As a tech company, you know how important it is to push the limits of possibility. You already have an all-star team and a solid product, but even so, you might struggle to outdo your competitors. 

The good news is that you don’t have to reconfigure your entire business to come out on top: You just need SEO designed for tech companies. Whether you’re a startup or a small business, you need to invest in search engine optimization (SEO) to differentiate your brand. 

In this guide, we’ll show you why tech brands need SEO, plus six steps to do SEO for tech companies.

Why Tech Companies Need an SEO Strategy

Sixty-eight percent of all online experiences start with a search engine query. If you want more search engine users to find your brand (and we bet that you do), SEO can help you show up in more of these queries. 

Let’s be honest: Users want quick answers. They likely won’t look for solutions beyond the first page of Google. If you aren’t in the first few spots, you likely won’t generate a lot of organic traffic. But with SEO for tech companies, you can craft a plan tailored to user expectations in your niche to boost traffic and sales. 

With SEO, you make strategic changes to your brand’s online presence so it shows up higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). It can also help you: 

• Increase organic traffic: Not all site traffic will convert, but the more traffic you have, the better your chances of securing more customers from organic search. 
• Improve the user experience: UX and SEO go together like peanut butter and jelly. Search engines take note when you give users a high-quality experience, and they’ll often reward you with a higher rank on the SERP. 
• Generate more leads: Improve your lead generation efforts with SEO. A solid strategy will populate your sales pipeline with more qualified leads. 
• Increase conversion rates: You won’t convert every search engine lead, but you can definitely increase your conversion rates with a solid SEO strategy that gives users what they need, when they need it. 
• Generate recurring revenue: This is especially important for SaaS and e-commerce tech companies. Bring more people to your site, hook them with high-quality content marketing, and secure ongoing predictable revenue with a smart content strategy backed by SEO. 
• Save money: Unlike pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, an SEO campaign won’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to execute. SEO is a long-term game that’s based largely on content quality and user experience. You don’t need a huge budget to pull that off, so you can spend less money while generating more results.
• Improved ad performance: Speaking of ads, did you know that SEO can improve ad performance? Organic and paid marketing campaigns work in tandem to generate more results. If you can increase the performance of your organic content, you’ll naturally see a lift in PPC performance, too.

SEO for Tech Companies: 6 Essential Steps

If you’re neck and neck with another business, investing in SEO for tech companies can help you gain an edge on the SERP. A comprehensive SEO plan will optimize your brand — both on-site and off-site — with content tailored to both search engine algorithms and human users. 

If your online marketing isn’t bringing home the bacon right now, follow these six steps to refine your SEO as a tech company.

1. Define Your Target Audience

You can’t borrow someone else’s SEO strategy, because every company’s audience is different. This will also differ based on whether you’re a B2B or a B2C tech company. 

B2C tech companies offer software or technology to everyday consumers. Brands like Rover and Vacasa cater to single decision-makers with a short sales cycle. 

B2B tech companies, on the other hand, sell solutions to other businesses. There are multiple decision-makers involved, large contract amounts, and a longer sales cycle. B2B tech companies like Adobe and MailChimp create long, intense buying funnels to accommodate the B2B sales process. 

Regardless of who you’re targeting, focus on their pain points. How do they make decisions? What solutions are they searching for online? You’ll use this information to optimize both your on- and off-page SEO efforts.

2. Conduct an SEO Audit

Conduct an SEO audit to see which changes you can make to see the biggest gains in SEO. You can hire an SEO company to do an audit for you, or your digital marketing folks can conduct it. 

To do an audit, look at: 

• Linkbuilding (internal links and backlinks)
• Keywords
• Site speed
• Off-site issues

For example, you might learn that your keyword strategy is solid, but that your website has technical SEO issues. An audit will help you save time and avoid rework, so assess your current efforts before you start over from scratch.

3. Optimize On-Page SEO

On-page SEO includes everything within your website domain. This includes the meta descriptions on your website, internal linking and anchor text, multimedia, and web design.

Keywords

Both B2C and B2B consumers search for certain terms to find tech companies like yours. If you target the right keywords, it could help you connect with more leads looking for solutions like yours. 

Try to strike a balance by finding keywords with low competition and high search volumes. When in doubt, go for long-tail niche keywords that will appeal to your specific customer persona. For example, if you’re a health care SaaS company, you might target keywords like “health care EMRs for startups” or “affordable medical billing software.” Don’t overlook local SEO keywords, either. This includes keywords like “Texas pharmacy tech software” and “Portland based EHR business.”

Start with one keyword as a main idea and then branch off from that focus keyword. If you’re a communications tech company, your main keyword might be “SMB text messaging.” From there, you can branch off and create related keywords like “automatic text message platform,” “B2B texting platforms,” or “business texting software.” This approach to keyword research makes it a cinch to brainstorm relevant keywords for SEO.

Content marketing

Content marketing campaigns are the easiest way to integrate keywords into your website content. Add blogs, white papers, and case studies to your site to increase time on site and generate more ranking opportunities. 

Don’t forget to add lots of headers, images, and bullets to make your content easier to read — both for humans and search engine bots. 

Consistency matters, too. If you’re struggling to create SEO-friendly content, you can always partner with a marketing company like Growth Machine. We can handle topic generation, strategy, content creation, optimization, and publishing — all at a regular weekly cadence that can be tough for busy marketing departments to achieve. 

Internal links

Internal links are an easy way to keep users onsite while giving more information to search engines. Link to blogs, case studies, and reviews on your site to improve SEO over time.

4. Refresh Your Technical SEO

Everyday users won’t notice what’s going on with the backend of your website. However, search engine bots rely on your website’s code to rank your website. You can easily overhaul SEO for tech companies by refreshing certain details on the backend of your website, including: 

• Site speed
• URL structure
• Page hierarchies
• Status codes

You’ll most likely need to work with a web developer or web designer to adjust these components of your website.

However, your marketing team can easily change meta details without calling the Geek Squad. If you have a content management system like WordPress, it’s easy to drop the meta details into each page. These are your page titles, headers, and meta descriptions. This information shows up on Google search and can have a tremendous impact on your rankings. 

5. Invest in Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO encompasses everything that isn’t on your website domain. This includes: 

• Social media
• Local SEO indicators, like business directory listings and customer reviews
• Linkbuilding, which includes press mentions, guest posts, and podcasts

While all of these factors are important, backlinks and social media marketing are two of the easiest components to adjust without a full-service SEO agency.

Backlinks

When you get links from authoritative websites, your website will be ranked as more authoritative by search engines. For example, if the Washington Post links to your business, that could boost your credibility with both prospects and search engines. SEO for tech companies usually involves guest posting, podcast interviews, and op-eds as a way to build more high-quality backlinks.

At the same time, low-ranking websites can hurt your authority. You’ll need to disavow spammy or low-quality links if your SEO audit shows the connection is hurting you. 

Social media

You probably have several social media channels for your business. What you might not realize is that your social media strategy can support your SEO efforts. 

It isn’t a major ranking factor, but search engine algorithms do factor in your social media presence. Post regularly to show that the lights are still on. B2B companies should post on LinkedIn and Twitter at a minimum, and B2C brands do well on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. 

6. Check Your Metrics at Least Once a Month

SEO for tech companies is anything but simple. To ensure your efforts are actually yielding results, check your Google Analytics at least once a month. You’ll see website traffic data, conversion rates, and other essential SEO metrics to fine-tune your approach over time.

Get Top SEO Help to Rank #1

It isn’t easy doing SEO for tech companies, but it’s a must-have to help your business dominate the SERPs. It comes down to following the right process to connect your business with more potential customers and subscribers. 

Follow these six tips to get better SEO results as a tech company: 

• Define your audience
• Conduct an SEO audit
• Optimize on-page SEO
• Refresh technical SEO
• Invest in off-page SEO
• Check your metrics

But if your marketing team is already struggling to keep up with your growing business, it’s okay to phone a friend for SEO help. Growth Machine’s SEO experts help tech companies master the SEO algorithm through powerful content marketing strategies.

Chat with us now to get personalized tips tailored to SEO for tech companies.