Building quality links is way more important than focusing on quantity metrics for SaaS products.
It helps in SEO, getting ranking and growing conversion of the product and services.
But can we get all this from any link-building campaign? The simple answer is No.
Over the years, Google has been smart enough to differentiate user-friendly links from SEO-friendly links.
And obviously, the preference is good quality user-friendly backlinks that helps the user.
In this article, we are breaking down 7 reasons you must focus on building such relevant links for SaaS products and websites.
It is just not about the big three (Ranking, Traffic and Conversion), but much more than that.
Without any more ado, let’s get started right away.
Internal Link Vs External Link Building
Before we get started, it is important we discuss the types of links and their impact on our website.
Broadly, there are 2 types of links.
- Internal links
- External links
Internal Links are the ones that link to the URLs within the same website. Here, the user stays on the same website but is directed towards another page. Internal links are used to build relations between two similar contents and also help Google identify the most important pages on your website.
External Links are the ones that direct users to a different website. They are also referred to as backlinks and are created between relevant content from different sites. It helps Google find the most trustworthy and popular article that other content pieces are referring to.
There are various kinds of external links that you can generate using outreach campaigns with guest posts, infographics, content collaboration and more.
Both Internal and external links play a significant role for Google to determine its ranking in search results. They send signals about how important that particular page is and how valuable it is for readers.
Importance of Relevant Link Building For SaaS Websites
Building SEO authority
Finding authoritative and trustworthy results for a search query is important for Google and every other search engine. To identify the same, they use various metrics, among which link building plays a significant role.
When other websites link to you and your content, it is a positive sign that people in your industry trust your website.
This helps Google identify your website much faster and determine your ranking in the search results.
But here is something you must remember. The quality and relevancy of the links are very important.
For example, if you are a CRM tool that helps businesses manage sales and marketing, link-building will be crucial to compete with competitors.
Here, if a cooking website links to your site, the impact of the link might untraceable. On the other hand, if an authoritative blog that targets business owners and marketers links to your CRM tool, you will surely see the quality results that you aim for.
Why? Because of the relevancy of the link.
More importantly, getting links from targeted websites that are industry leaders in your niche will further accelerate your growth.
This is most commonly referred to as the domain authority (DA) of the website. Sites with higher DA and lower spam scores are considered the best sites for link-building outreach. One of the best tools you can use to find the DA of your site is
Moz
Gaining brand awareness
Brand awareness is a crucial part of a SaaS website. It ensures that people are aware of your tools and services. This way, whenever they need help with something of your offering, they can easily reach you.
As a SaaS website, getting mentioned and linked within your industry is an important asset for your business. Building relevant links that are trackable is a step in that direction.
Let’s have a look at one of the most popular design tools on the internet today—Canva
Source- Foundation Marketing
Through various backlink strategies, they created over 4 million backlinks in four years and established themselves as one of the leading tools for non-designers.
Over 248,136 domains mentioned them and their growth became learning lessons for many.
Every designer, marketer, and product enthusiast came across this brand. And whenever they wanted to create a design by themselves, they surely tried Canva once and became its user.
Similarly, one of the most popular link-building strategies, the sky scrapper technique is created by Brian Dean founder of Backlinko. He published everything about the strategy and soon it started getting attention from all SEO geeks.
As a result, that particular blog got mentioned and linked by over 2.8K websites generating over 10k backlinks. But it was more than just numbers. The strategy became so popular that it was mentioned in some of the best SEO blogs with anchor texts like:
- Backlinko’s skyscraper method
- Brian Dean of Backlinko
- The brainchild of Brian Dean from Backlinko
- Brian Dean’s skyscraper technique
Everyone who came across link building strategy, also read about Brian and Backlinko that created an authoritative brand for Brian.
Today, he is among the best SEO experts in the industry, he continues to grow his reach through various forms of content and strategy.
That’s how powerful brand building is and that’s how you dominate your industry through quality link building.
Generating referral traffic
Google Ranking Updates—the updates that determine your ranking—are one of the most common challenges that your SEO team will face. Due to their unpredictable nature, your organic traffic can drop for months.
During this time, other sources of traffic will help you find new customers and even signal Google that you are a good credible source that needs to be ranked higher again.
That is where building relevant link comes into play. Compared to other sources of traffic (Organic, paid and social) referral traffic usually has a very little contribution.
But the quality of the traffic is best as a visitor is willing to learn more by clicking on the anchor created through relevant and quality backlinks.
Again, we are talking about backlinks that are user-centric and help you with traffic.
Yes, the contribution of the referral traffic to the overall traffic might be minimal. But let’s not forget that this is recurring traffic that will contribute to your growth in form of brand building, good SEO signal and conversion.
Finding new customers
We are now aware that building relevant links for SaaS helps people discover your brand, visit your site, and form SEO authority.
But what about conversion? After all, that matters the most.
And that’s the best part about creating good quality backlinks. They bring referral traffic that has a high potential for conversion.
These are users who get referred to your website from a site that they trust. Their trust flows to your SaaS website and motivates visitors to try your tools and services. (Just like we saw in Canva’s case above)
It is a great opportunity to become an ultimate solution and acquire new customers for your SaaS. More specifically, the conversion rate for SaaS websites through referral traffic is about 1.3%.
A consistent, long-term source of traffic that you can utilise to find customers for your tools and services.
Most importantly, if the link is created while keeping relevancy in mind, the conversion rate can surely be boosted.
For example, getting mentioned by bloggers as the best alternative for a popular competitor. This allows you to get referral traffic, and at the same time helps you steal customers from your competitors.
Gaining customer trust
Above, we have mentioned how building relevant links for SaaS websites enables you to gain traffic that converts into customers.
One of the main reasons behind it is trust.
Getting mentioned by industry leaders, bloggers, and publications is an effective way to build trust. And trust in any business acts as equity from your customers.
Zig Ziglar, the popular author and salesman put it in the best way
“If people like you, they will listen to you. If they trust you, they will do business with you.”
Make sure you are using every opportunity and effort to gain trust. And in this effort of yours, relevant links will play a huge role. That’s how people will discover you and how Google will determine that you are a reliable search result.
Creating industry networks
It is important to understand that link building is not just about putting your link somewhere on the internet. It’s about bridging the gap between readers and visitors.
During this process, not only do you get customers, but you also get the opportunity to connect with other experts in your relevant industry.
Building connections and growing your network go a long way.
Not just in form of links, it helps in building a genuine network which will help you be part of various opportunities such as guest posting, contributing to industry research, meeting industry leaders and more.
And the best part about building relevant links for a SaaS website is, everyone in your network becomes your brand advocate. Whenever they get an opportunity, they would surely remember to mention your SaaS website and help your further growth.
Faster page indexing
Getting your website crawled regularly by Google and other search engine bots is very important. That’s how they discover your new content and compare it with other websites.
If your website is not getting crawled regularly, you may start seeing a drop in overall ranking and eventually, you’ll find that even though you making SEO-friendly changes, you are not seeing the results that you want.
Why does that happen? It’s because Google doesn’t consider your website valuable enough to use its resources regularly.
But the question is, how does Google determine whether to crawl or not crawl your website?
– By tracking if people are landing on that page.
If people are landing on that page regularly, Google will crawl that page, again and again, to ensure the page stays updated.
Backlinks play a huge role in bringing that regular source of traffic. In addition, when a crawling bot is going through the content with your link, it recrawls your content—giving a positive signal from the SEO point of view.
This crawling of your website reflects faster indexing of your new content and getting quicker ranking in the search results.
Getting Started with Link Building
Link building is an essential part of SEO and brand building for SaaS websites. After going over the importance, I am sure you have a good overview of how link building will help you and what kind of links you must be looking for.
Just make sure that every link you are creating is done while keeping the readers in mind. Rather than just targeting the keywords or anchor text, look out for context that makes it easy for readers to solve a problem.
