Link Building For SaaS: A Strategic Guide For 2023

With a growing SaaS business, you must be interested in increasing your online visibility. With that comes the concept of link-building. Essentially, linking building for SaaS means acquiring backlinks to your website from other reputable and high domain authority (DA) websites.

It is important to emphasize the quality of the links over the quantity. This means that the links must be from a high DA website from the respective niche. Additionally, the links should be related and relevant alongside keyword-optimized anchor text.

The Importance Of Link Building For SaaS:

SEO experts and search engines like Google consider backlinks as one of the top factors that affect a website’s ranking on a search result page. Yet, research has indicated that at least 66 percent of web pages have no backlinks.

Conversely, purchasing backlinks can tank your rankings. This is because Google considers this spam and can even penalize you. Hence, it is crucial to get quality backlinks from quality content. Hence, without further delay, let us take a look at how you can join the top ranker’s crew.

Tips For Link Building For SaaS:

This section shall walk you through strategies for link build for SaaS. In addition, we will also discuss other strategies to acquire inbound links, do-follow links, and increase organic traffic flow.

1. Start A Blog

If you haven’t started a blog yet, what’s keeping you from doing so? It’s 2023, and we don’t need to remind you of the importance of a blog for your SaaS business. A blog will aid you in establishing an audience. Consequently, a part of your audience will convert into brand advocates and customers.

Additionally, having a blog with high-quality content will ease the link building for the SaaS process. Since typical publishers like linking to blog pages instead of home or product pages. This emphasizes how easy SaaS link building is with an active blog.

So, start with creating a blog on your SaaS website. For reference, check out Ahrefs and Hubspot. Both of these sites serve as a good example of a well-designed SaaS blog. Such blogs motivate you to not just keep reading but also visit them again.

The blogs are easy to navigate for special topics, thanks to the good structuring. Consider their structure and design for your blog.

2. Create Linkable Assets

Alongside a well-designed and structured blog is the content quality you populate the blog with. Instead of creating swallowed content with no purpose, invest your efforts and resources in coming up with linkable assets.

Such assets will attract organic traffic, backlinks, conversions and shares, all by themselves. An asset that is linkable is an extremely high-quality piece of content. Such content is built with the purpose of attracting links from reliable and reputable websites for your niche.

For a SaaS blog, you can consider the following linkable assets:

a. Statistics

People love statistics. This is especially true for such bloggers that like to back their claims and leave no room for mistakes. This way, compiling statistics or conducting research so data people can link it back to you. This is a great strategy to attract links.

Consider Hubspot as an example. Hubspot’s marketing team conducts their own research and surveys. Additionally, they also collaborate with brands to compile a more comprehensive report. And people actually like to link their findings on their websites.

b. Guides

Long-form content is ideal for attracting backlinks. Studies have also indicated so. Long-form content tends to receive at least 77 percent increased backlinks in comparison to content that is short-form.

A lot of SaaS blogs adhere to this strategy. They aim to produce comprehensive and valuable content, even greater than the top-ranked articles on a SERP. While not all content will immediately rank top, it has been successful. 

With consistency, you can earn loads of backlinks without even reaching out. And that too from reputable websites. And we can help you do so too.

c. Glossary Pages

A glossary page is just an index of definitions of certain words in a specific niche. These are similar to TV series indices or dictionaries. For instance, consider Moz’s SEO Glossary page. While it’s useful for SEO beginners, people would also like to link back to it.

d. Product Comparison Pages

SaaS businesses love product comparison pages. These pages work well for the consideration stage of the sales funnel. Additionally, they also attract backlinks. While they’re often deemed as just promotional, it just doesn’t end here.

Such pages not only have great potential for ranking but also have the ability to nudge users to sign up. In addition, such pages can also help in SaaS link building from bloggers in a similar niche.

e. Customer Stories

Customer stories are not the most favorite tactic but can work. If your SaaS product has been of help to your customers to reach success, why not write about that. Write a case study about it.

Keep the story of your customer simple. Start with introducing your client. Next, outline the problem they’ve been facing. After that, share the solution you proposed. Lastly, back up the case study with actual stats and figures alongside customer testimonials.

For instance, Hubspot helped Hatch with its all-in-one platform. This way, Hatch was able to grow by 300 percent in their Marketing Qualified Leads just in a year.

If you successfully draft a well-written success story, you can end up earning loads of backlinks. These backlinks will come from publications and bloggers talking about your products.

3. Unlinked Mentions

One excellent link building for SaaS strategy is to look for mentions that are not linked to your brand.These unlinked mentions can be anywhere across the internet. This is all about getting in touch with any website owner that mentions your name but doesn’t add a link to your site.

Keeping an eye out for such mentions can be such a headache. For this, you can set up an alert by Google News to keep a constant check on websites that may write about you. And as you receive a notification, check if they’ve included your link or not.

In case they haven’t, just reach out to the author. You can content them through email or Twitter. Finally, you can then ask them to add your link to their website.

4. Linked Mentions

Now, we know you’re confused that if a brand has already mentioned your link, why would you reach out for a linked mention? This tactic requires you to reach out to such backlinks that have your homepage linked.

So, instead of getting redirected to your homepage, ask them to redirect it to a more relevant page. This way, you can easily capitalize on great quality referral traffic. Consider the example of Typeform. Typeform reached out to websites to link their survey maker page instead of the homepage. 

This way, Typeform was able to jump both Survey Monkey and Wikipedia on the search result page. And this was all thanks to increased relevant link placement.

5. Guest Posting

By guest posting, you can build non-promotional and contextual backlinks for your SaaS website. But ensure you do so on authoritative and reputable websites. In essence, guest posting is a content collaboration strategy. This means that you create content for other relevant websites.

Firstly, you will have to reach out to the intended publisher. You can contact them through email or their website’s contact us page. Next, pitch them your topic idea. The topic must be valuable to both your and their audience. Finally, start with drafting the article. But ensure to adhere to the host’s publishing guidelines.

This can be a win-win strategy for you and the host. This is because the publisher gets fresh and free high-quality content. On the other hand, you get greater brand visibility and can get exposed to a much larger audience. And let us not forget link building for SaaS.

Also, it is essential to note that some publishers may charge you for a guest post. On average, publishers charge up to $77. However, paying for backlinks is not a great idea. Regardless, free guest posts are an excellent strategy to generate backlinks.

To look for guest posting opportunities, try different internet tools. For instance:

●  BuzzStream – to look for reputable bloggers to collaborate with

●  BuzzSumo – to discover blog topic ideas

●  Hunter – to look for the accurate email address

6. The HARO Strategy

When it comes to link building for SaaS, you’ll instantly think of places for link placement. Conversely, the HARO or Help-A-Reporter-Out approach will assist you in attracting links from highly-reputable publications. Here, publishers are looking for you.

The platform of HARO comes up with a list of trending stories and opportunities. They allow sources to gain media exposure, which is highly valuable. Signing up at HARO as a source will open up an avenue of opportunities for your SaaS website.

Not only will you get media exposure, but also extremely high-quality backlinks. These backlinks will come from brands like The New York Times, Mashable, Wall Street Journal, and Refinery29. These are just a few names, but the list doesn’t end here.

Start link building for SaaS from high domain authority websites with HARO. Make sure to give their rules and guidelines a read before starting off.

7. Public Relation (PR) Approach

PR helps a business come into the spotlight. They assist a business both online and offline. In addition, they also enhance the brand’s credibility, reputation, and awareness. All this through media exposure and coverage. The media can be both mainstream and social media.

For link building for SaaS, digital PR is an excellent opportunity. You can easily obtain backlinks from media outlets and reputable bloggers. Digital PR is all about crafting attractive content and stories. It needs to be a collaboration that is win-win for both parties:

●  The Publisher – they will benefit from fresh and good quality content and topics.

●  Your Brand – you will benefit from the backlinks and exposure to high domain authority publications.

To successfully implement this link building for SaaS approach, you need to start building relationships first. Start building relationships with well-known bloggers and reputable journalists. 

Look for suitable people and nurture a good relationship with them. You can do so by engaging on their social media and websites to grasp their attention. Like, comment, and share their posts. Get to know them by interacting with them. And then ask them for the links.

Once you’ve decided upon a platform, next, you must come up with a foundation. Here are a quick few tips:

●  Link your content to a current trend or event. This way, you’ll stay on-trend and pitch a story right on time. This is also referred to as newsjacking. Take help from Google Alerts for trending topics and people from your niche.

●  Use a unique or controversial angle. For instance, a new opinion, data, or development on an old story. This unique angle must flow across the entire content and be a prominent part of your pitch email.

●  Typically, journalists are very busy. Present a to the point and straightforward pitch. Understand the approach of the journalist. Be concise while including all necessary content assets.

●  Journalists and bloggers love backed data. This builds the credibility of the content. Hence, ensure that your data is backed by a 3rd party. Surveys and research by you may include some biases.

Lastly, ensure that you give the email a personalized touch with your first name and subject line.

8. Reward In Exchange For Links

Every niche has its own bloggers and influencers. Hence, an excellent approach for link building for SaaS is by exchanging backlinks for rewards. This means that you can provide the influencers with a free subscription or credits for your tools in return for SaaS link building.

You can design a blogger outreach campaign. In this campaign, you can collaborate with influencers from your niche with a significant following. Use this to create authentic and promotional content for your SaaS website.

These influencers can promote and create content off-page for SaaS. In return, you can compensate them with a software subscription or credits for your tools. The content can include sponsored posts with mentions that are prominent of your brand, giveaways or product reviews.

9. Exchange Backlinks

A study conducted by Ahrefs suggests that at least 73 percent of the domains have reciprocal links. This means the sites they link to link back to them as well. And what’s more surprising is that at least 43 percent of these sites are top-ranking pages.

Hence, exchanging backlinks is a strategy that you should definitely consider. However, most SEO experts and even Google themselves advise against it. But remember that this is pretty common in the proper context.

Typically SaaS budding brands use this strategy the most. For instance, link a complementary SaaS product in your content. This will also help your audience and be helpful to them. Once you’ve linked them, let them know.

Additionally, ask them if they could return the favor by doing so as well. Another way to reciprocate link building for SaaS:

• Look for someone who regularly contributes to guest posts. Ensure that they’re on reputable publications and from the same niche.

• Get in touch with them, and ask if they would be interested in exchanging links. And in exchange, you can link back to not only them but their intended publications.

• Lastly, use tools like Airtable to keep a watch over your backlinks.

While exchanging backlinks, it’s critical to ensure that the publisher’s website is well-established and relevant.

10. Participate In Conferences And Podcasts

Recently, podcasts have been gaining a lot of popularity. Not only do they enhance your brand awareness, but they also help you in link building for SaaS. This happens as you appear on a relevant podcast from your niche.

This is because a lot of podcasts are later repurposed as content for the website. Hence, whenever you’re invited to a podcast, the host publishes the entire discussion on their blog or website. And since you’ve spoken off your website, the participants receive backlinks.

This approach is way easier than writing high-quality content. All you have to do is speak on a relevant topic for an hour or half. And in case you host your own podcast, include it in your marketing strategy.

You can use your podcasts for link building for SaaS as well. Just send your podcast to websites that write about podcast lists. Similarly, you can also participate in conferences. This will also aid in link building for SaaS.

11. Affiliate Programs

By coming up with an affiliate program that pays better than the competition, you can invite more influencers to refer you. As they refer you and spread the word out, you receive backlinks.

While surely, your profit margins may decrease. But, your brand awareness and visibility will increase alongside mentions, backlinks and reviews. For instance, the affiliate program at SEMrush was solely responsible for the early success and may still be.

Wrapping Up Link Building For SaaS

Link building for SaaS may be a long process requiring pertinence and experiments. To may have to climb the stairs via the trial and error method. Since there are many strategies, it is crucial to adopt the most efficient one. 

However, if that sounds very extensive for you, try reaching out to us. Our experience can help you save resources and efforts. And remember, it isn’t just about how many links but the quality of the links.