How to Get More Referring Domains to Boost Your SEO Ranking

Introduction

Search engine optimization, or SEO as we commonly refer to it, is a gem of a strategy with a slew of benefits for your business. 

For the majority of people, SEO is mostly used to produce organic traffic, but what many people are not aware of is that it also reinforces branding and raises brand awareness. In fact, SEO and brand awareness go hand in hand. When individuals see a brand at the top of search results, the brand occupies a distinct and unique space in their minds. The brand’s visibility, authority, and interaction also rise as a result of being on Google’s first page, increasing its popularity. 

Now, if you want to increase the number of people that visit your site, you need to know how referral domains and link building can help.

The importance of link building for SEO cannot be overstated. It’s one of the most important elements that search engines use when determining who receives the very first search result.

Overview

This comprehensive guide will assist you in comprehending the idea of referring domains and link building. We’ll go over all of the major components of referring domains, starting with defining referring domains and backlinks, as well as the differences between the two. We are also sharing 15 easy ways to gather more referring domains for your website so keep reading till the end.

Understanding Referring Domains: What are they?

What is a referring domain, exactly? To answer this question in simple terms, the websites directing users to your website are called referring domains, also called ‘linking domains’ sometimes.

Referring domains, in technical terms, are one-of-a-kind websites that link to a specific website and may send traffic to that site via one or several outgoing links. The destination website may then obtain one or multiple of a referring domain’s backlinks. The referring domain could point to a destination web site’s URL or subdomains.

Let’s understand this with a simple example. Let’s consider Site X as an external website, and Site Y as your website. If Site X has one or more backlinks to Site Y, it is regarded as a referring domain of Site Y ( your website). Remember that Site X is still regarded as a single referring domain for Site Y, even if the website obtains several backlinks from it.

An important point to note here is that the greater the amount of referring domains, the more valuable and high-ranking your site will become. If you have 20 backlinks from 20 different websites, your site will be ranked higher and seen as more trustworthy. Conversely, if you have 100+ backlinks from just 20 domains, your site is in trouble and won’t be able to rank high.

Referring Domains vs Backlinks- How are Referring Domains Different from Backlinks?

Referring domains and backlinks are sometimes confused as the same SEO ranking indicators. It is acceptable given how difficult it may be to distinguish between external backlinks and referring websites initially. But don’t be confused. 

An inbound link connecting two websites is known as a backlink. When visitors click on a backlink, they would be directed to your website to which the backlink points. If other websites find your content beneficial, they will add a link for it in their content, and you will see these links as hyperlinks inserted in text, pictures, videos, and other media.

Whereas, the websites from which your backlinks originate are referred to as referring domains. It is also possible that several referring domains can connect back to a website simultaneously.

Let’s imagine you have a website where you post business-related information. Fred wants some ‘business suggestions’ and uses Google to find them. He comes across a blog on “xyz.com” that lists your website as the finest website to follow for business advice, so he clicks that link and is directed to your website. Therefore, “xyz.com” becomes a referring domain for your website. While the link that Fred clicked to get directed to your website is the backlink.

Referring Domains and SEO

Backlinks are a crucial aspect of search engine optimization (SEO). Your website requires backlinks regardless of whatever web searches you are aiming to rank it for. And for backlinks, you need referring domains.

Importance of Referring Domains for SEO: Are they a ranking factor? 

Without a doubt, referring domains are a huge ranking factor for SEO. According to a study conducted by Ahrefs, around 91% of web pages with no referring domains do not receive organic traffic from search engines. 

You’re missing out on potential website visitors, engagement, and conversions if your target web pages don’t have high-quality referring domains linking back to them.

Referring domains inform search engines and internet users about the quality and reliability of your website. Backlinks are extremely valuable to search engines, thus they consider a variety of characteristics when determining their quality. One of the considerations is the source of your website’s backlinks. Referring domains make your website stand out among the sea of others. 

Hence, the importance of getting backlinks from the leading referring domains cannot be overstated.

Tracking Referring Domains: How You Can Check Referring Domains For Your Website

It’s simple to track referring domains and the number of backlinks of a website on the internet. It can be done using any web tool, free or paid. When compared to their free versions, paid tools provide more extensive information. All you have to do to track your website’s referring domains is follow these simple steps:

• Enter the URL of the website for which you want to track referring domains.
• Hit the enter button to generate a report as shown in the image below.
• You can see multiple insights generated in a comprehensive report. In the backlink profile tab, you can see the referring domain trend in a graph.
• Now click on the referring domain tab to get a referring domain report that shows all the websites that are linking back to your webpage and a ton of other insights including the amount of organic traffic.These tools make it quite easy for you to track and analyze referring domains and plan your strategy accordingly.

15 Ways To Get More Referring Domains For Your Website

Obtaining high-quality connections from authoritative websites should be an ongoing emphasis for you. The focus of your link-building strategy should be incorporating strong referring domains to your site’s backlink profile. 

Here are 15 of the finest strategies to increase the number of referring domains for your website helping your business get links. These strategies are search engine-friendly and will help you improve your online authority.

1. Focus on your website’s content: Shareable Content Is The Way To Go

Quality content is one of the quickest strategies for you and your team to gain higher referring domains for your website. The more relevant content you have on your website, the more backlinks you’re likely to obtain from the industry’s top referring domains. 

The best natural method to engage with your peers and enhance website reading and conversions is to provide insightful content that is accompanied by meaningful data. People will share your content if they discover something worth sharing. 

Create something that others will want to share to improve the appeal of their own website. We would suggest you have a content marketing plan at your disposal that will help you plan and publish content effectively.

2. Identify your best-performing pages and content gaps

One of the most effective approaches to planning your content marketing process is to identify your top pages. The top pages are the most valuable pages on your site, as measured by the number of backlinks they received. Any online tool can help you discover them. 

Conducting content gap analysis can help you spot possibilities in the current SEO strategy that you might have overlooked. It’s critical to identify a gap in the current content strategy so that you can build new compelling content that drives traffic and engagement.

3. Examine your Report on Referring Domains

Examining the referring domains report can help you find extra link-building opportunities.

Evaluate the quality and number of your referring domains once you’ve prepared a referring domain report using the steps outlined above. It aids in determining which domain has the strongest backlink profile – the greater the number of domains having a high DA (domain authority) score, the better.

4. Improve Your Audience Targeting Techniques

The golden rule of SEO is to understand your target audience. To design a concrete plan for link building and search engine optimization campaigns, you should first identify the information requirements, needs, and online activity of your target audience. It will also assist you in developing and promoting content.

The trick is to understand your target audience and provide them with what they desire

5. Make a campaign to reach out to the sources of unlinked brand mentions.

When you have excellent shareable content, it is sure to get mentioned somewhere online. It can be mentioned in other websites’ blogs or on social media. You should have a plan in place to reach out to these sources who are mentioning and referencing your brand for link-building opportunities, especially if they have a high domain authority website.

6. Research Your Competition: Analyse Their Referring Domain Strategy

Understanding your competitors is a great approach to outsmarting them. Examine their profile to see where the backlinks are coming from. 

Analyzing the link profile and list of referring domains of your competitors will provide you with ideas on how to improve your position and expand your referring domains ecosystem by finding people and businesses with whom they collaborate. You’ll learn how to boost your search engine rating by gaining more links.

7. Start Contributing To Expert Round-Ups (Become a thought leader)

Writing content that highlights different websites in a good light is one effective technique to get backlinks from a range of referring domains.

This type of digital PR is beneficial to other websites because it gives them an incentive to promote and add links to your piece. If you want to be successful with this method, round-up posts which depend on the thoughts and knowledge of others are an excellent way to go.

8. Reach Out To SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) To Contribute To Your Website

As the name implies, a Subject Matter Expert (SME) is a professional who specializes in a particular subject. As a result, they have a wealth of knowledge and experience in a specific niche, are aware of the issues they encounter, and are aware of the answers to those challenges. 

Therefore, they can provide the most useful service of all: reliable and understandable subject-specific content.  They can provide vital context and insights for your marketing content, as well as keep readers interested in the topic.

Publish their work on your site’s blog and witness the backlinks pour in out of their own websites and social media profiles. It’s a simple way to gain more links and visitors.

9. Identify the Most Trustworthy and Popular Referring Domains

Identifying prominent, well-known domains in your niche that aren’t linking to you yet is critical for gaining new backlinks and should be part of your link-building strategy. This method will enable you to identify prospective backlink sources that will help you drive more traffic to your web pages. 

Create a list of domains in your sector. Then, before you ask them to backlink or publish your content on their websites, ensure your content is of the same quality as theirs.

10. Make It A Point To Invest In The Right Tools

To improve your brand’s long-term stability, you should focus on employing reliable link-building tools to help the organic process of acquiring referring domains based on the quality of your content. 

You can identify websites that can help you distribute your content, engage with different audiences, and boost your domain authority by using the right tools. In fact, adopting the correct link-building tools can help you improve your SERP ranking significantly. However, for them to be genuinely effective, you must make sure you’re correctly using the appropriate tools.

11. Identify and Collaborate With Influencers In Your Industry

One of the most effective ways to increase the quantity of referring domains is to collaborate with an influencer for influencer marketing.

Collaborating with an influencer presents your brand to a highly engaged and committed audience, leading to a backlink from the influencer’s website to yours as well as sponsorship for your brand. 

Start by performing a simple Google search to find folks who have lately covered the issue you’re writing about. This can be used to compile a list of individuals to contact.

After that, you can begin designing and sending outreach emails to your prospects.

Focus on the benefits your content can offer to the person while writing your emails.

12. Make contributions to other websites

If done correctly, your contributions to other websites can have a huge influence on the volume of referring domains over time.

Sharing your ideas and knowledge, whether through a guest post or participation in a survey, is a great approach to attracting new visitors to your website. One of the most effective ways to expand the amount of referring domains or gain quality links for your website is to write blog posts on high-authority blog websites.

13. Begin image link building

If you start spending time and money designing great images for your blog articles, chances are they will be copied by plenty of other sites, but they often forget to credit you.

It is recommended that you set up a recurrent program in a few months and look for these link possibilities using Google images. Find all the sites that have copied your graphic and send an email explaining who you are and that they should hyperlink to your site. 

14. Create Linkable Assets: Infographics, Videos, Articles, etc.

Offering high-quality content for free is one of the most effective ways to expand the amount of referring websites. When a webpage uses these free resources, it can provide a backlink to your website. Photos, images, website layouts, WordPress extensions and templates, software or apps, audio files, printables, and a variety of other items could be included in these free linkable resources.

15. Work on Optimising Your Link Building Strategy

Maintain the freshness of your backlink strategy. Link building used to be all about numbers rather than quality.

Today? It is a completely other game. Consider all of the above steps as essential components of your link-building approach. When done correctly, they can produce outstanding results for your website.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that referring domains have the edge when it comes to optimizing your website. Referring domains are extremely important to Google. They are so important that they can make or break your SEO. Therefore we hope that we have been able to assist you in comprehending it. Now you must concentrate on developing a content strategy and using SEO tools to reach out to relevant people.