In SaaS, great products need visibility to succeed. Link building for SaaS helps by securing backlinks that act as trust signals to search engines. Why do it?
Backlinks signal to search engines that your content is authoritative and trustworthy, which improves your rankings, brings in more organic traffic, and establishes your authority in the SaaS space.
This article covers practical and actionable strategies, including guest posting, link exchanges, and essential pre-link-building insights. It’s everything you need to transform link building into a sustainable growth tool for your SaaS business.
Guest posting earns valuable backlinks by providing content for other websites. This helps SaaS companies increase visibility and build credibility.
It’s one of the most effective link-building strategies in SEO, with nearly 65% of professionals using it to achieve better rankings and online authority.
If you run a SaaS business, you can address pain points, share expertise, and highlight your software’s value on reputable websites. For example:
Costs for guest postings can vary. Some platforms let you publish for free, while others charge $50–$500, reflecting their domain authority.
Here’s how to guest post for SaaS business:
By including contextual links, you’ll strengthen your SaaS link-building efforts and earn trust. Remember to apply guest posting best practices, such as following editorial guidelines, avoiding thin content, and using relevant anchor text for the best results.
Pitfalls like thin content, excessive self-promotion, or ignoring guidelines can harm your reputation. Despite possible time and fees, guest posting is still beneficial to link building for SaaS companies.
Guest posting boosts traffic, establishes credibility, and creates lasting connections. If you’d like an expert guest posting service, Outreach Labs can help. Our Godfather Technique consistently achieves an 80% organic link acquisition rate, ensuring your link-building tactics deliver lasting results.
Broken link building allows you to secure SaaS backlinks by helping site owners resolve outdated or 404 URLs. Instead of begging for favors, you flip the script by identifying problems (broken links) and presenting a valuable solution—your content.
This is how you do it:
It’s an especially savvy & free approach if you’re aiming to generate SaaS backlinks that relate directly to your software solution.
With at least 66.5% of links from the past nine years dead (per Ahrefs), you have plenty of targets for your SaaS website.
SaaS companies often use this strategy to build backlinks to resource hubs or blog posts, increasing traffic and brand visibility. These backlinks can improve your rankings, but they must be relevant to your niche and lead to valuable content.
While many tools exist to check for broken links, using the “Check My Links” Chrome Extension is a fast, free tool to find them.
To succeed, create content that aligns with the original link, send personalized outreach emails, and validate the broken link with screenshots or direct URLs.
Avoid common mistakes like suggesting irrelevant content or spamming emails. Do note that this approach requires significant research time and persuasive outreach skills.
Broken link building can drive domain authority and build trust with webmasters, but it’s only effective with strong content and thoughtful outreach.
Now that you understand the fundamentals of broken link building—and how it can be an effective way to earn SaaS backlinks—let’s dig into what really works (and what doesn’t) in practice.
In the video below, I breaks down the pros, the pitfalls, and how broken link building actually plays out when you try it at scale. If you’re considering this strategy, this is required viewing.
Curated resource pages such as industry toolkits or whitepapers are excellent opportunities for SaaS companies to secure high-quality backlinks. These pages are designed to guide users to helpful external resources and actively seek valuable content contributions. This makes them a cornerstone of effective backlink strategies.
Here’s an example of a resource page:
For instance, if your SaaS product offers productivity tools or industry-specific solutions, resource pages can showcase your offerings to users actively searching for relevant resources. They’re also effective for driving attention to free trials, onboarding guides, or integration manuals.
Apart from the investment in research and targeted pitching, costs are minimal.
Start by identifying relevant resource pages using tools like Ahrefs or Google search operators (inurl:resources.html).
Vet the pages for quality, ensure your content matches their niche, and craft personalized outreach emails like this:
Common mistakes are submitting irrelevant content and ignoring guidelines. Pros include high-quality links and credibility; cons involve potentially low acceptance rates and outreach time.
The main benefits include generating traffic from users actively seeking solutions and establishing your SaaS as an authoritative resource.
While this approach takes time, it’s one of the most effective strategies in link-building for SaaS companies, particularly when promoting actionable, niche-specific content.
Competitor link reclamation involves identifying sites that link to your competitors' content and reaching out to show why your SaaS resource is a superior match.
These reclaimed links typically carry strong authority and relevance since they already focus on topics related to your niche. It won’t cost you much except for using SEO tools to research competitor backlinks and craft personalized outreach.
For SaaS, this tactic is especially useful when your software directly addresses the same user pain points as the competitor’s product but in a more effective or updated way.
How to do it for your Saas business:
Personalize outreach, focusing on genuine improvements your SaaS offers & always double-check each link’s relevance to ensure high-quality placements.
Pros include targeting competitor weaknesses and improving your authority, but cons include the challenge of persuading website owners to update liI can assurenks.
Learn more on steps -step and complete guide on how you can do competitor link reclamation.
Link insertion, or niche edits, involves adding your website’s relevant links to the existing content of another site. It’s a white-hat link-building strategy that aligns with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, making it a safe and effective SEO practice.
This method can be free or paid, depending on your outreach approach.
It is particularly powerful when the inserted link is added to content with high authority and existing backlinks. The quality of this backlink depends on the relevance of the content and the authority of the website where the link is placed.
For SaaS companies, this approach is ideal for solving user pain points by linking to tools, tutorials, or in-depth resources.
To build these links, identify niche-relevant sites, analyze their authority using tools like Ahrefs, and set up a personalized outreach campaign to request link placements.
Reach out to these websites with personalized pitches showing how your link aligns with their audience. Avoid irrelevant placements or low-quality sites, as these can harm your efforts.
If you’re short on time, using a link insertion service through a link-building agency for SaaS like Outreach Labs ensures faster, professional results.
Producing data-rich blog posts, case studies, roundups, webinars, or how-to guides can inspire natural linking from your SaaS industry.
You can create these at minimal cost by tapping into in-house expertise, though premium design or research may require a budget from $0.1 - $1 per word.
Because such good content precisely meets audience needs, it often attracts high-value backlinks from reputable domains. This is particularly useful in SaaS when breaking down sophisticated software features.
Focus on building unique and engaging content that addresses your audience’s needs. Promote it actively through social media and direct outreach. Avoid vague topics or assets that lack a clear value proposition.
A frequent mistake is overlooking the reader’s immediate problems. This method can provide long-term value and build relationships, but their success depends on significant effort and ongoing competition.
When your brand is mentioned online without a hyperlink, it’s called an unlinked mention. Google Alerts allows you to track these for free by entering your brand name in the search bar, clicking "Show options," and customizing how often you receive notifications, sources, language, and region.
Ahrefs is another tool for monitoring mentions. With Ahrefs Alerts, you can track new mentions of your brand or keywords via email. Log in to Ahrefs, navigate to Alerts, and set your search query with keywords or misspellings separated by OR.
Use filters like "in content" mode, domain rating (e.g., DR 70+), and traffic to focus on high-quality sites. Exclude irrelevant domains to refine your results.
The value of these mentions depends on the relevance of the website and its domain authority.
High-traffic and niche-specific sites offer better opportunities. For SaaS companies, unlinked brand mentions are ideal for increasing visibility in product reviews, thought leadership content, and industry roundups.
Identify unlinked mentions through monitoring tools like Google Alerts and contact website owners with a polite request to add a link.
Focus on high-quality websites and relevant topics to ensure value. Avoid pursuing mentions on sites with negative sentiment or low authority. These mentions improve brand awareness but may not always result in backlinks.
Many review platforms let you showcase your SaaS product and gather testimonials from real customers. Some directories offer free listings, while others charge around $50/month for premium features.
The quality of this product review link-building strategy depends on each site’s domain authority and alignment with your market, which can be high if carefully chosen. They benefit SaaS businesses seeking stronger credibility and better leads but may require ongoing effort and cost management.
Identify relevant directories such as G2, Capterra, or Trustpilot, and create an optimized profile with detailed information, benefits, screenshots, and pricing.
Encourage customers to share reviews and respond to all feedback professionally. Leverage “Featured on” badges by adding them to your site with a link back to the directory.
Reach out to writers who compile SaaS comparisons or best-of lists, asking for the inclusion of your product link.
For your listing to be effective, promote it on your social platforms to increase visits. Track inbound leads and referral data to see which sites perform best.
Update your listings with new features or user testimonials, and consider sponsored opportunities for a broader audience.
If your solution targets a specialized vertical, focus on directories. Check the listing regularly to stay compliant with site policies. Avoid neglecting negative feedback or failing to provide accurate product data.
Digital PR uses online platforms to build a positive brand reputation by creating and distributing content to secure media coverage. It is cost-effective, with both free and paid options, which range from a few thousand dollars per month to upwards of $25,000 per month.
Backlinks from digital PR campaigns are high-value and quality, significantly improving SEO rankings and online visibility. They are essential for SaaS to boost reputation and thought leadership.
For SaaS, start with clear goals, like driving backlinks or increasing visibility. Create newsworthy content like data-driven reports, case studies, and thought leadership articles.
Leverage visual assets like infographics or videos and collaborate with influencers or journalists. Use tools like HARO to secure media mentions and backlinks.
Avoid vague pitches or irrelevant media outlets. While it builds authority, managing digital PR requires consistent effort. Don’t look further— Outreach Labs offers SaaS Digital PR services and will help you generate editorial links from DR 70+ sites.
Expert commentary includes gathering insights from thought leaders for link-building content. It can be free, depending on the terms of collaboration with experts.
High-authority backlinks are more achievable with expert-driven content, improving SEO and brand recognition. SaaS businesses benefit by increasing credibility and reaching wider audiences.
Find industry-specific experts and draft engaging questions. Publish the content, promote it across platforms, and ensure experts are credited and tagged. Build ongoing relationships for future opportunities.
Steer clear of unclear questions or weak promotion strategies. This link-building strategy is often time-intensive but delivers long-term value.
Roundups or listicles are curated collections of expert insights, tools, or resources presented in a list format to provide value to readers and attract backlinks.
Showcasing top tools or expert recommendations can significantly boost your SaaS brand. When applying roundups or listicles in your strategy, consider two approaches.
It is helpful for SaaS to have better organic reach and niche recognition. Drive targeted traffic by offering helpful resources & earning backlinks, and ranking for keywords related to your industry.
The link-building involves picking a relevant topic, curating helpful information, and promoting the final piece. If you aim to get featured, identify target sites and pitch your SaaS using a template-based link-building proposal like here:
Making the list overly focused on your product creates bias. Highlight how your SaaS solves user problems rather than just listing features.
Minimal costs make this approach appealing, but your success depends on external content creators. This method is a practical link-building example that can lead to long-term SEO gains.
Securing guest spots on industry podcasts is a smart way to gain referrals and build links. Known as podcast link-building, this involves appearing as a guest on relevant shows and getting a mention or hyperlink on the host’s episode page.
Many podcasts feature experts for free, though some may charge sponsorship fees. Links from well-known podcasts often carry high authority. It is helpful for SaaS when visibility in a focused market is needed.
By sharing your expertise, you position your SaaS as a trusted solution. Niche-focused discussions attract the right audience and spark interest in your brand.
To build these links effectively:
Skipping these steps can hurt your chances. Choosing irrelevant shows wastes time, while unprepared conversations may fail to connect with listeners. With over 4 million podcasts available, your SaaS has plenty of opportunities to reach new audiences.
Forming alliances with non-competing SaaS solutions can produce useful backlinks and cost little, aside from time. Working together on webinars, eBooks, or in-depth case studies supplies fresh content for both websites, leading to valuable links.
These endorsements carry weight because they come from adjacent markets. It is useful for SaaS when aiming to establish trust or widen market reach.
The process begins by choosing partners who serve the same clientele. Use SEMrush or Ahrefs to confirm their domain authority. Contact them to outline mutual advantages like audience expansion and potential revenue sharing.
Incentivize collaboration by offering affiliate links or special perks. Include your partners’ tools in comparison lists or resource pages, and request reciprocal placement for your product.
Exploring white-label link-building groups and industry forums reveals other brands open to joint ventures.
This tactic fosters network growth and brand credibility, though relying solely on a limited set of partners can hinder long-term scalability.
A link exchange is an agreement between websites to share backlinks. Guest post exchanges involve publishing each other’s content, while 3-way exchanges connect three sites in a strategic loop.
High-value exchanges require links with high authority (DA/DR), niche relevance, and contextual placement; poor or low-quality links harm SEO. For SaaS startups, link exchanges are ideal for building initial backlinks to increase domain authority.
To build, identify complementary partners, propose mutually beneficial placements, and ensure links are natural and relevant.
Avoid linking to irrelevant or spammy sites, which dilute quality and risk penalties. Link exchanges are usually free and cost-effective but time-consuming and may lack scalability.
For SaaS brands, testimonials can be an effective way to earn high-quality backlinks. By sharing your genuine experience with a product, companies often link back to your site when featuring your testimonial.
This method is usually free, though discounts on products or services may occasionally be offered. These backlinks are valuable when they come from relevant, high-authority websites, improving your credibility and SEO.
To get started, list products or services your SaaS regularly uses. Reach out to these companies or explore their websites for testimonial submission opportunities.
Write detailed feedback showcasing how their product benefited your SaaS, and include a backlink in your submission.
You can use the template here as a reference:
Testimonials are especially effective for SaaS when tied to tools in your niche, strengthening industry relevance.
Be sure to avoid vague testimonials or neglecting to confirm that a backlink will be included. Focus on providing specific, actionable feedback and following submission guidelines. This strategy is it’s a cost-effective but limited tool that can cause scalability issues.
Link building for SaaS involves earning backlinks from credible websites, which directly boosts SEO rankings and improves visibility.
It increases organic traffic and enhances domain authority, helping SaaS companies attract more leads. Before you start building links, let’s review the key things you should know first.
To make your link-building strategy successful, it's important to follow best practices that maximize outreach success and prevent resource wastage.
Here are some key tips: focus on creating high-quality content, build strong relationships, use HARO (Help a Reporter Out), follow ethical SEO practices, and send personalized outreach emails that offer real value.
High-quality content is comprehensive, well-researched, and valuable to your audience. To achieve this, develop detailed guides, conduct original research, and use diverse formats like videos and infographics.
For instance, a SaaS company offering project management tools can publish in-depth tutorials on effective project planning. Producing superficial content or neglecting SEO optimization can lead to low engagement and fewer backlinks. Poor content quality may result in high bounce rates and diminished site authority.
Effective backlink building relies on strong relationships with your SaaS industry experts and website owners.
Engage actively in relevant communities, contribute to forums, and connect via social media. Collaborate with them on joint content projects or feature their expertise in your blog.
Viewing relationships solely as transactions or failing to nurture them can restrict future backlink opportunities. Poor relationship management can harm your brand’s reputation and reduce collaboration potential.
Personalized outreach emails tailored to each recipient significantly increase the likelihood of acquiring backlinks. Start by researching the target site to understand its content and audience.
Craft a unique message highlighting how your content complements theirs and offers something valuable in return, such as exclusive data, a guest post, or a collaboration opportunity.
Sending generic or mass emails often goes unnoticed, reducing your chances of success. Without personalization and a value offer, your outreach may appear insincere, leading to missed backlink opportunities.
HARO, now known as Connectively, is a platform that connects businesses with journalists seeking expert input.
Responding to relevant HARO requests allows SaaS companies to earn mentions and backlinks from authoritative media outlets. To maximize HARO’s benefits, regularly monitor requests and provide tailored, insightful responses promptly.
Submitting generic replies or missing deadlines can reduce the likelihood of securing backlinks. Misusing HARO may lead to spammy backlinks and potential search engine penalties.
Maintaining ethical SEO practices ensures sustainable backlink growth and compliance with search engine guidelines. Focus on white-hat techniques such as natural link-building, avoiding paid links, and ensuring content relevance.
Conduct thorough keyword research and optimize on-page elements to support backlink strategies.
Using black-hat tactics like link schemes can result in severe search engine penalties. Upholding ethical SEO protects your website’s reputation and ensures long-term search visibility.
Here are some factors that make good quality backlinks for SaaS websites: relevance, authority, natural placement, and suitable anchor text.
Relevance denotes how aligned the linking site’s content is with your SaaS domain. Relevant backlinks from technology or software-focused sites provide contextual value to search engines, improving ranking for targeted keywords.
Ideal backlinks are sourced from industry-specific blogs, portals, or partner sites. Conversely, backlinks from unrelated areas, such as a travel blog linking to a SaaS tool, weaken their SEO value.
Authority refers to the credibility and trustworthiness of the linking website, often measured by metrics like Domain Authority (DA) or Domain Rating (DR).
Backlinks from authoritative sites pass more link equity, improving your SEO rankings, while low-authority links provide little or no benefit.
High-authority backlinks come from established websites with strong domain authority and at least a DA/DR 50+. Backlinks from low-authority sites with DA/DR below 20 or dubious sites can harm your SEO rankings and trustworthiness.
Placement determines where the backlink appears on the linking page (e.g., within the main content, sidebar, or footer). Links placed within the main content are seen as more natural and valuable than those in sidebars or footers.
Ideally, you should source for in-content links placed naturally within a high-quality, relevant article. Forced placements, such as unrelated links in random sections, diminish their SEO effectiveness.
Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink. Optimized, natural anchor text improves relevance for specific keywords, while over-optimized or generic anchor text can reduce quality.
A good anchor is descriptive and includes targeted keywords related to your SaaS offerings (e.g., "best CRM software for startups"). Overly generic or excessive use of exact match keywords can appear spammy and may lead to search engine penalties.
If you’re running a SaaS website and working on building high-quality backlinks, you need to watch out for practices that could violate search engine guidelines and get your site penalized.
These tactics, often called link schemes, are all about manipulating rankings instead of earning links naturally. Here’s what you should avoid:
Paying for or selling backlinks might sound like a shortcut, but it’s a big red flag for search engines. This tactic can seriously harm your rankings if discovered.
Trading too many backlinks with other websites (“I’ll link to you, you link to me”) can look unnatural to search engines and hurt your credibility.
Submitting your site to low-quality directories just for backlinks wastes time. These links are irrelevant and won’t add any real value to your site’s authority.
Publishing guest posts on poorly maintained or irrelevant sites just to drop a link back to your site isn’t worth it. Search engines have become good at spotting this.
Using or being part of a PBN (a group of sites created solely to link to each other) can lead to heavy penalties. It’s one of the riskiest link-building tactics out there.
Offering freebies or payments for reviews that link back to your SaaS site without disclosure can get you into trouble. Always be transparent.
Tools that promise to create hundreds of backlinks in minutes are a bad idea. These links are usually irrelevant spammy, and can damage your SEO.
Sneaking links into content or using tactics like white text on a white background to hide them from users is deceptive, and search engines will penalize you.
Link building for SaaS companies can be tricky and time-consuming, so it’s often better left to the experts. A good link-building agency for SaaS has the skills and connections to get you high-quality backlinks that work.
Whether you're working with a big budget or just starting, there’s a link-building service out there to fit your needs. Here are some of the best options to consider:
1. Blogger Outreach Service
Blogger outreach services are a great way for SaaS companies to secure guest posts and link placements on high-quality blogs.
Premium guest posts with Domain Ratings (DR) of 50-80 cost about $349 per link, while good-quality posts with DR of 20-34 are around $230 per link.
Link inserts are also available, starting at $180 for good quality and $299 for top-tier links. This service is perfect for building authority through strategic blog placements.
2. Digital PR Service
Digital PR services focus on getting your SaaS site editorial links and media mentions. These high-authority backlinks, often priced at around $650 per link, help improve your site’s credibility and rankings.
They are also great for generating resource links and press coverage, making it an essential part of a well-rounded link-building strategy.
3. White Label Link Building Service
White-label link-building services offer flexible solutions for SaaS companies, including guest posts, resource links, and niche edits. Prices range from $100 to $1,000 per link, depending on the type and quality.
These services let you tailor your strategy to your needs and scale easily, making them a smart choice for long-term link-building efforts.
Building backlinks for SaaS companies offers several advantages, such as higher search engine rankings, improved domain authority, and enhanced brand visibility.
It also drives quality referral traffic, supports PR and networking, and ensures sustained long-term benefits.
Higher search engine rankings happen when quality backlinks from trusted websites show search engines that your SaaS site is reliable.
These backlinks signal authority, helping your site rank higher in search results. This makes your site more visible, attracting organic traffic from people looking for SaaS solutions and reaching a broader, relevant audience.
Domain authority measures your website’s credibility and trustworthiness. Backlinks from reputable sites boost your SaaS’s domain authority, making it more likely to rank well. Higher authority attracts more high-quality backlinks, fostering a positive SEO cycle.
With increased brand recognition, more people become familiar with and trust your SaaS. Backlinks from diverse, high-quality sources boost your visibility, helping to attract new audiences and enhance your reputation.
When people click on backlinks from trusted, relevant websites, they’re more likely to be genuinely interested in your SaaS services. This means you’re attracting visitors who are already engaged, making it easier to turn them into customers.
Unlike random traffic, referral visitors often stick around longer and interact more with your site, leading to higher conversions and lower bounce rates.
Building backlinks isn’t just about links—it’s also about connecting with the right people. Reaching out to industry influencers or media outlets helps boost your SaaS’s credibility while opening doors for collaboration.
You could land guest posts, features in top publications, or even partnerships. These connections not only expand your backlink portfolio but also help grow your brand’s presence in the industry.
The best part about backlinks is that they keep working for you over time. High-quality links help maintain your rankings and domain authority long after they’re built.
Unlike short-term marketing strategies, a strong backlink profile supports steady growth in organic traffic and visibility, making it a lasting investment for your SaaS business.
Stick to the strategies outlined to build effective links for your SaaS company. If you need help, Outreach Labs is here to make it easier.
At Outreach Labs, we prioritize blogger outreach and digital PR for maximum results. One logistics company with a DR of 54 saw a 176% traffic increase on 27 pages after we secured 79 backlinks from top-tier sites like HubSpot and ShipBob.
This is the kind of growth we can bring to your SaaS. Reach out to us today!
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