Software as a Service (SaaS) is a popular business model that provides impactful solutions to customers. Its market is expected to grow from 2023 to 2030 with a 13.7% compound annual growth rate. SaaS link building is a prominent SEO way to increase brand awareness, visitor flow, and digital presence. That is why, in this article, we’ll delve on:
- The importance of link building for SaaS businesses.
- General features of link building and its influence.
- Initial steps and potent link-building tactics.
Table of Contents
Why Does Link Building Matter for SaaS Startups?
New SaaS startups erupt annually in the marketing world, delivering their unique products and services. However, just in the USA, around 80% of SaaS startups don’t succeed. That is due to severe competition, especially in the technology industry, and a lack of brand awareness.
Meanwhile, link building for startups can provide:
- Authority Establishment: With the help of link-building, new SaaS projects can gain reputable hyperlinks to validate their credibility and expertise.
- Boosted Brand Visibility: those links also increase the brand's digital visibility, which leads to its awareness and recognition within the industry.
- Enhanced User Experience: Proper hyperlink building brings helpful content to internet users and engages them more with the SaaS startup.
- Diversification of Traffic Sources Link: building helps diversify traffic sources, which results in its rise and reduces the risks of relying on just one source of users.
- Competitive Advantage: It can be difficult to compete with other SaaS, but obtaining valuable hyperlinks helps startups outrank competitors in SERPs.
The Basics of SaaS Link Building
Link building is a digital marketing strategy oriented toward obtaining hyperlinks from other web pages to SaaS websites. They can provide services via their applications or online platforms. That is why these backlinks help internet users find SaaS websites. Moreover, they influence digital visibility and authority in search engine results. That leads to several basic points of SaaS link building.
Creating valuable content
Link building for SaaS companies involves creating content that is actually helpful to an audience. It should address important questions, issues, and interests of the target audience. Then it will attract the attention of other websites and lead to obtaining natural backlinks. Surveys, investigations, statistics, charts, etc. are highly linkable as they provide useful and precise information on a topic.
Guest blogging
To increase SaaS startup authority in an industry, guest blogging is a productive part of link building. While writing an article on a relevant topic for the host’s website, you have the possibility of exposing your company to a new audience. Backlinks in guest posts can bring a new flow of consumers and build up the credibility of a SaaS startup.
Outreaching influencers
Influencers already have large audiences and authority within their industry. Therefore, such cooperation can be very beneficial to SaaS startups. Influencers can try services or products for free and make a review of them for their audiences. Such an approach, together with backlinks, brings more attention to young projects.
Usage of social media
Social media is an essential part of digital marketing, attracting new audiences and broadening brand awareness. All the blog posts, surveys, and other relevant content are suitable for inserting backlinks. One of the main advantages of social media is the simplicity of sharing content. Whenever you publish valuable and likable content, it has more chances to be shared by social media members.
Management of mentions and connections
Link building involves tracking publications and websites that mention your SaaS startup to ensure that they include proper hyperlinks. Developing friendly relationships with industry peers, collaborating with them, and organizing co-hosting events boosts the exchanging of guest posts and backlinks too.
Impact of Link Building on SaaS Companies
Securing backlinks is not what link building is all about. It helps SaaS companies grow over time and occupy their niche in the industry.
Around 67.5% of SEO professionals state that link building has a major impact on brand digital visibility and SERPs. For companies, this manifests in the following features:
- Authority & Trust Building – A brand's trustworthiness is a crucial part of further company development. With hyperlinks from authoritative websites, users are more likely to trust such a SaaS as well as search engines.
- Boosted Conversion Rates – The more visits the website gets, the higher the conversion rates are. Visitors from backlinks already engage with the relevant content encouraging them to sign up, purchase, etc.
- Increased Social Proof – New and existing projects need social proof of their value and credibility. With backlinks from reputable sources, companies enhance their positive reputation.
- Long-term Growth – Results of this strategy you may not obtain right away after publishing content and guest posts with backlinks. It is a long-term strategy that allows for acquiring high-quality hyperlinks and building the company's niche presence over time.
How To Start Link Building for SaaS Startups?
It can be quite difficult to decide where to start link-building. This SEO strategy requires gathering relevant data, identifying goals, evaluating resources, and then launching the campaign. Each of the following initial steps greatly influences the later results of link building.
Competitor research
Competitors or similar SaaS companies can provide you with valuable data. As they are already running, it is possible to check their metrics. That helps to figure out what services have a strong digital presence within the niche. For that, you can use tools such as:
They provide versatile options that allow the identifying rank of domain authority and the quality of hyperlinks. As a result, you learn the efficiency of competitors and identify gaps, which you can benefit from.
Preparing a link-building plan
Link building is a long-term strategy that requires a well-thought-out plan. It must be tailored to the peculiarities of SaaS for better outcomes and include such points as:
- Goals – Clearly understand what goals you want to achieve, whether it is boosting SERPs, bringing more website visits, or increasing authority in the industry.
- Target audience – Identifying and understanding the target audience helps in creating relevant and engaging content.
- Link-building tactics – There are multiple link-building tactics, such as influencer outreach, broken link building, guest blogging, etc., and you need to select the most suitable ones.
- KPIs & metrics – Make sure to track metrics to define the success of link building according to selected key performance indicators (KPIs).
- Resources – Proper allocation of budget, manpower, and time is crucial for link-building planning. Setting limits on company resources helps with management and overspending.
Start a link-building campaign
After gathering the needed data and developing a solid plan, you are ready to start your link-building campaign. It often begins with creating high-quality publications. While they can be in various forms, their content must be linkable. That guarantees interaction and referencing.
After that, you start reaching out to relevant websites and bloggers with offers to pitch your publications with backlinks. In some time, it will start to bring new visitors, brand awareness, and domain authority. Therefore, don’t forget to check on metrics to adjust your link-building campaign for needed goals based on acquired data.
3 Popular Link-Building Tactics for SaaS Startups
Link-building strategies can offer multiple tactics to succeed in achieving needed goals. As for SaaS startups, there are several efficient approaches that you should consider.
Niche Edits
Curated links, link insertions, or niche edits focus on adding backlinks to already published content. It is 30% more proficient than common link-building strategies. It starts with identifying relevant content. You should find reputable websites with published materials within your niche.
After that, you reach out to the owners with personalized offers about adding your hyperlinks to the existing posts. It is crucial to state why your link is valuable and relevant to the audience.
The final part of the Niche Edits tactic is negotiating anchor texts, links, fees, etc. When everything is done, you end up with quality backlinks.
PR link Building
Public relations is an important part of communicating with an audience and improving brand recognition. Within PR link building, you develop press releases, industry reports, startup announcements, or similar publications.
After that, you need to get the attention of journalists and influencers by contacting them. It allows the creation of exciting materials about your SaaS startup, which will draw attention to it. Moreover, such articles will contain backlinks to your company's website. Initially, PR link building is less common, but it is a 433% more popular tactic among experienced link builders.
Link bait content
The key feature of the link bait content tactic is developing shareable materials, which often contain valuable industry insights, statistics, investigations, etc. Around 81% of companies create shareable content themselves. Then, you distribute it via different channels to reach out to as wide an audience as possible.
That results in citing your content and creating natural backlinks that can greatly boost your SERPs, digital visibility, and authority.
Wrapping Up
The promotion of SaaS startups is crucial for their further success. Meanwhile, link-building can greatly improve brand recognition by reaching a wider audience. As a result, you obtain a better flow of internet users and interaction with potential customers.