Where software buyers look before they buy: a guide to earning mentions and links in the right places

If you sell software, you already know that people don't buy after reading one page on your site. They compare. They read what other people say. They ask a colleague or a chatbot. By the time they fill in your demo form, they've often decided who is on the shortlist.

That means your reputation is built on pages you don't own. This guide explains where software buyers look, what the research says, and how to earn a presence on those pages honestly, with mentions and links that are worth having.

How software buyers research

Two recent surveys give a picture of how buying has changed. Read them with the usual care: both were run by companies that sell to the people reading them.

• G2, a software review marketplace, surveyed 1,076 B2B software decision-makers in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific in March 2026, and published the results in April 2026. It found that 51% now start their software research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google, and 71% rely on AI chatbots at some point. It also found that 45% say citations from software review sites are the most confidence-inspiring signal. G2 has an interest in review sites, so treat that last number as a vendor's view.
• Gartner announced in March 2026 that its sales survey found 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience. In plain terms: most buyers want to do the research themselves before talking to a salesperson.

The common thread is that buyers form opinions before you can influence them in a conversation. What they find on other websites matters.

What AI search changes, and what it doesn't

You will hear that AI tools require a new kind of optimization. Google disagrees. Its documentation says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no other special optimizations are necessary. It says the best practices for SEO remain relevant for these features.

There is a pattern worth knowing about. In December 2025, Ahrefs published a study of 75,000 brands. It found that branded web mentions correlated more strongly with a brand's visibility in AI answers (0.656 for AI Overviews, 0.709 for AI Mode and 0.664 for ChatGPT) than backlinks did, which were only about 0.2 to 0.3. Ahrefs itself says the usual disclaimer applies: correlation isn't causation. It also filtered for domains with a Domain Rating above 40, so the sample leans toward established brands.

The practical reading is simple. Being talked about on trusted sites, in the places buyers already look, is good for people and plausibly good for search too. We explain the study in more detail in our guide to the future of link building.

The places that matter

Here is a map of where mentions and links tend to matter for a software company. This is our view of how buyers behave, not a ranking from a study.

You don't need all six. Start with the two or three where your own buyers say they look. Ask new customers how they found you: the answers show you where to start.

How to find the pages that matter in your category

You can build a target list in an afternoon, using only a search engine.

1. Write down the searches a buyer would run. For example: "best [your category] software", "[main competitor] alternatives", "[your category] for [industry]", "[your tool] vs [competitor]".
2. Open the first two pages of results for each. Note every independent site that publishes a roundup, comparison or review.
3. Mark the pages that mention your competitors but not you. That's your target list.
4. Check each publisher before you contact it. Look at who writes the content, whether it's updated, what the audience is, and whether sponsored content is labeled. Our guide to link quality metrics explains what to check and which numbers to treat with caution.
5. Rank the list. Put at the top the pages that match your buyers and are kept up to date.

Write the answers in a spreadsheet. Come back to it every quarter: new roundups appear, and old ones change.

How to earn a mention honestly

Ask real customers for reviews, and follow the rules. Review sites have rules, and so does the law. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission announced a final rule in August 2024 that bans fake reviews and testimonials, buying positive or negative reviews, insider reviews, company-controlled review websites, review suppression and the misuse of fake social media indicators. G2's guidelines say employees of a product's company and employees of a direct competitor may not review it. They cap any incentive at $100, require that incentivized reviews are labeled, and say an incentive can never depend on whether the review is positive. In short: ask many customers, ask for honest feedback, and never script or filter the answers.

Send authors facts, not a pitch. When a roundup leaves you out, or lists old information, write a short, polite message. Give the current name, price page, features that matter to their readers and a demo account if they want one. Make their job easier. We share a full approach in our guide to how to reach out to bloggers.

Give publishers something worth linking to. Original data, benchmarks and clear explanations earn links more reliably than product announcements. See linkable assets for ideas.

Be clear about paid placements. Some publishers sell sponsored placements in roundups. That's allowed, but it should be disclosed. Google's spam policies say links bought to influence ranking should be marked with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". Whether a publisher shows a visible label depends on the publisher and the country. When we place links for clients, we tell you before you approve a site if a placement will carry a label, and you decide whether to go ahead.

Work with partners. If you have integrations, ask each partner to list you on its integrations page and in its help pages. These pages answer a question buyers actually have: "Does it work with what I use?"

Mentions or links?

Ask for both, and don't worry when you only get one. A mention helps buyers know you exist. A link helps readers click through, and helps search engines find and understand pages: Google says it uses links as a signal when determining the relevancy of pages and to find new pages to crawl.

Where you do get a link, aim it at the page that answers the reader's question. That could be your pricing page, a comparison page or an integration page, and not always your homepage. Google says good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise and relevant to the page it's on and to the page it links to.

Mistakes software companies make

• Only linking to the blog. Posts attract attention, but the pages that help someone decide are the ones to point links at.
• Ignoring review sites because they feel like a chore. Many buyers start there.
• Treating old roundups as lost causes. Many are updated every year, and authors want current facts.
• Buying placements without checking the publisher. A page nobody reads can't help you.
• Asking for reviews only from happy customers. That may breach a site's rules, and it gives a distorted picture.

How to measure it

Count four things: the places you added to your target list and where you now appear, the visitors who arrive from those pages, how many people mention them when you ask "How did you hear about us?" and how your demo requests change over several months. Don't expect an instant result. Our guide to measuring link building success explains how to set this up.

How we can help

Our SaaS link building service places links and brand mentions on sites in your category. You choose the sites from a shortlist and approve the content before it's published. We don't promise rankings, reviews or citations in AI answers, because nobody can promise those.

Sources

Checked on 1 October 2026.

• G2 via PR Newswire: Half of B2B software buyers now start their research with AI chatbots (15 April 2026)
• Gartner: Sales survey finds 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience (9 March 2026; the figure is taken from the release headline, because the page blocked automated reading)
• Google Search Central: AI features and your website (updated December 2025)
• Ahrefs: Top brand visibility factors in ChatGPT, AI Mode and AI Overviews (75k brands studied) (12 December 2025)
• FTC: Final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials (14 August 2024)
• G2: Community guidelines
• Google Search Central: Link best practices for Google (updated December 2025)
• Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search (updated August 2026)