We Analyzed 95 Successful SaaS Companies for SEO - Here's What's Holding Them Back

Why We Did This

How do the world’s most successful SaaS companies approach SEO?

We analyzed 95 enterprise software companies - from Salesforce and HubSpot to Slack and Shopify - to understand what separates the organic search winners from those leaving money on the table.

The results were eye-opening. While these companies are crushing it in product, sales, and customer success, their SEO strategies vary wildly - and many are missing massive opportunities.

Here’s what we measured:

• How many pages can search engines actually find?
• How fast do their sites respond to crawlers?
• How well-maintained are their sitemaps?
• What content strategies are the winners using?

We tested across 9 B2B categories: CRM, Marketing Tools, Project Management, Communication, HR Tech, Accounting, E-commerce Platforms, Developer Tools, and Customer Success.

The Headline Numbers

Overall Results:

• Total Companies Analyzed: 95
• Total Pages Discovered: 153,521
• Average Pages per Company: 1,650
• Range: From 1 page (yes, really) to 16,717 pages

The Spread is Wild:

• Top performer (GitLab): 16,717 indexed pages
• Several billion-dollar companies: Just 1 page visible to crawlers

This isn’t about company size or success - some of the smallest companies in our study had the largest search footprints, while some massive names were barely visible.

Finding #1: The Content Gap is Massive

Some Companies Are Building Content Moats, Others Have Content Deserts

Let’s start with the winners:

Top 10 Companies by Search Visibility:

What do these winners have in common?

They’re not just building product pages - they’re creating content ecosystems:

• Educational content (Webflow University has hundreds of courses)
• Template/marketplace pages (every template is a search-optimized landing page)
• Documentation (GitLab documents every single feature)
• Localized content (Deel’s global expansion strategy = massive content footprint)
• Integration directories (every integration partner = another indexed page)

The Opportunity Cost:

Let’s do the math. If the average company in our study gets 100 organic visits per indexed page per month:

• GitLab: ~1.6M organic visits/month potential
• A company with 100 pages: ~10K organic visits/month potential

That’s a 160x difference in organic reach potential.

Finding #2: 14 Companies Are Practically Invisible to Search Engines

When “Homepage Only” Means Missing Millions in Organic Traffic

Fourteen companies in our study returned only 1 crawlable page - their homepage. These aren’t small startups; this list includes:

Major Brands with Single-Page Visibility:

• Insightly (CRM - backed by Vista Equity Partners)
• Constantcontact (Email Marketing - public company history)
• Gusto ($10B+ valuation, payroll/HR)
• Linode (Cloud infrastructure - acquired by Akamai)
• Gainsight (Customer Success - $1.5B+ valuation)
• Thinkific (Online courses - publicly traded)
• Udemy (Learning platform - publicly traded)
• Zenefits (HR - once valued at $4.5B)
• Remote.com (Global HR - $3B valuation)
• Expensify (Expense management - publicly traded)

These companies have incredible products, strong brands, and millions in revenue. But from an organic search perspective? They’re ghosts.

The Business Impact:

Let’s take Udemy as an example. They currently get ~8.4M monthly organic visits (per Ahrefs) despite being nearly invisible to basic crawlers. Imagine if they fully unlocked their content:

• 213,000+ courses on the platform
• Thousands of instructor profiles
• Category and topic pages
• Student reviews and ratings

If even 10% of that content was properly indexed, they could potentially 5-10x their organic traffic.

For B2B companies like Gusto or Gainsight, the missed opportunity is in the buying journey:

• “Gusto vs. Rippling” comparison searches
• “How to handle [specific payroll scenario]” content
• Integration guides with other tools
• Industry-specific use cases

Each piece of content is a potential entry point for prospects researching solutions.

Finding #3: GitLab vs. GitHub Shows What’s Possible

Same Product Category, 190x Difference in Search Visibility

This comparison perfectly illustrates the content strategy gap:

GitLab: 16,717 crawlable pages GitHub: 88 crawlable pages Bitbucket: 10 crawlable pages

They’re all code repository and DevOps platforms. They compete for the same customers. But GitLab’s SEO strategy is on another level.

What GitLab is doing:

• Every feature has dedicated documentation pages
• Every API endpoint has examples and guides
• Every use case has tutorials
• Every integration has its own page
• Content for every role (developers, DevOps, security, management)

The Result?

GitLab gets found for thousands of long-tail searches:

• “[Specific DevOps workflow] how to”
• “[Integration name] with GitLab”
• “[Feature name] documentation”
• “[Competitor name] vs GitLab”

GitHub relies heavily on brand search. If you know about GitHub, you’ll find them. But for someone researching “how to automate CI/CD pipeline” or “best code review practices,” GitLab’s content dominates the search results.

The Competitive Advantage:

This isn’t just vanity metrics. It’s customer acquisition:

• Organic search = lowest CAC channel
• Educational content = earlier funnel engagement
• Developer trust = built through helpful documentation

GitLab’s content moat makes them harder to compete with, even against GitHub’s massive brand advantage.

Finding #4: E-commerce Platform Companies Get It

The Website Builder Category Averages 3,542 Indexed Pages

The E-commerce and Website Builder category had the highest average page count (3,542 pages) and 100% crawlability success rate.

Why These Companies Invest in Content:

1. Template marketplaces = natural content engines

• Webflow: 12,886 pages (includes template showcase)
• Wix: 10,537 pages (includes app market)
• Squarespace: 6,046 pages (includes domain marketplace)

2. They practice what they preach

• These companies sell website building tools
• They understand SEO is critical for their customers
• Their own sites become proof of concept

3. Educational content drives bottom-funnel traffic

• “How to build [type of website]” searches
• Template and design inspiration
• Technical tutorials for their platforms

The Business Model Alignment:

When your product is “build websites,” having an amazing, well-optimized website isn’t just marketing - it’s credibility. Every template page that ranks is simultaneously:

• A traffic source
• A product demo
• Social proof
• A conversion opportunity

Comparison to Other Categories:

Finding #5: HR Tech is Quietly Winning at Content

100% Success Rate, Second-Highest Average Pages

We didn’t expect HR Tech to be an SEO leader, but the data doesn’t lie:

Top HR Tech Content Performers:

• Deel: 6,630 pages (global payroll in 100+ countries)
• Rippling: 6,169 pages (integration marketplace + guides)
• Greenhouse: 4,542 pages (hiring resources + job board integrations)
• Workday: 1,179 pages (enterprise documentation)

Why HR Tech Companies Are Going Big on Content:

1. Complex, research-heavy buying journey

• HR software purchases involve multiple stakeholders
• Long sales cycles = more research touchpoints needed
• High ACV = worth investing in content for acquisition

2. Compliance and localization = natural content expansion

• Employment laws vary by state, country, region
• Each compliance topic is a potential content piece
• Deel’s 6,630 pages reflect their “hire anywhere in the world” positioning

3. Integration marketplaces

• Rippling integrates with hundreds of tools
• Each integration gets its own landing page
• Creates a long-tail search opportunity matrix

The Lesson for Other Categories:

You don’t need to be a “media company” to build significant content. HR Tech companies are creating practical, useful content that maps directly to:

• Search queries their prospects have
• Buying journey research stages
• Product differentiation opportunities

Finding #6: Broken Links Are Costing Companies Rankings

432 Broken Links Found Across Major Brands

Even successful companies with large content footprints had significant broken link issues:

What Broken Links Mean for Your Business:

1. Wasted past marketing efforts

• Every broken page once had value
• Backlinks pointing to 404s = lost equity
• Historical content rankings = gone

2. Poor user experience from search

• Someone clicks from Google → 404 page
• Instantly leaves your site
• Google notices and may rank you lower

3. Signal of site neglect

• Search engines interpret broken links as lack of maintenance
• May crawl your site less frequently
• Trust signals diminish over time

The Drift Example:

Drift showed 68 out of 69 URLs broken (98%). This almost certainly indicates a site migration or restructuring where they:

• Moved content to new URLs
• Didn’t update their sitemap
• Didn’t implement proper redirects

The cost? Any page that was ranking before the migration likely lost its position. Any backlinks pointing to old URLs are now worthless.

Recovery time: 3-6 months minimum to regain lost rankings.

Prevention cost: A few hours of QA during the migration.

Learn more about how to fix broken links and improve your SEO.

Finding #7: Infrastructure Issues Hit Even the Giants

2 Major Companies Completely Failed Our Test

Two enterprise platforms timed out completely during our crawl:

• Marketo (Adobe’s Marketing Automation - enterprise leader)
• QuickBooks (Intuit’s Accounting Software - millions of users)

These aren’t small operations with budget constraints. These are billion-dollar products from major tech companies.

What This Likely Means:

Option 1: Aggressive protection slowing down crawlers

• Systems that verify crawler legitimacy can add latency
• If verification takes too long, crawlers timeout
• Google might get through, but smaller search engines won’t

Option 2: Performance issues at scale

• Large sites can have slow sitemap generation
• If a sitemap takes 30+ seconds to generate, many crawlers will timeout
• This gets worse during peak traffic times

Option 3: Infrastructure misconfiguration

• CDN rules that block certain request patterns
• Rate limiting set too aggressively
• Geographic restrictions

The Business Risk:

If our crawler timed out, search engine crawlers may experience similar issues - especially during high-traffic periods.

Impact:

• Incomplete indexing (search engines give up before crawling everything)
• Stale search results (if crawlers can’t access content, they can’t update rankings)
• Reduced crawl frequency over time (search engines allocate less “crawl budget” to slow sites)

For Marketo specifically: They’re a marketing automation platform teaching companies how to do digital marketing. Having their own site timeout for crawlers is… ironic.

The Pattern: Winners Build Content Ecosystems, Not Just Marketing Sites

Looking across all 95 companies, the pattern is clear:

High-Performing SEO Strategies:

Documentation as Marketing (GitLab, Stripe, Twilio)

• Every feature documented = hundreds of indexed pages
• Answers technical questions prospects have
• Builds trust through transparency

Marketplace/Directory Pages (Webflow, Wix, Rippling, Deel)

• Every template, app, or integration = unique landing page
• Natural content expansion with product growth
• Long-tail keyword opportunities

Educational Content (HubSpot, Webflow, Airtable)

• Courses, tutorials, guides, best practices
• Attracts prospects earlier in their journey
• Positions company as industry authority

Localized/Compliance Content (Deel, Remote, Workday)

• Geographic expansion = content multiplication
• Each market’s compliance needs = more pages
• Defensible moat (hard for competitors to replicate quickly)

Use Case Libraries (Asana, Monday, Smartsheet)

• Industry-specific solutions
• Role-specific workflows
• Team-size-specific guidance

Low-Performing SEO Strategies:

Product Pages Only

• Homepage, pricing, features, about, contact
• Maybe 20-50 total pages
• Relies entirely on brand search and paid acquisition

Gated Content

• Whitepapers and guides behind forms
• Not indexed by search engines
• Limits organic discovery

Generic Blog Content

• Publishing without keyword strategy
• Topics that don’t match buyer journey
• No internal linking to product pages

What This Means for Your SaaS Company

If You Have Less Than 100 Indexed Pages

You’re in the majority, but you’re leaving massive opportunity on the table.

Quick Wins:

1. Document your product - Every feature should have a help doc
2. Create comparison pages - “[You] vs [Competitor]” for top 10 competitors
3. Build integration pages - Every integration you support gets a page
4. Map out use cases - Industry, role, team size variations
5. Audit and fix - Make sure all existing pages are actually crawlable

Expected Impact: 3-5x increase in organic traffic within 6-12 months

If You Have 100-1,000 Indexed Pages

You’re doing content marketing, but there’s room to scale.

Next Level:

1. Build a content ecosystem - Choose one: marketplace, docs, education, or directory
2. Localize strategically - If you serve multiple countries, create localized content
3. Create content feedback loops - Sales, support, and customer success teams know what prospects ask - capture those questions as content
4. Fix broken links - Audit quarterly and implement redirects
5. Improve internal linking - Make sure your best content gets link equity

Expected Impact: 2-3x increase in organic traffic within 12-18 months

If You Have More Than 1,000 Indexed Pages

You’re already playing the game - now it’s about optimization and quality.

Optimization Plays:

1. Audit content quality - Not all pages are equal; identify and improve/consolidate low performers
2. Build topical authority - Go deep in specific areas rather than wide across everything
3. Earn backlinks strategically - Original research, tools, comprehensive guides
4. Optimize for conversions - Traffic means nothing without pipeline impact
5. Monitor and maintain - Broken links, outdated info, and technical issues compound over time

Expected Impact: 20-50% improvement in organic traffic quality and conversion rate

Industry Benchmarks: How You Stack Up

Use these benchmarks to evaluate your current SEO position:

If you’re significantly below your category average, you have a content gap.

If you’re above average, you’re competing for organic share of voice.

The ROI of Getting This Right

Why Organic Search Matters More Than Ever

1. Lowest CAC of any channel

• Paid search: $100-500+ per enterprise lead
• Organic search: $10-50 per lead (content production costs)
• 10-50x more efficient at scale

2. Compounds over time

• Paid ads stop when you stop paying
• Organic content continues to drive traffic indefinitely
• GitLab’s 16,717 pages took years to build - but now drive consistent traffic

3. Earlier funnel engagement

• Catches prospects before they’re in “buying mode”
• Builds trust and authority before sales conversations
• Influences the consideration set

4. Defensible moat

• Competitors can copy your features
• They can’t easily copy years of content authority
• Deel’s 6,630 pages of localized content = years of competitive advantage

5. Multi-channel impact

• Organic content gets shared on social
• Sales teams use it in outreach
• Customer success shares it with users
• Partners reference it

The Competitive Angle

Your Competitors Are (Probably) Leaving the Door Open

If you’re in the same category as companies we found with less than 100 indexed pages, you have a massive opportunity.

The Math:

• Your competitor: 50 indexed pages
• You build to: 500 indexed pages (10x)
• Each page gets 100 visits/month on average
• Difference: 50,000 vs. 5,000 monthly organic visits

That’s 45,000 additional monthly visitors who could have gone to your competitor but found you instead.

Time Advantage:

Content SEO takes time to pay off:

• Months 0-3: Little traffic
• Months 3-6: Starting to rank
• Months 6-12: Real traffic growth
• Months 12+: Compounding returns

First mover advantage matters. If you start building today and your competitor starts 12 months from now, you have a year’s head start in rankings, backlinks, and authority.

Key Takeaways

Average enterprise SaaS company has 1,650 indexed pages - but the range is 1 to 16,717

Top performers build content ecosystems, not just marketing sites - documentation, marketplaces, education, and directories

14 major companies are practically invisible to search engines - including billion-dollar businesses leaving massive organic traffic on the table

GitLab’s content strategy (16,717 pages) shows what’s possible - a 190x advantage over GitHub (88 pages) in organic search visibility

432 broken links found across major brands - technical debt that’s actively hurting rankings and conversions

E-commerce platforms and HR tech lead in SEO maturity - averaging 3,542 and 1,892 indexed pages respectively

The opportunity is wide open - most categories have massive content gaps that early movers can exploit

Bottom Line: The winners aren’t just building better products - they’re building better content moats. While others rely on paid acquisition and brand search, companies like GitLab, Deel, and Webflow are capturing thousands of long-tail searches and building defensible organic channels.

The question isn’t whether to invest in content SEO. It’s whether you’ll start before or after your competitors do.

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This analysis covered 95 companies across 9 B2B categories, conducted January 15-19, 2026. All data represents a single snapshot and reflects publicly accessible information. Research methodology included automated sitemap discovery, link validation, and response time analysis using a custom crawler with 4-level discovery approach (robots.txt, standard locations, homepage extraction, and guaranteed fallback).