The SEO landscape is today in a constant state of flux due to the rise of AI and shifting search trends, along with the increasing competition. In today's world, especially for SaaS businesses, keyword rankings and organic traffic are no longer the only factors that determine success. High-quality content, backlinks, community building, customer trust, and brand authority are all becoming key components of sustainable growth alongside measurable business outcomes.

This shift from an SEO specialist to becoming an entrepreneur and an ecosystem builder is represented by Saket Aggarwal. He has seven years of experience in SaaS SEO, keyword research, content strategy, link building, technical SEO, analytics, and organic growth, bringing his expertise to the creation of businesses and industry communities. From his role as CEO & Director at Digital Gratified FZ-LLC, along with his role building Draftly, linkOreach, the first SaaS SEO Conference in India, Saket's journey has given him valuable insights into SEO, AI, entrepreneurship, SaaS growth, networking, and the future of digital discoverability. 

Key Takeaways

  • SEO is much more useful and meaningful when it is linked to business results and not just rankings.
  • Relevance, authority, context, and business impact are the four pillars of good quality SaaS link building.
  • While AI transforms the SEO landscape, the three key elements of discoverability, credibility, and trust continue to be the pillars of the field.
  • Original expertise and actual experience is a growing edge when content creation is getting cheaper.
  • Organic traffic will only bring value to your business if it’s attracting the right visitors and is conducive to conversion.
  • Individuals who become founders of a specialist eventually need to get up to speed on leadership, sales, hiring, operations and delegation.
  • Conferences can serve the purpose of creating value beyond education and foster relationships, partnerships and communities.
  • Multiple enterprises need to be systemized and owned, not run by the founders.
  • The marketing principles are as important as the SEO principles for today's SEO professionals who are new to the field.
  • The first step in sustainable networking is to make value, which is not directly a transaction.
  • Ultimately, the growth of SaaS is likely to be a mix of SEO, AI, brand authority, community and trust. 

Who is Saket Aggarwal?

Some of the founders create companies. Some venture a step further, creating an ecosystem around an industry.Saket Aggarwal is in the latter group.In total, Saket has seven years of experience in SEO, where he has developed his skills in content creation, SaaS link building, technical SEO, analytics, and organic growth. However, his work around search rankings has slowly grown into an extensive operation.He is currently the CEO & Director of Digital Gratified FZ-LLC, and is developing companies such as Draftly and linkOreach. He has also embarked on another ambitious project, organizing India's first-ever SaaS SEO Conference to a space where founders, marketers, SEO professionals, SaaS leaders and growth experts can connect and have a deep, meaningful conversation all in one place.

His experience illustrates an essential shift in the essence of SEO.SEO is not just about the pages' ranking for keywords. It increasingly overlaps with brand authority and trust, content and distribution, demand generation, AI, community, and revenue for SaaS companies.This transformation is a reality in Saket. Whether he has the ability to execute SEO campaigns and assist businesses in improving their organic visibility, or he is working on brands like SE Ranking, developing businesses, and putting together an industry conference, his career will serve as a testament to the power of specialized expertise turning into entrepreneurship.Join us in this Fixnhour Founder Spotlight, where we delve into the evolution of SEO, the world of SaaS SEO, entrepreneurship, AI, link building, community building, and his plans to build something greater than an SEO agency. 

Q1. Saket, you have spent around seven years in SEO. How did your journey begin, and when did you realize SEO could become much more than a career for you?

As a newbie in SEO, keywords, content, backlinks, technical, ranking and analytics were obvious items that I wanted to learn. Fixnhour However, as I got more and more experience with the projects I went through, I realized that SEO would be right in the middle of a business.Just because a site is listed on Google is not enough for it to be a useful ranking. It's useful when it attracts the right audience, creates opportunities, develops authority, and eventually helps to make money.That's when I changed my perspective on SEO.Then, over time, I developed a greater interest in the big picture of growth and not just a specific aspect of SEO.From there, entrepreneurship grew out of that curiosity. 

Q2. What pushed you to build Digital Gratified rather than continuing as an independent SEO professional?

One person can only do so much.As clients begin to trust you with bigger objectives, you know that you need different skills to achieve sustainable outcomes: strategy, content, outreach, link building, technical knowledge, project management and reporting.When you establish a company you can have systems in place that build on those capabilities.To me, Digital Gratified was an evolution from executing one-off projects and starting to develop a team and process that would enable SaaS businesses to scale their organic presence.It also altered my own job.If you're a founder, you simply can't stick to SEO. You must acquire sales, recruitment, finance, operations, leadership, client and business development skills. 

Q3. You specialize significantly in SaaS link building. Why is link building still so important, and what do companies often misunderstand about it?

Many people have the perception that link building is just a numbers game.However, having hundreds of backlinks doesn't automatically give you authority.Relevance matters.Quality matters.Context matters.The credibility of the website is important.And most importantly, the overall pattern of those links is important.In the case of SaaS businesses, the overall organic growth strategy should be complemented by good link building. It should make key pages more authoritative, and boost the brand's visibility in the right discussions on the web. 

Q4. You’ve worked across projects ranging from smaller businesses to established brands, including SE Ranking. What separates an SEO strategy that looks good on paper from one that actually produces results?

Execution and consistency.There are many great SEO strategies in doc files that never get results because they are not consistently and rapidly implemented.You need to have clear priorities for a successful strategy.You have to know what customers are looking for, where the company is now, what players are doing and where authority is to be generated and what activities can yield maximum benefits.If you want to, however, play consistently and determine the results, you're on the right track.SEO compounds.All of that one good item of content or backlink won't turn the business, but 100 good decisions over time will make a huge competitive difference. 

Q5. You are also behind India’s first SaaS SEO Conference. What made you move from participating in the industry to building a platform that brings the industry together?

The concept is rooted from the understanding of the importance of productive discussion.There's a lot of knowledge out there, but there is something of a magic when founders, marketers, SEO and SaaS leaders get all together in the same space.Individuals don't merely learn from presentations.They learn through dialogues between sessions.They discover partnerships.They exchange problems.They connect with individuals who have already addressed issues faced by them.At times they locate clients, partners, employees, mentors, or even friends.For building a conference is not merely an organization of an event. It's about fostering a community and establishing an environment that opportunities can organically occur. 

Q6. Organizing a major industry conference is very different from running an SEO company. What did that experience teach you about entrepreneurship?

It let's you know what entrepreneurship entails in terms of moving parts.There are speakers, sponsors, attendees, venues, logistics, marketing, partnerships, content, hospitality and so many other little things.All things must be in perfect harmony.It also emphasises the significance of relationships.It's not possible to develop a robust ecosystem without collaboration.People must believe in the vision and be willing to join the vision.As an entrepreneur, I've found this to be more and more true; business develops within relationships as well as strategies. 

Q7. AI is transforming search and content creation. Do you believe traditional SEO is becoming less important or simply evolving?

SEO is certainly changing.Individuals are finding information in new ways.Individuals are finding information in new ways. While traditional search engines continue to hold significance, AI-driven discovery is generating new methods for customers to discover brands and answers.The production of content is also speeding up.But once it's easier to execute, it's harder to differentiate.With everyone creating content, more isn't the answer.Brands have to have expertise, authority, original insights, strength in distribution, credible mentions, and trust.In the near future, I think SEO will be more intertwined with the process of building brands and digital authority.The strategies may evolve, but the one constant is that they need to be found by customers when they are searching for solutions. 

Q8. With AI making content creation significantly cheaper, what will separate strong SaaS brands from thousands of companies publishing similar content?

Experience and credibility.The use of AI for content creation is beneficial, but businesses must have something to say.The original data is worth a lot.The information from customers is valuable.Founder perspectives are worthwhile.The value of a real case study.Experience in the industry is a plus.A business that publishes hundreds of articles that are very similar can easily publish volume, but not necessarily build trust.The best SaaS companies will leverage AI efficiency, originality, and brand authority as well as human expertise. 

Q9. You are simultaneously involved with Digital Gratified, Draftly, linkOreach, and the SaaS SEO Conference. How do you manage multiple ventures without losing focus?

It's one of the most difficult things that any entrepreneur has to deal with when trying to work on a variety of business concepts.Eventually you realize that you can't make all the decisions on your own.You need systems.You need the people who've got the chops.There must be clear ownership.But with that you need to get good at disciplining yourself on how you spend your time for the best return on value.Being in everything is a sign of hard work as founders.However, after a while, it becomes a limiting factor.The company is more robust when it can function without the founder making decisions and carrying them out. 

Q10. What has been one of the hardest lessons you have learned while building businesses?

The biggest one is that growth doesn't always follow a straight line.There are some strategies that really help.Others aren't the same.At times you make a good choice and things still don't work out quite the way you hoped.You have to keep learning as an entrepreneur, but don't get too attached to the process of making decisions.You must analyse the data, listen to customers and staff, accept mistakes swiftly and make adjustments.The ability to change direction without losing the larger vision is extremely important. 

Q11. As someone deeply involved in lead generation, what do SaaS founders often get wrong about turning organic traffic into actual business?

Business does not equal traffic.Thousands of visitors to a website may not generate the number of qualified opportunities.SaaS businesses must, therefore, shift their focus from rankings.Who is visiting?What is their problem?Are the contents in line with the buying intent?Are there sufficient levels of trust established on the website?Does the value proposition make sense?Is there a clear progression?The customer journey should always be linked to SEO.It's not about getting more traffic. It should be more the right traffic and a better trail from discovery to trust to conversion. 

Q12. What advice would you give to someone entering SEO today, especially when AI can already perform many tasks that once required specialists?

Don't rely on one tactic to build your career on.Understand SEO in depth and be aware of business.Get to know your customers' reasoning for purchase.Learn analytics.Comprehend material and placement.Understand how to use AI tools.Learn to communicate and build relationships.Most importantly, learn to solve problems.The tools used will continue to evolve.Search engines will evolve.Many activities will be automated by AI.Businesses, however, will still pay individuals who can process complex issues, make sound decisions and create tangible results. 

Q13. You have emphasized collaboration and knowledge sharing throughout your journey. How important has networking been in your growth?

Extremely important.But I believe networking also works best when you don't make all conversations a transaction.The best relationships start with sharing knowledge and helping others, with exchanging ideas and having a good conversation.It is possible that there may be no immediate business opportunity.That's fine.Trust is a process that builds up gradually.If you're always creating value for people, things will fall into place.One of the things that are so interesting to me about community building and conferences is this mindset. 

Q14. Looking five years ahead, what do you want Saket Aggarwal and the businesses you are building to be known for?

I want to create businesses and platforms that have a real impact on the Saas ecosystem.In our other businesses, Digital Gratified, our vision remains to keep addressing pertinent problems of growth for companies.The vision can be even bigger with the SaaS SEO Conference.I want to build an ecosystem of some of the best people in SaaS, SEO, marketing, and growth, to learn from, form partnerships and create opportunities.In the end, the measure of a company's success is not just in its size.It's also about the environment that you shape around you. 

About Saket Aggarwal

Saket Aggarwal is a 7+ year entrepreneur and SEO with a diverse portfolio of SaaS SEO, keyword research, content, link building, technical SEO, analytics and organic growth.He currently serves as the CEO & Director of Digital Gratified FZ-LLC, and is working on the development of Draftly and linkOreach. He is also the founder of India's first SaaS SEO Conference that aims at uniting SaaS founders, marketers, SEO experts and growth leaders for learning, networking, and discovering new areas of opportunities.This is his entrepreneurial philosophy: learn a skill and create value, then develop enterprises around it and finally eventually create an ecosystem that allows others to flourish too. 

Final Thoughts on the Founder

The transformation that is described by Saket Aggarwal is one that many specialists are going to go through.It goes like this: you learn a skill, then you master it.Then you get to learn about how that skill adds value to the business.If you do that, you create a team that could deliver it.Then you begin to create a habitat from around the knowledge, relationships and opportunities that you have gathered.It's a journey that's embodied by Saket's evolution as an SEO professional to agency leader, SaaS entrepreneur and conference founder.His story is so relevant today because of the timing.

SEO is experiencing a big change. AI is driving a transformation in content creation, search dynamics, and even the rules of game-changing growth strategies.In this context, execution becomes a less distinguishing factor.Judgement, authority, relationships, original expertise and trust become more valuable.That's also why events like the SaaS SEO Conference are even more important today in this ever AI-driven world.Introductions can occur faster through technology.AI can summarize knowledge.Search can bring up information.Without people, however, there are no meaningful relationships.Some of the best business opportunities yet come from a basic chat. Talk to our experts