June 7, 2022

SaaS Link Building Guide (Rank Your Site in 2022)

If you're ready to invest in SaaS link building, you've come to the right place.

It's possible to find a highly effective agency in a matter of weeks, and you can even measure your progress through tools such as Ahrefs. In addition to monthly rankings, Ahrefs also tracks traffic improvements.

However, you should also take into account your monthly budget, the quality of existing website content, and the link building process of potential partner agencies.

Look at the agency's track record and client testimonials to gauge their ability to deliver results.

What is SaaS link building? And a SaaS link building strategy?

Building one-way hyperlinks (sometimes known as "backlinks") to a website with the objective of enhancing search engine exposure is known as link building. Content marketing, the creation of valuable products, email outreach, broken link building, and public relations are all common link-building tactics.

These strategies are designed to build backlinks to your domain.

Why are backlinks important?

To grasp this, climb in your Delorean and travel back in time to the pre-Google era of the internet.

Search engines like Yahoo! and Alta Vista were the dominating players back in the day. They also based their search results entirely on the content of a webpage.

Then there's Google.

The game was revolutionized by their now-famous PageRank Algorithm. Rather than just looking at the content of a page, Google looked at how many people connected to it.

This has stayed a constant measuring tool since its inception.

Using content marketing

When it comes to SaaS link building for content marketing, it's best to diversify the methods you use to promote the site.

Adding backlinks to the homepage can help boost your site's overall authority and brand reputation, and can also help generate the first few customers.

In addition to building links from other websites, you can also submit high-quality PR mentions to other sites, such as business websites and blogs.

Building guest posting backlinks

In order to build a quality backlink, you should look for guest posts in a relevant niche that you've been promoting for a long time.

The content must be at least 1,000 words long, contain specific research and expert opinions, and provide valuable information that your target audience will find valuable.

Guest posts can be a good way to get more backlinks to your SaaS site, but it's important to remember that guest posting won't necessarily create SEO links.

Tactical links

Despite this, the most common type of link building for SaaS companies is tactical link building. This involves adding highly relevant links to your site that signal Google that your website is relevant to its niche.

Do-follow mentions work wonders for SaaS, but they're tough to get. You must also get these mentions from authoritative sites and influencers in your niche.

Although do-follow mentions are ideal for SaaS link building, getting them isn't easy, so most companies opt for nofollow links. However, they're still important from an SEO perspective.

Build authority through content marketing

In order to get high-quality links, you must first establish a blog with a high readership. The content of a blog can help your website to get links from relevant websites.

While many publishers would rather link to the content pages, most of them will link to the product page.

In addition, it's better to create an active blog than one with no active content. For example, blogs created by SaaS companies like HubSpot and Ahrefs are structured for easy navigation.

As long as your content is useful and relevant, quality link building will happen. You can get more backlinks and social shares by creating more long-form content.

Use a community site to build link popularity. You can track your visibility on the site, and engage with the audience with your content.

While blog commenting is usually no-follow, it's still an effective way to engage with readers. Some blog comments will link back to your content, so it's worth considering.

Leaning into guest posts

Guest posts for SaaS link building are great ways to establish yourself as an expert in your niche and build backlinks. By writing unique content and making it useful, other websites may reference your content.

These websites may include your logo without a link, which is good for link building, but remember to request a backlink if your company is not credited.

Use the tools offered by the Outreach Guide to find relevant contacts to write guest posts.

Consider the websites domain authority

To get started, you need to choose an authoritative website with at least a 50 Domain Authority (DA) index. Make sure the site has specific guidelines for guest posting.

Once you find a website that will accept your guest post, research the content and identify content marketing managers. Be sure to follow the guidelines of the site in order to create the best possible content.

Once you've found websites that fit your niche, write articles for them.

Be careful when selecting blogs to post on, though. Not all blogs have the same authority, and not all authoritative sites are a good fit.

While many top sites are legitimate, guest posting on them adds very little value to your site.

Make sure to choose an authoritative blog before beginning guest blogging for SaaS link building. But it's important to keep in mind that it can be expensive to hire a copywriter.

Avoid spammy websites that look for guest posts

Lastly, remember that SaaS companies face unique link building challenges. Most of them look alike, so it's important to distinguish yourself from your competitors by defining your unique selling proposition.

You'll need to diversify your targets to increase your backlinks. And don't forget to set up nofollow links for your links.

To make your guest posts stand out, choose topics that are relevant to the content on the website.

If you're unsure of what to write about, use the Tabtimize tool to find relevant topics. This will ensure that your guest posts are seen by relevant audiences.

You can find websites that accept guest posts by following them on social media channels.

You should also try sharing your guest post with your audience on social media.

It's a good idea to thank the editor of the blog you're writing for so they can consider publishing your articles in the future.

Internal link building strategy

If you want your website to rank well in search engines, you need to create an effective internal linking strategy.

Without a link building strategy, you risk making your site a series of dead ends. Without effective internal links, visitors will likely return to the search results or choose a competitor's site.

Creating relevant links will help guide visitors to the content they are looking for. Listed below are some ideas to improve your internal link building strategy.

Are internal links valuable?

Create a content strategy that features multiple types of links. One way to drive more ICP is to offer badges to users.

People embed the badges on their sites and this increases your internal link count. Make sure your content is shareable and engaging.

You can offer free badges and other forms of content that people can embed on their websites. If your content is not linkable, it won't have many visitors to share.

Backlinks are an effective way to increase organic traffic and increase your website's ranking in the search engines. They also help create brand awareness and make your SaaS brand stand out from competitors.

Use internal links much like you expect backlinks to work

To achieve the best results, you need to implement an internal link building strategy that takes into account anchor text, link position, and type of link.

Then, make sure to include relevant, related content and linkable assets on your website.

Create logical and well-structured navigation. Internal links direct users from page to page and help them find information they are looking for.

They also help search engines crawl your site and evaluate your content for SERPs. These links are essential for your website to rank well in search engines.

The SaaS internal link building process should be tailored to your business. This way, your website is more likely to get higher rankings than your competitors'.

SaaS link building strategies that work

Here are proven tactics to build links for SaaS companies.

Unbranded mentions

Finding unlinked mentions of your brand on different parts of the internet may be a terrific way to gain links.

Reaching out to website owners who have mentioned your company but haven't included a link is what unlinked brand mentions are all about.

You may set up a Google News alert to identify websites that are writing about you on a regular basis and see whether they have added a link.

Investigate the author and write them an email or a tweet requesting that they include a link to your website.

Linked brand mentions

This strategy entails contacting websites that have linked to your homepage and requesting that the link be changed to a more relevant page on your site so you may benefit from higher-quality referral traffic.

Featured guest posts

Most SEO experts' link-building strategies include guest blogging. As a result, it's one of the most predictable methods of link building.

How do you do it?

You establish a relationship with a high authority site (or, better, several high authority sites) in your field and ask if they would want free high-quality material for their blog.

Your team of writers creates this material when they accept your subject proposal, and naturally includes a link back to the page you wish to generate more page topic authority (and 'organic' traffic) to.

You may generate amazing content, use your goal keywords as anchor text, and ultimately build a reasonable number of relevant backlinks this way.

While this may appear to be a lot of work, it will eventually pay off in terms of domain authority and organic traffic to your site.

It's also worth the time and effort to build a long-term connection with a site owner that loves high-quality content and is prepared to assist your backlink strategy in exchange for free guest articles from your content team.

However, link prospecting may be time-consuming and need a lot of back-and-forth communication.

As a result, many SaaS companies are hiring external SEO firms with guest blogging ties in their industry.

Podcasting

Wait, how can a podcast help search engines locate your website? What does this have to do with the development of high-quality backlinks?

It might come as a surprise to learn that podcasts are not only a terrific method to raise brand recognition in the community where your ICP hangs out, but they're also a great way to develop SaaS links.

Most podcasts include a website, which operates similarly to guest posting. So, once you talk on a podcast, they'll post it on their website with links to the websites you mentioned, and chances are, yours will be among them.

The main benefit of podcasting (vs to guest blogging) for developing links is that you don't have to devote the same amount of time, effort, and resources to creating high-quality written content. Instead, simply prepare ahead of time and talk for 30-45 minutes on a topic you're already comfortable with.

Embeds of products

When consumers embed elements of your product on your website, product embed links are produced.

When someone incorporated a contact form on Typeform, for example, they also added a link back to Typeform's contact form builder page, which helped it rank higher.

Find a means to make your product embeddable, and encourage your customers to do so on their own websites with a "Powered By" link to a relevant page on your site.

This strategy is known as "widget link building."

Shared links

Invision's projects subdomain (10,700 links) is where they host their clients' prototypes, accounting for 30% of all links. High-authority websites such as Adobe, GitLab, Eventbrite, Dribble, Zendesk, SurveyMonkey, Hubspot, and others are linking to them!

What are their methods for accomplishing this?

They encourage people to share their Invision creations on the web. As a result, their users spend 30% of their time generating links to improve their domain subject authority.

Not only are they transforming their users into a legion of champion link builders, but the material they're creating also allows Invision to profit from voluntary guest blogging from a variety of sources.

As a result, make it simple for your consumers to share aspects of your product, and teach them how to do so using email marketing, in-app content, and blog material. Your link-building efforts are likely to benefit if you provide resources for your users to develop exceptional content.

It might be as basic as making your in-product reports easily shareable if you have an analytics SaaS.

Roundups

Link building strategies like these are being used by SaaS organizations all over the world.

Roundups (also known as resource pages) are collections of the best tools and resources for a certain subject. "Top 20 design tools," for example, or "top survey tools."

How many roundups exist in your vertical that you can contact ahead of time?

Broken links

Broken link building is a link-building strategy in which you locate a broken link on a website in your desired niche (this might also apply to certain nofollow links if you're ready to get inventive).

A broken link occurs when a website removes a blog entry that was previously linked to.

If you find this during link prospecting, you may contact the site owner and offer to have them link to your material instead.

This strategy is useful for establishing links to your own platform because search engines aren't big fans (and search engines aren't big fans).

However, if you have to generate new material from scratch, it takes time.

Interviews with CEOs

Link building for interviews is comparable to link building for podcasts. It entails compiling a list of websites that have previously interviewed SaaS founders and other professionals from SaaS firms and approaching them to see if they'd want to interview your CEO.

How many websites would be interested in interviewing your CEO or other SaaS experts?

If you're prepared to offer them ideas or create long-term collaborations with their proprietors, many websites in your industry will be interested in an expert viewpoint.

You can quickly create backlinks while they profit from your content and experience, and it's a digital marketing win-win!

Infographics

I received this LinkedIn message a few weeks ago from someone from another SaaS firm, asking if I wanted a complimentary infographic for one of my blog posts:

They didn't indicate it was a link-building effort specifically, but it was packaged as "we'll assist you if you can help us."

Because you're providing something of high value that will add value to someone else's content, and you're asking for something very simple in return: quality links, this is a potent link-building strategy.

Photo credits

Finding out who has used one of your website photographs and asking for photo credit in the form of a link is an intriguing SaaS link-building strategy.

How many individuals should give you credit for photographs they took from your site?

This is an easy approach to create homepage links and connections to highlight pages with photos that are prominently displayed.

Product evaluations

This strategy not only generates connections, but also social proof and maybe new clients. Not to mention the fact that many product reviews contain your desired term naturally (or indeed keywords.)

Reaching out to bloggers in your niche and offering them three months of your product for free in return for a review on their website within two weeks of receiving access to your SaaS solution is known as product review link building.

People adore freebies. And who knows, maybe after utilizing your product for free, they'll become a long-term paying client.

This SaaS link-building strategy succeeds on numerous levels while saving SaaS organizations time and effort compared to traditional guest blogging.

Integration partners

Many SaaS organizations use integrations as a significant GTM approach to increase MRR.

They're also a good place to get backlinks.

When dealing with a partner for integration, be sure to:

  • Make sure they provide a link to your integration directory listing in their description.
  • Write a guest post on their site with a contextual link back to a key page you want to promote, and make sure the anchor text includes your target keyword.

How many integration partners do you have that aren't connecting back to you or haven't invited you to guest post on? Reconnecting with your partners might provide your backlink strategy the push it need.

Rankings

What is one of the most effective strategies to develop backlinks, but also one of the most time-consuming?

As companies like to boast, building rankings is a high-impact strategy to encourage them to link back to you.

Badging

For many SaaS organizations, badges are an often-overlooked means of generating high-quality backlinks. By providing badges to your users, your platform may quickly accumulate a large number of referring domains. For many SaaS organizations, badges are an often-overlooked means of generating high-quality backlinks. By providing badges to your users, your platform may quickly accumulate a large number of referring domains. G2, which publishes quarterly rankings of software businesses, is the most effective example of "badge link construction."

Look no farther than G2 if you want to add a distinguished award to your link profile. Top businesses use the G2 symbol as a type of social proof on their website to increase conversions.

Salary.com provides one example. Their G2 profile is linked to the "High Performer" badge.

Additionally, G2 Customer Success Managers are trained to encourage their accounts to incorporate the emblem on their website as well as links.

Mixpanel is another example of badge link building, since they provide more features if you include their badge in your website's bottom and include the link.

They execute a script on a regular basis to see if a website has removed the badge and if so, they reduce the account's use plan.

Is it possible for your SaaS to provide badges that users may use on their websites? How can your customer service department persuade your consumers to add them?

Free resources

Free tools are a terrific method to get your ICP to visit your SaaS website and use product-led growth to get more people to sign up for your services.

You'll notice more connections to your tools if you create resource pages and feature tools that provide actual value to your consumers.

It's worth mentioning that you'll have to work hard to market your free tool in relevant groups and get others to connect to it.

Invision, for example, has a free design plugin for Sketch and Photoshop.

They not only produce leads that they nurture into product signups, but they also built 994 backlinks to their site.

HARO

HARO is a fantastic blend of good PR and link building for SaaS firms. Help A Reporter Out is an internet resource that connects journalists with information sources for forthcoming articles.

They are likely to link back to you in your author area on their publications in exchange for this information.

While it's unclear if you'll get nofollow or do-follow links, your website will be highlighted and referred to on a helpful source in any case, delivering organic traffic to your platform.

For example, SaaS companies have received connections from Forbes and Inc.com.

What about the additional advantages of HARO? It's completely free, and you'll get new possibilities every day.

With a premium membership, you can even use keywords to limit the topics you're most interested in writing about.

Testimonials

Giving testimonials is a simple approach to generate connections to your website. While many sites will just provide you with nofollow links, considering all of the things you've lately tried, it's still worthwhile.

Then, contact them and tell them you'd be prepared to provide a simple written testimonial in exchange for a connection to your webpage.

Conferences

Speaking at and sponsoring conferences is an excellent approach to gain high-quality relationships while also establishing thought leadership.

For example, Invision presented at Oreilly's Design Conference, and their author profile page included a link back to their homepage:

This isn't just restricted to offline conferences; firms like Drift are also gaining links from online events like the Product Led Summit.

Make sure that when you speak at events, the event pages include a link back to your website.

Q&A Websites

Solve your prospects' concerns on Q&A sites like Quora and Yahoo! Answers to satisfy their itch.

Smartlook, for example, was able to obtain a connection by responding to the inquiry, "Does anyone know of a ClickTale alternative?"

Not only were they able to obtain a link, but they were also able to create traffic and, as a result, signups from a market segment that was eager to move from a competing tool.

On Q&A pages, what questions does your ICP ask? What can you do to assist them?

Thought-leadership

Giving your ideas or being acknowledged as an expert on a certain issue in your field is part of this strategy.

You'll earn a hyperlink to your profile, your business, or both for each article in which you're featured. If your material ranks highly in the SERP, you will receive promotion from the website's many channels as well as ongoing visibility.

This is an excellent method for SaaS marketers to continue to support one another and pave the path for forward-thinking SaaS companies.

What is the most effective link-building campaign for SaaS businesses?

There are a few points to bear in mind when thinking about the techniques your company should use to establish a natural link profile.

Remember that your domain authority is more dependent on the quality of those connections and the way your internal linking structure functions than on the number of links your website has.

It's also worth remembering that link building for SaaS is a lengthy process, so you may need to trial-and-error a few different tactics before settling on one that works best for you.

If it sounds time-consuming, there are lots of SEO firms that specialize in SaaS, and they can save you time and effort by developing agreements with relevant site owners on your behalf.

SaaS Link Building Guide (Rank Your Site in 2022)

Written by Joshua Davis
VP of Platform

June 7, 2022

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