June 6, 2022

Link Prospecting Tactics for SaaS Companies (2022)

What is link prospecting? And how do I perform link prospecting for SaaS companies? There are many ways to identify and contact potential link prospects.

For example, you can identify sites that accept guest posts, accept submissions too freely, and have a history of allowing do-follow links.

Other ways to find potential link prospects are to identify competitors, see how many pages they link to, and contact them directly.

Here are some ways to use Google to your advantage.

Hopefully, these tips will help you increase your link building success!

What is link prospecting? Why does it matter?

The first topic we'll cover in this link prospecting tutorial is what link prospecting is and why it's vital.

To begin, let's try to come up with a concise explanation of link building.

Link building is the practice of attempting to obtain do-follow backlinks – that is, connections from other websites back to your own website – from relevant and reputable domains, also known as referring domains, while adhering to Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

In the screenshot below, we've highlighted some of the practices that are deemed to be against Google and other major search engines' standards when it comes to link building.

Links that accept guest posts

When link prospecting for links that accept guest posts, it is imperative to find relevant, high-quality sites to submit your guest posts.

You can find relevant sites through various search operators such as "guest post sites" and "guest posting websites".

Does guest posting improve my ranking?

In most cases, guest posting will improve your ranking, and you will gain valuable traffic to your website in the process. It is also an effective way to improve your website's visibility and traffic.

Guest posting can boost your link popularity, but not at the expense of quality. While half of niche blogs won't provide a free link, you can greatly increase your chances of getting a guest post accepted by pitching your writing skills and mentioning the traffic value of your content.

If you're looking for links with high traffic and SEO, guest posts are an excellent option. Here are some tips that will help you improve your guest posting strategy.

Are guest posts worth the effort?

First, it is important to remember that guest posts don't give you a link to your site. Most of them have low-quality content and are unassociated with the author.

Furthermore, most of these links lead to spammy affiliate sites.

You can detect blatant link spam in the author bio, but subtle link spam may sneak past your spam sniff test.

The content on the guest post is typically duplicated.

Once you've found a couple of links that accept guest posts, it is time to do the dirty work of linking to those sites.

This includes co-occurrences around the link page that help its ranking for relevant keywords.

Using a tool such as LinkMiner to automate this process is a great way to scale broken link building.

You may be able to find a few hundred pages of broken links that accept guest posts.

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Sites that have a history of allowing do-follow linking

A great link prospecting tool can find relevant sites and group similar links in a list. You can sort the results by "Dofollow" or "One Link Per Domain" or export the list to an Excel spreadsheet.

Your link building campaign

Once you've selected the sites you want to target, repeat the process for the next one. If you can't find any of the sites you want, use a similar technique to try and outrank the other sites.

One of the most common ways to gain high-quality do-follow links is by targeting newly launched domains with a history of allowing do-follow linking.

These sites typically have higher search traffic volume and a high level of authority.

It also takes very little time and effort to reach out to such sites, but each failed request can sap your resources.

Prospect qualification is an important step in the link prospecting process, as it helps you prioritize the links that are worth pursuing.

Identifying competitors

There are three different approaches to identifying competitors when link prospecting. The first one is the "better resource" approach.

By asking your competitors to link to a better resource, you can gain hundreds of links, but the second one requires more effort.

The best way to do this is to monitor competitors' backlink profiles.

If you see sudden increases in the quantity of backlinks, you should look for potential new links.

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Use link prospecting tools to identify link targets

Once you've identified the top three listings in search results, you can contact the website owners of these blogs and offer your link.

Identifying bloggers and websites that are leveraging visual content is an effective way to identify opportunities.

You can also use tools like Ahrefs and Reverse Image Search to find image-rich blogs that feature visual content.

Identifying images of brands and websites can also help you find link opportunities. You can also conduct a free search using Similar Site Search.

When approaching competitors, it's important to approach each opportunity carefully. Start by creating content based on the phase of the link prospecting process.

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Understanding domain authority for search engines

If the opportunity you're looking at is broken, you've missed the opportunity to earn 75 or 80 backlinks.

But by following these steps, you can move into the neighborhood where your competitors are. You can also take advantage of broken link building opportunities to build up a link network.

Once you've identified a few prospects, the next step is to scour them for new link opportunities. A good rule of thumb is to use your previous list of opportunities as a guideline.

It saves time and effort by not having to sift through multiple lists of prospects. Similarly, website categorization and tags make link prospecting easier.

You'll be amazed at how many new prospects you can discover by using this method.

Finding link prospects

You may wonder how to find the best link prospects, but you can start by studying your competition's strategies. By tracking what your competitors are doing, you can spot new blogs and brands.

Likewise, you can learn more about the types of links they are using and which campaigns they are running to boost their traffic.

This will help you to identify link prospects for your own content. There are several tools and strategies you can use to find the best links, but they can be time consuming.

Build a link building process that's repeatable

Using a tool called Link Prospector is a great way to find email addresses and link prospects. You can export author names and domains and then use Hunter to find them.

Once you've located your potential link prospects, you can begin your outreach process.

While it may seem like a lot of work, this process will save you countless hours of wasted time.

Just make sure to invest your time in learning how to find the best link prospects and start building your link popularity.

Building links is more than guest posts

Join community forums and blogger groups to participate in conversations with other bloggers. Reddit and Quora are also great places to look for link opportunities.

Answer questions and post relevant content to these communities, including a link to your website.

While you'll have hundreds of links opportunities on Quora, you'll be contacting only 20 percent of them.

As with other link prospects, it's important to vet the potential link prospect thoroughly before sending them an email.

Once you've identified your target keywords, you're ready to search for potential link prospects.

Once you've found a few sites, you'll need to analyze the top results and examine each page's backlinks. The higher the results, the more potential you'll find.

But remember to stay patient! Link prospecting requires constant research to be successful. Make sure you invest time in learning how to find and manage these sites in order to build a sustainable campaign.

How to build a link prospecting process

Let's try to define each of the three steps in the procedure.

Step 1: Prospecting

Prospecting is the practice of identifying potential link prospects (also known as link targets) for your link-building effort.

To undertake link prospecting, you must first choose which link development tactics you will employ, as well as which link prospecting tools will assist you in implementing those techniques.

Step 2: Accreditation

The process of certifying a list of prospects, or link-building chances, you've developed based on precise, qualitative criteria is known as qualification.

We mean indicators like the website's Domain Authority (DA) as determined by Moz or Ahrefs, total organic traffic, or the number of outgoing links when we say "qualitative criteria."

Other qualifying factors, such as subject relevance, are less visible and cannot be quantified as simply as the DA of a website.

Step 3: Outreach

The practice of reaching out to your prospects via highly tailored email campaigns is known as outreach.

Depending on how you approach link building, the method you do outreach changes.

Reaching out to potential link targets for guest blogging, such as to publish a guest post on another website, will be different than reaching out to link prospects to pitch an infographic you've created, or to request the replacement of a broken link on your prospect's website, or to discuss a reverse image search link-building strategy.

Despite the fact that we'll provide a strategy that includes all three components of the link building process in this guide, we'll concentrate on the first phase of the process: prospecting.

Prospecting is crucial since it determines, to some part, the overall success of your campaign.

If you haven't been able to locate high-quality and relevant sites, or link prospects, to contact, it's unlikely that you'll be able to obtain as many new connections.

Link prospecting is thus not only the first, but also one of the most crucial and time-consuming steps in the link-building process.

Let's move on to our five-step approach for efficient link prospecting now that we've defined what link prospecting is and why it's vital.

Are link building campaigns worth it?

Are high quality links worth it? One thing you won't hear many search marketers talk about is the effectiveness of link building.

It's important to build links. But is it that important in ranking?

The answer is no. It's not. And many young websites don't need many links at all.

The way to determine this is to consider your category, vertical, and niche. For example, if you're expecting to compete against Indeed.com, you'll have a considerably more challenging time doing it without significant link authority and link building efforts.

In a contrasting niche, one that might be smaller and less competitive, your results can be achieved without as much effort.

A successful link building campaign will look at these factors. And your link prospecting efforts should get based on the initial category analysis.

But generally, are links that helpful in driving traffic and SEO? No, they are not. It's better to use your capital on content marketing and content production rather than link building.

Common FAQ's

Questions from search marketers and answers Google search experts.

Why is it critical to seek for high-quality link-building opportunities?

Finding high-quality link-building chances is critical since it determines the effectiveness of your link-building operations to some part.

When you have a list of quality and relevant link prospects, as well as the correct contact information for those possibilities, you have a better chance of receiving a good response, which will lead to the intended conclusion.

What is backlink analysis and how does it work?

The process of examining a website's link profile is known as backlink analysis. That's not the same as link building or link prospecting; it's more about figuring out what's good and bad about your backlink profile, rather than helping you get more links from relevant and high-authority websites.

When examining link profiles, what should I check for?

When examining link profiles, consider the link target's relevancy to your own website, the quantity and quality of connecting domains, as well as the number of outgoing links from this website/page to other websites.

This will give you a good idea of how much link juice (also known as link equity) you may expect from this website.

How do you distinguish between link prospecting and link building?

Prospecting for links is a step in the link-building process. It is, in fact, the first and most crucial procedure, as it determines the entire effectiveness of your link-building effort.

What are the advantages of link prospecting?

The key advantage of link prospecting is that you may build a list of high-quality and relevant prospects who would be interested in connecting back to your website if you can convince them why they should.

This will make the subsequent outreach process easier, as well as determining the overall effectiveness of your campaign.

What is the difference between link prospecting and backlink analysis?

The process of examining a website's link profile is known as backlink analysis. Link prospecting, on the other hand, refers to the act of identifying potential link prospects or targets for your link-building strategy.

When it comes to link building and as an extension of a good search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, both actions are critical.

How do I find resource pages in Google?

Take a look at the results of a Google search for "organic dog food": Inurl lookup: When you apply the "inurl" modifier, Google only returns sites that include your key word in the URL.

This will aid in the discovery of fantastic, relevant resource sites as well as other hyper-relevant target pages for your link-building efforts.

You may also use the "intitle" modification, which may return a different set of relevant sites with your key word in the title.

These advanced search operators can assist in finding pages that are ripe for outreach.

Link Prospecting Tactics for SaaS Companies (2022)

Written by Joshua Davis
VP of Platform

June 6, 2022

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