SEO strategy example

SEO strategy example for a hiring software company

A SaaS SEO strategy sets out which searches a software company should be found for, and the technical, content and authority work needed to turn those rankings into qualified trials and recurring revenue. It is owned by the head of SEO and agreed with demand generation, product marketing, web engineering and sales.

This is the SaaS version of the sEO strategy template.

Horizon: 1 year4 priorities · 10 outcomes

Use this template

What this sEO strategy template includes

ContextThe situation, the challenges to solve, and what is deliberately left out.
Current performanceWhere organic search stands today.
Keyword themesThe groups of searches to target and the page that should rank for each.
Technical prioritiesThe site issues that hold rankings back, in order of impact.
Content planThe pages to create, update or consolidate.
Links and authorityHow the site will earn links and mentions.
Priorities and measuresThree to five priorities, each with an owner, outcomes with a baseline and target, and the initiatives behind them.

Worked example

A complete sEO strategy for a fictional organization: applicant tracking and hiring software company serving employers with 50 to 1,000 employees.

Worked exampleSEO strategy

Organization	Applicant tracking and hiring software company serving employers with 50 to 1,000 employees (500 staff)
Ambition	Rank for the searches HR leaders make when they are choosing a hiring system, so organic search supplies qualified trials and new recurring revenue instead of job seeker traffic.
Horizon	1 year

Context

Where we are and what we are choosing

Annual recurring revenue is $78 million from 5,200 customers. Organic search brings 290,000 visits a month, but 61% go to 1,400 job description templates read mostly by job seekers and very small employers. Organic produces 1,150 trials and demo requests a month, of which 240 come from companies with 50 or more employees. Those convert to paid at 11% and $14,000 a year; the rest convert at 3% and $2,400, and 31% of them cancel within a year. Only 17 of 180 priority commercial terms rank on page one. Customer career sites hosted on our domain have left 290,000 closed job postings in the index.

Challenges

Traffic and revenue point in different directions. The template library draws 177,000 visits a month and converts at 0.16%, while commercial pages draw 14,000 and convert at 1.4%.
We are absent where buyers compare vendors: 8 comparison pages against 45 competitor terms with search demand, and solution pages for 3 of 24 industry and size segments.
Crawlers spend most of their time on closed job postings and 6,200 near-duplicate integration URLs, so a new commercial page takes 19 days to be indexed.

We will focus on

Commercial and comparison searches made by HR and talent leaders at employers with 50 to 1,000 employees.
Qualified trials, demo requests and new recurring revenue as the measures, with visits reported second.
Crawl efficiency on a domain shared with customer career sites.

We will not

New job description templates. The library brings 61% of visits and was the content team's main target last year. It will be consolidated from 1,400 pages to 450 and total traffic will fall.
Programmatic pages for salaries or job titles by city. They would add several hundred thousand visits from job seekers, who do not buy hiring software.
Localized German and French sites this year. 88% of recurring revenue comes from the United States and United Kingdom, so effort goes into getting those two English versions right.

Current performance

Monthly organic visits	290,000 a month: 177,000 to job description templates, 44,000 on brand terms, 55,000 to the blog and help center, and 14,000 to commercial pages. Organic sources $5.2 million of new recurring revenue a year.
Ranking keywords	212,000 keywords rank in the top 100 and 9,400 in the top 10, of which 8,100 are template terms. Of 180 priority commercial terms, 17 are on page one.
Referring domains	9,800 referring domains, most pointing at templates and customer career sites. Only 210 link to solution, comparison, integration or benchmark pages, against a median of 520 for the three vendors that outrank us.
Main weakness	Traffic is concentrated on pages for the wrong audience, and crawl is spent on 290,000 closed job postings instead of the 500 pages that sell.

Keyword themes

Theme	Search intent	Monthly searches	Target page
Hiring software by industry and company size	Commercial	38,000	24 solution pages
Competitor alternatives and comparisons	Commercial investigation	21,000	45 comparison pages
Integrations with payroll, HR systems and job boards	Commercial	16,000	380 integration pages
Hiring process problems: time to hire, structured interviews, scorecards	Informational, HR leaders	54,000	Guide hub with tools and calculators
Recruiting metrics and benchmarks	Informational, HR leaders	12,000	Annual benchmark report and metric pages
Job description templates	Informational, mostly job seekers	1,900,000	Existing library, consolidated and not expanded
Brand and product terms	Navigational	33,000	Home, pricing and login pages

Technical priorities

Return a 410 status for closed job postings on hosted career sites and remove them from sitemaps within 24 hours of closing. 290,000 of 410,000 indexed posting URLs are closed and still return a live page.
Collapse the integration directory from 6,200 filter and listing URLs to 380 canonical pages, one per integration, and block the filter parameters from crawling.
Render the 64 feature and pricing pages on the server so that plan details and feature copy are in the initial HTML.
Add reciprocal language annotations to the 2,300 page pairs that exist in United States and United Kingdom English, which currently compete with each other.
Remove 600 outdated help center articles from the index and link each remaining article to its feature page, so help articles stop outranking product pages for 140 feature terms.
Bring the share of URLs passing Core Web Vitals from 48% to 85% by deferring the chat and analytics scripts and resizing template page images.

Content plan

Action	Pages	Why
Create	21 solution pages by industry and company size	Only 3 of 24 segments have a page, and these terms convert best
Create	37 comparison and alternative pages	Buyers search 45 competitor terms and we answer 8
Update	380 integration pages	Add setup steps, data synced and customer examples to pages that are a logo and one line
Create	60 hiring process guides with scorecards and calculators	Reach HR leaders before they shortlist vendors and earn links
Consolidate	1,400 job description templates into 450	Cut crawl and maintenance cost and add links from each template to the relevant guide
Update	64 feature and pricing pages	Rewrite around the problems buyers search for, with a trial or demo step on every page

Links and authority

Approach	An annual hiring benchmark report built from anonymized, aggregated product data: time to hire, offer acceptance and source of hire by industry and company size. Integration partners list us in their directories and we list them. No paid links, and no reliance on footer links from customer career sites.
Target sites	HR and recruiting trade publications, regional business press, payroll and HR software partners' integration directories, software review sites and HR association resource pages.
Monthly goal	45 new referring domains a month, at least 20 of them pointing to solution, comparison, integration or benchmark pages.

Priorities and measures

Priority 1Owner: Head of SEO

Rank where HR leaders choose a hiring system

Buyers with 50 or more employees search by industry, by size and by competitor name, and we are on page one for 17 of the 180 terms that matter. These visits convert at nearly nine times the rate of template traffic.

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
Priority commercial terms ranking in the top 10	17 terms	75 terms	Q4 2027
Monthly non-brand organic visits to commercial pages	14K visits	28K visits	Q4 2027

Initiatives

Publish 21 solution pages and 37 comparison pages, each reviewed by product marketing and one sales lead
Rewrite the 64 feature and pricing pages around buyer search terms
Add links from the 450 remaining templates and 60 guides to the matching solution page
Rebuild 380 integration pages with setup steps and customer examples

Targets are illustrative. Adapt them to your baseline before you start.

Priority 2Owner: Director of Demand Generation

Turn organic visits into qualified trials and revenue

Four in five organic trials come from employers too small to stay: they pay $2,400 a year and 31% cancel within twelve months. The goal is more trials from companies with 50 or more employees, not more trials.

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
Organic trials and demo requests per month from companies with 50 or more employees	240 trials	420 trials	Q4 2027
New annual recurring revenue sourced from organic search	$5.2M	$7.2M	Q4 2027
Visit-to-trial conversion on commercial pages	1.4%	1.8%	Q3 2027

Initiatives

Report organic by company size and by revenue in the CRM, and stop reporting total trials on their own
Offer a demo instead of a self-serve trial to visitors on solution and comparison pages who state 50 or more employees
Test page layouts, proof and calls to action on the 20 commercial pages with the most visits
Send sales a weekly list of accounts reading comparison and pricing pages

Targets are illustrative. Adapt them to your baseline before you start.

Priority 3Owner: Technical SEO Lead

Stop spending crawl on closed job postings

Customer career sites share our domain, and closed postings outnumber every other page type many times over. Until crawlers reach new commercial pages within days, the content plan cannot pay back inside the year.

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
Closed job postings in the index	290K URLs	15K URLs	Q3 2027
Median time for a new commercial page to be indexed	19 days	3 days	Q3 2027
URLs passing Core Web Vitals	48%	85%	Q4 2027

Initiatives

Ship the closed-posting status change and sitemap removal with the career site product team
Canonicalize the integration directory to 380 pages and block filter parameters
Server-render feature and pricing pages and add language annotations to the United States and United Kingdom pairs
Remove 600 outdated help articles from the index

Targets are illustrative. Adapt them to your baseline before you start.

Priority 4Owner: Content Marketing Lead

Earn links to the pages that sell

We have 9,800 referring domains and almost none of them help a commercial page. The vendors that outrank us have more than twice as many links to their solution and comparison pages.

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
Referring domains to solution, comparison, integration and benchmark pages	210 domains	450 domains	Q4 2027
Integration partners that link to our page for their integration	60 partners	220 partners	Q4 2027

Initiatives

Publish the annual hiring benchmark report with industry cuts that trade editors can quote
Agree reciprocal directory listings with the 380 integration partners, starting with the 50 largest
Offer HR associations a free scorecard and calculator set to host on their resource pages

Targets are illustrative. Adapt them to your baseline before you start.

Blank sEO strategy template

The same structure with a prompt in every field. Copy it, or download it as a Word or Excel file.

Your planSEO strategy

Organization	[Describe your organization in a few words, with its size]
Ambition	[One sentence on where you want to be at the end of the plan]
Horizon	[How long the plan runs, for example 12 months]

Context

Where we are and what we are choosing

[Where things stand today: the facts that make this strategy necessary]

Challenges

[A problem the strategy has to solve]
[A problem the strategy has to solve]

We will focus on

[Something you are choosing to concentrate on]
[Something you are choosing to concentrate on]

We will not

[Something you are deliberately leaving out]
[Something you are deliberately leaving out]

Current performance

Monthly organic visits	[Your monthly organic visits]
Ranking keywords	[Your ranking keywords]
Referring domains	[Your referring domains]
Main weakness	[Your main weakness]

Keyword themes

Theme	Search intent	Monthly searches	Target page
[Theme]	[Search intent]	[Monthly searches]	[Target page]
[Theme]	[Search intent]	[Monthly searches]	[Target page]
[Theme]	[Search intent]	[Monthly searches]	[Target page]

Technical priorities

[A technical fix and the pages it affects]
[A technical fix and the pages it affects]
[A technical fix and the pages it affects]

Content plan

Action	Pages	Why
[Action]	[Pages]	[Why]
[Action]	[Pages]	[Why]
[Action]	[Pages]	[Why]

Links and authority

Approach	[Your approach]
Target sites	[Your target sites]
Monthly goal	[Your monthly goal]

Priorities and measures

Priority 1Owner: [Role accountable for this priority]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]

Initiatives

[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]

Priority 2Owner: [Role accountable for this priority]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]

Initiatives

[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]

Priority 3Owner: [Role accountable for this priority]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]

Initiatives

[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]

Priority 4Owner: [Role accountable for this priority]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]

Initiatives

[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]

How to adapt it

01
Split organic trials and sign-ups by the size or type of account, then follow each group through to paid conversion, contract value and first-year churn. The keyword themes to fund are the ones that produce customers who stay.
02
List every page type that lives on your domain, including the help center, app pages, changelogs and anything customers generate. Check how many of each are indexed before planning new content.
03
Group keywords by intent and name the page that should rank for each group. For most software companies the gaps are in comparison, integration and solution pages, not the blog.
04
Decide what to do with high-traffic pages that do not convert. Consolidating them will lower the traffic chart, so agree in advance that visits are no longer the headline number.
05
Set outcomes in qualified trials, pipeline and new recurring revenue, with a baseline taken from the CRM and not from the analytics tool alone.
06
Look for the data only your product has, and build the link plan around publishing it in aggregate.

How to run it

A plan only works if it is reviewed on a rhythm. This is the cadence the example assumes.

Check-in	Outcome owners update progress and confidence weekly.
Review	Priority owners review outcomes and unblock initiatives monthly.
Reset	Leadership revisits priorities and targets quarterly.

Tability keeps this cadence for you. Each priority becomes an objective, each outcome a key result with its baseline and target, and each initiative a tracked task. Owners get a check-in reminder and the plan shows what is on track.

Track this plan in Tability

Still comparing tools? See the 10 best strategy software tools.

Common mistakes

Growing traffic with templates, glossaries and tools aimed at people who will never buy, then reporting the visit count as progress.
Counting every free trial as equal when small accounts convert poorly and cancel quickly.
Ignoring help centers, integration directories and customer-generated pages that share the domain and absorb most of the crawl.
Leaving comparison pages unwritten because the product team dislikes naming competitors, while review sites answer those searches instead.

Questions, answered.

What should a SaaS SEO strategy include?

It should include a baseline split by brand, commercial and informational traffic, keyword themes grouped by intent with a target page for each, technical priorities, a content plan and a link approach. Measure it in qualified trials, demo requests and new recurring revenue, with rankings and visits as supporting figures.

Which keywords should a B2B SaaS company target first?

Start with commercial searches from buyers who are already choosing a product: your category by industry or company size, competitor alternatives and comparisons, and integrations. Volumes are small, but conversion is far higher. In this example those themes total about 75,000 searches a month and convert at nearly nine times the rate of template traffic.

How do you measure SEO for a SaaS business?

Measure it by following organic visitors through the funnel in the CRM: trials or demo requests, the share that fit your target customer, conversion to paid, contract value and first-year churn. A page that brings many trials from accounts that cancel within a year is costing support time, not adding revenue.

Should a SaaS company keep high-traffic pages that do not convert?

Keep the ones that earn links or lead readers toward the product, and consolidate the rest. The company in this example cuts 1,400 job description templates to 450, accepts lower total traffic and adds links from each remaining template to a relevant guide. It stops creating new ones.

Do comparison and alternative pages work for SaaS SEO?

Yes, because people searching a competitor's name with alternative or versus are close to a decision. If you do not publish a page, review sites and competitors answer the search for you. Keep comparisons factual and current, and have sales and product marketing review each one before it goes live.

SEO strategy example for a hiring software company

Get the Word file

What this sEO strategy template includes

Worked example

Context

Current performance

Keyword themes

Technical priorities

Content plan

Links and authority

Rank where HR leaders choose a hiring system

Turn organic visits into qualified trials and revenue

Stop spending crawl on closed job postings

Earn links to the pages that sell

Blank sEO strategy template

Context

Current performance

Keyword themes

Technical priorities

Content plan

Links and authority

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

Get the Word file

How to adapt it

How to run it

Common mistakes

Questions, answered.

What this sEO strategy template includes

Worked example

Rank where HR leaders choose a hiring system

Turn organic visits into qualified trials and revenue

Stop spending crawl on closed job postings

Earn links to the pages that sell

Blank sEO strategy template

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

How to adapt it

How to run it

Common mistakes

Questions, answered.

SEO strategy examples by industry

SEO strategy example for a regional accounting firm

SEO strategy example for an online appliance parts retailer

Related templates

SEO strategy template

Content strategy example for a time tracking SaaS company

Go-to-market strategy example for a help desk software company launching a self-serve plan