Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses are shaping the world by expanding cloud offerings and problem-solving ability. According to the press release of Gartner Inc., four top trends are taking over the world, and SaaS is one of them, which has had a 5x growth (from $31 billion to $170+ billion industry) in the past few years and the same is expected for future. Such significant expansion within the same business model in multiple categories of SaaS (marketing automation, CRM, SEO tools, and more) is also uplifting the competition.
One reputed site has surveyed 11 million Google Search results and found a very interesting statistic that the top searched site on Google has 3.8x more backlinks than position two. This clearly states that the more backlinks there are, the better the ranking. In this detailed guide, we’ll shed some light on the basics of SaaS link building and PR to implement it for a better outcome and mastering the SaaS SEO. Let’s find out more!
Understanding the Basics of SaaS Link Building
Before we move on to practical examples and how to craft quality content by embedding good backlinks, we must first understand the basics. What is SaaS Link Building? It is the off-page SEO practice of adding quality backlinks or inbound links to your content to increase organic traffic and enhance the value of your published information. In other words:
Backlinks are considered a vote for your website. The more quality backlinks you have in your arsenal, the better your ranking on the Search Engine Results Page [SERPS].
The backlinks can show the immediate projection on the traffic trendline but ensure it’s long-lasting. Learning the difference between good and bad backlink projections would be best. As clear from the name, a good backlink projection can result from quality and authoritative backlinks showing the forever up-going projection on the traffic/visitors trendline without any short-lived bumps.
As we know, Google finds every backlink on your website as a vote of confidence and reliability, but there is no denying that Google weighs them as well. A good quality backlink can weigh more and lead your SaaS brand’s website to the top of SERPs. We have covered some qualities of good backlinks so that a link can perform way better than dozens of low-quality links.
A good backlink is always:
Authoritative:
Authoritative backlinks come from niche websites, such as websites with a large number of published articles on a particular micro-niche.
Editorial:
Links that are reviewed and approved individually by the editor of that website have more worth than the links of those websites where everyone can publish a link.
Relevant:
Last but not least, a good backlink should follow the same niche or category as your website or be somewhat related to that particular topic.
Importance of SaaS Link Building in SEO
After analyzing the importance of good quality backlinks, let’s find out if link building can play a distinctive role in a SaaS brand’s SEO. SaaS link-building and PR strategies can increase the credibility of your posted information and help generate more sales. Here’s the impact of SaaS link building on a SaaS website:
Credibility and Authority:
Adding backlinks to highly authoritative websites to support your information will increase the credibility of your content in the eyes of visitors, and there are more chances that the content will rank earlier.
Better SERP Ranking:
Google’s algorithm continuously analyzes the backlinks added to a website. More backlinks will add more authority and help you rank higher. Moreover, the quantity and the quality of backlink is important.
Organic Traffic:
Rather than wasting time and money on false advertising methods and fake traffic, try acquiring the backlinks from the authority websites in that particular micro-niche, and it help you boost the organic monthly visitors.
Improved Domain Authority:
Domain authority will also be improved by adding quality backlinks in that niche. This will improve the overall reach and engagement of your SaaS website and, in turn, increase sales.
Editorial Relationships:
While acquiring backlinks for your SaaS website, you’ll end up having good relationships with the editors of websites. This will help you devise new marketing strategies via a collaborative approach.
Challenges in SaaS Businesses Related to Backlinking
Backlinking in the SaaS industry is way different than in other industries due to the difficult topics, higher keyword difficulty, and niche audiences, hence, limited backlinking options. Here, we have concluded some of the top challenges that you might face while employing SaaS SEO link-building strategies for your SaaS business:
Challenge #1: Niche Audience
By niche audience, we mean the specific audience. Creating unique content around a general topic vs. a SaaS strategy is way more different. There will be very few persons relating to your conversation and, hence, a limited option for communication.
Challenge #2: Difficult and Complex Topics
SaaS-related topics are relatively complex and require more attention from the content writers and the editors (who manage the off-page SEO and link building). Sometimes, you might need a Subject Matter Expert (SME) to write a quality article or blog post and acquire a relevant backlink.
Challenge #3: Limited Backlinking Options
You will have fewer opportunities to acquire backlinks as you narrow down your niche. Thus, SaaS businesses must widen their vision strategically to cover a wide range of topics to acquire more backlinks.
A Good Backlink Can Grow SaaS Companies to Heights
Now that we know what a good backlink is and what qualities it holds, it’s time to understand the impact of link building on SaaS companies. Backlinks can significantly grow the content’s visibility and keyword ranking, generating more leads and sales in return. Backlinks can also improve the visibility of top and bottom-of-the-funnel keywords in your content. Not enough for you? We have a case study where the backlinking has improved the organic traffic and ranking of a famous SaaS brand, Toast.
Case Study #1
CASE STUDY - Toast
Toast, a famous SaaS brand, has utilized this off-page SEO tactic, i.e., link building, and boosted its organic traffic to over 3.2 million monthly visitors (Semrush). Toast is a brand that provides POS services to restaurants, bars, food trucks, and other food businesses. We carefully surveyed the website and found various short-tail keywords with low to medium search volume and moderate keyword difficulty (KD). Despite this, the website's backlinking game was strong, earning more than 3,200,000 monthly visitors.
There is a direct correlation between the increase in traffic and the number of referring domains in the Semrush report. Therefore, we can conclude that persistent and rigorous link-building strategies can boost website ranking.
Case Study #2:
Case Study - HubSpot
Another example is a famous SaaS brand, HubSpot, which has earned a lot of traffic in recent years by only modifying its on-page and off-page SEO strategies. HubSpot has seen immense growth in organic visitors after employing the link-building strategy in the off-page SEO category, and the organic traffic has gone above 18,000,000 monthly visitors.
Top 3 Link Building Strategies for B2B and B2C SaaS Websites
Over the years, SaaS businesses have developed many techniques and strategies to acquire quality backlinks. Even though there are myriad ways to acquire backlinks, not every method will work for you. Indeed, you’ll have to find alternative ways to acquire the inbound and backlinks. Still, our team has devoted enough time to discovering the top 3 SaaS link-building and PR methods from which most SaaS businesses can relate and benefit. Let’s explore!
1. Guest Posting
Guest posting is one of the most classical ways to acquire backlinks and increase the traffic on your SaaS website. The question is, what is guest blogging or guest posting, and how does it work? Guest blogging is the practice of publishing content (that might include your SaaS brand as an advertisement) on authority websites. This will allow you to establish an authority in the SaaS industry and generate traffic through that host website.
How does guest blogging/guest posting work?
It’s not rocket science, as you only need to build relationships with the editors of niche-related websites. Ask the editors if they’d like to publish some of the quality blogs (provided by you) on their website. Once they agree, craft a quality blog via an in-house team of content writers or hire a professional content writing agency.
Finding the right website and topics to write on is your next challenge. You can also utilize multiple tools for this purpose. For example, we have devised a strategy to find the host website (to publish your guest blog), relevant audience, and topics.
Step 1: Find a list of websites that accept guest posts or guest blogs on a particular niche or website. Type [Keyword] intitle:guest post and create a bulk list.
Step 2: To find the relevant audience, you can filter the list via various mapping tools, such as Ahrefs’s Bath Analysis Tool.
Step 3: Once filtered, make sure to look for the content gaps, i.e., the topics that the host website needs to publish but haven’t yet. Pitch them with your introduction and top 3 selected topics to write a guest post on.
2. Trend Reports
You might not have heard of this before, but publishing trend reports can do wonders for a SaaS website. Trend reports are nothing but detailed reports that visualize any metrics, such as charts or graphs, over a particular period. Here’s a case study where Venngage has acquired 429 referring domains with over 900 backlinks.
CASE STUDY: VENNGAGE
Venngage has a long-form article, the most-linked blog post named "8 Biggest Graphic Design Trends for 2023". In this long-form blog post, they have acquired over 920+ backlinks with 520+ referring domains. The question is whether they acquired all these referring domains by building relationships with other websites' editors. The answer is No! The trend reports have helped them climb up the stairs.
They have crafted more than 20,000 words 13,000-word-long blog post and created custom infographics to support their data. Moreover, a high-quality YouTube video with 49K views helped them through the process. The last and most helpful strategy was to update the URLs each year to have an increased number of domains and better rankings.
3. Roundups or Resource Pages
Roundups or resource pages are one of the top techniques for link building for your SaaS website, including a list of top 10s, top 20s, or top 30s. You can create a long-form blog on your SaaS website related to your niche covering the top 10s or top 20s (it can be tools, apps, software, or more). Once you get some traffic, some brands will try to reach you, asking to be on the top list, and you can ask for a quality backlink in return.
In another scenario, you can also reach out to the editors or authors of websites having resource articles published in your particular niche and ask to list your SaaS brand in the top list to get a quality & authoritative backlink.
Case Study: Medium
Here is a practical example of Medium, where we find a blog named 15 AI Tools Every UI/UX Designer must try. In this blog, the URL lists the top 15 UI tools, but the website covers 16 tools in total. There is a fair chance that a brand might have reached the platform to be included in the list, and they didn't modify the URL in that case.
Things to Avoid While Backlinking— Not Everything is a Plus!
You cannot apply every strategy you find online for SaaS link building, as some methods might diminish your chances of getting quality backlinks. We have covered some of the not-doings while implementing the SaaS link-building and PR strategies. Let’s explore!
Link Farming is not Healthy
Link farming is a technique where multiple websites (might be from different niches) get backlinks from each other to create a network. This way, one can get a number of backlinks quickly and get rank as well, but one day or another, the website will be in trouble.
Link Exchange is a Poor Tactic
Do not ask for link exchanges if you ever want to create a domain authority! It might sound good initially, and both websites might get a backlink as well, but there are chances of being flagged by the Google algorithm. The reasons can be different audiences, higher bounce rates, questionable content, etc.
Never Buy Links
The last but not the least thing to avoid is to get the backlinks in exchange for money. Buying links can be costly, especially when you’re trying to start a SaaS brand in the first place. Moreover, the link juice will be less for you, and Google will penalize your website.
