How Many Backlinks Do I Need to Rank? Asking for a Friend (and My Boss)

You already know backlinks matter. In SaaS SEO, backlinks are one of the biggest levers you can pull to drive traffic and outrank your competition — so you can generate more conversions and revenue. 

But there’s one question we hear all the time: How many backlinks do I need to rank?

We hate to break it to you, but there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Google’s algorithm is a black box, and what works for your competitor’s site might not work for yours.

Do you need backlinks to rank in 2025?

Let’s start with the basics. A backlink is a link from one website to another. When a site links to your content, it vouches for it, demonstrates your authority and tells Google that your web page is worth checking out.

Backlinks have been a core part of Google’s algorithm since day one. But the way they influence rankings has changed considerably. In the early days of SEO, it was a numbers game. The more backlinks you had, the higher you ranked — no matter where those links came from. 

And for a while, this worked. But search results suffered. They were filled with low-quality pages that ranked only because they had massive backlink volume, not because they were valuable to the reader. 

Google caught on and began cracking down with algorithm updates like Penguin and Panda, which shifted the focus from backlink quantity to quality.

Fast forward to 2025, and Google’s stance is more nuanced. According to Gary Illyes from Google, backlinks are no longer a top 3 ranking factor and haven’t been “for some time”.

So, do they even matter anymore? Absolutely. Especially in the competitive SaaS niche. While backlinks may not carry the same weight as they once did, they still act as a trust signal — especially when they come from relevant, high-authority websites. And the data backs this up.

👉 We used Ahrefs to analyse page performance for TravelPerk, a SaaS company that specialises in managing business travel for companies. As the number of referring domains increases (blue line), so does their organic traffic (orange line). The correlation is clear: more quality backlinks = more visibility.

What does a high quality backlink look like?

Not all backlinks are created equal, and a few high-quality links can have far more impact than hundreds of low-value ones. So, what makes a backlink high quality?

1. Relevance: The linking site should be topically aligned with your content and industry. A backlink from a respected SaaS blog? Great. One from a pet food site? Not so much

2. Authority: Links from trusted, high-authority domains (measured by metrics like Domain Rating or Domain Authority) pass more SEO value to your site. 

3. Organic traffic: Sites with consistent traffic tend to be more credible in Google’s eyes. A link from a site with no visitors is unlikely to move the needle.

4. Editorial placement: The best backlinks appear naturally within the main content of a page — not buried in a footer, sidebar or user-generated comments.

5. Anchor text: Natural, descriptive anchor text uses relevant keywords and gives context to both users and search engines.

6. Follow vs nofollow: “Follow” links pass SEO value; “nofollow” links generally don’t. While both have their place, follow links should be the focus of your link-building efforts.

Link diversity: Getting links from a wide range of unique domains is more valuable than repeat links from the same site over and over.

The bottom line is that a high-quality backlink should come from a trustworthy, relevant source; appear naturally in editorial content; and provide real value to both users and search engines.

👉 For example, Piktochart managed to outrank a major SaaS player like Canva — even with far fewer backlinks and referring domains. Piktochart had just 45 backlinks from 30 referring domains, compared to Canva’s 1,521 backlinks from 479 referring domains. The difference? Piktochart’s links were highly relevant, authoritative, and built around strong topical authority — proving that quality beats quantity every time.

Source: Skale

How to determine how many backlinks you need

At this point, we’ve established two things: 

1. Backlinks are still an important ranking factor.
2. More high-quality links from relevant, authoritative sites will always beat a large number of low-value ones. 

But that still doesn’t answer the big question: How many backlinks do you actually need to rank on Google?

If you do a quick search, you’ll see vague recommendations — like 50 backlinks to your homepage or 100 for each individual page. But those numbers don’t mean much without context.

The number of backlinks you need depends on your niche, how competitive your keywords are and how strong your competitors’ backlink profiles look. And some pages fail to rank simply because they have too few backlinks to compete with stronger domains. 

Below we’ll show you exactly how to calculate a realistic backlink target in two simple steps so you can build a strategy that’s based on data, not guesswork.

“Before you start to generate high-quality backlinks, take stock of where you stand. Use a tool like Ahrefs, SEMrush or Moz to see how many high-quality backlinks your page already has, then compare that to top-ranking competitors.

From there, define what ‘high quality’ means in your strategy — for example, links from DR30+ sites, ‘dofollow’ and ideally one per domain. 
And don’t forget to sanity-check your content: does the page you want to rank actually match the search intent for the keyword you’re targeting? If it doesn’t, all the backlinks in the world won’t help.”

— Pat Harvey, SEO Strategist at Skale

Identify the number of backlinks for similar pages in your industry

The first step to figuring out how many backlinks you need is to look at what’s already working in your niche. Some industries are more competitive than others, and the number of backlinks required to rank can vary massively depending on your vertical.

Let’s compare two SaaS niches: sales automation software (highly competitive) and practice management software (less competitive).
Here’s what the backlink profiles look like for some of the top-ranking homepages in each category, according to Ahrefs.

Sales automation software	Practice management software
Dripify (dripify.io): 1.7K referring domains, 28K backlinks Salesmate (salesmate.io): 4.2K referring domains, 46.3K backlinks Pipedrive (pipedrive.com): 6.4K referring domains, 52.6K backlinks	CureMD (curemd.com): 1.5K referring domains, 9.4K backlinks Canopy (getcanopy.com): 1.2K referring domains, 15.2K backlinks Practice Fusion (practicefusion.com): 1.8K referring domains, 15.7K backlinks

The difference is clear: in more competitive spaces like sales automation, you’ll typically need a larger volume of high-quality backlinks to outrank the top players. In lower-competition niches, a leaner backlink profile can still drive strong rankings.

How to find and assess your competitors’ backlinks using Ahrefs

You can run this analysis for your own site in the following four steps using a tool like Ahrefs:

1. Identify your top competitors: Google your target keywords and note which websites consistently rank on the first page. If you’re in SaaS, look for competitors that offer similar products, target the same ICP and produce similar content.
   
2. Enter their domains into Ahrefs Site Explorer: Go to Site Explorer to plug in each domain and pull up key backlink metrics. 
   
3. Check referring domains and total backlinks: Focus on two key numbers:
   
   • referring domains = how many unique sites link to them
   • backlinks = the total number of links (including multiple links from the same site)

Source: Ahrefs

4. Compare across the top 3–5 competitors: This will give you a benchmark. If every competitor ranking for your target keyword has 2,000+ referring domains, that’s a good signal that you’ll need to be in that range too — or have better content and stronger technical SEO to compete with fewer links.

Next, we’ll show you how to go one level deeper and check how many backlinks point specifically to the top-performing pages for your target keywords.

Check the number of backlinks your target keyword has 

Once you’ve reviewed the overall backlink profiles of your competitors, it’s time to get more specific and check how many backlinks the top-ranking pages for your target keyword have.

This tells you what it actually takes to compete on a page-by-page level, not just domain-wide.

Here’s how to do it using Ahrefs:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer: Enter your target keyword. For example, let’s say you’re targeting “business travel management”.
   
   
   Source: Ahrefs
   
2. Scroll down to the SERP Overview: This shows you the current top-ranking pages on Google for that keyword, along with key metrics like:

• UR (URL Rating): a score (0–100) showing how strong the page’s backlink profile is
• RD (Referring Domains): how many unique websites link to that page
• traffic: estimated organic visits
• keywords: how many other keywords the page ranks for
  

Source: Ahrefs

In the example above, you’ll see there’s a wide range of backlinks — from as low as 148 to well over 3,000. That’s common in competitive B2B spaces, where some pages have built up backlinks over years, while others are newer but backed by strong domains or highly targeted content.

In this case, you’ll likely need at least a few hundred high-quality referring domains to compete seriously for this keyword.

You can also click into each page to see which sites link to it, as well as what their DR is and what type of content contains the backlinks (guides, comparison pages, listicles, etc.). These insights are gold when planning your own backlink strategy.

Next, let’s zoom out a bit and look at the other key factors that influence how many backlinks you’ll need to rank — because backlinks aren’t the only ranking factor.

What other factors determine how many backlinks you need to rank?

Backlinks are just one part of the SEO equation. How well your page ranks — and how many backlinks you actually need to rank — is also influenced by a few other key factors. These include content quality, domain authority, keyword difficulty, internal linking and technical SEO. 

In this section, we’ll break each one down so you can build a well-rounded strategy that gives your backlinks the best chance of driving results.

Content quality and relevance 

You can build all the backlinks in the world, but if your content doesn’t provide value to a reader, it won’t rank. And more importantly, it won’t earn links naturally either.

Backlinks are often a byproduct of great content. People link to pages that are useful, insightful and well-structured. They do it not just because you asked them to, but because the content genuinely provides value to their audience.

So what makes content worth linking to?

✔️It answers a specific question clearly and thoroughly.

✔️It offers original data, insights or perspectives.

✔️It’s well-written, well-formatted and easy to digest.

✔️It’s highly relevant to a specific audience or niche.

If your content hits those marks, other sites are far more likely to reference it — whether through outreach or organically. But there’s another layer to consider: topical authority and search intent.

“Topic authority plays a huge role. If you only have a single page on a subject, and your competitor has an entire content cluster covering that topic from every angle, you’ll likely need more backlinks to compete.

Search intent is just as important. Trying to rank a landing page in a sea of listicles? You’ll need to put in extra work — and often, a lot more links — to get it in front of users.”

— Pat Harvey, SEO Strategist at Skale

👉 Let’s look at another SaaS example: Zapier’s guide on how to create a custom AI chatbot. Content like that earns backlinks because it’s:

• useful: it solves a specific problem in a clear, actionable way
• timely: it rides the wave of interest in AI and no-code tools
• linkable: people writing about AI, chatbots, or automation can easily reference it as a practical example

As a result, this guide has 636 backlinks from 59 referring domains which is a solid signal that it’s a valuable resource:

Source: Ahrefs

As you can see above, this blog post has earned 636 backlinks from 59 referring domains. Why? It’s a genuinely useful comparison that helps businesses evaluate their travel management options. It’s keyword-targeted, clearly structured and offers real value to its audience — which makes it a natural link magnet for other blogs and authoritative websites in this industry.

Domain authority 

Another key factor that you need to consider when building backlinks is Domain Authority, or DA.

DA is a metric developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in SERPs. It scores domains on a scale from 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating stronger ranking potential.

While DA isn’t evaluated by Google, it’s still a handy benchmark when assessing the overall authority of a site (including your own).

So what does a “good” DA score look like?

• DA 30+: decent (typically newer or niche sites with some backlink traction)
• DA 50+: strong (established sites with a natural backlink profile)
• DA 70+: very strong (usually market leaders or publishers with authoritative sites)

👉 Zapier has a DA of 82 (according to Moz), which helps explain why its content — like the guide we shared above performs so well in search rankings with a relatively modest number of referring domains. The site’s overall authority boosts the performance of individual pages, even if they have fewer backlinks than competing content.

Source: Moz

If your site has a lower DA, that doesn’t mean you can’t rank; it just means you may need more backlinks (or stronger ones) to compete with websites that have a higher score.

Keyword difficulty 

Another major factor that affects how many backlinks you’ll need is keyword difficulty (KD). Tools like Ahrefs use this metric to estimate how competitive a keyword is.

It’s scored on a scale from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the more competitive the keyword.

Ahrefs also gives you a referring domain estimate for each keyword, which shows how many unique websites you’ll likely need links from to rank in the top 10. It’s not exact, but it’s a helpful benchmark as you plan your link-building strategy.

ℹ️ Here’s how to check KD in Ahrefs:

1. Go to Keywords Explorer
2. Enter your target keyword
3. Check the KD score and referring domain estimate
4. Scroll to the SERP overview to compare backlink counts for top-ranking pages

👉 A keyword like “business travel management” has a KD of 89 in Ahrefs. Ranking for that kind of term will likely require a robust backlink profile and a highly optimised, valuable page.

Source: Ahrefs

When most people think about link building, they focus entirely on external backlinks. But don’t underestimate the power of internal links.

Internal linking helps distribute link equity (also known as “link juice”) across your site. That means a few strong backlinks to one high-performing page can actually help boost the rankings of multiple other pages that page links to. 

Internal linking also improves crawlability, helps search engines understand your site structure and guides users to more relevant content — all of which support better SEO performance.

Here are a few expert internal linking tips:

• Use descriptive anchor text: Anchor text should reflect the content of the page you’re linking to. For example, instead of using a “click here” anchor text, use something more descriptive, like “best practice management tools”.
• Link naturally: Add internal links where they make sense contextually — not just for the sake of SEO. If it feels forced, leave it out.
• Prioritise relevance: Only link to content that genuinely adds value for the reader. A well-placed link to a supporting blog post, case study or feature page can increase time on site and drive conversions, not just rankings.

Brand mentions 

Another factor that can influence how many backlinks you need is brand mentions which is when your brand is referenced online with or without a link. 

If your SaaS company is mentioned frequently across relevant, high-quality sites, you may not need as many backlinks to rank well in the SERPs as well as in LLM’s and AI overviews.

Here’s why brand mentions carry weight:

• They build topical authority: Mentions in articles, reviews, directories, and industry roundups show that your brand is part of the conversation especially if the content aligns with your target keywords.
• They’re often a byproduct of real-world trust: Media coverage, partnerships, and customer reviews may not always include links but they do send strong trust signals that complement your link profile.

Technical SEO

You can have the most valuable, relevant content and strongest backlink profile in your niche, but if your technical SEO is broken, none of it matters.

Search engines need to be able to crawl, index and understand your website. If pages load slowly, aren’t mobile-friendly or are blocked from being indexed, your rankings will suffer — no matter how many backlinks you build.

At a minimum, make sure your site has:

• a clean URL structure
• fast loading times
• mobile responsiveness
• no major crawl errors or broken links
• an up-to-date sitemap and robots.txt file

Let us figure out how many links you need

By now, you’ve realised there’s no magic number when it comes to backlinks. The right number for any given page depends on your niche, the competitiveness of the keyword, your DA and the quality of your content.

But one thing is clear: backlinks still matter, especially in competitive SaaS markets.

We’ve shown you how to:

• benchmark against competitors using Ahrefs
• evaluate keyword difficulty and backlink targets
• prioritise quality over quantity
• use internal links and technical SEO to amplify your results

But figuring out exactly how many links your site needs — and which ones will actually drive results — takes time, research and expertise.

That’s where we come in. At Skale, we build custom link-building strategies that help SaaS companies drive rankings, organic traffic and real revenue. If you’re ready to stop guessing and start building backlinks that move the needle, sign up for a free link-building growth plan today.