How to Get Dofollow Backlinks for a New SaaS (For Free)

Every SaaS founder eventually types "how to build backlinks" into Google and gets a wall of results that either want to sell them something or tell them to write guest posts on 20 blogs a month. Neither is useful when you are shipping features and trying to survive.

Here is what actually works, what the terminology means, and where to get real dofollow links for free.

What dofollow actually means

Every link on the web is either dofollow or nofollow. The difference is one attribute in the HTML. A nofollow link tells Google "do not pass ranking authority through this link." A dofollow link passes authority. That authority, roughly speaking, is what makes your site rank.

When someone links to you dofollow, some of their domain authority flows to your page. Get enough dofollow links from decent domains and your own domain rating climbs, which makes every page on your site more competitive in search.

Nofollow links are not worthless. They drive referral traffic and can lead to natural mentions. But if you are strategising for SEO, dofollow is what you optimise for.

Directories are the fastest dofollow wins

Most quality startup directories give dofollow badges or dofollow listing links. The key word is quality. Spammy link farms with 400 outbound links per page pass almost no authority and can actively hurt you.

Start with these three:

• Launchstag — weekly indie product hunt. Every listing is permanently indexed and the badge you embed on your site is dofollow.
• tools.cafe — curated tool directory with a badge-for-backlink model. Embed the badge, get the dofollow link, stay listed.
• LaunchBuff — fortnightly bracket competition. 16 products, 4 rounds, 14 days. Every entrant keeps a permanent listing with a dofollow link.

Beyond those, there are roughly 40 to 60 quality niche directories worth submitting to depending on your category. Prioritise ones that show a real audience, not ones that exist purely to sell submission services.

HARO and journalist queries

Help A Reporter Out (and its successors like Qwoted and Featured) sends three daily emails full of journalists looking for expert quotes. Reply to two or three a day with tight, quotable answers. When they publish, you get a dofollow link from a real news domain. DR 60+ domains linking to your site is worth weeks of directory grinding.

The trick is speed and specificity. Journalists get 200 responses to each query. Yours needs to be first, short, and actually usable as a quote without editing.

Guest posts, done right

Guest posting has a bad reputation because most people do it wrong. Do not pitch "10 tips for productivity" to a generic marketing blog. Pitch a specific niche blog in your exact category with a data-driven post they cannot easily produce themselves.

The formula: pick 10 blogs whose audience overlaps with yours. Read their five most recent posts. Pitch each one a unique angle backed by data from your product or your own research. Expect two to respond. That is fine. Two dofollow links from category-relevant DR 40+ domains beats 20 links from generic content farms.

Partner pages and integrations

If your product integrates with any other tool, ask that tool to list you on their partners or integrations page. These pages are almost always dofollow and often DR 60 to 80. Zapier, Slack, Notion, Vercel, and hundreds of smaller tools maintain these pages.

Build a real integration first. Then ask. The email is one paragraph.

Niche community wikis and awesome lists

GitHub has hundreds of "awesome-X" lists curated by community maintainers. If your product genuinely fits, submit a pull request adding yourself. Awesome lists are indexed, referenced constantly, and pass dofollow authority from github.com, which is one of the highest DR domains on the web.

What to skip

Skip PBNs. Skip Fiverr link packages. Skip "100 directories for 50 dollars" services. Skip comment spam. All of these either do nothing or trigger manual penalties. Google's link spam updates catch this stuff quickly now.

A realistic 30-day backlink plan

1. Week 1: Submit to Launchstag, tools.cafe, LaunchBuff, plus 10 category-relevant directories.
2. Week 2: Sign up for HARO. Respond to 10 queries.
3. Week 3: Pitch 10 guest posts.
4. Week 4: Submit to 3 awesome lists. Ask 5 integration partners to list you.

Do this and you will end the month with 20 to 30 quality dofollow links. That is more than most SaaS products have in their first year.

Start with Launchstag — submit your product and grab your dofollow badge.