In the early days of a software startup, the founder encounters a peculiar problem. The product may work beautifully, the website may look professional, and the pricing may be competitive. Yet almost nobody visits. The founder opens Google Search Console and sees a handful of impressions, perhaps a few clicks, and an uncomfortable amount of empty space. Somewhere in the world, thousands of people are experiencing the problem the software solves, but Google has little reason to introduce them to an unfamiliar website.
The obvious solution appears to be search engine optimization. The founder researches a popular keyword, discovers that thousands of people search for it every month, and publishes an article targeting that phrase. If the product is a CRM, the keyword might be "best CRM software." If it is a project management tool, the target might be "project management software." The reasoning seems sound: find a phrase that attracts substantial traffic, write an excellent article, and wait for visitors to arrive.
But the founder has unknowingly entered a competition against companies that have been publishing content for years. The search results may be dominated by established software vendors, review platforms, and publications with enormous collections of backlinks. Even an excellent new article can struggle to become visible when the competing websites have accumulated years of authority.
The mistake is not that the founder chose a topic nobody cares about. It is that the founder chose a market for attention that the startup is not yet equipped to win.
There is another approach. Instead of competing for the most popular searches in the software category, a new SaaS company can identify smaller, more specific queries that established competitors have neglected. These are often called long-tail keywords, and they can provide a more realistic starting point for organic customer acquisition.
The opportunity becomes clearer when we examine the early growth of GreenPal, a company that learned to stop competing for the obvious search terms and began pursuing narrower opportunities instead.
The Startup That Couldn't Compete for the Obvious Keyword
GreenPal is a marketplace connecting homeowners with lawn care professionals. Although it is not a conventional B2B SaaS subscription product, its early search strategy offers a useful lesson for software founders entering competitive markets.
In an account published by Buffer, GreenPal cofounder Gene Caballero described how the company initially struggled to acquire customers. The founders had spent considerable time building the product and assumed that attracting users would become easier once the application existed. Instead, they discovered that customer acquisition required an entirely different kind of work.
During the company's first year, the founders distributed hundreds of thousands of flyers and door hangers around Nashville. According to the account, they estimated distributing roughly 300,000 to 400,000 flyers to acquire their first customers. The effort was exhausting, but it also provided an opportunity to learn how people normally found lawn care services.
When the founders asked customers how they hired lawn care providers, they repeatedly heard that people sought recommendations from friends and family or searched Google for nearby services. That insight pointed toward organic search as a potential acquisition channel.
The problem was competition. Ranking for a broad search such as "lawn care service Nashville" was difficult for a young website without an established backlink profile. Rather than continue attacking the most obvious keyword, GreenPal began targeting searches associated with smaller communities surrounding Nashville, including places such as Smyrna and Brentwood.
The company created content relevant to those narrower local searches and reported beginning to appear on the first page for some of them. Growth was gradual, but the approach helped GreenPal establish a repeatable process for identifying and targeting less competitive opportunities.
The lesson is not that every SaaS company should create location pages. Most software companies do not depend on geographic searches in the same way a local services marketplace does. The important principle is that GreenPal found a narrower portion of an existing market where it could compete more effectively.
A new SaaS company can apply the same logic to industries, workflows, integrations, team sizes, and specific customer problems.
Why the Most Popular Keyword Is Often the Wrong Keyword
Imagine a founder building project management software for small architecture firms. A conventional SEO strategy might begin with "project management software," a broad phrase that attracts people from many industries. The founder sees an enormous potential audience and assumes that ranking for the keyword would transform the business.
But most people searching for project management software are not architects. They may work in marketing, construction, consulting, software development, or education. Even if the founder managed to attract substantial traffic, only a fraction of visitors would fit the product's intended audience.
Now consider a more specific query: "project management software for small architecture firms." The potential audience is much smaller, but the phrase reveals something important about the searcher. They are not merely interested in project management. They are looking for a solution suitable for a particular profession and business size.
A still narrower search might involve managing architectural project revisions, coordinating client approvals, or tracking billable design hours. Each variation reveals more about the customer's circumstances.
This is the commercial advantage of specificity. A broad keyword may produce more traffic, but a narrower keyword can reveal stronger alignment between the visitor's problem and the software's value proposition.
The founder's objective should not be to attract the largest possible number of visitors. It should be to attract people whose problems the product is unusually well equipped to solve.
What Actually Makes a Keyword Long-Tail?
Long-tail keywords are frequently described as phrases containing four, five, or six words. This is a useful simplification, but it is not technically accurate. A keyword is considered long-tail because it occupies the lower-volume portion of search demand, not because it contains a particular number of words.
Ahrefs explains that many long-tail queries receive relatively few monthly searches and that some longer phrases can still attract substantial traffic. The relationship between keyword length and search volume is therefore imperfect.
The more important distinction for a new SaaS founder is between broad demand and specific demand. "CRM software" describes a large category. "CRM for independent insurance brokers" describes a narrower audience. "CRM that tracks insurance policy renewals" describes a particular workflow. The searcher becomes easier to understand as the query becomes more specific.
This does not automatically make the narrower keyword easy to rank for. Some specialized software categories are intensely competitive, particularly when buyers have high lifetime values. A search phrase can be long-tail and still be dominated by established websites.
The founder must therefore evaluate two separate questions. First, does the keyword describe a customer who might buy the product? Second, does the current search landscape offer a realistic opportunity for a new website?
Both questions matter. A keyword with weak competition but no commercial relevance may produce visitors who never become customers. A commercially valuable keyword dominated by powerful competitors may be worth pursuing eventually, but it may not be the best place to begin.
Start With Customer Problems, Not Keyword Tools
The most useful keyword research often begins before opening an SEO application. It begins with understanding the language customers use when describing their problems.
Suppose a startup automates financial reporting for small accounting firms. The founder might initially describe the product as an AI-powered financial analytics platform. That language may sound impressive, but customers could be searching for something much more concrete, such as how to automate monthly client reports or how to combine accounting data into one dashboard.
These searches express problems rather than software categories. They may also reveal opportunities that large competitors have not addressed with sufficiently specific content.
Customer interviews are an especially valuable source of ideas. When a prospective buyer describes a repetitive task, asks whether the software supports a particular integration, or explains why an existing tool is inadequate, the founder should record the exact language used. Those phrases can become starting points for keyword research.
Support tickets, sales calls, onboarding questions, and product feedback provide similar information. If several customers independently ask how to perform the same task, there may be other people searching Google for an answer.
This is one reason founders have an advantage over generic content publishers. A founder who speaks directly with customers can discover problems that are commercially meaningful even before those problems become popular keyword targets.
How to Find Low-Competition SaaS Keywords Without Expensive Tools
A founder does not need an expensive SEO subscription to begin generating keyword ideas. Google itself provides several useful sources of information, although these methods do not replace reliable search-volume estimates or a full competitive analysis.
Start by typing a broad description of the customer's problem into Google and examining the autocomplete suggestions. These suggestions can reveal related searches and alternative ways people phrase questions. The founder can then inspect the search results for variations involving specific industries, integrations, business sizes, or workflows.
Related searches and relevant question sections can provide additional ideas. A query about automating client reports might lead to questions about reporting templates, spreadsheet exports, scheduled emails, or connecting particular accounting platforms.
The founder should also examine competitor websites. Product documentation, help centers, integration directories, and frequently asked questions can reveal problems that customers repeatedly encounter. The objective is not to copy another company's content but to understand which topics matter in the market.
Google Search Console becomes especially valuable once the website begins receiving impressions. It can reveal queries for which existing pages are already appearing, even when those pages are not yet ranking prominently. A founder may discover that Google associates an article with a more specific search than the one originally targeted.
These observations can guide improvements to existing content or reveal opportunities for new articles.
The important limitation is that suggestions and impressions are not the same as verified monthly search volume. They are clues about demand, and the founder should treat them as starting points for investigation rather than precise market measurements.
How to Evaluate Whether a Keyword Is Actually Winnable
Finding a specific keyword is only the beginning. The founder must determine whether a new website has a reasonable chance of appearing in the search results.
One useful approach is to examine the current top-ranking pages manually. Are they detailed guides from established industry publications, or are they short discussions in forums? Do they answer the searcher's question directly, or do they provide generic information about a broader topic? Are the pages recent and well maintained, or do they contain outdated screenshots and obsolete recommendations?
A search result dominated by authoritative websites does not necessarily make the keyword impossible. But it does suggest that the founder will need a compelling reason for Google to prefer the new page. Conversely, a result containing thin articles, incomplete answers, or discussions that do not fully resolve the problem may reveal an opportunity to produce something more useful.
SEO platforms such as Ahrefs estimate keyword difficulty using metrics that include backlink competition. These scores can help prioritize research, but they should not be treated as guarantees. A low difficulty score does not automatically mean a new website will rank, and a high score does not prove that ranking is impossible.
The founder should also evaluate the type of content Google currently displays. If a query primarily returns software product pages, publishing a long educational blog may not satisfy the searcher's intention. If the results consist of tutorials, a detailed practical guide may be more appropriate.
The question is not simply whether the keyword has low competition. It is whether the founder can create a page that answers the searcher's question better than the existing alternatives.
The Difference Between Traffic Keywords and Customer Keywords
A software company can attract thousands of visitors without acquiring many customers. This happens when its content appeals to people who are interested in the general subject but have little reason to purchase the product.
Imagine a SaaS company selling appointment scheduling software to dental practices. An article about the history of dentistry might attract readers, but most of them would not be looking for scheduling software. An article explaining how dental offices can reduce appointment no-shows would reach a smaller but potentially more relevant audience.
The distinction becomes even more pronounced with searches involving existing tools. Someone looking for "how to sync dental appointment reminders with Google Calendar" may be experiencing a specific workflow problem that the product can solve. If the software supports that integration, the content can provide both an explanation and a natural path toward the product.
This is sometimes called product-led content because the article helps readers solve a problem that the software is designed to address. The content remains useful on its own, but it also demonstrates how the product fits into the solution.
For a new SaaS website, these searches can be more attractive than broad educational topics because the connection between the visitor's problem and the product's value is clearer.
The founder should therefore consider the potential commercial relevance of each keyword alongside its traffic potential. A page that attracts fifty qualified visitors may contribute more to the business than one that attracts five thousand unrelated readers.
Find the Gaps That Established Competitors Ignore
Large software companies have significant advantages in SEO, but their size can also influence the topics they prioritize. A company serving millions of customers may focus on broad categories that attract substantial traffic. Smaller, specialized problems may receive less attention because they do not justify a major content investment.
This creates opportunities for startups that serve narrowly defined markets.
Consider a company building compliance software for small food manufacturers. Large compliance platforms may publish comprehensive guides to regulatory management, but they may not address the practical challenges faced by a business with twelve employees preparing for a specific audit.
A startup serving that audience can create content that addresses the exact workflow, documentation requirements, and operational constraints its customers experience. The article may never attract enormous traffic, but it can become highly relevant to the people most likely to purchase the software.
The founder's advantage is not necessarily superior domain authority or a larger marketing team. It is specialized knowledge of a customer segment that broader competitors may not understand as deeply.
This suggests a useful research question: What does my ideal customer need to know that the largest companies in my market have not explained particularly well?
The answer may reveal a collection of long-tail keywords that are both commercially valuable and more achievable for a smaller website.
Build Topic Clusters Without Publishing Duplicate Articles
Once a founder identifies a promising topic, the next temptation is to create dozens of articles targeting slight variations of the same phrase. A website might publish separate posts for "low competition SaaS keywords," "easy SaaS keywords," and "best low difficulty SaaS keywords," even though all three articles answer essentially the same question.
This approach can create unnecessary duplication and make it harder for visitors to find a complete answer. It can also cause multiple pages on the same website to compete for similar searches.
A more useful strategy is to organize related questions into a topic cluster. A central article can explain the broad subject, while supporting articles address genuinely distinct problems. For example, a general guide to SaaS SEO might link to specialized articles about keyword research, competitor comparisons, integration-specific searches, and measuring organic customer acquisition.
Each page should have a clear purpose. A tutorial about finding keywords without paid tools serves a different need from an article explaining how to evaluate competitor keywords with buying intent. Both can belong to the same topic cluster without repeating the same content.
Internal links help visitors move between these related subjects and allow search engines to discover relevant pages. The links should be useful in context rather than inserted mechanically.
For a new SaaS website, a small collection of strong, interconnected articles is often a more manageable starting point than a large volume of repetitive content.
A Practical Example: Keyword Research for a New B2B SaaS
Suppose a founder has built software that automatically prepares monthly reports for small marketing agencies. The product connects advertising data, organizes performance metrics, and generates client-ready reports.
The broad keyword "marketing reporting software" may be relevant, but the founder should investigate more specific alternatives. Potential topics include automating Google Ads client reports, creating monthly marketing reports for small agencies, combining advertising data into one dashboard, and reducing the time required to prepare client reports.
These are illustrative keyword candidates, not verified low-difficulty search terms. The founder would need to examine the search results and, ideally, use keyword data to determine which opportunities are worth pursuing.
The strongest article might explain how a small agency can automate monthly client reporting without manually copying data between spreadsheets. It could describe the workflow, common errors, available approaches, and situations where dedicated reporting software becomes worthwhile.
The article would provide useful information even to readers who do not purchase the product. But because the problem closely matches the software's value proposition, qualified readers would have a natural reason to investigate the company.
This is the difference between creating content around a keyword and creating content around a customer's problem. The first approach begins with search volume. The second begins with the reason someone might eventually buy.
How to Measure Whether Long-Tail SEO Is Working
SEO results often develop gradually, particularly for new websites. A founder who publishes an article and checks rankings the following morning may see little evidence of progress. Search engines need time to discover, index, and evaluate content, and competitive conditions can change.
Google Search Console provides a useful starting point for measurement. The founder can examine whether pages are indexed, which queries generate impressions, how often people click, and whether visibility improves over time.
But impressions and clicks are not the final objective for a SaaS business. The founder should also measure what happens after visitors arrive. Do they explore relevant product pages? Do they start trials, request demonstrations, or join an email list? Do any eventually become paying customers?
These questions help distinguish traffic growth from customer acquisition. A blog that attracts visitors but produces no qualified interest may be targeting the wrong audience or failing to connect the content to a relevant offer.
A founder should also investigate which articles contribute to conversions over longer periods. Some readers discover a product through an educational article, return later through a branded search, and purchase only after additional evaluation. Simple last-click attribution may not capture the full contribution of the original content.
The goal is to understand whether the content is helping the right customers discover the business, not merely whether the website is accumulating larger numbers.
A Thirty-Day Long-Tail SEO Research Plan
A founder can begin with a focused thirty-day experiment. During the first week, collect the questions customers ask most frequently. Review sales conversations, support messages, competitor documentation, and relevant professional discussions. Organize the findings around customer problems rather than broad software categories.
During the second week, turn those problems into candidate search queries. Examine Google autocomplete, related searches, and existing results. If keyword research software is available, use it to estimate search demand and competition. Prioritize topics that closely match the product's value and appear achievable for the website's current authority.
During the third week, publish two or three substantial articles addressing distinct customer problems. Each should answer the primary question directly, provide original explanations or examples, and offer a relevant next step for readers who need additional help.
During the fourth week, verify that the pages are accessible and indexable, connect them to related content through internal links, and begin monitoring Search Console. It may be too early to draw conclusions about rankings or conversions, but the founder can establish a baseline for future measurement.
The process should then continue as new customer questions emerge and existing pages accumulate data. SEO is rarely a one-time campaign. It becomes more valuable when the company repeatedly learns which problems people search for and improves its content accordingly.
Why Smaller Searches Can Produce a Larger Business
The most interesting lesson from GreenPal's early search strategy is not about lawn care or geographic keywords. It is about choosing a competition that the company had a realistic chance of winning.
The founders could have continued pursuing the largest search terms in their market, hoping that sufficient effort would eventually overcome their lack of authority. Instead, they identified narrower searches associated with smaller communities and began building visibility where competition was more manageable.
For SaaS companies, the equivalent opportunity may be hidden inside a particular industry, workflow, integration, or customer segment. A broad software category can contain thousands of smaller problems, each expressed through different search queries.
The founder who understands those problems can create content that is more specific, more useful, and more closely connected to the product's value. Over time, a collection of such articles may build organic visibility and introduce the business to customers who would never have discovered it through broad category searches.
This does not mean long-tail SEO guarantees growth. Some narrow queries receive almost no demand, and others are more competitive than they initially appear. The founder must still evaluate relevance, search intent, content quality, and the ability to convert visitors into customers.
But the underlying principle is powerful. A new SaaS company does not need to become the most authoritative website in its entire industry before it can begin attracting customers. It can start by becoming exceptionally useful for a smaller group of people searching for a specific solution.
The internet rewards enormous scale, but customers make purchasing decisions one problem at a time. For a founder with limited resources, understanding those individual problems may be the beginning of a sustainable distribution strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find low-competition keywords for a new SaaS website?
Begin with specific problems your ideal customers experience. Use Google autocomplete, related searches, customer questions, and competitor documentation to generate keyword ideas. Then examine the current search results to evaluate whether the existing pages answer the query well and whether your website can provide something more useful.
Can a new SaaS website rank on Google without backlinks?
A new website can sometimes rank for relevant, less competitive searches without a substantial backlink profile, but results depend on the keyword, content quality, technical accessibility, and competing websites. Backlinks and broader website authority can become increasingly important in competitive markets.
What are the best long-tail keywords for B2B SaaS?
Useful candidates often describe a specific industry, workflow, integration, business size, or purchasing requirement. Examples include software for a narrowly defined profession, tools that connect two existing platforms, and solutions to recurring operational problems. The best keywords are those that match the product's actual strengths and the customer's search intent.
How do I do SaaS keyword research without Ahrefs or Semrush?
Use customer interviews, Google autocomplete, related searches, competitor help centers, and Google Search Console. These sources can reveal relevant questions and search phrases, although they do not provide the same comprehensive search-volume and competition estimates as dedicated keyword research platforms.
How many SEO articles should a new SaaS startup publish?
There is no universal ideal number. Begin with a manageable set of substantial articles addressing distinct, commercially relevant customer problems. Prioritize original value, accuracy, and useful internal linking over publishing frequency.
How long does long-tail SEO take to work?
Results vary based on website authority, competition, indexing, content quality, and search demand. Some pages may begin receiving impressions relatively quickly, while meaningful rankings and customer acquisition can take considerably longer. Measure progress over time rather than expecting immediate results after publication.
Are long-tail keywords always easier to rank for?
No. Long-tail keywords generally describe lower-volume searches, but some are commercially valuable and highly competitive. Evaluate the actual search results rather than assuming that a longer phrase automatically represents an easy opportunity.
Sources and Further Reading
GreenPal's early growth strategy: https://buffer.com/resources/bootstrapping-growth/
A firsthand founder account describing how GreenPal shifted from broad Nashville searches toward more specific nearby locations after discovering that its original SEO targets were difficult to compete for.
Ahrefs — Long-Tail Keywords: https://ahrefs.com/blog/long-tail-keywords/
Explains how long-tail keywords are defined, why search volume matters more than phrase length, and how founders can identify narrower opportunities.
Ahrefs — Keyword Difficulty: https://ahrefs.com/blog/keyword-difficulty/
Explains how keyword difficulty estimates work, why they are imperfect, and why founders should examine the actual competing pages.
Ahrefs — SEO for a New Website: https://ahrefs.com/blog/seo-for-new-website/
Provides guidance on evaluating search intent and choosing achievable topics for websites without substantial existing authority.
Google Search Central — Creating Helpful, Reliable, People-First Content: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content
Google's guidance on producing useful, original content that satisfies readers rather than publishing pages primarily to manipulate rankings.