When we talk about search engine optimization, the first thing that most people think of is link building. For the longest time, this has been a vital promotional tactic for just about any brand, including software companies. Through quality backlinks, companies could boost their domain authority, making it easier to rank on top of search engine results pages.
In this article, we’ll analyze the importance of a viable link building strategy in 2025 and how this promotional tactic can help your online business. After that, we’ll share some tricks that will help you accrue more exposure from external sites.
Is link building important in 2025?
While some experts argue that links will soon be eclipsed by some other ranking factors, empirical data indicates otherwise. In fact, if you’re running a SaaS business in 2025, you must rely on high-quality backlinks from external sources to boost your placement in search engines.
There are several reasons why they are potent to this day:
- Despite, arguably, their reduced value, links remain the best method for determining content quality. Basically, top-tier companies are unwilling to feature businesses and pages that go against industry norms
- SaaS brands that have a great reputation are usually more featured in search engines. Even if their content isn’t up to snuff, their real-world impact compensates for it
- There are some situations and search queries where user engagement data and on-page factors don’t give us a clear picture. In these situations, we need experts to determine the pages’ values through the linking process
- If there weren’t for factors like links, it would be hard to determine the content value for sites with low traffic. Furthermore, this would stifle innovative publications from reaching their rightful place in Google search
Based on all of this, getting quality links from numerous referring domains is vital for search engine algorithms. While Google wants to become more and more reliant on real user feedback, there are reasons why links haven’t diminished in significance that much.
12 Best practices for SaaS link building
Most people perceive different link building activities as separate efforts. Truth be told, everything you do with your SaaS website can have some sort of impact on your outreach results. That being said, here are the main things you need to do to propel your link building campaign:
1. Generate value
First and foremost, SaaS companies need to produce software-related content that wouldn’t be too promotional. Even when writing reviews, you shouldn’t knock the competition. Instead, you should try your best to provide users with something useful.
Every single line written on your web pages should serve some purpose. You must, at all times, avoid fluff and generalizations. For example, if you’re giving software suggestions or instructions, you need to be as concise as possible. Implementing a step-by-step format can also increase your conversions.
While writing quality content isn’t necessarily a trick for gaining lots of overnight links, it can definitely boost your link building efforts. Even if some of the pieces flop, you will have created a winning formula that should be utilized across the site. In other words, this is a fantastic basis to build upon.
2. Use link baiting
Quality content can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. As a SaaS business, you might be using this term to describe highly targeted pieces that can yield additional exposure and backlinks. A type of article that most SEOs consider “quality posts” is link baiting pieces.
In theory, every blog post you’ve ever written can be considered a link baiting piece. In the end, all these articles are meant to boost your organic traffic, search engine rankings, and, thus, link generation. However, just for clarity’s sake, here’s how experts utilize this term:
- Blog articles meant to stir controversy
- Articles that cover trending topics in a significantly different manner
- Infographics and other specialized visual posts
- “Vanity content” (roundups and similar pieces catering to a certain group of people)
- Quality research content and case studies
- Free tools
link baiting content and tools can become integral to a perfect SaaS link building strategy and can provide enormous value over time. However, they can also be a slippery slope. Some of them, like controversial posts, can lead to a negative reputation that will ruin you in a short amount of time.
It’s worth mentioning that link baiting posts, while lucrative, take more time to produce. For example, to create a good research piece, you might need several months, depending on its size. Depending on the format, they’re also much more expensive. Nevertheless, they can also spur your link building for SaaS faster than any other promotional tactic.
3. Create meaningful connections
If you take a look at the biggest influencers, you’ll notice that most of them are in touch with other big names in their respective industries. While your target audience doesn’t care about your relationships, creating these types of connections can open numerous opportunities for your SaaS company.
Being active within a software community is exhausting work. People who are well-respected usually get dozens of messages via their website and social media accounts and have to spend several hours online just nurturing these relationships. What’s worse is that many connections will seek out professional advice, further draining your energy.
Then again, connections are the best way to reach busy, top-tier software influencers. Most of these guys won’t even notice you unless you’re active. So, by providing value to the community and sending them a message every few months, you’ll get on their radar, which is critical for building links for SaaS companies.
4. Start with collaborations
If you followed our tip from the previous entry, it will become much easier to gain collaboration opportunities. By building your reputation as a “good guy” or “proficient software expert,” other websites will start leaning toward you. Sooner than later, they will offer you various collaboration deals, whether to work with them or create content together.
Creating content is especially valuable in this case. Authoritative websites garner a lot of attention, so by simply putting your brand name alongside theirs, you will gain much more exposure. Here are a few types of opportunities that will, directly or indirectly, affect your link building tactics:
- Organizing and executing live events
- Being featured via guest posts
- Creating podcasts and videos together
- Joint collaborations on tools
- Other operational collaborations
It’s worth noting that large SaaS websites won’t like this kind of exchange. In the end, they can offer more to you than you can offer to them. That being said, you should find a hook that will reel them in. For example, you can entice them with a large social media audience or by exchanging some other resources.
5. Seek out guest post opportunities
Guest posts are the easiest and fastest way to build high-quality links for your software website. All you have to do is go to SERPs, input a query such as “SaaS guest posting” or “software guest posts,” and start scraping sites. Most sites have dedicated pages explaining the guest posting process, or they disclose the information on their About Us or Contact page.
It’s worth mentioning that most brands will ask for money during your link building outreach. Nevertheless, the price might still be worth paying, especially for high-authority websites. When all is said and done, guest posting is usually much cheaper than some other link building techniques.
6. Utilize “expert opinions”
A sneaky way to perform outreach is by asking experts for their opinions. For example, after writing a large post about software or a related topic, you can contact numerous sites working within your niche. After asking them for feedback and how to improve the post, you can politely ask for a link back.
In most cases, people will tell you that the article is good, so it makes sense to solicit a link. Of course, not everyone will react favorably to this approach, and expect a conversion rate of 1 to 2 percent at best.
Creating connections with other influencers is a nice secondary benefit of this outreach. Even if the tactic doesn’t bear any fruit, other SaaS businesses will remember your brand, which might come in handy later on (especially if you decide to pursue the connections approach).
7. Try broken link building
Pursuing broken links is another approach you might consider. Basically, with this tactic, you’re looking for popular blog posts that have received a lot of links over time. The second requirement is that this page is no longer active, thus creating broken links on every website that was connected to it.
Your goal is to go from site to site and offer them your blog post, which is similar to the original one, as a replacement. Your pitch is that the other site can utilize your article as a replacement, so they don’t have to suffer low user engagement due to a broken link.
Keep in mind that this technique doesn’t work that well. For example, many owners will simply delete the link, which is a much easier and more straightforward solution.
8. Consider link exchanges
Link exchange is a strategy that is almost dead right now. Google and other sites can easily notice suspicious behavior, which might cause issues for both sides. Nonetheless, the tactic might provide some value if you do it the right way. Here are a few practices that can help you out:
- You shouldn’t exchange backlinks with too many sites
- Make sure that the other website is also from the SaaS niche
- Make sure that the content is relevant (on both sides)
- Only exchange with reputable sites
- Don’t exchange links simultaneously
While this is a niche technique, it might provide some limited value. Always remember that the tactic should be used scarcely to avoid triggering penalties (in other words, you can gain just a handful of links with it).
9. Apply for resource pages
Applying for resource pages has become another somewhat obsolete strategy, especially in progressive industries like SaaS. Still, there are numerous directories and review pages that might be willing to feature your software.
This tactic is rather straightforward. All you have to do is search queries like “SaaS resources” and “SaaS directories.” As with other techniques, contact the website owner and ask for inclusion. The only issue is that these pages usually don’t provide that much value as there are already so many diverse links on them. Nevertheless, they can help diversify your backlink profile.
10. Improve technical aspects
Many people don’t think about this, but most SaaS link building strategies fail at the very beginning. Small website errors and low performance can stave off people interested in your content. In other words, if other bloggers can’t read what you wrote, they won’t have an incentive to link. So, here are a few ways to tackle this problem:
- Make sure that the page is fast enough and can easily open on mobile devices
- Create a simple site architecture so that visitors can browse between different pages
- When doing outreach, check if the page is presentable. Besides editing text, pay attention to images and other visual elements
- Perform a small audience research before sharing posts with other readers. See if the content is good enough to be shared
- You should also double-check the links within the article to avoid potential errors
Boosting technical aspects will make it easier to go through your content. Furthermore, this will stimulate browsing, which can reinforce a person’s opinion to link back to your resources.
11. Share your resources
Outreach can also be done without targeting any software blog in particular. Instead, you can sneakily do it while sharing information on Reddit and other major forums and social media.
While engaging in casual chitchat with other users, you can always plug in your site. The trick works like a charm when web users want to learn more about a specific concept, and you have viable answers on your site. Even though that person probably won’t link back to you (there’s a chance they don’t even have a blog), it’s a practice that can raise awareness in the long run.
12. Improve your software
Many companies are so preoccupied with their marketing that they completely forget about the benefits of running a solid business. Truth be told, the best way to gain traction is to simply provide a good service to users. Having a dominant product can do wonders for your promotional activities, even if you’re working in a highly saturated vertical.
That being said, make sure to continuously update the program, check the latest trends, and focus on customer feedback. Rectify features that aren’t efficient and introduce new solutions that will add value to users.
6 Things to avoid during SaaS link building
link building is every bit about the negative things you do as it is about the positives. You have to be very smart and diligent when pursuing new opportunities and focus on sites within the SaaS industry. Furthermore, all links pointing to your content should be from pages that are relevant to the topic.
Given the complexity of this topic, many things can go awry. In their zeal, many blog owners cause adverse effects by using inappropriate techniques costing their site traffic and leading to Google penalties. That being said, here are the things you should pay attention to during a campaign:
1. Don’t spend too much time on irrelevant sites
When doing periodic link analysis, make sure that the majority of received backlinks stem from the software industry or related niches. This kind of background check is crucial during the early phases of development when your domain doesn’t have that much power. Ideally, look for potentially harmful patterns and overspamming of certain types of links.
Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should turn down a backlink from a major publication. It’s just that if you have the chance to reach out to two sites of similar authorities, you should go with the one closer to your product offering.
2. Avoid obsolete techniques
When creating your SaaS link building strategy, you should avoid obsolete concepts and techniques. For example, although we’ve mentioned link exchange, the technique should be used in moderation, if used at all. In the end, there’s a good reason why Google prohibited most of these tricks and why reputable SEOs have stopped using them.
3. Don’t spam the same anchors
Using the same anchor text over and over again is a clear indication of unlawful behavior. In a normal situation, it’s virtually impossible for external sites to utilize the same SaaS phrase over and over again when linking back to your pages.
On the other hand, that doesn’t necessarily mean your anchors should be irrelevant for destination pages. Ideally, the anchor text should include at least some words from your main keyword or use phrases that explain the subject matter. For example, the most common SaaS industry anchors should be something like “SaaS,” “software,” “online software,” “software industry,” “digital product,” and so on.
4. Don’t neglect suspicious links
It’s only to be expected that a portion of your links will come from sites that aren’t directly related to your industry. While this might not be an issue in smaller quantities, it might cause a penalty if many suspicious sites start sending backlinks to your domain. In fact, this is the best indication of a black-hat attack.
If that is the case, you should either contact website owners who gave you links and ask for removal or eliminate backlinks manually. Among various sites that can cause issues, you should be especially worried about ones coming from adult, gambling, and quick-money industries.
5. Avoid same-site links
Unless we’re talking about social media, popular forums, and authoritative sites, you should avoid getting numerous links from a single platform. In most cases, this is a major red flag for Google, indicating that you’re manipulating links. This is especially true for new sites that don’t have too many backlinks and can easily be overwhelmed by influx from a single site.
Generally speaking, your SaaS link profile should look as natural as possible. In other words, having 200 links in total, out of which 50 of them are from the same site, can be a big issue. Still, that doesn’t mean that same-site links are always problematic; if you properly “dilute” them and if they come from a reputable source, they can actually assist your SaaS SEO instead of damaging it.
6. Don’t focus your efforts on the same page
Once again, you need to do your best to have a natural link profile. Although viral content usually gets 10 times or even more links than non-viral blog posts, that doesn’t mean that the majority of your backlinks should point to one or two pages.
In fact, one of the biggest mistakes companies make is focusing too much on the homepage. While it’s somewhat normal for this page to get significantly more links, at one point, it might become suspicious to search engines.
Look at it this way. If you’re a somewhat reputable blog, it makes sense that every new article you post will get some sort of traction. In other words, bigger blogs almost always get several backlinks to their new content. So, if only one page attracts all the attention while others are relatively ignored, this can be a bad sign.
Conclusion
The software business is pretty cutthroat as new companies hit the market each and every day. With so many online solutions available, it’s usually hard to separate yourself from the pack. In most cases, companies generate competitive advantage not through product quality but through efficient marketing.
As mentioned, SEO and links are at the front and center of any modern digital marketing effort. SaaS link building is especially beneficial for your promotional activities, grading you additional traffic and boosting your placement within search engines.