8 SaaS Link Building Secrets: What Works in 2025

SaaS link building tactics lowered customer acquisition costs by 98% for one brand. Yet, most software companies still struggle to build quality backlinks. Happy Scribe's success story of reaching 70,000+ organic signups through strategic link building shows what happens when you nail your approach. 

High-quality links from numerous referring domains are important for search engine algorithms, driving not only rankings but also traffic, authority, and brand awareness.70,000+ organic signups. 

This blog covers 8 SaaS link building tactics that deliver results in 2025. You'll learn how to prioritize them based on your specific situation, which tools make the process easier, and the common mistakes that waste time and money.

How to Prioritize SaaS Link Building Tactics

Instead of wasting time on every tactic, prioritizing the right strategies at the right time separates successful campaigns from scattered efforts.

• Start with your domain authority baseline: Check your DA score using tools like Moz or Ahrefs to establish your baseline. 

  • Then analyze your competitors' scores to gain perspective. If your DA is below 30, focus on acquiring links from relevant niche sites with DA scores 30-40. 

  • These often provide more value than scattered links from high-authority general domains that may ignore smaller players

• Match tactics to your marketing funnel: Top-of-funnel tactics like infographics and original research cast a wide net for awareness. 

  • Middle-funnel strategies such as guest posting build consideration among prospects evaluating solutions. 

  • Bottom-funnel approaches like niche directories and expert roundups connect with prospects actively comparing options.

• Balance quick wins with long-term growth: Simultaneously invest in creating linkable assets that attract backlinks over time. 

  • Successful SaaS companies maintain a 70:30 ratio of dofollow to nofollow links while continuously measuring ROI by tracking new users and paying customers from referral traffic.

8 SaaS Link Building Tactics That Work in 2025

Effective SaaS link building directly improves your company's visibility and growth potential. Here are eight proven tactics that continue to deliver results in 2025:

1. Guest posting on niche blogs

Guest posting is one of the best tactics in SaaS link building. Focus on high-authority websites within your specific niche rather than general tech blogs.

This approach yields not only quality backlinks but positions you as a thought leader in your industry. Many successful SaaS companies secure 8-12 high-DR backlinks and see a 15-25% increase in referral sign-ups during the first quarter.

2. Broken link building with updated content

Find broken links on relevant industry websites, create superior replacement content, and reach out to the site owner. When you find a 404 error, you're offering genuine value by providing a working alternative. This effectively improves your outreach conversion rates compared to cold pitching.

3. Unlinked brand mentions outreach

These are the low-hanging fruit of SaaS link building. Set up monitoring for instances where your brand gets mentioned without a hyperlink.

Tools like Google Alerts help track these opportunities across websites, blogs, and news sites. Then simply reach out with a polite request to convert the mention into a valuable link.

4. Create shareable tools and calculators

Free tools that solve specific problems for your target audience naturally attract backlinks. Invision created a free design plugin for Sketch and Photoshop that generated 994 backlinks. 

The key is identifying common pain points in your industry and developing simple yet effective solutions that provide immediate value. Think ROI calculators, assessment tools, or workflow templates that your audience actually wants to use.

5. Podcast guest appearances for backlinks

Podcast guesting requires minimal time investment while delivering multiple benefits. For about an hour of recording time, you typically receive:

• A backlink from the show notes 

• Exposure to a captive audience

• Valuable industry relationships 

• Referral traffic and social proof

6. Roundup and listicle inclusion

Getting your SaaS product featured in "Top 10" or "Best [Category]" articles boosts SaaS link building and qualified traffic. These listicles are search engine favorites, and inclusion positions your product in front of prospects actively comparing solutions. Standard placements typically go live within 2-3 weeks, while premium top-3 spots take 30-35 days.

7. HARO and expert quote contributions

Help A Reporter Out (HARO) connects you with journalists seeking expert sources. By providing thoughtful responses to relevant queries, you can secure backlinks from high-authority publications like Forbes and The New York Times. 

According to one study, 53% of HARO queries came from sites with a domain rating of 70 or above. The trick is to respond quickly with genuine expertise, not generic sales pitches.

8. Linkable assets like infographics and reports

Creating original research, reports, and visually appealing infographics generates natural backlinks from industry websites. These assets transform complex data into easily digestible formats that others naturally want to reference.

They become link magnets that continue attracting backlinks long after publication. The more unique and valuable your data, the more sites will link to it as a credible source.

Tools That Make SaaS Link Building Easier

The right tools turn time-consuming link building tasks into manageable processes. These solutions help SaaS companies identify opportunities, streamline outreach, and track results without the usual headaches.

Ahrefs for backlink analysis

Ahrefs gives you the complete picture of your backlink landscape. Its Site Explorer reveals exactly where your competitors are getting their links, helping you discover opportunities you might have missed. The Content Explorer feature finds broken links across the web, so you can create replacement content and secure valuable backlinks.

You can also use Ahrefs to find unlinked brand mentions that can be converted into backlinks. This combination of features makes it easier to build a strategic approach rather than shooting in the dark.

BuzzStream for outreach management

BuzzStream keeps your SaaS link building campaigns organized and effective. This specialized CRM helps you build qualified prospect lists in half the time while discovering relevant contact information and site metrics.

The platform tracks all your conversations, responses, and follow-ups in one place. Your team can focus on building relationships instead of managing spreadsheets. BuzzStream's performance tools track open rates, reply rates, and successful placements, so you can see what's working and optimize your outreach ROI.

Hunter.io for email discovery

Hunter.io takes the guesswork out of finding accurate email addresses for outreach. The Email Finder tool discovers verified contact information with remarkable accuracy, and all addresses get verified before being returned.

You'll also get a confidence score for unverified addresses, so you know which ones are worth trying. Hunter offers bulk email finding through CSV uploads or their Google Sheets add-on, making it easy to build comprehensive outreach lists.

Google Alerts for brand mentions

Google Alerts is a free option for monitoring system for brand mentions across the web. Set up alerts for your brand name and variations, and you'll get email notifications whenever your company gets mentioned online.

This fast tracking helps you quickly identify unlinked mentions that can be converted into backlinks. You can also create alerts for competitor names, industry keywords, and influencers to expand your link building opportunities beyond direct brand mentions.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in 2025

Even well-intentioned SaaS link building efforts can backfire when you make these fundamental errors. Here's what to watch out for:

• Overusing the same anchor text: Overusing identical anchor text, especially exact-match keywords, raises red flags with search engines and can trigger penalties. 

  • A healthy anchor text profile includes branded terms, naked URLs, and contextual phrases.

  •  This diversity signals to search engines that your links were acquired organically rather than through manipulation.

• Focusing only on homepage links: Many SaaS companies direct all backlink efforts to their homepage. This creates a lopsided link profile that wastes the potential of inner pages.

  • Distributing links across your site helps establish topical authority and improves internal link equity flow. 

  • Link to resource pages, product features, and high-value content pages to maximize the impact of your link building campaign.

• Ignoring nofollow vs dofollow balance: A natural link profile includes both dofollow links (which pass link equity) and nofollow links (which don't). 

  • While nofollow links don't directly influence rankings, they contribute to a natural-looking backlink profile. 

  • A site with exclusively dofollow links appears suspicious to search algorithms, but one with too many nofollow links won't gain sufficient ranking power.

• Neglecting technical SEO readiness: Issues like poor crawlability, broken links, and inadequate site structure prevent search engines from properly indexing your content. 

  • Regular technical audits help identify orphaned pages, fix broken links, and optimize anchor text.

Conclusion

Match your SaaS link building tactics to your current situation rather than trying everything at once. Guest posting works differently for a startup with DA 15 versus an established SaaS with DA 50. Don't sabotage your efforts with common mistakes. Start with one tactic that matches your current domain authority and resources. 

Track your results for 30 days. Then add a second strategy while monitoring how they work together. Moreover, diversify your anchor text, spread links across multiple pages, and maintain that healthy dofollow/nofollow balance. Most importantly, make sure your technical SEO foundation can handle the backlinks you're working to earn.

FAQ

What is SaaS link building?

SaaS link building is the process of acquiring high-quality backlinks to a Software as a Service (SaaS) website to improve its search engine rankings. It involves strategies like guest posting, content marketing, and digital PR tailored to SaaS audiences.

How to build 100 backlinks in 30 days or less?

To build 100 backlinks quickly, focus on scalable tactics like guest posting, HARO (Help a Reporter Out), resource page outreach, broken link building, and publishing shareable content like data reports or infographics. Use tools like Ahrefs or BuzzStream to speed up outreach.

What is an example of link building?

An example of link building is writing a guest post for a reputable blog in your industry and including a link back to your website in the content or author bio.