If you are a SaaS company, you are probably struggling with marketing. This is where a fractional CMO is an option worth exploring. If you are heading in that direction, the fractional CMO you hire must focus on SEO.
A fractional CMO is an executive who works part-time to lead a company’s in-house marketing team. This role takes care of the usual responsibilities of a Chief Marketing Officer for businesses that do not require a full-time position.
The reason for hiring one is simple – SEO is the most cost-effective marketing tactic for SaaS companies.
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What Should A Part-Time CMO Know About SEO?
Because SEO is so important to the success of any digital marketing strategy, there are many elements to consider. If you are hiring a fractional CMO to get your SaaS business the exposure it needs to succeed online, there are some key SEO factors they should have extensive knowledge about.
Here is a list of the most important of those factors.
SEO Basics
A fractional CMO should have a strong understanding and knowledge related to the basics of SEO.
This would include, but not be limited to keywords, meta tags and descriptions, backlinks, and all other on-page and off-page SEO tactics that are still current today.
Long-Term Effort
The thing about SEO is it is not something you can just set and forget. It requires long-term attention to meet many different changes as time passes. Search terms change which requires updating keywords.
SEO doesn’t suddenly show results. On average, it can produce some results in 2 to 4 months but major results don’t show until the 8 to 12 month mark.
You Earn The Good Links
Although search engines will still bump up the rankings of websites and web pages with lots of links pointing to them, they have to be a certain type of link. That’s right. There are good links and there are bad links.
The best ones are from websites that are not easy to get links from. These are typically major media outlets and well-known, influential bloggers. The only way to earn links from these sources is to create good quality content that is worth the link.
Before We Go On, A Bit About Those Bad Links
Bad links will hurt any SEO efforts. Think of a bad link as taking a step or two backward in the journey to better ranking.
A good fractional CMO will recognize bad links early in the game and will either not use them or not allow them to link to your content. Also, broken links are as bad as well, bad links. So is having far too many links per page.
The CMO you hire should have a plan in place that will involve checking links regularly to locate bad and broken ones with steps in place on how to deal with them.
And…Let’s Talk About Implied Links
Here’s a twist to your average linking strategy. Google is focusing more on brand mentions and citations. This is probably because these two elements are not easy to manipulate to game the system.
So, what this means is that although your company may get a mention at a high-ranking website without a backlink, Google may just look at that mention as if it were a backlink. This implied link strategy is fast becoming an effective SEO tool.
Keep It In-House
Although you are technically outsourcing when you hire a fractional CMO for your SaaS company, because they are under contract to work for you for a set number of hours, your fractional CMO can build an in-house SEO team or work with an existing one.
That way, once the contract is up, you still have the benefit of a team in your company working on SEO.
Include All Social Media Platforms
SEO works best when people know about your products or services. This is why it is so important to share new content on other media platforms to gain a wider reach.
Remember, not everyone in your target audience will know about the blog on your website. SaaS fractional CMOs would be able to use social media channels to link new content and funnel traffic to your website.
It will introduce new prospects to your company and prospects become customers.
SEO Costs Money
There is no standard rate for SEO as it varies from application to application. What one company spends on SEO may be more or less than what another company spends.
Where a fractional CMO comes in handy in this case is that they can work to get the most out of SEO.
This methodology saves your company in the long run and brings you big-budget results without you having to spend that much.
Mobile-Friendliness
Google has been recognizing mobile-friendly websites for some time now. A fractional CMO should have a strong background in how to reach potential customers through their smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
Adopting a mobile-first strategy could be part of such a plan.
Conversion Rate Optimization Is SEO
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is now considered a key component of SEO. CRO is what turns traffic to your website, which found it through SEO, into customers.
A fractional CMO would be wise to build an SEO strategy with CRO as the foundation. After all, when prospects convert to customers, your business benefits.
Automation For Marketing
Another interesting branch of SEO comes from automated marketing. It could be as simple as an automated email getting delivered to the inboxes of new leads.
In those emails would be links to web pages or blog posts on your website creating more traffic.
Everybody Benefits From SEO
This is one of the hardest things small and medium-sized businesses do not understand. Your customer base is much larger than you think and to reach them better, you have to have a presence online.
That online presence also has to have SEO tactics incorporated into it so that you can reach your target audience. Every kind of business or service would be more successful if they used SEO.
Final Thoughts On A Fractional CMO – Vital For SEO
Considering that SEO is vital to the success of a SaaS company website, it makes sense that a fractional CMO would incorporate SEO as a large part of any digital marketing strategy. It also makes sense that through that focus on SEO, a website will increase in ranking in search results.
If you are considering hiring a fractional CMO to help your business increase its online exposure, then ensure that the one you hire has SEO as a major component of their marketing plan.
Have you ever hired a part-time CMO for your business? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
She has 30+ years of experience in marketing/advertising with 12 years of experience in content marketing, social media, blogging, and SEO.
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Wow, I never looked at this topic from that angle before! Your unique perspective has given me a fresh understanding, and I appreciate the effort you put into breaking down complex concepts. Looking forward to reading more from you!
Hi Miranda, thank you. Yes, it is amazing what a fractional CMO can do for a small or medium size business. Thanks for coming by and have a great weekend.