SaaS link building works best when it follows the way software is actually bought. Buyers shortlist tools from integration directories, “best [category] software” roundups, “[competitor] alternatives” pages and review platforms, and they judge you by the templates, docs and free tools they stumble on while doing their job. Those same places are where software sites earn most of their links.
So the short answer to “how do I get backlinks for a SaaS site?” is: start with the relationships your product already creates. Every tool you integrate with has a partner page. Every agency that implements you has a “tools we use” page. Every happy customer who writes about their workflow can mention you. Then build a small number of useful assets (a template library, a free calculator, an integration tutorial) that earn links on their own, and route that authority to your product and comparison pages with internal links.
This page covers what makes software different, a table of the link sources that work for SaaS, asset ideas, outreach angles with a copy-paste partner email, anchor examples for a fictional invoicing app, the mistakes that trip up software teams, and where HrefClub fits.
What makes SaaS link building different
Software sits in an unusual spot: technical audience, commercial intent, and an ecosystem of partners who all benefit from linking to each other.
- Listicles are the gatekeepers. The highest-value searches are lists and comparisons. Many of the pages ranking for them are affiliate-driven, and some publishers ask vendors to pay for inclusion. That creates a temptation to buy links that Google's spam policies treat as link schemes unless they're marked
rel="sponsored"or nofollow. - Your money pages don't attract links. Nobody cites a pricing page or a “vs” page in an article. Links pile up on your homepage, docs, blog and free tools instead, so internal linking does more work for SaaS than for most niches.
- Integrations create natural link relationships. When two products connect, both companies want people to find the integration. That's a genuine, editorial reason to link — and it's often a two-way link between relevant sites, which is normal when it reflects a real partnership rather than a trade.
- Content goes stale fast. Features, pricing and positioning change every quarter. Comparison articles that describe you inaccurately are everywhere, and asking for a correction is one of the easiest pitches in the niche.
- Adjacent niches matter. A project management tool can earn relevant links from business, marketing, careers and technology sites, not just from other software companies. Relevance comes from the job your product does, not only from the word “software.”
- Some SaaS is YMYL. Payroll, tax, HR compliance and health-data products touch people's money or wellbeing, so the sites that link to them (and your own content) face a higher bar for expertise and accuracy.
Where SaaS sites actually get links
These are the source types that show up again and again in the backlink profiles of software companies. Run a competitor backlink analysis on two or three rivals and you'll usually find most of their best links fall into these rows.
| Link source | How to get it | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Integration partner directories and app marketplaces | Ship a real integration, submit the listing with a full description and setup guide, and ask the partner to include it in their next integrations roundup or changelog post. | Medium — needs a working integration |
| Agency, consultant and implementation partner pages | Create a partner program page (even a simple one) and ask agencies that set up your product for clients to list you on their “stack” or “tools we use” page. | Easy to medium |
| “Best [category] software” roundups | Send the author an honest product brief: who it's for, where it's weaker, current pricing, screenshots and a trial account. Ask to be considered at the next update, not for a paid slot. | Hard |
| “[Competitor] alternatives” and “X vs Y” articles | Find articles that list a competitor's alternatives but not you. Offer accurate, current details and a specific reason readers in a given situation would choose you. | Medium to hard |
| Software review and comparison platforms | Claim your profile, keep it current and ask customers for reviews. Profile links are commonly nofollow — the payoff is buyers, brand searches and discovery by writers. | Easy (limited direct SEO value) |
| Customer blogs and co-published case studies | Offer to co-write a case study that the customer publishes on their own blog or engineering blog, with numbers they're comfortable sharing. | Medium |
| Template and resource galleries | Contribute templates to the galleries of tools you integrate with and to “free [workflow] templates” roundups. Make the template useful without your product. | Medium |
| Developer docs, SDKs and open-source repos | Publish client libraries and code samples people reference in tutorials. Repo and Q&A links are often nofollow or ugc, but tutorials that build on them link editorially. | Medium — needs engineering time |
| Industry podcasts and webinars | Pitch a founder or product lead as a guest on a specific workflow topic. Show-notes pages usually link to the guest's product. | Medium |
| Unlinked brand and product mentions | Monitor mentions of your product name and ask authors to turn them into links. | Easy |
| Guest posts on business and workflow blogs | Write about the problem your product solves — not your product — for blogs your buyers read, with one relevant link in context. | Medium |
| Launch platforms and startup directories | Submit to a handful that your audience actually uses. Most links are nofollow and low-value for SEO; treat them as awareness. | Easy (low value) |
Unlinked mentions are close to free — people already wrote about you (see link reclamation). And integration listings compound: every new integration is a new partner page, a new tutorial and a new reason to write about the pairing.
Linkable asset ideas for software companies
The best SaaS assets solve one small piece of the job your product does, for free, without a sign-up wall. Here are concrete examples, using a fictional invoicing tool for freelancers as the running case. For the broader theory, see our guide to linkable assets.
- A single-purpose free tool. A late-payment fee calculator or an invoice number generator. Bloggers writing about getting paid on time link to tools they can send readers to.
- A template library with previews. Invoice templates by profession (designers, photographers, developers, translators), each previewable on the page and downloadable without an email gate. Gated assets earn far fewer links.
- Integration tutorials the partner can link from their docs. “How to send invoices automatically when a project closes in [project tool]” — written so well that the partner's support team would rather link to it than write their own.
- A benchmark built from your own aggregated product data. For example, how payment times vary by invoice size or industry — only if you genuinely have the data, it's anonymized and aggregated, and your terms allow it. Journalists and bloggers cite original numbers.
- A plain-English glossary of the category. Terms like net-30, retainer, deposit invoice and late fee, each with a short, accurate definition. Glossaries attract links from beginner guides.
- Honest comparison pages. A “[your tool] vs [competitor]” page that admits where the other product is the better pick earns trust from neutral reviewers, who are more willing to cite a source that isn't pure spin.
Outreach angles and a partner email template
SaaS outreach gets better results when the pitch is about the other person's readers or users, not your growth targets. Angles that work:
- Integration co-marketing. You both benefit when users find the integration. Offer the tutorial, the screenshots and a short description — make their job easy.
- “Your comparison is out of date.” Point out a specific inaccuracy (old pricing, a feature you've since shipped) and send the correction. Accuracy pitches get answered.
- A customer's story. Customers with blogs love content that makes their team look good. Offer to do the writing.
- Original data for writers. If you publish a benchmark, send the one chart that's relevant to each writer's recent article.
- Template contributions. Offer a free template to a resource roundup that's missing your use case.
Here's a template for the highest-yield angle, an integration partner. You can generate variations for other angles with our outreach email generator.
Subject: [Your product] + [Partner product] integration is live
Hi [first name],
We just shipped a [Partner product] integration: when [trigger in their
product], [your product] automatically [what happens]. A few of our
shared customers asked for it, including [customer, if they agree].
To make it easy to feature, we've prepared:
- A 120-word listing description and three screenshots
- A step-by-step setup tutorial: [URL]
- A short GIF of the workflow
Would you be open to adding it to your integrations page, and mentioning
it in your next product roundup or changelog? Happy to adjust the
description to match your style.
We've added [Partner product] to our own integrations page and setup
docs, so anyone searching our help center will find you too.
Thanks,
[your name]
[role], [your product]Notice what it doesn't ask for: a specific keyword anchor. Integration listings almost always use product names, and that's exactly what you want.
Anchor text examples for a SaaS site
Imagine a fictional invoicing app, Tallyforge, at tallyforge.app, that wants to rank its /freelance-invoicing-software page. Here's how a healthy mix might look across its links:
| Anchor type | Example anchor | Natural target page | How often |
|---|---|---|---|
| Branded | Tallyforge | Homepage or integration page | Most of your links |
| Naked URL | tallyforge.app | Homepage | Common |
| Brand + descriptor | Tallyforge's invoicing app | Product page | Common |
| Integration context | the Tallyforge integration | /integrations/[partner] | Common on partner sites |
| Descriptive asset | this late payment fee calculator | /tools/late-fee-calculator | Regular |
| Partial match | invoicing tool built for freelancers | /freelance-invoicing-software | Occasional |
| Exact match | freelance invoicing software | /freelance-invoicing-software | Rare |
| Generic | free invoice templates here | /templates | Occasional |
For why exact-match anchors should stay rare and how to benchmark your mix, read our anchor text guide, then paste your current anchors into the free anchor text analyzer to see your branded vs keyword split.
SaaS link building mistakes and red flags
Do
- Ask every integration partner and agency for a listing — it's the most natural link a software company can earn
- Request corrections on outdated comparison articles with specific, verifiable facts
- Link from your docs, templates and tools to the product and comparison pages you want to rank
- Treat paid listicle placements as advertising and expect them to be marked sponsored
- Use your brand name as the anchor on badges and in-app “Powered by” links
Avoid
- Paying for followed links in “best tools” roundups — Google's spam policies list buying links that pass ranking credit as link spam
- Keyword-rich links embedded in widgets or templates you distribute to customers' sites, which Google specifically calls out
- Submitting to dozens of launch directories and counting them as SEO wins
- Gating every template and report behind a sign-up form
- Building links only to the homepage while comparison pages stay orphaned
- Swapping links with any software company that asks, regardless of audience overlap
Check a listicle before you pitch it
How HrefClub works for SaaS sites
HrefClub is a members-only community that fills the gap software companies feel most: relevant, in-content links to pages that almost never earn links on their own, like feature pages, comparisons and use-case pages. Here's how it applies:
- Niche matching. You tag your domain with its niches — Software & SaaS, plus Technology or Business & Marketing if that's genuinely true of your content. Links come from member sites tagged with relevant niches.
- You choose the page and anchor. Point a request at
/freelance-invoicing-softwarewith a branded or descriptive anchor. Keyword-heavy anchors are limited, which keeps your profile closer to the mix in the table above. - Random assignment, no swaps. A matching algorithm decides at random which member site places each link, so there are no direct A↔B trades between your site and another software company.
- In-content only. Links sit inside real page content, never footers or sidebars, and only one member link goes on any page.
- Verified and re-checked. Each link is checked on submission (live, followed, indexable, right anchor) and re-checked automatically. After three failed checks it's marked lost and your credits are refunded.
- Credits by authority. A link from a site with any authority costs 1 credit, 20+ costs 2, 40+ costs 4 and 60+ costs 8 (60+ is for Gold-trust members). Placing a link for another member earns half its cost back.
Many SaaS marketing sites run on Webflow, HubSpot, Ghost or a GitHub-based static site. If yours does, “Place it for me” can connect to it, suggest the best existing post for a link you've been asked to place, preview the exact change and insert it when you approve. You stay in control of every edit on your own site.
It won't replace integration listings, real comparisons or great docs — those are your foundation. It's a practical way to add steady, relevant links on top, without footprints from direct swaps. No link source is risk-free, and HrefClub doesn't claim to be; it's designed to keep placements relevant, editorial and randomized.