3 SaaS Link Building Strategies That...
...Helped Grow Traffic by 4597% in 13 months
If you deal with organic traffic and SEO for SaaS is on your plate, you are in the right place.
Today I cover the 3 best strategies that we use when building links for SaaS.
In fact, I used them and our link building service agency skills to help grow a SaaS from cloud cost niche to significant heights.
The key metrics…
- Organic Traffic: from <1,000 to 42,889 visitors p.m. (4597% growth)
- Traffic Value: from $2,586 to $74,488 p.m. (2780% growth)
- Links Built: 112+ ongoing
What’s even more exciting is the traffic value figure!
This is how much you’d pay for ads to acquire this level of traffic…
I hope you are all excited so we can dive into action but…
Before I explain everything in detail, let me introduce myself real quick!
Hi, I'm Artem
Chiang Mai SEO Conference 2018
With Rand Fishkin (Moz)
With Tim Soulo (Ahrefs)
I’ve been in SEO for 10+ years, running a link building agency for 5 of those.
I worked with privately and publicly owned companies.
Quite possibly, I’ve seen it all, when it comes to link building.
I regularly attend SEO conferences and keep in touch with top-tier SEOs in Europe, USA and Asia.
Now on to what I was talking about previously.
3 Link Building Strategies for SaaS
I love efficiency and max out Pareto principle as much as I can.
When I build links, I want to get the best quality stuff with minimal effort.
Let’s get to the strategies that I use.
See Also – Effective Email Outreach for SaaS
1. A-B-C Link Exchange
watch the video above to see A-B-C link exchange in action...using REAL example!
What are best quality links for SaaS?
To me, these are the ones that come from other SaaS in your space.
The tick all the boxes:
- High authority
- High relevance
- Real links from real business
To get such links, you’d need to offer a link in return!
However, there is one issue…
Direct link exchange is not ideal when you do it at scale!
It’s not just that Google is not a huge fan of it…
It’s that you want to keep as much of incoming authority as possible.
After all, every link from your blog takes away some of that “link juice”.
So, how to get the links from other SaaS and keep authority to yourself?
Please welcome…A-B-C link exchange!
Instead of linking out using your own blog, you’d use another site to link out while they link to you.
In other words:
- a 3rd party site links to their SaaS
- their SaaS links to you
It’s a win-win for everyone!
Now, where do you get a 3rd party website to do that?
You will get the answers in the next strategy…
PRO TIP: You can start with standard link exchange, especially if your DR is a lot lower than that of the website you are getting a link from!
See also – link building statistics for SaaS (emails, conversions etc)
2. Editorial Backlinks
watch the video above to see Editorial Link Building in action...using REAL example!
These are the standard links obtained through the outreach.
We find websites that have:
- DR40-60+
- 1000+ monthly traffic (usually a lot more)
- Traffic history without any massive drops
- Relevant pages that contain the keywords you want to rank for
We use Ahrefs and other SEO link building tools.
We also manually look through every single website to make sure that:
- They are not screaming guest posts
- They look like real businesses (e.g. phone number, address, pricing…all published)
- They don’t have anything funny going on (links to CBD etc from homepage)
- They look good and relevant visually
We’d find and filter dozens of those and have ~80 quality sites recorded daily.
After that it’s all about writing an effective email template and…pitching!
The success rates vary for these as it also depends on your budget per link.
As everyone asks for a payment now, I prefer to pay on DR basis.
If a site’s DR is 60, I would only pay for a link if it’s $70 or less.
Sure, there are exceptions!
As you go through this link building method, you accumulate a database.
You can then use this database for A-B-C link building method above!
PRO TIP: You can start using A-B-C link building method as soon as you have 3-5 links available in your database!
See also – How to Steal Your SaaS Competitors Backlinks
3. Research-Based Link Building
watch the video above to see Research-Based link building in action...using REAL example!
Research, statistics and data can become your link acquisition goldmine!
If you publish any of that (you should), you can expect landing HUGE links.
These links will not only move the needle fast…not only that!
They would also provide you with social proof as these ones come from:
- Forbes
- CNN
- FastCompany
And many other publications everyone knows about!
I hope you don’t believe me because…here’s a proof!
Here’s a research-based piece from Sleep Foundation.
It talks about Sleep Facts & Statistics.
Even though it’s just a collection of many scientific papers it ended up earning highest authority links from 1291 domains!
What if your SaaS had that one lead magnet that accumulated so much authority…naturally?
Got you intrigued?
Here is how you do it.
1. Start by finding a topic that has some demand (i.e. search volume).
This helps to gauge interest and actually allow your research to be used!
For example, “sleep statistics” has ~720 monthly searches in the US.
2. Produce proprietary research and combine it with other available data on the subject so you have as much published as possible.
It doesn’t have to massive though!
A simple survey with a great spin (journalists love that) can do the trick!
I like publishing pieces that are 1000-1500 words in length.
3. Start pitching your findings to journalists that write on the subject.
The more relevant journalists you find, the better.
You only want to pitch to the ones that covered your topic previously.
Don’t spam!
4. Publish data regularly because, ultimately, it’s a game of numbers!
Just like with any type of PR, don’t constrain yourself with 1 or 2 publications!
Keep going!
Some of them won’t work, some will and 1 or 2 will explode BiiiG!
The good news – there can’t be too much of research.
Google loves unique data anyway!
PRO TIP: don’t wait for your research to rank – set up a PPC campaign to get early traffic and links!
Link Building Is a Lot Of Work
If you watched one of the videos above, you’ve seen how it took 12 (!) back and forth emails to get one single link placed!!!
That doesn’t include the whole prospecting process!
It’s highly-repetitive, monotonous, boring, and…VERY IMPORTANT!
And if you plan doing a research, it’s like running a full-scale PR campaign!
- Brainstorming
- Ideation
- Research design
- Data collection
- Compiling, analyzing and publishing the findings
- Running outreach and pitching journalists
- Following-up with non-responders AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN!
Yes, modern link building that oozes quality is a lot of work.
This is when we come in.
We can help you with ALL of the above and more.
Now, go ahead and book a non-binding 1000% free help call with me.
This is when we meet and talk about your SaaS and whether we can help.
P.S. it would be a great call – go book it by clicking the button below (or you can also submit the form).
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