategy.

Problem #3: No Content Around Conversion Intent Topics

The biggest mistake I see SaaS businesses make when it comes to SEO is focusing too much on high-volume keywords.

If you want SEO to work for you, you can’t just aimlessly create content.

You have to target keywords that actually have conversion intent.

This means finding target keywords along your audience’s buyer’s journey where your site can act as a touchpoint for them.

So whether they’re:

• Problem-aware: The user understands they have a problem but don’t know their options for fixing it. We also call this pain point SEO. It involves finding topics that act as pain points for our audience where we can plug in our product as a solution. 

• Solution-aware: The user understands there’s a solution out there, but maybe they don’t know the specific solution type they need. For this type of content, we just need to demonstrate to the user why our specific type of solution is the best option for their situation.

• Most-aware: The user now understands what type of solution they need and is considering the best products within that category. This type of content acts as our final sales pitch. What can we do to influence their final decision? They already know what type of product they need; it’s just a matter of showing how you’re the best value over your competition. 

If you want your content to work (and drive leads), it should be aligned with these three categories. 

These categories almost act as search intent, too.

They give you an idea of the knowledge level of the person who’s reading your content.

Trust me, a “what is ___ software” will only take someone out of your article.

In most cases, this type of content is going to boil down to:

• Category content: This type of content boils down to the “best [your software’s use case] of 2025. These pages convert extremely well. Make sure you create multiple articles for these. They should contain all the different variations for your product’s use cases and industries served. Ex: Best Employee Management Tools of 2025.

• Competitor alternatives: These pages help capture hesistancy points from your audience. Usually when they’re actively researching new solutions or are existing customers. Maybe they didn’t like the price or features, but this is your chance to position your SaaS as the next best alternative to that solution.

• Competitor comparisons: This content has you matching up directly against your competitors. This shows searchers the exact difference between the two solutions. You’re dealing with a most-aware/solution-aware audience, and now we’re just giving them ammunition to make their final decision. These pages work great if you have an established brand and operate in a very competitive space.

• Pain-point-led topics: These will likely be your MoFu-style long-tail keywords to go after. The idea behind these keywords is to target pain point searches coming from your audience, which we can use to position your SaaS as a main solution. If you’re a sales-focused SaaS, you could target something like: “How to improve lead generation for a marketing agency.”

Problem #4: You’ve Ignored Link Building

If you’ve ignored link building, your SEO is going to underperform.

How much you need to prioritize link building depends entirely on your site:

• New site: Link building is a must

• Existing site with a decent link portfolio: Link building can still be considered, but it won’t be as much of a priority

But in most cases, link-building will help.

It’s still a major pillar of SEO.

But, if you’re a newer site, in this case, a startup, your content is going to underperform without it.

In fact, on average, the top search result on Google has 3.8 times more backlinks than those ranked second to tenth.

Search engine algorithms give priority to sites with more quality and relevant links.

It’s like searching on Google Maps for a restaurant to try. 

Would you rather try:

• The restaurant with 3.5 stars and only 12 reviews

• The restaurant with 4.7 stars and 1,000+ reviews

This is how search engines see your site when you have legitimate and relevant links.

It proves your website is trustworthy and worth showing to searchers.

So, if your link profile is light, Google likely doesn’t trust your site enough to send traffic there.

And without Google’s trust, you’ll end up lower down on the search engine results page.

Link building doesn’t have to be this mystic beast, either.

There are actually some fairly easy opportunities you can go after:

• Finding unlinked brand mentions of your product/brand/employees

• Finding broken links on competitors’ websites

• Redirecting broken backlinks

• Creating link assets: You don’t build links here; you’re earning links. Use statistic articles to naturally attract links without having to do any outreach

• Guest posting (legitimate outreach-based link building, focusing more on PR over SEO)

• Doing directory building. This is probably the most spammed SEO tactic out there, but there is some value in building profiles on legitimate directories where your audience frequents 

• Get senior leadership more involved with quote submissions like HARO and Help a B2B Writer

• Maybe consider link swaps. Spammy if done wrong, but helpful if done right. Basically, find other similar websites where you can agree to swap links with each other.

• Paid link acquisition: Just be careful with this one

Those will be the easiest opportunities to go after, but you might also want to consider:

• Digital PR: Hardest to execute, but comes with the most value

• Industry Reports: These take a lot of research, but will give you far more organic link value than your link assets

Either way, you can’t ignore link building.

And you do have options available for easy link building if you want to get things moving for your website. 

Pro tip: internal linking is just as important as link building. Your internal links will help distribute the equity the links are bringing to your site.

Problem #5: You’re Not Creating Product-Led Content

One of the biggest mistakes for creating pain points and job-to-be-done content is avoiding mentioning your product.

The whole point of content marketing for a SaaS is to showcase your product as a solution.

Yes, we want to create SEO-focused content, but that content can’t just be for SEO.

We’re putting the “marketing” into content.

We want readers to consider using your product.

And this will be your best opportunity to give them a mini demo based on your product’s use case. 

When you avoid mentioning your product, readers won’t consider it as a potential solution to their problem.

They’ll just consider the other solutions you provided.

And then leave your site without a lasting impression.

So, when creating content, always consider:

• How relevant is this topic to your product? 

• Is there an opportunity to give a mini demo for this topic?

• Can you complement this topic with a video?

This could look like:

• Employee listening tool for call centers: How to improve call center efficiency

• Marketing automation platform: How to automate workflows for marketing

• Supply chain planning software: How to design a supply chain

All of these topics are directly related to each product and give you an opportunity to tie in your product directly. 

Bonus tip: You have to be aggressive using product images here. Don’t just let it be a wall of text. Explain how it works and show readers directly how they can use your product.

Problem #6: You Don’t Have Any Product Pages

A huge missed opportunity for SaaS businesses is when they don’t have any product pages built out.

I’m personally the biggest fan of product pages.

They’re my favorite pages to update.

The reason for that is because they have 2 benefits:

1. They educate users about your product

2. They can capture searches from people looking for your specific product

If you neglect product pages, you’re losing out on meaningful search traffic and failing to educate users on your site who are curious about your product.

But you have to optimize these pages, right?

This means:

• Including specific product features on each page

• Blending feature and benefit language (don’t lean too hard into either one)

• Including product-related images and not stock photography

• Not overly optimizing your page. Go for a mix of 75% UX and 25% SEO

• Having a clear CTA right at the top of your page

• Making them easy to access within the navigation

This sounds much harder than it actually is.

If anything, your product page is probably one of the easiest pages to optimize on your site.

It takes very little time and can lead to some solid results.

Low leverage/high reward.

Problem #7: You Haven’t Done Any Audience Research

This really is problem #1 and probably the most common issue for failed SEO campaigns.

If you don’t know who you’re targeting, how do you expect anyone to convert?

This is not only for planning content topics that resonate with your ICP but also for actual writing that they can resonate with.

So, if you want your SEO to work, you have to start with audience research.

It’ll help you understand user intent much better and guide the rest of your content strategy.

You can’t just create thought leadership-style content and call it a day.

“So when someone is searching for something like “what is email marketing,” how would you know if that person is a director of marketing or maybe a co-founder? Or could it be a college student looking for a definition? It’s really hard to figure out who and what are the exact topics that my buyers are specifically searching for, unless you spend time in customer research, which you can do in different ways. So customer research, for example could involve customer interviews. You know looking at customer reviews and gaining insights out of it. Talking to your own teams who are facing those customer personas on a daily basis and supports sales success. The idea is to use all of those search intent insights and then turn them into an SEO content creation process, which still involves keyword research but doesn’t abandon it.”- Usman Akram, Consultant at Omniscient Digital

I usually recommend:

• Speaking with your demo team:

• Interviewing your actual customers:

• Using third-party review sites:

• Checking out subreddits where your audience frequents:

Once you have those insights, you can then tie them into a proper content strategy.

You can then structure your content based on: 

• Which topics have direct conversion-intent

• What topics are most important to your ICP

• Which topics have the least amount of competition

Use your audience research throughout the process.

If you’re proud of your content, then distribute it across your other marketing channels.

Content doesn’t have to just be for SEO.

And it all starts with understanding the audience that would benefit most from your content and solution.

How to Increase Demos, Trials, and Revenue From SEO

If you want SEO to work for you, you have to avoid the common problems I’ve listed above.

Like I said before, SEO can be a solid marketing channel for you, but only if you have your pieces put in place.

You have to:

• Figure out your audience

• Plan out an SEO-driven content strategy

• Focus on targeting those high-intent keywords

If you ignore the above advice, chances are your SEO efforts are going to struggle.

Take this from someone who has exclusively worked with SaaS companies as a consultant for the past few years.

These are the problems that hinder almost all of the websites I audit.

If you want to start your SEO on the right path, focus on what I mentioned above.