Backlinks for a SaaS Startup: Your First 10 Links, in Order (2026)

You launched. Your new SaaS site has maybe three backlinks, and all three are from your own social profiles.

You know you need more, but every guide either tells you to "create great content and links will come" (they will not, not yet) or to buy a hundred links from a package (please do not).

What you actually want is a short, honest list: which links do I get first, and in what order?

This is that list. The important thing to understand up front is that most of your first backlinks are not going to come from cold outreach or a credit card.

They come from foundational sources you can set up in a week, then from a handful of earned links, and only later from a small number of bought placements once you have a page worth linking to and the budget to do it properly.

Here is the sequence, with the real numbers behind why it works.

Key takeaways

• A brand-new SaaS site starts with almost no authority, and Google treats it that way. Only 1.74% of newly published pages reach the top 10 within a year, and the average number-one result is about five years old. Links are how you shorten that clock.
• Pages with no backlinks get almost no traffic. In Ahrefs' study of roughly 14 billion pages, 96.55% get zero search traffic from Google. Your first links are about escaping that bucket, not chasing a big Domain Rating.
• Count referring domains, not links. The number-one result has about 3x more referring domains than results 2 through 10. Ten links from ten different sites beat ten links from one.
• Get them in order: foundation first (directories, product listings, profiles you control), then earned (integrations, digital PR, a linkable asset), then a small number of bought placements once you are ready.
• Do not buy links on day one. Buy them once you have product-market signal, a page worth linking to, and enough budget to place on relevant, real-traffic sites.

The short answer

Your first 10 backlinks for a SaaS startup should come mostly from foundational and earned sources, roughly in this order.

Start with your own indexable profiles and product listings (G2, Capterra, Product Hunt, relevant niche directories). Then add integration and partner pages with the tools you plug into.

Next come a few genuinely useful pieces of content that earn links (a free tool, original data, or a definitive guide), then digital PR and expert commentary through HARO (now run by Featured.com), Qwoted, and Help a B2B Writer.

Only after that should you buy a small number of guest posts or link insertions on relevant, real-traffic sites.

Skip buying links until you have a page worth linking to and can afford quality over quantity.

Why a new SaaS site starts in a hole

Before the playbook, it helps to see the size of the problem, because it explains the order.

A new domain has no track record, no authority, and no history of links, so Google has little reason to trust or rank it. The data is blunt about how that plays out.

Ahrefs' study of how long it takes to rank (updated May 15, 2025) found that only 1.74% of newly published pages rank in Google's top 10 within a year.

The pages that do rank are old: the average number-one result is about five years old, and 72.9% of top-10 pages are three years or older.

You are competing against incumbents with a long head start.

It gets starker when you look at links specifically.

Ahrefs' Search Traffic Study (December 1, 2023), across roughly 14 billion pages, found that 96.55% of all pages get zero search traffic from Google.

Pages with no backlinks almost never escape that bucket. So your first links are not a vanity exercise.

They are the difference between existing in the index and being genuinely invisible. For a fuller picture of the target, see how many backlinks a SaaS site needs.

Count referring domains, not links

One reframe before the list, because it changes what "10 links" should mean.

Search engines care far more about how many distinct sites link to you than about your raw link count.

Backlinko's analysis of 11.8 million search results (updated April 14, 2025) found that the number-one result has, on average, 3x more referring domains than the results in positions 2 through 10, and that referring-domain count correlated with rankings more strongly than any other factor they measured.

So think of your first 10 backlinks as 10 different domains, not 10 links. Ten links from a single directory network do almost nothing.

One link each from ten relevant, real sites is a genuine authority signal.

Everything below is organized to get you distinct, relevant domains, which is also why volume-first link packages are a trap we cover in why organic traffic beats DR when buying links.

Your first 10 backlinks, in order

Here is the sequence. It runs from links you can get this week for free, to links you earn, to a small number you buy once you are ready.

Do them roughly in this order.

Tier 1: Foundation (get these first, for free)

1. Product listing directories that real buyers use. For SaaS, the highest-value "directories" are the review platforms your buyers already search: G2, Capterra, GetApp, Software Advice, and Slashdot.

A complete profile on each is a legitimate, relevant link from a high-authority site, and it puts you where purchase-intent traffic actually looks.

These are foundational, not spammy, because they describe a real product to real buyers.

2. A Product Hunt launch. Launching on Product Hunt gives you a link and a burst of referral traffic, and it often seeds further mentions.

Set expectations, though: it is more crowded than it used to be.

Roughly 11 products launch per day, the site reportedly draws several million monthly visitors, and only about 10% of launches now earn "Featured" status (down from most of them a few years ago).

Treat it as one solid foundational link plus a launch-day spike, not a growth strategy on its own.

3. Niche and industry directories relevant to your category. Beyond the big review sites, most SaaS categories have credible vertical directories (martech lists, devtool catalogs, AI-tool directories, industry association member pages).

Pick the ones that genuinely cover your space and have real traffic.

Skip the pay-to-list general directories that link to anything for five dollars, since those are the low-quality links that do nothing or worse.

4. The profiles and properties you control. Your LinkedIn company page, a real founder presence, your documentation and help center, a legitimate Crunchbase or similar entry.

These are foundational profile links: they will not move rankings on their own, but they establish that your brand is a real entity, which matters both for classic SEO and for how AI systems recognize you.

Get them complete and consistent, then move on.

Tier 2: Earned and relationship links (a little work each)

5. Integration and partner pages. This is the single most underused source for SaaS, and often the highest-relevance link you will ever get.

Every tool you integrate with (your payment processor, your CRM, the platforms you connect to) usually has a partners page, an integrations directory, or a marketplace listing, and getting listed earns you a link from a site that is topically perfect for you.

If you have any integrations live, claim these first. If you do not, this is a reason to ship one.

6. A contributed guest article on a genuinely relevant blog. Not a bought placement, an actual contribution: you write something useful for a blog your audience reads, and you earn the link honestly.

Start with sites where you have a relationship or a real angle. This is slower than buying, but the links are relevant and durable.

See guest posting for SaaS for how to pitch these without getting ignored.

7. Digital PR and expert commentary. Journalists and bloggers need sources, and you are one.

Sign up for the live version of HARO (Help a Reporter Out), which matters to get right in 2026: the old Cision product, Connectively, was shut down in December 2024, and the HARO brand was relaunched by Featured.com in April 2025 with free access.

Most guides still point you at the dead platform. Use the current HARO via Featured.com, plus alternatives like Qwoted and Help a B2B Writer.

Answer queries in your area of genuine expertise and you earn links from real publications.

The full method is in digital PR for SaaS, and for more options see HARO alternatives for 2026.

8. One linkable asset worth linking to. At some point you need a page other people want to cite.

The scarcity here is your opportunity: Backlinko and BuzzSumo's study of 912 million posts (February 19, 2019) found that 94% of all blog posts have zero external links, while content over 3,000 words earns 77.2% more referring domains than content under 1,000.

Being in the 6% that earns links is the whole game.

The best assets for a SaaS startup are a genuinely free tool or calculator, a piece of original data from your own product, or a definitive guide to a problem your buyers have.

How to build them is covered in how to create linkable assets.

Tier 3: Bought links (only once you are ready)

9. One or two guest posts on relevant, real-traffic sites. Once you have budget and a page worth pointing links at, a small number of paid guest placements can accelerate things.

Know the market first.

BuzzStream's 2026 guest-post cost study (updated June 15, 2026) found the average guest post costs about $295 buying direct from the site and about $461 through a vendor, and that only 1.37% of sites qualify as top-tier while 96.2% are low quality.

So buy on relevance and real traffic, not on a headline Domain Rating, and expect to pass on most of what you are offered.

See how much link building costs for the full benchmarks.

10. A link insertion into an article that already ranks. A link insertion (also called a niche edit) places your link inside an existing, relevant article that already gets traffic.

Done well, on a topically fitting page, it can pass value faster than a fresh post because the page is already indexed and ranking.

Done badly, on an irrelevant or spammy page, it is money wasted. The difference is entirely in the site you choose, which is where vetting comes in.

When to actually start buying links

The order above is deliberate: bought links come last for a reason. Buy your first paid link only when three things are true.

First, you have a page worth linking to, so the authority lands somewhere useful.

Second, you have some product-market signal, so you are not spending scarce runway on rankings for a product that is still changing shape.

Third, you have enough budget to buy quality, because one relevant link on a real-traffic site beats ten cheap ones every time.

When you do start, do it safely.

Keep your anchor text mostly branded and natural at this stage, add links at a believable pace rather than in one spike, and vet every site before you spend.

We cover the safety side in is buying backlinks safe and the practical how-to in how to buy backlinks for SaaS safely.

If you want the stage-by-stage version of this whole progression, SaaS link building strategy by company stage maps it to where your company actually is.

First-links mistakes to avoid

A few ways new founders waste their first links:

• Buying volume before relevance. A package of 50 links from one network is 50 links from one referring domain, which the Backlinko data says is close to worthless. Chase distinct, relevant domains instead.
• Exact-match anchors on day one. A brand-new site with a pile of "best SaaS analytics tool" anchors looks manipulated. Keep early anchors branded and natural.
• Chasing DR over topical fit. A DR 70 general site that has no reason to link to your category passes less real value than a DR 40 site that genuinely covers your space.
• Spammy directory blasts. The pay-to-list-anywhere directories are the classic waste. Stick to directories real buyers use.

For the full list, see 11 SaaS link building mistakes.

How to tell a site is worth a link

Tiers 2 and 3 both depend on one skill: judging whether a site is worth a link before you spend time or money on it.

We can show what "worth linking from" looks like using real data, from the publisher sites we vet for SaaS placements.

Across the SaaS publishers currently active in the Saaslinks catalog, the sites that pass vetting share a clear profile:

• 101 vetted SaaS publisher sites, with an average Domain Rating of 50 and a spread from DR 21 to DR 91. Fourteen sit at DR 70 or above, and most of the rest land in the healthy DR 30 to 69 range. Established publications, not inflated metrics.
• 83% carry a spam score of 5 or lower. For a young site especially, a clean neighborhood matters: you want links from sites Google already trusts.
• Together the catalog pulls more than 590,000 organic visits a month and ranks for over 212,000 keywords. Real audience and real topical relevance, which is what actually passes value.
• The biggest niches are SaaS, B2B, tech, martech, AI, e-commerce, and devtools, so the links are topically relevant to SaaS buyers by design.

The pattern to copy is simple: relevance, real organic traffic, and a low spam score, in that order, ahead of a big headline number.

A site that genuinely covers your category with real readers is worth more to a new SaaS site than a bigger, unrelated one.

How to check each of those signals yourself is in how to judge a link before you buy.

The bottom line

The mistake most SaaS founders make with their first backlinks is starting at the wrong end, reaching for a credit card before they have laid a foundation or earned anything.

Do it in order instead: set up the foundational links you control this week, earn a handful through integrations, digital PR, and one genuinely linkable asset, and only then buy a small number of relevant, real-traffic placements once you have a page worth pointing them at.

Throughout, count distinct domains, not links, and put relevance ahead of any headline number.

That last part is what Saaslinks is built for.

We list SaaS-relevant publisher sites with real, source-dated organic traffic and low spam scores, so when you do reach the "buy a few" stage, you are choosing from sites that actually fit your category.

And every placement comes with a 30-day indexation guarantee, because a link Google never indexes cannot help a young site that needs every one to count.

To see how that works, here is how a link-building marketplace works.

Get the order right, and your first 10 links stop being a scramble and start being a foundation.