28 Techniques for Increasing the Number of Referring Domains to Your Website

Author's avatar Marketing UPDATED May 3, 2024 PUBLISHED Oct 9, 2023 31 minutes read

Table of contents

    Peter Caputa

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    Just when you thought you had a handle on link building for your company, the SEO world introduced you to referring domains. Now what? Don’t worry since it’s nothing too technical.

    Referring domains are the sites that give you links. The important part, however, is that you need a variety of referring domains linking to you for a strong backlink profile.

    So how exactly do you increase the number of referring domains giving you links?

    Read on to find out 28 expert tips for increasing your referring domains to your site and all the other details that you need to know:

    Let’s dig in:

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    What are referring domains?

    Referring domains, also known as linking domains, are websites that link to your website.

    Think of it like this: you get a link from The Washington Post. In this case, your linking domain is The Washington Post. Capeesh?

    What is the difference between a referring domain and a backlink?

    As mentioned, a referring domain is a site linking to your page or site. This link that you get from a referring domain is known as a backlink.

    And, here’s the interesting bit: you can get several backlinks from a linking domain. For instance, Databox giving backlinks to your content. However, if you’ve only a few referring domains giving you backlinks, your backlink profile is pretty weak.

    Why? Because Google might sniff that out as a paid linking scheme. Also, you aren’t getting SEO juice from many websites if your referring domains are limited.

    The good news is you can always increase referring domains linking to you. Sure, those links can come your way organically. But, it’s best to have a strategy as most – 83.2% to be exact – of our survey respondents have:

    How do I track referring domains?

    Simply go to Google Analytics and take the following steps:

    1. Look for Acquisition on the left-hand side of your dashboard

    2. From there, select, All Traffic and

    3. Pick Referrals sitting at the end of the list

    Here, you’ll get a summary of your linking domains:

    28 Ways to increase the number of referring domains

    Ready to learn how to increase the number of referring domains to your site the white hat SEO way?

    Read on for a list, followed by the details:

    1. Grow your network
    2. Use HARO and other journalist services
    3. Write shareable content
    4. Create linkable assets
    5. Promote your content
    6. Tap into small PR networks
    7. Contribute to other sites
    8. Host an affiliate program
    9. Add a credentialed member to your team for PR Outreach
    10. Plan an outreach campaign for unlinked brand mentions
    11. Build links from outdated resources
    12. Contribute to expert round-ups
    13. Design infographics
    14. Conduct surveys and studies
    15. Reclaim broken links
    16. Create lists
    17. Create a tool that’s valuable to your industry
    18. Write round-up posts
    19. Ask experts to contribute to your content
    20. Reach out to podcasters
    21. Use industry directories
    22. Conduct a resource page outreach
    23. Conduct a personalized email outreach
    24. Get old links updated
    25. Collaborate with industry influencers
    26. Include diagrams in your content
    27. Start image link building
    28. Conduct double surveys

    1. Grow your network

    “The best way to increase domain authority in 2020 is to network with other industry leaders,” opines LegalAdvice.com’s David Reischer. “A website that receives backlinks from industry-specific and topically relevant authorities is the best way to increase a domain authority score.”

    Networking might be a bit time consuming, but it works wonders irrespective of your industry.

    Reischer shares, “our business which is in the legal niche makes great effort to connect with other lawyers, legal professionals and industry thought leaders on topics that are relevant and related to our practice areas.”

    Ryan Cook of Thefitboxx.com agrees, “it’s all about relationships. It’s a give-and-take game. If you want other sites to link to you, first you have to get them to notice you and like you. You can do this by linking to other sites from your own and talking about what you like or appreciate about their service, their blog post, etc.”

    Not to forget, “linkers will often appreciate interaction and will be even happier if you link back to them and their site by sharing the stories through your social media, and website if you have a section available for this (such as a blog),” notes Dialed Labs’ Jase Rodley.

    Rodey explains: “these behaviors are much more likely to see you build a relationship with someone, and they will be more likely to think of you in the future, if an article comes up that they think you might be suitable for, or recommending you to somebody else who could find a quote from you useful.”

    In case you already have a good network, but aren’t sure how to tap into it for improving your referring domains, take a tip from TeamBuilding’s Michael Alexis: “ask.”

    “This doesn’t just mean cold outreach, but specifically asking website owners you have relationships or connections with to add a link to your site and articles when relevant.”

    Alexis adds, “when we first started doing this outreach it felt a little weird. We were afraid to jeopardize relationships by being yet another link requester in their inbox, and didn’t want it to seem like a factor in the relationship. This fear was unjustified and it turns out that people in your network WANT to help you. Worst case scenario they will say no if it isn’t a good fit.”

    Remember to “Genuinely help others. Send them referrals. Share their content. Link to their websites in your own content. Businesses will notice and some will reciprocate. As you grow your influence and engage with new businesses, you expand your circle and increase the potential to increase the number of referring domains to your website,” says Ilir Salihifrom FreedomRep.

    2. Use HARO and other journalist services

    “Answering queries from journalists on services like HARO and SourceBottle is an excellent way to add referring domains without any shady tactics,” shares Daniel Caughill of The Dog Tale.

    Essentially, “HARO is a tool that connects reporters with sources to help reporters write stronger content and give sources the opportunity to be featured in the media. It’s free to use, and can generate a few referring domains each month,” explains SoftwarePundit’s Bruce Hogan.

    And, here’s how it works in Capitol Tech Solutions’s Kevin Olson’s words:

    1. The reporter presents a topic and the questions/comments that they need regarding the topic and then the expert/thought leader helps the reporter.
    2. If the reporter accepts your response, then they will feature you in their post on the website that they work for.

    Many large media outlets use HARO so it helps you gain a backlink from a high authority website, which ultimately helps with your own domain authority.”

    But to get a link, make sure “you have valuable information to share,” Buildremote’s Henry O’Loughlin advises. “If your quote is valuable, you’ll be included in the article with a link back to your website in most cases.”

    In short, “journalists need experts to weigh in on topics in order to round out their articles, so if you can give them a solid, meaty response that lends authority to their piece, you’ll find yourself with a pretty high-authority link profile without spending any money or time on the same domains farming out guest posts to all of your competitors,” notes Caughill.

    3. Write good content

    “Technically, any link building efforts go against Google’s Webmaster Guideline,” Adam Connell from Blogging Wizard points out. “So, if you want to be ‘squeaky clean’ and 100% white hat, creating content that naturally earns links is the only option.”

    Why? Because “If [your] content is good enough, people will link to it,” according to Directive’s Liam Barnes.

    But before you go about creating good content, know that “you need a solid content strategy. The content that ranks and drives massive traffic from Google to your website isn’t always the same as the content that earns links,” notes Connell.

    Related: Content Strategy vs. SEO Strategy: How to Decide Which Comes First

    This begs the question: what sort of content can help you get links? Here are some suggestions:

    i. Data-driven content

    “Typically, data-driven content naturally attracts the most links, but you should also look at top tier websites in your niche – high profile bloggers and journalists. Look at what they link to, and you’ll quickly understand the type of content you need to create to earn links naturally,” shares Connell

    Paul Ronto from RunRepeat.com is on the same page. “Create amazing content based on data. Every business has some data that’s interesting to someone, but no one is using it to create unique content. This is super low-hanging fruit, and something that helps drive referring domains big time.”

    A good place, to begin with, is “your user analytics,” Ronto says. “Determine which pages have the most visitors or which products are selling the best and try to correlate that to something going on in your user’s world. It sounds hard to mine data for content but it’s not, and it’s much more interesting than yet another listicle or opinion piece.”

    ii. Skyscraper content

    This is content that covers the A-Z of a topic. “To create a skyrocket content, you have to do a little research and find gaps by going through similar blogs/keywords,” advises Harshil Bhatnaga of Staiir Social Media Marketing.

    Your goal should be to “find out what is missing in current information provided by websites and how you can write something better and provide more value to your visitors.

    Once your blog is published and if it will rank higher and liked by your visitors, you will definitely be going to get referred by hundreds of domains, organically.”

    It’s also a good idea to work on “a topic many people link to,” shares Petworshiper’s Peter Laskay.

    Here is Laskay’s process for a better understanding of how this works: “I will compile these referring domains into a list. Then I write an article on this topic (a great one). After that, I try to contact everyone on the list and persuade them to link to my article. The secret is that I have to write to a lot of people because the law of big numbers works here. This strategy is fully repeatable.”

    iii. Actionable content that’s worth sharing

    “Insightful content complemented with actionable and visualized data is only the best natural way to connect with your peers and increase website readership and conversions,” highlights Latana’s Joy Corkery.

    Artjoms Kuricins of Tilti Multilingual adds, “the best white hat technique for increasing the number of referring domains is to have useful, shareable content.”

    Create “tools, original analytics, and data, actionable tips, original news, anything that another person will want to share to make their own website more attractive. This way, you don’t actually need to worry about the process of getting links itself. People will grab your content while it’s still hot by their own volition, but only if they find something worth grabbing.”

    Just make sure you are promoting your content “across all relevant channels and [sharing it] in email newsletters,” so you “can ensure the highest possible impact.”

    iv. Trending content

    Lastly LiveSession‘s Kamil Drążkiewicz suggests “creating content on a hot subject – one that no one has put in the effort to write about yet” to “organically increase the number of referring domains.”

    “If people search for resources on the newly-trending topic, high chances are they’ll come across your site. Depending on your business, this can be anything from articles on breaking events to comprehensive reports full of actionable insights.”

    Editor’s note: If you struggling to get a picture of top referral sources, use this free Google Analytics Referrals Overview Dashboard to track sessions by referring pages, total sessions from referrers, and more.

    4. Create linkable assets

    “One very effective way to increase the number of referring domains is to offer quality resources for free,” recommends Mark Andre from Vital Dollar. “It works with websites in just about any industry.”

    Here’s how you can go about doing this: “Basically, you’ll create some digital resource that will be of interest to your target audience, and offer it as a free download from your website.

    There are a couple of different ways that you can use this strategy to generate links:

    • With some types of resources, like stock photos or graphics, you may choose to require an attribution link to your site in if someone uses the resource.
    • Another way that it can lead to links is simply from blogs and websites that link to your resource to spread the word.”

    Red Stag Fulfillment’s Jake Rheude appreciates linkable content as well: these contents/resources save time, effort, and money. They get wide acceptance as a result and coupled with the fact that they aren’t simple to pull off. Which is why most people often feel obliged to link back.”

    So what sort of free content can you offer? Andre suggests: “Your free resource could be photos, graphics, website templates, WordPress themes, WordPress plugins, apps, software, audio files, printables, checklists, spreadsheet templates, or any number of other things.”

    And, before we move on to the next tactic to improve referring domains, here are some tips from Rheude to make your linkable asset a success:

    • “To increase the chance of success, ensure the linkable asset is created around a decently popular topic.
    • Paid promotion via ads and PR can also help improve visibility and reach.
    • If on a budget, consider publishing a series of guest posts on authoritative, relevant publications referencing your linkable asset.”

    5. Promote your content

    Whether it’s linkable asset you’re creating or any of the content types we discussed above (quick recap: data-driven, skyscraper, actionable or trending content), make sure you are “promoting the heck out of it,” shares Ben Walker of Transcription Outsourcing, LLC.

    Promoting it will get more eyes on it and then when the right eyes see it they will include links to it in their articles. So make sure you are promoting it to the right people who also write about the same topics for the best chances of being linked back too. You have to have great content though, so spend a ton of time and effort on your content otherwise no one will link to it.”

    Related: What’s the Best Way to Promote New Content? 41 Marketers Share What Works for Them

    6. Tap into small PR networks

    Pickfu.com’s William Chin shares, “over the last few months, we’ve really ramped up our referring domains with a number of initiatives. However, the most fruitful of the initiatives (and the one which has raised our domain authority/domain rating quite a bit) is using bespoke PR blasts.”

    Chin explains, “I’m talking about using small PR networks that can get you tons of backlinks (about 15% of them doFollow), over a short period of time. For example, one of our most successful PR blasts was for this page and we received a total of 114 referring domains with 12 of them being doFollow links.

    All and all, a fairly good investment and a great way to get the word spread about our events. Most importantly, quite white-hat as the purpose was to have our content syndicated across a network, not to acquire referring domains (albeit this was a secondary goal).”

    7. Contribute to other sites

    “Contribute to other sites. Whether it’s by writing a guest post or contributing to a survey, sharing your advice and expertise is a good way to draw others to your website,” notes Referral Rock’s Katrina Dalao.

    Andrei Vasilescu of DontPayFull suggests you “write blog posts in online publications.” Wondering why?

    Because “writing blog posts in authority blog websites is one of the most effective techniques to increase the number of referring domains or getting quality backlinks for your website. When a blog website publishes your blog content to create their blog article, the contributor gets a backlink from that blog website.”

    Casey Adams of All My Web Needs shares, “simply reaching out to the website you want links from letting them know you would like to give them really great content in exchange for a link back to your domain.

    You are trading content within your expertise for that referring domain. Making real engaging content that you and the site believe will drive actual traffic to the website is the best way to utilize this method for increasing your links back to your domain.”

    Bespoke Digital Solutions’ Mary Clare Bland takes the same approach: “I offer to write blog posts. Most blog editors are happy to offer guest blogging opportunities because it means less work for them.

    I typically pitch a few ideas to them. The tricks are:

    1. to make sure I have excellent content on my site I can link to and
    2. to write the anchor text in the most compelling possible fashion.

    Make sure that the blog editor agrees to keep the links in the article when they publish it.”

    Automate.io’s Vimal Bharadwaj adds, “relevant, high-quality guest posting is one of the most effective ways to increase the number of referring domains to your website. Here, the emphasis should be on ‘relevant’ and ‘high-quality’ because poorly-written content will be penalized by search engines and ultimately will yield no value.”

    Mobstac’s Tanishq Agarwal also thinks of guest posting as a “mutually beneficial white hat technique… It can have an extremely positive impact on the number of referring domains over time if done right.”

    Moving on, Jonathan Aufray of GrowthHackers gives you an action plan:

    • “Make a list of popular blogs in your niche who accept guest contributors
    • Write outstanding content and outreach to them.

    You want to contribute to new blogs and not always write for the same blog. Not only you will increase the number of referring domains, but the quality of those links will be high and you will gain authority, brand awareness, and traffic from it.”

    Smart IT’s Pavel Kaplunou recommends, “doing keyword research using SEO tools can reveal top ranking websites for particular keywords. At the same time, it can also reveal resources that are open to publishing blog posts on the subject.”

    Corina Leslie of ZeroBounce “apart from prestigious publications, consider guest posting on niche sites every month. Although they may not be well-known to the public, they tend to bring in more traffic. Also, they establish you as an authority in your industry and keep generating new opportunities.”

    8. Host an affiliate program

    According to Gleb Myrko of RGray, “the best technique for increasing the number of referring domains to your website is launching a system that ensures the passive link generation. And a referral/affiliate program is such a system.

    It will make the process of link building passive but viral. Other webmasters, media, and regular social media users will do their best to distribute backlinks to your domain as effectively as possible. Moreover, it will affect the quality of backlinks as affiliates will have a personal interest in the quality of a platform for the link placement.”

    The She Approach’s Ana Skyes agrees, “one of the main ways that I get consistent backlinks to my website from other bloggers in my niche, is through hosting an affiliate program for my digital products.

    With over 700 bloggers enrolled as affiliates already, quite a few end up mentioning my products and my website in their blog posts or resource libraries. Even when these collaborators use their affiliate links (and set them as no-follow), they still have to introduce me as an expert to their own audiences, so they often link to my homepage or my shop organically.”

    9. Add a credentialed member to your team for PR Outreach

    This one’s a hat to Colloway Cook from Illuminate Labs. Cook shares, “we added an MD to our team as an Advisor who helps us with PR outreach. We’ve significantly increased the number of referring domains since adding her. She’s an MD, so health sites are much more likely to quote her than they were to quote me, even though I’m the founder of the company since I have no medical qualifications.

    Websites want to quote credentialed respondents, especially for health or finance content, because Google prefers content from authoritative sources. So all things being equal, the same reporter response or outreach will generate significantly more backlinks if it’s coming from a source with credentials relevant to your company’s niche.”

    10. Plan an outreach campaign for unlinked brand mentions

    “One effective white hat technique for increasing the number of referring domains to your website is to track your unlinked brand mentions,” insists Digital Third Coast’s Matt Zajechowski

    Benjamin Feinberg from 9Sail explains, “these are opportunities when your business is mentioned in an article on the internet but doesn’t have a link associated with it. By reaching out to those who are already mentioning your brand, you have a high likelihood of capturing a backlink.

    You can try any of these 3 ways to track these mentions:

    Use Google Alerts with Buzzsumo

    “Use both Google alerts and Buzzsumo to track brand mentions for our business” that Zajechowski uses as well. “Whenever I find a brand mention that isn’t linked, I reach out to the author and see if they can provide a link to our website or one of our service pages.

    The link asks really depends on how they are mentioning our brand. If you are an ecommerce company it can be really easy and effective to ask for a link to the page of the product or service they mention. This not only will improve the number of linking domains to your website but also will improve the user experience for the user of that website.”

    Try SEMrush

    You can also use “SEMrush Link Building Tool,” as the team over at Golden Spiral Marketing does. Sydney Johnson from their team explains, “by providing branded keywords, SEMrush will scan the web for unlinked mentions of your company.

    Your branded keywords should be based upon the following:

    • Brand name
    • Alternate spellings or misspellings of your brand name
    • Branded products, tools, or assets
    • Employee names — members of your c-suite may be referenced online with no link

    Once you’ve compiled a list of prospects, you’ll want to prioritize which ones are worth your time. Start your outreach via email to ask each domain for a backlink. When possible, try to contact real people, and stay away from automated emails. Your targets are likely receiving emails with requests and offers constantly and will be more inclined to respond when they feel they feel the sender actually did their homework.”

    Use Google search with Buzzstream

    This is a duo that Kelsey Geer uses at BuildAWebsite101. Geer elaborates, “I usually start by performing a Google search using search operators such as ‘marketing inurl:resources’ then reaching out using a tool like Buzzstream to send targeted, personalized emails.

    One way to speed up the process of finding contact details during this process is to use the Hunter.io extension which allows you to quickly find all the emails associated with the domain.

    From there it’s just a matter of selecting the most relevant contact and reaching out with a well-crafted outreach email. You can use templates as the basis for this outreach but it’s always a good idea to personalize each email with details that show you’ve interacted with their content.

    If you use this process each time you publish a blog post you will continue to build links from a variety of different sources increasing your link diversity and domain authority in the process.”

    Want a tip? Here’s a solid one from Chilli Fruit Web Consulting’s Milosz Krasinski “When building your outreach list, do check your prospects/referring domains whether they come from same or unique IP address. The number of unique referring domains does not help if they sit on the same IP address. Tools like Semrush, Surfer SEO will help you to evaluate your referring domains.”

    11. Build links from outdated resources

    This is another useful way to grow your list of referring domains.

    Wright Technologies’ Stephen Wright explains, “building Links from outdated resources is a method that involves finding resources in your niche that are outdated, recreating the latest version of the content, and reaching out to website owners who link to that content asking them to replace it with a link to your newly created one.

    You’re helping users with updated statistics and data, while also building links to your website.”

    12. Contribute to expert round-ups

    Tihana Drumev of Best Response Media suggests, “getting included in expert round-ups or quoted in an article is an excellent way of getting links.

    Of course, you should do it to share expertise and knowledge; that’s your starting point. If you contribute like that, if you can add value to the author, then you are in. You won’t get a link every time, but the times you will, they will be natural, organic, white hat links.”

    13. Design infographics

    “If you have a listicle or ‘how to’ style article, an infographic embedded within the article can be a great way to naturally gain backlinks,” suggests Nomad Paradise’s Dale Johnson.

    “Infographics suit these types of articles well because they visualize the in-depth points covered in a simple, easy-to-digest way. However, the infographic alone is not enough.”

    But the links won’t come themselves. You will need to plan this out properly with the following steps:

    • “First, you want to include an embed code box below the visual, that someone could simply copy and paste straight into their website. Include your URL within this code.
    • Encourage the viewer to share/embed the infographic. You’ll also want to use a plugin such as Pin It, that allows someone to hover over the image and directly pin it to Pinterest.
    • It’s very important to include your website name/branding on the infographic so that it’s clear you are the main source. Otherwise, your work will get lost in a sea of anonymous images online.”

    Plus, a word of caution from Johnson: “Infographics are not an easy fix, and will require a designer, or design skills. But they go a long way to enhancing your articles, and giving people more favorable content to link back to.”

    14.Conduct surveys and studies

    “Publishing original data is one of the best ways to increase organic referring domains to your site,” suggests David Hoos.

    “If you look at a large portion of backlinks, they are often citations of data that help those articles support the arguments they are making. How do you attract those backlinks? Be the original source of the data.”

    You can always create original research “in the form of surveys, or analyzing publicly available data to find some unique stats and findings that people can cite when they are writing blogs within your industry, or you can pitch to journalists,” notes Daniel Reeves from Dandy Marketing.

    “Brian Dean is very good at this,” adds Reeves. “Most recently he and his team analyzed 7,051 job postings on Glassdoor and LinkedIn to better understand the current SEO job market.” And they got 29 referring domains within 1 month.

    Admittedly, “it’s a long process from thinking of the idea, getting and analyzing the data, then outreaching with your findings but… the stuff works!”

    Acadian Windows and Siding’s Casey Dawson agrees, “launching website surveys and publishing unique info is a great white hat technique for boosting referring domains to your site.

    News outlets and other publications seek out valuable data to include in their articles. By creating shareable proprietary data related to your industry and audience, you can establish your site as an authoritative info source, capture the attention of publishing outlets, and reach new audiences.”

    Sam Olmsted from Online Optimism shares an example to explain this white-hat technique: “you could perform a survey asking people when they may feel comfortable traveling on airplanes again after COVID-19. Then, you could write a study based on that data with the intention of getting the attention of those in the airline and hotel industries. This method makes you the source of information and gets other sites to refer back to yours.”

    15. Reclaim broken links

    Virtina’s Nitin Chacko Kovelil recommends “broken link building” as “the most scalable link building tactic which involves finding resources in our niche that are no longer live, then produce a version of the content, and reach out to webmasters asking them to replace the broken link with a link to our resource. It works!”

    16. Create lists

    “Companies love to be featured in lists, and will likely share your list on their domain as well,” observes John Thomas Lang from Amount.

    So, it helps “creating lists of vendors, providers or top company lists” as “a great way to increase the number of referring domains to your website. There are also great benefits for organic and social traffic” with this tactic.

    17. Create a tool that’s valuable to your industry

    “Creating a valuable tool or calculator is a powerful way to attract backlinks,” shares Upgrow’s Ryder Meehan.

    Creating a valuable tool or calculator is a powerful way to attract backlinks. If you can figure out what tool would be useful for your industry, then create it and do some email outreach to alert sites that it’s available. An example would be a mortgage calculator on a real estate website.”

    Jake Rheude of Red Stag Fulfillment also adds, I’m a big fan of creating free tools or calculators that your users will actually benefit from.

    Several years ago we added a Dimensional Weight Calculator to our website, which is very useful for ecommerce businesses that have to figure out the best shipping company to mail their parcels with. What really helps our calculator rank is that we included an article explaining how Dimensional Weight works and how it might impact the customer. So the tool itself is good, but the explainer adds an extra dimension (pun intended) to this webpage. It’s been referred to by 99 other domains for good reason!”

    18. Write round-up posts

    Besides contributing to these, you can also write expert round-ups yourself.

    Shana Haynie from Hearst Bay Area shares, “if you want people to link to your website, you need to produce a lot of great content. One effective way to generate backlinks from a variety of referring domains is to write content that features other websites in a positive manner.

    This form of digital PR becomes something valuable to those other websites, giving them a reason to share and link back to your article. Round-up posts, industry reports, and other forms of content that rely on the opinions and expertise of others are a good way to go if you want this strategy to be successful.”

    19. Ask experts to contribute to your content

    If you find creating expert round-ups exhausting, you can always ask 1-2 experts to contribute to your content. Purplegator’s Robert Bentz commends this, “People love seeing their names online. After all, how many of you have Googled yourself? Pretty much everybody, right? Get quotes from other industry leaders.

    Publish them on the blog on your site and watch the backlinks come in via their own sites and their social media. It’s an easy way to get links and more visits.”

    20. Reach out to podcasters

    “Reach out to podcasters and offer up yourself or a member of the business that you’re promoting for an interview,” begins Robert Randof JetRails. “If you make a compelling case, you may very well be invited on to one or more episodes as a guest.

    Podcasters will often link back to you and some of your relevant content, helping your SEO efforts. You can get some organic exposure to their podcast audience as well, providing better odds that the time you invest will be well spent from a marketing ROI perspective.”

    Ampmycontent’s Daniel Daines-Hutt appreciates “podcast link building” as well. “You go on peoples’ shows and talk about your business topic, get traffic, and get powerful backlinks to your site. It’s how we took a brand new website from Domain Authority ZERO to DA46 just with this method. (We were on around 60+ podcasts in around 90 days)

    This is HUGE as most sites never even get that high- but this one method helped skyrocket our rankings.”

    Here’s a checklist of steps that Daines-Hutt shares to help you take to get yourself on a podcast:

    • “Write an article in your industry
    • Find podcasts around the topic, or who would be interested
    • Pitch them on talking about the topic, and customizing it for their audience.
    • Record the show and be sure to mention the article to get a link back to it.
    • Be an awesome guest”

    21. Use industry directories

    “Make a profile on as many industry directories as you can,” suggests Crissibeth Cooper of KNB Communications.

    Why? Because “this is a quick, easy way to increase the number of referring domains to your website. Remember: it’s not enough to have backlinks; you must also ensure they are coming from different domains.”

    22. Conduct a resource page outreach

    Postaga’s Andy Cabasso shares another tip, summarizing it as, “this is all about outreach.”

    “You need to:

    1. Find relevant websites linking to content like yours
    2. get contact details for those people and
    3. reach out to them (several times) with a personalized outreach email.

    There are different ways to do this, but one of the more effective methods is ‘resource page outreach’ – with this, you find other blog posts that have published articles that list resources on a given topic, and you reach out to them, asking to include your content in their blog post and provide a link to you.”

    23. Conduct a personalized email outreach

    Mangools’ Vanessa Piccone applauds, “superb email outreach!” for increasing the number of referring domains.

    “Target relevant people with a highly personalized message that will strike their attention. Sure, it is time-consuming, but it will get you more results out of link building than blasting hundreds of emails with a worn-out template you found online.”

    Jitesh Keswani of e-Intelligence is of the same opinion. “Find similar blogs that are ranking higher. Identify their content and create your content better. Identify their backlinks and outreach to them promoting your content. Also, outreach to the bloggers of your niche to promote your content.”

    Editor’s note: See your outreach campaign in action by grabbing all your important metrics on one screen with this outreach (prospect overview) dashboard.

    24. Get old links updated

    Lachlan Kirkwood of ClickThrough shares, “If you’ve previously guest published content on an external site in the past, you should contact the site owner and ask to update your author bio with a relevant link.

    As you already have a relationship with the publisher, and you’ve previously added value to their site, they’ll be more inclined to provide a link. This process can also be replicated across any previous podcasts that your team has featured in.”

    25. Collaborate with industry influencers

    Laura Watson of Sure Oak shares, “reaching out to industry influencers and offering a premium product for a free test run usually works very well.” The links you get from this process: “will be of a much higher quality considering their potential for qualified, referral traffic

    Prana Brush’s Rebecca White also agrees and shares their experience: “Our #1 white hat technique for increasing the number of referring domains is to engage in influencer marketing.

    Working with an influencer exposes your brand to an engaged and loyal audience and usually results in the endorsement of a thought-leader (ie. the influencer) and often a link from the influencer’s domain to yours.

    In addition, this strategy is achievable for most small businesses as many small or mid-sized influencers are willing to collaborate in exchange for a product sample or products that they can give away to their audience through a draw or similar contest.”

    White further adds, “to maximize value, we like to think of a successful influencer partnership as a two-way street. Take the time to brainstorm ways you can help them build on their own brand through the partnership, such as by exposing them to your own social media audience. By making the relationship as mutually beneficial as possible, it is more likely that your influencer will be motivated to make the campaign a success for both of you.

    Related: 18 Expert Tips for Running Your First Influencer Marketing Campaign

    26. Include diagrams in your content

    Orbit Media Studios’ Andy Crestodina shares, “include diagrams in your content, then when you contribute to content on other websites (roundups, contributor quotes) share a supportive diagram. This often leads to an image source link.

    This sometimes happens by itself, without a contributor quote, if the image is a chart from a research piece. Original research with supportive visuals is one of the most powerful, link attraction methods.”

    27. Start image link building

    Closely related to what Crestodina suggests in this tip by Kinsta’s Tom Zsomborgi: “If you invested time and money creating unique design assets for your blog posts chances are high that they have been copied by a lot of sites but they forgot to add an image courtesy.

    I recommend you set up a recurring campaign in a few months and do an image search in Google and find these link opportunities. Simply reach out to these sites and ask to add credit below the image. Response and success rate is one of the highest of these campaigns!”

    Nikola Roza of Nikola Roza- SEO for the Poor and Determined shares the steps you need to start taking:

    • “First, research your niche thoroughly and come up with evergreen concepts that you can turn into high-class imagery.
    • Second, create those images and don’t skimp on quality.
    • Third, take those images and distribute them across as many photo sharing sites as possible. And make sure you tag them properly and do basic image SEO so that they get found in the photo-sharing site’s internal search.
    • Fourth, wait 3-6- months.
    • Fifth, take your images and do a reverse image search in Google. Find all sites that have used your image and send them an email where you point that you’re the creator and that they should link to your site.

    This tactic is great because it’s almost totally passive. All that’s needed is that you create images for perennial (popular) topics in your niche and then distribute them as far and wide as possible. And then just collect links at regular intervals.”

    28. Conduct double surveys

    Freya Kuka of Collecting Cents says, “I love the double survey strategy for increasing referring domains and it has reaped amazing rewards for me and other blogs in the past.”

    Here’s how:

    • “The first step is you need to find a subject that has not been covered in detail or that could do with more statistical information.
    • After this, you conduct a simple survey using Google forms which will give you multiple original stats. A few hundred people being surveyed is enough.
    • Lastly, you contact leaders in the niche you are surveying and get quotes from them.

    This double survey technique will help you create original and thorough statistical content for a subject that has not been covered as much as it should be.

    Most bloggers and writers are always looking for a cool statistic to add to their blog and they will almost always attribute it to your website.”

    And, that’s a wrap. With these 28 tips by your side, you’ll be sure to increase your referring domains in no time. So which tactic are you going to start with?

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    Masooma Memon

    Masooma is a freelance writer for SaaS and a lover to-do lists. When she's not writing, she usually has her head buried in a business book or fantasy novel.

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