SEO

We Studied 100 SaaS Twitter Profiles to Uncover Top Trends: Here’s What We Found

Published

1 year ago

April 19, 2023

Max

We Studied 100 SaaS Twitter Profiles to Uncover Top Trends: Here's What We Found

Every company on Twitter has the same features at its disposal to create a standout profile.

Here are those features:

But how many SaaS companies make use of them all? And are they using them well?

To find out, we studied the Twitter profiles of 100 SaaS companies.

Let’s start at the top.

Sidenote.

Thanks to my colleague, Rebecca Liew, for doing most of the research for this post. She’s the one who shares all the useful SEO tips, threads, and product updates on our Twitter account, so make sure to follow us if you’re not doing so already.

37% of SaaS companies feature their mission statement or tagline in their banner, making it the most popular option.

How SaaS companies use their Twitter banner

Here’s a super clean example from Zapier:

Mission statement Twitter banner from Zapier

The next most popular option (25%) is a branded illustration, like this one from Asana:

Product illustrations are also a relatively popular choice, with 14% of SaaS companies opting for them.

Here’s an example from InVision:

Product illustration banner from InVision

This demonstrates how its collaboration features work without falling into the trap of showing cluttered screenshots of the literal UI.

Unfortunately, while these kinds of banners work well on desktop, they’re rarely great on mobile.

For example, much of InVision’s banner is obfuscated by the notch and UI elements on my iPhone:

Banner elements often get obfuscated on mobile—be careful!

Even without the obfuscation, the product text is super tiny and hard to read. This issue is magnified for SaaS companies that use their literal product UI.

Case in point, Linear:

Don't use tiny text in your Twitter banners—they look bad on mobile

These are things we’re always conscious of when designing banners for our profile, as you can tell from the mockup below:

Design mockup for one of our banners, where we took the mobile UI (and notch) into account

As for the remaining 24% of SaaS companies, we saw everything from, um, nothing…

… to generic stock photography (seriously, Airtable, what is this all about?)

… to folks with Swiss roll hair rollers (is this how you capture the millennial market? *takes notes*):

Bland, boring, and zany examples aside, one interesting trend I noticed is that many companies don’t just set a banner and forget it. They swap it to coincide with new feature releases, events, new industry awards, new content, open job positions, etc.

Here are a couple of examples:

Conference announcement banner from Webflow

Given the number of profile views SaaS companies like Drift and Webflow likely get, this makes a lot of sense.

In fact, this is something we do too.

Here’s our banner promoting our list of Ahrefs hacks:

Key takeaways + our advice

62% of companies feature a mission statement, tagline, or branded illustration – These are all good choices for a “default” Twitter banner. They help reinforce your brand identity and tell potential followers what you’re all about.
14% of companies feature their products – It makes sense to swap out your “default” banner for this to coincide with product announcements. Just remember to design them with mobile UIs and notches in mind.
24% of companies feature something else – It’s probably best to avoid zany and vague banners unless you’re a household brand or are trying to tie your Twitter presence to an advertising campaign. However, it makes sense to showcase time-sensitive things like upcoming events, awards you’ve won, job positions, etc.

100% of SaaS companies feature their logo (or some variation) here.

Big surprise, right? So why am I even bothering to mention it?

The answer is that I want to draw your attention to a mistake some brands make, which is being hell-bent on using their full text-heavy logo.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with including your full logo when it has a short “horizontal length.”

Take Wix, for example:

This works just fine. It’s easy to read and recognize on desktop and mobile—even in the small feed icons:

But this works less well for brands with logos with a wider “horizontal length.”

Case in point, Talenox:

This is virtually impossible to read on mobile and doesn’t grab your attention in the feed:

I can’t help but feel the icon alone would be much better at grabbing your attention.

Here’s a mockup:

Interestingly, this is a lesson learned from personal experience. We used to have our profile photo set to our “full width” logo, but we soon realized our mistake and changed it to the custom branded icon you see today:

Key takeaways + our advice

100% of SaaS companies set their profile photo as their logo – You probably should too. Just make sure to use an icon from your logo or a shorter version if it’s text-heavy.

Most companies (68%) use their bio to reflect what their product or service does.

What SaaS companies write in their Twitter bio

Here’s an example from Mailchimp:

Even if you knew nothing about Mailchimp before coming across its Twitter profile, you’d end up with a pretty good idea about what it’s selling from its bio alone.

But what about everyone else?

Well, 28% of companies use it to state their company mission.

Here’s an example from Asana:

Asana's bio explains its company mission

If you’re none the wiser about what Asana actually is or does after that, join the club. And this isn’t even vague compared to some. Check out Cialfo’s:

Cialfo's bio also explains its mission... but it's super vague

Luckily, the final 4% of companies are being a bit more creative. They seem to either highlight what to expect from following them like BrightLocal or opt for a pure fun approach like Shopify.

BrightLocal's bio explains what to expect by following it

(I like how BrightLocal notes “Tweets by Jenny.” Definitely adds a personal touch!)

Key takeaways + our advice

68% of companies explain what their product or service does – This is always a safe bet that helps potential followers understand what you’re all about.
28% of companies state their mission or tagline – This is probably not the best choice unless you’re already a household name and it’s more important to convey a “message” than what you do.
4% of companies use their bio for something else – I’d avoid the zany “fun” bios unless you’re a household name. They’re vague and unhelpful in most cases. As for telling potential followers what they can expect from you, that makes sense—especially if you only post very specific things on Twitter like product updates.
Personal touches are… a nice touch – Hardly any SaaS brands do this, but I think adding “Tweets by [name]” is a great way to humanize your brand (assuming the tweets are actually by one person, of course).

Most SaaS companies (58.4%) don’t utilize bio links.

Here’s what we mean by bio links, by the way:

They’re the ones that are actually in the bio (not the dedicated “website” link).

Basically, any URL or Twitter handle (e.g., @ahrefs) you mention in your bio automatically gets turned into a link.

For example, here’s me setting up my bio…

… and the result:

But of those that do use them, what do they use them for?

Here’s the data:

Breakdown of the types of links SaaS companies share in their bio

Sidenote.

These don’t add up to 100% because some companies include multiple links.

60% of SaaS companies include support links.

These are either links to dedicated support Twitter profiles (e.g., @asksalesforce)…

Salesforce links to its support page in its bio

… website support hubs

Asana links to its support page in its bio

… or both:

19% of brands link to a status page or profile:

Interestingly, most of the brands doing this are project management (Airtable, Monday, Miro, etc.) or community apps (Slack, Circle, etc.). Given how much it can impact your day when these kinds of tools go down, that makes perfect sense.

19% of brands link to their homepage:

Totango links to its homepage in its bio

(Given that the homepage link is almost always duplicated in the profile link, this seems like a waste of space to me. I’m not sure why it’s so common.)

And the final 26% of brands link elsewhere, such as to a newsletter signup page…

… their social profiles and communities

Supabase links to its social profiles and communities in its bio

… or even branded hashtags:

Astro links to a branded hashtag in its bio

Initially, I thought the branded hashtag was a bit of an odd choice for quite a small brand. However, it actually makes sense, as it’s basically a feed of success stories (big and small) from customers who love the software.

Here are a couple of examples:

Key takeaways + our advice

58.4% of companies don’t utilize bio links – This is a waste. Every company has something it could promote here.
60% of companies link to support pages or profiles – Given that frustrated customers often take to Twitter ~~to complain~~ for support, this seems like an effort to move the conversation somewhere less public. That makes sense, especially as customers are probably going to get faster responses elsewhere anyway.
19% of companies link to a status page – This seems like a great way to reduce the number of support requests during outages.
19% of companies link to their homepage – This seems like a waste of space, as most profiles have a homepage link in the website link section.
26% of companies link elsewhere – Newsletter signup pages, communities, and jobs pages are all popular options that make sense. I’d stay clear of branded hashtags unless you’re promoting them elsewhere. Otherwise, I doubt they’ll get much engagement.

Believe it or not, 7% of companies don’t have a profile link.

Of those that do, 95.7% link to their homepage.

This makes sense. It’s the obvious place to link to and probably the best one to direct followers to learn more about your product or brand.

Most of the remaining 4.3% link to a Linktree (or another similar alternative):

This approach seems more common with individual “influencers,” but I think it can also work well for SaaS companies.

Yotpo is a good example. Its Linktree links to:

Jobs page – Makes sense. If you like a brand enough to follow it on Twitter, there’s a chance you might be interested in working for it.
Blog post – Specifically, one that explains the benefits of “zero-party data,” which is what its product helps business owners collect.
Landing page – This is for its “brand accelerator program” (an initiative to help black-owned small businesses grow).
Press release – This talks about how it made Forbes’ list of the top 100 private cloud companies.
Homepage – Ah… we got there eventually!

Sidenote.

The page also links to a campaign to “nominate an amazing woman in ecommerce,” but it’s a 404.

Key takeaways + our advice

95.7% of companies (if they have a profile link) link to their homepage – I’d recommend this for pretty much every SaaS company too. It’s a solid choice and helps potential followers learn more about what you do.
4.3% link elsewhere – Mostly to a Linktree (or similar). This is a fine choice if you want to promote multiple things to followers, like job openings and awards.

Only 55% of SaaS companies use the pinned tweet feature.

Most of those that do (60%) feature a product-related tweet.

Here’s an example from Intercom:

Intercom's pinned tweet announces a new product feature

Interestingly, I spotted a lot of brands using videos for this. This makes sense, as there’s really no better way to demonstrate a product feature or explain what your software does. It also allows you to fit more information into your tweet than you’d be able to with 280 characters.

Sidenote.

The tweet character limit for Twitter Blue subscribers is technically 4,000. However, a) not all brands have Twitter Blue and b) 4,000 characters are apparently between 571 and 1,000 words on average—who in their right mind wants to read that much copy in a plain text tweet?

10.9% of brands feature an event, contest, challenge, or poll.

Here’s an example from Litmus:

Litmus' pinned tweet announces an upcoming conference

Obviously, these aren’t just “set it and forget it” pinned tweets. Once the event, challenge, contest, or poll is over, brands swap them out for something else.

What else?

Blog posts and Twitter threads are common, with 5.5% and 3.6% of brands respectively showcasing these in pinned tweets.

Here are a few examples:

Novocall's pinned tweet promotes a blog post

Given that Twitter users almost certainly prefer native content, you’re probably better off turning a blog post you want to promote here into a thread instead. You can always promote the blog post at the end.

This is precisely what we did for our current pinned tweet:

Our pinned tweet is a thread with 18 Ahrefs hacks

These 18 hacks began life as a blog post. But we knew we’d likely get way more engagement by turning them into a Twitter thread.

We then promote our newsletter at the end of the thread:

The remaining 20% of SaaS companies feature other things, like awards they’ve won…

… rebrand announcements

Rapid's pinned tweet announces a rebrand

… and white papers:

MarketDial's pinned tweet promotes... a white paper

I think these all make sense—except for white papers.

Even if you’re targeting enterprise customers, I just can’t see many people browsing Twitter and thinking “Oh, cool—a white paper! I’ll download that right away!”

Key takeaways + our advice

45% of companies don’t have pinned tweets – Don’t be one of them. Pinned tweets are a useful way to highlight import updates, campaigns, and initiatives.
60% of companies have product-related pinned tweets – This is a safe bet, but I think it’s best to use an engaging format like video if possible. This also extends the amount of information you can put in your pinned tweet beyond the 280-character limit.
10.9% of companies feature events, contests, challenges, or polls – This makes sense, as you usually want to draw as much attention to these types of events as possible in a limited period of time.
5.5% of companies feature blog posts – I would avoid this, as I think few Twitter users want to consume content off the platform.
3.6% of companies feature threads – I think there are too many threads on Twitter, but they’re obviously popular so… what do I know? Either way, this is another good way to effectively extend the 280-character tweet limit.
20% of companies feature other things – Awards, announcements—basically whatever they want to draw attention to at the moment. Just don’t try to force users to download white papers; I really don’t think anyone on Twitter wants that.

Final thoughts

How you set up your company’s Twitter profile depends on the impression you want to make and the things you want to promote. Just make sure to utilize all the features Twitter gives you to create a standout profile.

If you’re short on time, here’s our best advice to get your profile up and running fast:

Got questions? Ping me on… you know where.

Related Topics:Heres Profiles SaaS seo Studied top Trends Twitter Uncover

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SEO

Big Update To Google’s Ranking Drop Documentation

Published

2 mins ago

April 27, 2024

Max

Google updates documentation for diagnosing ranking drops

Google updated their guidance with five changes on how to debug ranking drops. The new version contains over 400 more words that address small and large ranking drops. There’s room to quibble about some of the changes but overall the revised version is a step up from what it replaced.

Change# 1: Downplays Fixing Traffic Drops

The opening sentence was changed so that it offers less hope for bouncing back from an algorithmic traffic drop. Google also joined two sentences into one sentence in the revised version of the documentation.

The documentation previously said that most traffic drops can be reversed and that identifying the reasons for a drop aren’t straightforward. The part about most of them can be reversed was completely removed.

Here is the original two sentences:

“A drop in organic Search traffic can happen for several reasons, and most of them can be reversed. It may not be straightforward to understand what exactly happened to your site”

Now there’s no hope offered for “most of them can be reversed” and more emphasis on understanding what happened is not straightforward.

This is the new guidance

“A drop in organic Search traffic can happen for several reasons, and it may not be straightforward to understand what exactly happened to your site.”

Change #2 Security Or Spam Issues

Google updated the traffic graph illustrations so that they precisely align with the causes for each kind of traffic decline.

The previous version of the graph was labeled:

“Site-level technical issue (Manual Action, strong algorithmic changes)”

The problem with the previous label is that manual actions and strong algorithmic changes are not technical issues and the new version fixes that issue.

The updated version now reads:

“Large drop from an algorithmic update, site-wide security or spam issue”

Change #3 Technical Issues

There’s one more change to a graph label, also to make it more accurate.

This is how the previous graph was labeled:

“Page-level technical issue (algorithmic changes, market disruption)”

The updated graph is now labeled:

“Technical issue across your site, changing interests”

Now the graph and label are more specific as a sitewide change and “changing interests” is more general and covers a wider range of changes than market disruption. Changing interests includes market disruption (where a new product makes a previous one obsolete or less desirable) but it also includes products that go out of style or loses their trendiness.

Graph titled

Change #4 Google Adds New Guidance For Algorithmic Changes

The biggest change by far is their brand new section for algorithmic changes which replaces two smaller sections, one about policy violations and manual actions and a second one about algorithm changes.

The old version of this one section had 108 words. The updated version contains 443 words.

A section that’s particularly helpful is where the guidance splits algorithmic update damage into two categories.

Two New Categories:

Small drop in position? For example, dropping from position 2 to 4.
Large drop in position? For example, dropping from position 4 to 29.

The two new categories are perfect and align with what I’ve seen in the search results for sites that have lost rankings. The reasons for dropping up and down within the top ten are different from the reasons why a site drops completely out of the top ten.

I don’t agree with the guidance for large drops. They recommend reviewing your site for large drops, which is good advice for some sites that have lost rankings. But in other cases there’s nothing wrong with the site and this is where less experienced SEOs tend to be unable to fix the problems because there’s nothing wrong with the site. Recommendations for improving EEAT, adding author bios or filing link disavows do not solve what’s going on because there’s nothing wrong with the site. The problem is something else in some of the cases.

Here is the new guidance for debugging search position drops:

“Algorithmic update
Google is always improving how it assesses content and updating its search ranking and serving algorithms accordingly; core updates and other smaller updates may change how some pages perform in Google Search results. We post about notable improvements to our systems on our list of ranking updates page; check it to see if there’s anything that’s applicable to your site.
If you suspect a drop in traffic is due to an algorithmic update, it’s important to understand that there might not be anything fundamentally wrong with your content. To determine whether you need to make a change, review your top pages in Search Console and assess how they were ranking:
Small drop in position? For example, dropping from position 2 to 4.
Large drop in position? For example, dropping from position 4 to 29.
Keep in mind that positions aren’t static or fixed in place. Google’s search results are dynamic in nature because the open web itself is constantly changing with new and updated content. This constant change can cause both gains and drops in organic Search traffic.
Small drop in position
A small drop in position is when there’s a small shift in position in the top results (for example, dropping from position 2 to 4 for a search query). In Search Console, you might see a noticeable drop in traffic without a big change in impressions.
Advertisement

Small fluctuations in position can happen at any time (including moving back up in position, without you needing to do anything). In fact, we recommend avoiding making radical changes if your page is already performing well.
Large drop in position
A large drop in position is when you see a notable drop out of the top results for a wide range of terms (for example, dropping from the top 10 results to position 29).
In cases like this, self-assess your whole website overall (not just individual pages) to make sure it’s helpful, reliable and people-first. If you’ve made changes to your site, it may take time to see an effect: some changes can take effect in a few days, while others could take several months. For example, it may take months before our systems determine that a site is now producing helpful content in the long term. In general, you’ll likely want to wait a few weeks to analyze your site in Search Console again to see if your efforts had a beneficial effect on ranking position.
Keep in mind that there’s no guarantee that changes you make to your website will result in noticeable impact in search results. If there’s more deserving content, it will continue to rank well with our systems.”

Change #5 Trivial Changes

The rest of the changes are relatively trivial but nonetheless makes the documentation more precise.

For example, one of the headings was changed from this:

You recently moved your site

To this new heading:

Site moves and migrations

Google’s Updated Ranking Drops Documentation

Google’s updated documentation is a well thought out but I think that the recommendations for large algorithmic drops are helpful for some cases and not helpful for other cases. I have 25 years of SEO experience and have experienced every single Google algorithm update. There are certain updates where the problem is not solved by trying to fix things and Google’s guidance used to be that sometimes there’s nothing to fix. The documentation is better but in my opinion it can be improved even further.

Read the new documentation here:

Debugging drops in Google Search traffic

Review the previous documentation:

Internet Archive Wayback Machine: Debugging drops in Google Search traffic

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Tomacco

SEO

Google March 2024 Core Update Officially Completed A Week Ago

Published

20 hours ago

April 27, 2024

Max

Google has officially completed its March 2024 Core Update, ending over a month of ranking volatility across the web.

However, Google didn’t confirm the rollout’s conclusion on its data anomaly page until April 26—a whole week after the update was completed on April 19.

Many in the SEO community had been speculating for days about whether the turbulent update had wrapped up.

The delayed transparency exemplifies Google’s communication issues with publishers and the need for clarity during core updates

Google March 2024 Core Update Timeline & Status

First announced on March 5, the core algorithm update is complete as of April 19. It took 45 days to complete.

Unlike more routine core refreshes, Google warned this one was more complex.

Google’s documentation reads:

“As this is a complex update, the rollout may take up to a month. It’s likely there will be more fluctuations in rankings than with a regular core update, as different systems get fully updated and reinforce each other.”

The aftershocks were tangible, with some websites reporting losses of over 60% of their organic search traffic, according to data from industry observers.

The ripple effects also led to the deindexing of hundreds of sites that were allegedly violating Google’s guidelines.

Addressing Manipulation Attempts

In its official guidance, Google highlighted the criteria it looks for when targeting link spam and manipulation attempts:

Creating “low-value content” purely to garner manipulative links and inflate rankings.
Links intended to boost sites’ rankings artificially, including manipulative outgoing links.
The “repurposing” of expired domains with radically different content to game search visibility.

The updated guidelines warn:

“Any links that are intended to manipulate rankings in Google Search results may be considered link spam. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.”

John Mueller, a Search Advocate at Google, responded to the turbulence by advising publishers not to make rash changes while the core update was ongoing.

However, he suggested sites could proactively fix issues like unnatural paid links.

Mueller stated on Reddit:

“If you have noticed things that are worth improving on your site, I’d go ahead and get things done. The idea is not to make changes just for search engines, right? Your users will be happy if you can make things better even if search engines haven’t updated their view of your site yet.”

Emphasizing Quality Over Links

The core update made notable changes to how Google ranks websites.

Most significantly, Google reduced the importance of links in determining a website’s ranking.

In contrast to the description of links as “an important factor in determining relevancy,” Google’s updated spam policies stripped away the “important” designation, simply calling links “a factor.”

This change aligns with Google’s Gary Illyes’ statements that links aren’t among the top three most influential ranking signals.

Instead, Google is giving more weight to quality, credibility, and substantive content.

Consequently, long-running campaigns favoring low-quality link acquisition and keyword optimizations have been demoted.

With the update complete, SEOs and publishers are left to audit their strategies and websites to ensure alignment with Google’s new perspective on ranking.

Core Update Feedback

Google has opened a ranking feedback form related to this core update.

You can use this form until May 31 to provide feedback to Google’s Search team about any issues noticed after the core update.

While the feedback provided won’t be used to make changes for specific queries or websites, Google says it may help inform general improvements to its search ranking systems for future updates.

Google also updated its help documentation on “Debugging drops in Google Search traffic” to help people understand ranking changes after a core update.

Featured Image: Rohit-Tripathi/Shutterstock

FAQ

After the update, what steps should websites take to align with Google’s new ranking criteria?

After Google’s March 2024 Core Update, websites should:

Improve the quality, trustworthiness, and depth of their website content.
Stop heavily focusing on getting as many links as possible and prioritize relevant, high-quality links instead.
Fix any shady or spam-like SEO tactics on their sites.
Carefully review their SEO strategies to ensure they follow Google’s new guidelines.

SEO

Google Declares It The “Gemini Era” As Revenue Grows 15%

Published

2 days ago

April 26, 2024

Max

Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, announced its first quarter 2024 financial results today.

While Google reported double-digit growth in key revenue areas, the focus was on its AI developments, dubbed the “Gemini era” by CEO Sundar Pichai.

The Numbers: 15% Revenue Growth, Operating Margins Expand

Alphabet reported Q1 revenues of $80.5 billion, a 15% increase year-over-year, exceeding Wall Street’s projections.

Net income was $23.7 billion, with diluted earnings per share of $1.89. Operating margins expanded to 32%, up from 25% in the prior year.

Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s President and CFO, stated:

“Our strong financial results reflect revenue strength across the company and ongoing efforts to durably reengineer our cost base.”

Google’s core advertising units, such as Search and YouTube, drove growth. Google advertising revenues hit $61.7 billion for the quarter.

The Cloud division also maintained momentum, with revenues of $9.6 billion, up 28% year-over-year.

Pichai highlighted that YouTube and Cloud are expected to exit 2024 at a combined $100 billion annual revenue run rate.

Generative AI Integration in Search

Google experimented with AI-powered features in Search Labs before recently introducing AI overviews into the main search results page.

Regarding the gradual rollout, Pichai states:

“We are being measured in how we do this, focusing on areas where gen AI can improve the Search experience, while also prioritizing traffic to websites and merchants.”

Pichai reports that Google’s generative AI features have answered over a billion queries already:

“We’ve already served billions of queries with our generative AI features. It’s enabling people to access new information, to ask questions in new ways, and to ask more complex questions.”

Google reports increased Search usage and user satisfaction among those interacting with the new AI overview results.

The company also highlighted its “Circle to Search” feature on Android, which allows users to circle objects on their screen or in videos to get instant AI-powered answers via Google Lens.

Reorganizing For The “Gemini Era”

As part of the AI roadmap, Alphabet is consolidating all teams building AI models under the Google DeepMind umbrella.

Pichai revealed that, through hardware and software improvements, the company has reduced machine costs associated with its generative AI search results by 80% over the past year.

He states:

“Our data centers are some of the most high-performing, secure, reliable and efficient in the world. We’ve developed new AI models and algorithms that are more than one hundred times more efficient than they were 18 months ago.

How Will Google Make Money With AI?

Alphabet sees opportunities to monetize AI through its advertising products, Cloud offerings, and subscription services.

Google is integrating Gemini into ad products like Performance Max. The company’s Cloud division is bringing “the best of Google AI” to enterprise customers worldwide.

Google One, the company’s subscription service, surpassed 100 million paid subscribers in Q1 and introduced a new premium plan featuring advanced generative AI capabilities powered by Gemini models.

Future Outlook

Pichai outlined six key advantages positioning Alphabet to lead the “next wave of AI innovation”:

Research leadership in AI breakthroughs like the multimodal Gemini model
Robust AI infrastructure and custom TPU chips
Integrating generative AI into Search to enhance the user experience
A global product footprint reaching billions
Streamlined teams and improved execution velocity
Multiple revenue streams to monetize AI through advertising and cloud

With upcoming events like Google I/O and Google Marketing Live, the company is expected to share further updates on its AI initiatives and product roadmap.

Featured Image: Sergei Elagin/Shutterstock