On July 14, 2026, the founder of an SEO agency emailed me to say thank you. “We got 1 lead inbound through your article and we just confirmed that they converted!” The article was a roundup of SaaS SEO agencies on my own site, and the deal that came from it was worth $36K in annual recurring revenue.
I had added their agency to the roundup ten days earlier, on July 4. This case study covers how the roundup was built, how it was performing in Google when the agency joined, and what I’d keep or change if I did it again. If you publish “best X” content for a SaaS company, or you run an agency that wants to be listed in roundups like this, the details below are the ones worth copying.
| Case study snapshot | |
| The page | A roundup of SaaS SEO agencies on my site, at /blog/best-saas-seo-agencies |
| Published | April 11, 2026 |
| Agency added | July 4, 2026, at #4 on the list |
| Google traffic in the ten days that followed | 20 clicks and about 17,900 impressions, at an average position of about 10 |
| Result | One inbound lead for the agency, converted into a $36K ARR deal by July 14 |
| How we know | The agency founder’s email on July 14, 2026, which named the article as the source |
Why I wrote a roundup of SaaS SEO agencies
Someone who searches “best saas seo agencies” isn’t learning what SEO is. They usually have a budget, a shortlist in progress, and a deadline to pick someone. That makes it one of the most commercial searches in my niche, and the kind of page I write for SaaS clients, like the knowledge management software roundup I wrote for Softr.
A list of names doesn’t help that reader much. They need to know who fits their situation and what it would cost, so I wrote the roundup I’d want if I were hiring.
How I chose the agencies
I picked agencies that specialize in SaaS or B2B software and show their work in public. That meant case studies with named clients and results, a site that ranks for the services it sells, and enough information to understand how they work. Agencies that only listed SaaS as one of many industries didn’t make the cut.
The list grew as I found agencies that met that standard. It had 14 entries on July 4, when this agency joined at #4, and it has 20 today. The criteria came straight from the section I wrote for readers, so anyone could check my picks against the same standard.
What I put in the roundup
A reader only contacts an agency from a list once they have enough information to decide, and on this page that came down to the content and the structure. This is how the roundup looked on July 4, from the page’s revision history.
A buyer’s checklist before the list
Before naming a single agency, the page explained what to look for, in six points written from the buyer’s side.
- They measure pipeline, not just rankings. Traffic reports are easy to fill, and pipeline is what the reader’s CEO asks about.
- They understand your sales cycle. A 90-day enterprise sale needs different content than a free trial.
- They have a real content process. That means briefs, subject matter experts, and editing, not just volume.
- Their own site ranks. An agency that can’t rank itself is a hard sell.
- They can point to revenue impact in case studies. Named clients and numbers carry more weight than testimonials alone.
- They have a plan for AI search. Buyers now ask ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews for recommendations too.
A reader who finished that section knew what a good answer looked like before they read any of the profiles.
A table before the details
Right after the checklist sat an at-a-glance table with each agency’s best fit, starting price, and standout strength. A reader in a hurry could compare the whole list before scrolling, and a shortlist usually starts there.
A “why it might be a good fit” section for every agency
Each profile had its own “why it might be a good fit” section, written about the reader’s situation rather than the agency’s pitch. It said who the agency suited, such as high-growth SaaS teams, enterprise companies, or teams that want AI search help, and what the agency had done to show it.
Pricing on every profile
Every agency also had its own pricing section, with the starting price where the agency publishes one and a note to confirm directly where it doesn’t. The agency in this case study had a published starting price, and it sat in both the table and the profile. Pricing is the question buyers ask first and agencies answer last, so putting it on the page meant a reader could contact an agency already knowing it fit their budget.
How the page was performing when the agency joined
By July, the roundup had spent three months climbing. In Search Console, the position for “best saas seo agencies” started deep in the results in April and reached the top of page one in mid-July, where it has mostly stayed.
The traffic itself was modest. In the ten days between adding the agency and the founder’s email, the page earned 20 clicks from Google, out of about 17,900 impressions, at an average position of about 10.
The result
One of the readers who found the roundup in those ten days contacted the agency. By July 14, the lead had converted, and the founder emailed me to say so. The deal was worth $36K in annual recurring revenue.
I’ve kept the agency anonymous here, which is why the email is blurred.
What surprised me
The speed. A listing usually takes months to produce anything for an agency, and this one paid off ten days after it went live. The roundup had already done the slow part, three months of climbing in Google, so the new entry inherited a page that buyers were already finding.
Traffic was small, too. A page with 20 clicks in ten days doesn’t look like much on a dashboard, and on a traffic report this one would have been easy to overlook. It still produced a $36K deal, because the people who did click were already deciding who to hire.
No analytics tool caught it either. The only reason I know about the deal is that the buyer told the agency where they found it, and the founder took a minute to tell me.
What I’d do differently
I’d track clicks to each agency’s site from day one. Page visits show that people read the roundup, while outbound clicks would show which profiles send readers on to an agency, and that’s the number an agency would care about.
Next time, I’d also ask the agencies on the list to tell me when a lead mentions the roundup. Hearing about this deal depended on one founder’s goodwill, and a short note to every listed agency would have turned that luck into a habit.
Since July, the roundup has grown to 20 agencies and been restructured around what searchers clicked on in Search Console, with new sections on use cases and pricing. The parts that produced this deal, the checklist, the table, the fit section, and the pricing, are all still there.
What you can take from this
If you write “best X” content for a SaaS company, write it for the reader who is about to decide. Explain what to look for before you name names, put a comparison table near the top, say who each option suits, and include pricing even when it takes extra digging. Those are the parts that turn a reader into someone ready to talk to a vendor.
Vendors can take a lesson from the other side. Look for lists that already rank, and make it easy to list you well. A new entry on a page that buyers already find can pay off in days, not months. Publish your pricing or a typical range, show case studies with named results, and ask every new lead how they heard about you. A free-text “How did you hear about us?” field is how this deal surfaced at all, and measuring content marketing ROI without it means missing deals like this one.
Want “best X” pages that bring in buyers who are already deciding, not just clicks? Book a call with me.
