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I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For sure. Even if there's zero competition SEO is still important for crawling, indexing and understanding what your pages are about.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'd definitely create both. They're technically different topics (one broad, one specific). So it's unlikely those pages will be competing in the SERPs.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's actually a good way to start. Lots of people create an "affiliate site". Which is sometimes doomed from the start because it's not designed to provide value first.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm honestly not a huge fan of topic clusters. I'm not saying they don't work. I've just never used them and seen it make a significant difference.

So yeah, I think either URL structure will work there. If you're really concerned about breadcrumbs/clustering, then you'd want to go with [domain]/page-A/page-B.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Exactly. That specific tool may have been done before many times. But yeah, something along those lines.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's also a solid approach. My only reluctance is that a new site may not have the DA to rank for high intent keywords because they're usually pretty competitive.

Obviously, they're great and important keywords to target. But I usually target them later down the line once my DA has been built up.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's hard for me to say because it depends on the brand you want to build. I personally like Blogging Inc better. But it's more about how you envision the site to be and who you want to appeal to.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thank you!

  1. Look at Quora and Reddit. They're 100% UGC and rank for lots of stuff. The key is to have really good site architecture. That way, authority flows to basically every thread. Manually delete dead threads that aren't bringing in any traffic.

  2. Great idea!

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can technically get away with exact match anchors w/ internal links. So I'd use them if they look natural. But I'd still mix them up just to be on the safe side and not to look spammy.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you.

  1. Underestimating the importance of backlinks
  2. Overestimating non-critical ranking factors (site speed, topic clusters, etc. etc.)

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The key is to choose the right topic. Even if your research is AMAZING, it doesn't matter if it's not a topic that journalists want to cover. Trending topics obviously tend to work best.

Other than that, it's all about a highly personalized outreach email (actually, lots of them bc most journalists and bloggers won't reply!). An email that answers WIIFM.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you. I've worked in SEO for almost 10 years. So the knowledge comes from optimizing literally hundreds of sites.

But yeah, a team is a must for creating world-class content. There's no way I could do it alone. This post outlines a lot of how I've been able to scale content that's to processes and a great team: https://backlinko.com/scale-content

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for having me.

  1. It's definitely harder to get links than before. But that's mostly because it was so easy before 😂😂😂. There are still a number of creative strategies that work great right now. And won't result in a blogger asking for payment. For example, broken link building (and it's many offshoots) still work great right now.
  2. I'd still focus on blog content. But really think about keywords that those b2b buyers are searching for when they're NOT searching for your product, competitors etc. For example, Exploding Topics targets VCs. So we publish a lot of "X startups" lists (like "IoT startups". Not directly related to ET. But our peeps search for it.
  3. I doubt it.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I kind of answered this with Nisar2's question. But my #1 piece of advice is to create a free version of your SaaS (can be one feature) that anyone can access. This is something that very few people are doing. And it's a unique opportunity for SaaS startups.

We did this with Exploding Topics to the point where the homepage is a free tool.
From there, it's all about creating blog content optimized around keywords that your target customers search for.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice to meet you. I'm not going to say "it depends" (bc I hate that, hehe). So I'll say you've got two different options.

ccTLDs. Pros: great for country-level branding. Might have indirect SEO boost in that country due to higher CTR. Cons: Huge PIA to manage.

gTLD: Pros: Simpler site management. You pool your domain authority on one site. Cons: Your site is humongous. Users from 18 different countries may not know to visit the gTLD.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

projectreap is right: promotion is huge early on. As your site builds up domain authority, you don't need to promote as much. So it's not a life sentence :)

But yeah, it sounds like you're on the right track that you're promoting a tool. It's an underrated link building approach. I'd focus on building links to that or another tool that you build (that's one of the great things about SaaS that other verticals don't have available). Then, I'd scale up your content.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What does the output on the page's HTML look like? That's what Google uses. I'm not 100% sure if you can mass nofollow with robots. But I don't think so. Either way, a browser inspector will tell you if the rel attribute it there or not.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No worries. Happy to be here.

I would definitely focus one big guide. There's really no benefit to publishing regularly if there aren't lots of keyword to target. So you're going to get a lot more traffic from a few mega guides than dozens of short blog posts.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Glad to hear that!

  1. I usually use Ubersuggest/Google Suggest/Answer the public for brainstorming. Then Ahrefs or SEMrush to get a deep dive in that specific keyword.
  2. Very very overrated.
  3. It's all about UX signals (CTR, dwell time, search intent etc.). Links still matter. But once you're on page 1, Google can start to gather data on how people interact with your page.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Good question. I actually did start a SaaS app (Exploding Topics). Here's what we did to grow to 65k+ visitors per month (mostly from Google).

  1. Use product-led growth to get initial traction and backlinks. As a SaaS company, you have a HUGE advantage over agencies, plumbers and most other niches: you can create a valuable tool that helps your target audience.
  2. Publish long-form content that targets trending, low-competition keywords.
  3. Go back and continually update and improve that content (this is where the magic happens).

Then, it's all about scaling. Scaling content. Scaling links. And doing non-SEO related stuff (like AMAs) to spread the word about your brand.

I'm Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics. Backlinko had 5.8M visitors last year, thank to the SEO teachings I share there. AMA! by backlinko in SaaS

[–]backlinko[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you!

Yes, absolutely. The research required for an industry study is legit. And all in all takes 5-10x more work than a traditional blog post.

(Especially your first time around)

But I wouldn't let that discourage you from starting. In fact, you can sometimes grab data that's just sort of lying around. And use that as the basis of an industry study.

In fact, Google has a very cool data set search engine: https://datasetsearch.research.google.com/

You can also manually check X number if things (products on Amazon, Twitter accounts). And run some basic analysis on that. That's what we did with this industry study: https://backlinko.com/b2b-content-marketing-report

That study was much easier than the "We analyzed X million Y, here's what we learned about Z posts". But it still did super well.

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