Link building techniques for the SaaS industry that encompass guest posting, competitor link reclamation, and link exchanges.
For firms offering software as a service (SaaS), link building has become crucial.
An effective link-building campaign can dramatically increase organic visibility.
However, SaaS link building demands a distinctive strategy.
In this post, we’ll discuss some of the unique opportunities and problems it brings, as well as how it differs from other industries. I will also discuss eight link-building strategies that SaaS companies are currently doing.
Finally, I’ll provide a guide to implementation, which will help you launch a successful SaaS link building program. I even include sample objectives and key results (OKRs).
After reading this article, you’ll be able to ensure your link-building efforts are effective.
But everything starts with the basics.
Basics Of SaaS Link Building
Link building in SaaS is concentrated on creating valuable content that bloggers and publishers will link to.
Client studies, app data, product comparisons, feature-related information, customer surveys, executive biographies, and quotes are a few examples of the content that can be included.
This has gained a lot of traction since bloggers and publishers seek for resources that improve the reader experience.
Link building techniques that are effective now encompass guest posting, competitor link reclamation, promoting content on social media, and link exchanges.
Impact Of Link Building On SaaS Companies
Backlinks can significantly grow a SaaS company’s organic visibility, keyword ranking, online reputation, demo requests, leads, and sales.
Backlinks with helpful content will drive both top and bottom-of-funnel keywords visibility.
Let’s look at the case of the SaaS brand Toast, which grew its traffic to over 600,000 monthly hits through strategic SEO, content marketing, and link profile growth. This example demonstrates the importance of focusing on building links to helpful content.
Case Examination
Toast, a flexible point of sale (POS) and management system, serves a range of food businesses, including eateries in hotels, pubs, restaurants, and food trucks.
Toast’s organic exposure and traffic have steadily increased despite the fact that many short-tail keywords have low to medium search quantities. Its average monthly organic clicks have surpassed 600,000 as of June 2023 (Ahrefs).
Nevertheless, a lot of the terms that SEO expert might concentrate on have low search numbers.
According to Google Keyword Planner, the most popular product-related search term, “POS system,” only receives 33,100 monthly searches on average as of June 2023.
Therefore, to achieve its traffic growth targets, Toast would need to target a significantly broader array of keywords.
A correlation is evident between traffic overlap and the count of referring domains in the Ahrefs overview report.
According to the Top sites report, the most popular sites—i.e., high-converting pages—are primarily found in the /blog sub-folder, along with the /restaurant-pos and a few money pages.
Of these top pages, some generate a lot of links but little traffic. This is really important.
In order to generate links without conducting outreach, these pages would rank for keywords that journalists or bloggers use to identify article resources.
Resources/Restaurants-Success-Industry-Report /blog/on-the-line/restaurant-management-statistics
A closer look at the Best by Links report reveals that industry papers, statistical pieces, and blog posts acquire the most links.
This examination reveals several crucial insights:
- Enhancing links to linkable assets can uplift the rankings of other pages.
- A thorough evaluation of top-ranking content on search engines reveals that even if these pages don’t have many direct links, their rankings might be influenced by the link profiles of other pages.
- On a page-by-page basis, statistical and research content tends to generate more links than other types.
This type of growth is possible in non-SaaS business types, but there are differences.
Comparing SaaS link building to other industries
Description Of The Distinctive Features Of B2B SaaS Link Building
These businesses may provide a variety of technical and high-value content across a wide range of themes that can appeal to a wide range of specialized sites thanks to their connection with cutting-edge technologies and solutions.
General site content can include:
- Competitor comparison pages.
- Integration pages.
- Glossaries.
- Product feature pages.
Long-form informational content may include:
- Demonstrate the software in a vertically-aligned case study.
- Studies with data-driven insights from your user base.
- Linkable content assets for industry roundups for direct competitors or industry influencers.
- Case studies or examinations of how customers are solving problems with your tool.
For example, the Link Tree SEO Case Study by Ahrefs and Toast’s statistical roundup article, which generated 360 unique referring domains links.
Social Ads For Linkable Content
This method advertises the best and most sharable content with a niche audience through remarketing or lookalike audiences. Although the links from the ads don’t provide much value, a great linkable asset can start to build links naturally if shared with the right audience.
This can include:
- Remarketing on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
- Reddit niche ads.
- Lookalike audiences of those that engage with your content the most.
One example that I see a lot, I’m assuming because I read their blog or am a lookalike audience, is Ahrefs’ ads for an information architecture article.
Although Ahrefs certainly has case studies or unique data that is more linkable, sometimes a simple topic may be the most relevant to the niche.
Passive PR For Management & Team Members
A popular method in SaaS right now is answering questions and providing subject matter experts (SMEs) as sources for bloggers and journalists.
New tools are popping up in passive PR, but many of them seem to pull directly from HARO. Here are a few unique networks that are good starting points for researching and pitching.
- HARO: Help a Reporter Out.
- #journorequest.
- Terkel.
- Quoted.
- SourceBottle.
