The Trap of Chasing Broad Terms at DR 10
Here's the situation a lot of new SaaS products are in. You've got a real product, a real value prop, and a domain that Google barely trusts yet. In this case, the starting point was a Domain Rating of 10 and just 55 organic keywords. That's about as close to invisible as a SaaS site gets.
The instinct at this stage is usually to go after the big terms. The stuff with the highest search volume, the category-defining keywords everyone wants. The problem is that established competitors have been building authority around those exact terms for years. They've got the backlinks, the content depth, and the trust signals to hold those spots. A DR 10 site showing up to compete for the same terms isn't an underdog story, it's a site that's going to rank on page 4 and stay there.
Chasing broad terms at this stage isn't a strategy, it's vanity volume. Even if you somehow rank, you're not capturing people ready to buy, you're capturing people early in a research phase who have a dozen tabs open and no urgency. A brand-new SaaS product doesn't need volume for the sake of volume. It needs traffic from people who are close to a decision.
The Core Playbook: What Is Competitor Alternative Link Building?
Competitor alternative link building means building pages specifically targeting searches like "[Competitor] alternative," and backing those pages with backlinks so they can actually rank.
Think about who types that phrase into Google. It's not someone browsing. It's someone who already uses a competitor's product, or has evaluated it closely enough to know its name, and is now actively looking for something else. Maybe the pricing didn't work. Maybe a feature was missing. Maybe support was bad. Whatever the reason, that person is already sold on the category and already frustrated with the current option. They just need a reason to switch.
That's a completely different intent level than someone searching a broad category term. This is why an alternative keyword strategy works so well for a low authority SaaS SEO plan. You're not trying to out-rank a competitor on their own turf. You're intercepting people the moment they start looking elsewhere.
The Experiment in Action: Building Alternative Pages for a Communication SaaS
Here's exactly how it played out for the communication SaaS client.
Instead of building generic category content, the team built dedicated SaaS competitor comparison pages targeting "[Competitor] alternative" and related comparison keywords. Each page was built to directly answer what someone comparing tools would actually want to know.
Then those pages were backed with links, specifically:
- 15 to 20 backlinks per month
- Every link sourced from a site relevant to the communication SaaS niche
- No random, off-topic, or bulk-purchased links
That combination mattered. The content matched the searcher's intent, and the links behind it came from places that made sense to Google, not just anywhere willing to sell a placement. At DR 10, a handful of relevant links does more work than a large batch of unrelated ones, because relevance is a trust signal in itself. This early traction was just the starting line of a larger seven-month campaign that eventually scaled the domain all the way to DR 52. You can read the complete SaaS link building case study roadmap to see how we shifted tactics from month to month.
Why This Works When Domain Authority Is Low
The mechanics here come down to one thing: narrowing the competition.
A broad category term might have hundreds of competing pages, many of them backed by sites with a decade of authority behind them. A "[Competitor] alternative" term has a much smaller, more specific competitive set. Often it's just the competitor's own site, a couple of comparison roundups, and whatever else has bothered to target that exact phrase.
That's a competition a DR 10 site can actually win. You don't need to out-authority an entire category, you just need to be the most relevant, most useful answer to one specific, narrow search. This is the core reason a B2B SaaS link building strategy needs to change shape depending on where the domain currently stands. What works at DR 50 doesn't work at DR 10, and trying to force it just wastes months. Optimizing for those specific answers is also a core part of mastering Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) so your alternative pages get picked up by AI-driven search features.
For this client, that narrow-but-winnable approach is what got the first real traffic moving, and it laid the groundwork for the 175x traffic increase that followed over the next seven months.
Step-by-Step Execution Checklist for SaaS Marketers
If you want to run this playbook yourself, here's the workflow:
Identify your real competitors.
Not aspirational ones, the tools people are actually comparing you to in the market today.
Build a dedicated "[Competitor] alternative" page for each one.
Don't lump them into one generic comparison post.
Write for the switcher, not the beginner.
Assume the reader already knows the category and is deciding, not learning.
Target comparison-style keywords alongside the alternative terms.
These often overlap and reinforce each other.
Source backlinks from niche-relevant sites only.
Stay in your industry, avoid generic or unrelated domains.
Keep a steady link pace instead of a single burst.
15 to 20 relevant links per month is a workable, sustainable rate at low DR.
Track keyword and traffic movement monthly.
Early gains here are usually the first sign the broader strategy is working.
Frequently Asked Questions
Won't competitors sue us or try to get these pages blocked?
Comparison and alternative content is a normal, established part of SaaS marketing as long as you're representing facts accurately and not making false claims about the competitor's product. Focus the page on your own strengths and honest, verifiable differences rather than disparagement, and this is standard competitive marketing practice. This commitment to unique insights ties directly into how search engines evaluate EEAT and information gain, rewarding content that brings genuine expertise to the table rather than generic rewrites.
How do you find the right competitor terms to target?
Start with whoever comes up when your own prospects are comparing options, whether that's from sales conversations, review sites, or your own competitor research. The right terms are the ones real buyers are already searching, not just the biggest names in the space.
Does this replace broader SEO content, or work alongside it?
It's a starting point, not a replacement. For a low authority SaaS SEO strategy, alternative pages are what generate the first real traction. Broader category content still matters, it just becomes realistic to compete for later, once the domain has built up more authority.
How long before this kind of strategy shows results?
For this client, the shift toward high-intent, competitor-focused content combined with a steady 15 to 20 links per month was part of what fueled a 175x traffic increase over seven months. Results build over time rather than overnight, but the intent-matching is what makes the traffic worth having once it arrives.
Ready to Build Your Own Competitor Alternative Campaign?
If your SaaS product is sitting at a low Domain Rating and broad category terms feel out of reach, you don't need more content, you need the right content aimed at people ready to switch. LinkyJuice can build out a custom competitor alternative and link building campaign tailored to where your domain actually stands today, not where you wish it stood. Reach out and let's map out your alternative keyword strategy.
About the Author
Davit Nazaretyan writes about link building, backlink audits, and SEO automation at LinkyJuice. His work focuses on separating what actually moves rankings from what just looks like it does: from cleaning up toxic backlink profiles to building outreach systems that hold up against algorithm updates. Connect on LinkedIn.
