16 SaaS Content Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2024

We’ve been in SaaS content marketing for 7+ years and worked with a number of well-known SaaS companies. We are also committed to creating one of the best SaaS content marketing blogs to inspire you.

We’ve tried many different SaaS content marketing strategies to see what works and what doesn’t.

Over the years, we’ve worked with SaaS companies such as Monday.com, Pandadoc, GetVoip and many others. For instance, we helped our client Expandi, LinkedIn automation tool, to transform their blog into a powerful lead-generation tool and get from 0 to $7M ARR.

But of course, our journey as a SaaS content marketing agency wasn’t always easy. We had to learn and grow to make sure we always provide excellent service to SaaS companies that work with us.

My goal is to share all these insights with you to save you time so that you don’t have to go through trial and error as we did.

In this article, I’ve gathered the 16 most common content marketing mistakes that I see SaaS companies make, as well as tips to help you with creating content.

What is SaaS content marketing?

SaaS content marketing is a long-term strategy for attracting and converting target audience through creation and distribution of relevant SaaS content.

Your content marketing strategy starts with defining your target auidence and your goals. SaaS content marketing is about educating your potential customers and providing value for them, while at the same time positioning your SaaS company as an expert in their eyes.

Although there are many content distribution channels, at Quoleady we focus on SaaS blog as your core. Your blog is a place where you can post evergreen content and with the right strategy reach your ideal customers.

We’ve tried different keyword research strategies until we came up with a SaaS content marketing strategy that’s brought the best ROI for our clients.

How is our content marketing strategy different? We focus specifically on the BOFU keywords. This content format is aimed at people with a high-purchasing intent, your potential customers who are ready to buy.

Here are some examples of such content:

1. Listicles – These articles cover keywords such as “marketing automation tools”, ”email marketing software”,and so on. They allow you to compare different apps and position your SaaS brand as the best solution to customer’s pain points.
2. Alternatives – The target audience for this type of blog posts are people who are not satisfied with your competitor’s product and are looking for an alternative. For example, if you’re new in project management, it can be difficult to position yourself as “the best project management tool”, but you have higher chances of ranking for keywords like “Trello alternatives” or “Asana alternatives” to actively engage with people looking for other options.
3. Comparisons – If you’re a new SaaS company and don’t have brand recognition yet, you can use your competitors to get you traffic and leads. This approach made all the difference for our clients. Here’s how. If you have brand new project management software you can write an article titled “Trello vs Asana” where you compare these tools and mention your product. You can emphasize the features that make your product different and explain for which audience it could be a better fit and why.

We used this content marketing strategy for our client FullSession, a behavioral analytics software tool. We took advantage of their competitor HotJar and helped them rank for the keyword “HotJar alternatives”. This strategy brought them 500 leads with only 16 articles in 4 months. You can read the whole case study here.

How to avoid content marketing mistakes?

The best way to save yourself time and effort is to learn from the experience of other SaaS marketing agencies. Otherwise, the only way to learn and grow is through error and trial and that can be very frustrating, especially when you don’t have anyone to point you to the marketing mistakes you keep repeating.

If I was new to SaaS marketing, I’d use every chance I get to talk to experts and mentors and get their opinion about my marketing campaigns.

I’d probably hire a SaaS content strategist to give me guidelines and help me create a reliable game plan.

Now, for those that’ve been in SaaS marketing for a while, but aren’t satisfied with the results they’re getting, I’d suggest to work on SaaS content audit to see what’s causing the problem.

Sometimes it’s about minor issues that can easily be fixed and you can leverage your existing resources by updating old content.

If you need a hand with your content, we’re here to help. Book a free call and let’s see how we can streamline your marketing efforts.

16 SaaS content marketing mistakes

Over the years of working with our clients and talking with other marketers, I found that these are the most common marketing mistakes to avoid:

      1. Not having a strategy in place

Some people believe that creating a content strategy takes a lot of time, but it actually saves you time in the long run.

It’s what I often see. People focus on chasing big fat keywords, but they don’t get the desired result. They aren’t getting traffic or leads. Focusing on search volume and keyword difficulty is often not enough.

I suggest taking a strategic approach and thinking about keywords that could bring you the best results with less effort. At least that’s what we do for our clients.

Here’s how we do it: Instead of chasing search volume, you should focus on search intent and try to target audience at the bottom of the sales funnel.

The best SaaS marketing strategy is focusing on high-intent content because people who are making high-intent queries are at the end of their buyer’s journey and ready to convert.

When doing keyword research for SaaS, you can recognize keywords with high-purchase intent. Those people are either looking for alternatives to a tool, comparisons (X vs Y), listicles (X tools for something) or how-to queries.

     2. Not identifying a clear goal

Before you start creating content, you should be clear on what exactly you want to achieve with each blog post. Without a clear goal, it’s hard to measure your success.

Do you want to grow brand awareness?

Do you want to educate your audience?

Increase customer lifetime value?

Or do you actually want more sales?

Many SaaS companies believe that their goal is to get organic traffic to their website. However, when we hop on a call with our clients we discover that they actually want more sign-ups.

It may seem similar, but the approach to these two goals is completely different. Unfortunately, companies often get stuck with content that brings a lot of traffic and boosts visibility, but it doesn’t convert for some reason.

That’s why it’s so important to identify your goals so that you don’t end up following the wrong objectives.

Let me illustrate this with an example. For our client Ringblaze, a virtual phone system, our content marketing goal was sign ups. As a result of our work, we managed to increase blog traffic from 0 to 50K and bring 650 quality leads, with only 20 blog posts. In this case study, I documented content strategy we used to get them there.

      3. Publishing content inconsistently

Your blog is just like any other social media channel – LinkedIn, Facebook or Google. If you snooze, you lose!

Stop publishing content and it’ll be difficult for you to get back on track when you decide to continue.

On the positive side, if you publish content regularly no matter what, you’ll reap many benefits in the long run. Google aims to favor websites that create content regularly.

It creates a compound effect, increases your domain authority and helps you position yourself as an industry expert.

The best tip I can give you is to first create a comprehensive content strategy and then transform it into a content calendar and make an effort to stick to it and create content regularly.

      4. Deciding that X among of articles is going to be enough for your blog

This could have been possible 10 years ago when search engine optimization hasn’t been such a big thing. But today, this approach won’t get you the traffic and leads you want, especially if you’re new in the industry. Ignoring SEO trends won’t get you far.

FYI, our established clients are publishing 30-60 blog posts every month. EVERY MONTH!

They’re already positioned on search engines and they have high domain authority, but they’re still producing new content to stay at the top of Google results.

The competition is insane, especially in the SaaS world. Try to find your blue ocean and once you start producing content keep it consistent and publish regularly. Treat it like any other social media – if you stop posting, you’ll be kicked to the curb in a blink of an eye.

      5. Expecting results overnight

There’s no such thing as overnight success.

SEO content for a SaaS blog, just like any other marketing campaign, takes time. You should wait for at least 6 months to see the user metrics and get the results and only then you can tell whether your SEO strategy is working.

On a positive note, SEO-based content has a long-lasting effect. It can bring you leads for months and years, if you update it on a regular basis as we do for our clients and, of course, keep your SaaS content production process consistent.

      6. Not updating older content

Another marketing mistake is focusing only on creating new content and forgetting to update your old content. Updating your old blog posts can be a goldmine of traffic if done right!

Here’s what you have to do:

• Check if the article is long enough (SurferSEO has recommended length)
• Check the SurferSEO score (You should aim for at least 70, but check the suggestions to see what you can do to increase the score)
• Optimize for the featured snippet in Google
• Update a year in the title
• Add relevant CTAs through the article
• Make sure that all information is accurate and still relevant
• Update your articles with new information and insights
• Add internal links to your old blog posts to boost organic traffic
• Do a keyword gap analysis to discover additional topics you haven’t covered.

      7. Prioritizing external link building over internal

Everyone understands the importance of external backlinks, but internal linking is often underestimated. However, it can significantly help boost your rankings.

When publishing a new article, you can leverage your most successful blog posts that are already ranking high on Google. Find those posts and add a link that’s pointing to your latest post.

On the other hand, you can also use internal links to boost your older blog posts that may be getting less traffic than before.

      8. Building links to thin content

Part of your content marketing strategy should be carefully choosing where you want to build links to.

There’s no point in building links to a blog post before you brush it up.

No backlinks will save bad content that doesn’t provide value for potential customers. Only when it’s polished can you build links. Otherwise, it’s just a waste of money.

Remember that you’re creating content for your target audience, and not only for Google. You should cover your topics in-depth, provide actionable insights and make sure your article is more detailed than one of your competitors.

      9. Using complicated language and long sentences

If your blog posts are too complicated, people will lose interest and go elsewhere. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for your intended audience to read and understand. Use simple language that your target market understands.

I suggest using everyday language and a conversational tone of voice. Avoid long sentences and long paragraphs. Keep it simple and concise. Add a lot of white space to make it easier to read.

And don’t forget to make your content skimmable! A lot of people don’t have time to go through the whole article, they just skim it to find information that interests them.

The best way to make your article skimmable is to add a lot of headings that stand out and attract readers attention.

You can read this article for more tips on SaaS content writing.

      10. Not sticking to a recommended article length

Many surveys have shown that longer articles have a tendency for a better ranking on search engines. This is not always the case, but if you notice that the top results for your target keyword are long reads, there’s less chance of ranking with a short article.

Simply put, longer blog posts can cover more topics in detail and they can rank for multiple keywords. If you’re not sure what the ideal content length for a given topic is, you can use SEO tools like Surfer SEO and check their recommendations.

      11. Not adding the keywords properly

It’s not enough to do keyword research, you have to make sure that you use the right amount of keywords and that you use them in the right places. Keywords are one of the main things that determine SEO success.

Make sure to add your main keyword to headings, title tag and URL slug (when it comes to the URL slug, keep it clean and short).

Also, you should use the keywords throughout the text but make sure that they sound natural and that they’re well-blended. However, do not exaggerate with your keywords, because you also want to avoid keyword stuffing.

      12. Not adding CTA throughout the article

You’ve done everything right: you provided a lot of value, you educated your audience and you mentioned your SaaS product. If people are coming and going without a sign up, consider reviewing your call to actions throughout the blog post.

Most of the time it’s not enough to talk about your SaaS product, you have to explicitly say to your audience what you want them to do, what their next step should be. Make sure it’s easy for your potential customers to sign up from the blog. Don’t make them jump through the hoops.

Don’t wait until the end of the article to add a CTA. You can add a few CTA throughout the article. If you want to be sure your target audience notices them you can add banners in branded colors that stand out from the rest of the article.

Decide what’s the goal of your blog post and then stick to it when adding CTAs. Whether you want people to subscribe to your newsletter, sign up for a free trial or book a call with you.

      13. Not building topical authority 

What I see often is SaaS companies trying to create content on many different topics, instead of focusing on one niche and going in-depth. And then they’re wondering why the results are lacking.

If you want to establish topical authority, you have to make your focus very narrow. Google will prefer the results of a tomato expert rather than a veggie expert when displaying results about “plum tomatoes”

Narrowing your focus will not only help you with search engine ranking, but it’ll also help you position yourself as an industry expert and a go-to company in your niche.

      14. Building low-quality backlinks 

When it comes to link building, my #1 rule is: focus on quality, not on quantity.

Buying links from content farms and random online magazines holds no value, it’s a waste of money. You won’t get much SEO value from a platform that writes about everything, from crypto to health to tech. Platforms like these don’t give you social proof either.

Instead, when choosing a platform for link building, focus on these three things:

1. The platform and the article you link from should be relevant to your blog post
2. It should have consistent traffic (no sudden ups and downs)
3. You should strive for a high-domain authority website

Read this article to find out how to choose websites to build backlinks.

      15. Fearing review platforms (Capterra, G2)

People often give up on their best-converting keywords because they see big platforms like G2 or Capterra, AlternativeTo are already ranking for those keywords and they think they can’t outperform them. Moreover, they end up paying those platforms for displaying them in their lists.

Well, I’ve got good news for you. We’ve outperformed them so many times! Don’t be afraid to go after your best-converting keywords.

I’m talking about keywords like “LinkedIn automation tools”, “HotJar alternatives” etc.

The secret is to write an unbiased and detailed review of each tool, their pros and cons and comparisons. Yes, review platforms may have strong domain authority but most of the times they feature user-generated set of reviews that you have to scroll through in order to find what you need. The blog article, on the other hand, contains an unbiased opinion – the verdict based on comprehensive analysis and comparison. It’s your chance to stand out and create content that will really help your target audience.

      16. Not getting SaaS content marketing expert help

In the SaaS community, the competition is insane and digital marketing trends tend to change quickly. It’s very hard to stay on top of them, especially if you don’t have a whole in-house content marketing department.

Why waste time educating yourself about SaaS content in general, when you can have an expert help you with your further steps? When it comes to strategizing your content marketing I strongly advise to at least consult with a SaaS content marketing expert in order to start moving in the right direction. It would be a shame to waste all the money and effort just because the path you’ve chosen wasn’t correct.

Getting help will prevent you from making SaaS content marketing mistakes and you’ll save yourself a lot of time so that you can focus on more important things, like developing your SaaS product and serving existing customers.

Summary

In content marketing, you can either choose to learn from others or to learn from your own mistakes. Based on the experience with our B2B SaaS clients, I’d say it’s more effective to save yourself some time and skip the whole trial-and-error process.

One of our clients has been trying to get into Google featured snippet for their important keywords for months. After a couple of emails and our consulting, they got what they wanted.

I encourage you to hire a consultant, a strategist, or simply outsource the whole process to a SaaS SEO agency. We’ve worked with a number of SaaS companies and come up with strategies that bring our clients the desired result. And it’s safe to assume that you want the same: more leads.

If that’s something you’re looking for, book a free consultation and let’s talk about how we can get you there.

Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn if you have any questions.