Building Quality Referring Domains: 10 Link-Building Tactics

Increasing site authority and search engine rankings? Two words: referring domains—unique websites that link to your site (not to be confused with backlinks, which are the individual links from referring domains.)

Starting with the easiest wins and progressing to more advanced tactics, here’s how to get more referring domains linking to you. Lessgo!

Tactic 1: Niche Directories and Platforms

Okay, one of the easiest, low-effort ways to increase referring domains? Niche directories and platforms. These are known as directory links. They’re a quick and easy method to get a website listed on relevant sites and snag some authoritative backlinks.

Another positive? Niche directories cater to specific industries or interests, so you’re reaching a highly targeted audience that’s more likely to be interested in what a website offers.

Low-effort and quality leads—win-win!

First step? Do your research and find directories that are relevant to your industry or niche. Here are a few places to start your search:

• Many industries have dedicated directories that list businesses and organizations in their field. These can be a great source of targeted traffic and high-quality backlinks.
• If you have a local business, list your site on relevant local directories like Google My Business, Yelp, and industry-specific local directories. These will attract local customers and improve visibility in local search results.
• If your business offers products or services that are reviewed online, consider listing your site on relevant review platforms like G2, Capterra, or Trustpilot. These platforms not only provide valuable social proof but can also drive referral traffic and potential backlinks.
• Many online communities and forums have dedicated sections for businesses or organizations to list their services or products. Engage with these communities and explore opportunities to contribute and share your expertise, potentially leading to backlinks and referral traffic.

From here, be sure to follow the directory’s submission guidelines carefully and provide accurate information. Spammy submissions will only hurt your reputation with a community and hurt your future chances of being featured.

Tactic 2: Unlinked Mentions

Unlinked brand mentions are as they sound: brand mentions on a third-party website where said website hasn’t linked to you…yet. Honestly, they’re backlinks ripe for the picking. If a brand has bothered to shout you out, surely they won’t mind linking to you, too.

Here’s how to find them:

• Google Alerts notifies you whenever your brand is mentioned. Just set up alerts for your brand name, product name, or any branded keyword, and Google will send an email when someone mentions you.
• BrandMentions takes brand monitoring to the next level. It’s a browser-based tool that tracks mentions across social media, blogs, forums, and even news sites.
• BuzzSumo helps you identify influencers and websites that are talking about your brand or industry, providing valuable outreach opportunities. Easy-peasy.

Identifying mentions is the easy part, though. The tough part is outreach.

And for the love of SEO, don’t just send a generic “Hey, link to me!” email. Trust me, I’ve sent plenty of these emails, and they ain’t convinced nobody.

Instead, personalize your outreach.

Show the recipient that you’ve actually read their content, understand their audience, and have something valuable to offer. Maybe you can fill a content gap, update outdated information, or offer a fresh perspective. You could always offer to share their content on your social channels or mention them in your next blog post.

Remember, a little reciprocity goes a long way in building those valuable relationships.

Tactic 3: Podcast Linking

Podcast descriptions and show notes are just waiting and ready for a link to your website to be placed. So, if you have the gift of the gab and podcasting is within your wheelhouse, here’s how to add a few more referring domains to your backlink portfolio:

1. Include links to your website, blog posts, or other relevant resources in your podcast description.
2. List your podcast on all the major podcast directories, like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher. Each platform is a source of multiple backlinks and a new audience for your content.
3. Expand your reach and build relationships by appearing as a guest on other creators’s podcasts. Most podcasts include links to their guests’ websites in the show notes or episode descriptions, giving you a valuable backlink.

The podcast community may not be the easiest to break into. But once you crack that nut, guest appearance invites will come thick and fast. The more pods, the more podcast links.

Tactic 4: Roundups and Expert Contributions

Expert roundups are blog posts that feature multiple experts’ insights on a specific topic. The exchange? For your insights (and often a link back to the host site), you’ll get your name in front of a wider audience and score yourself a backlink. Reciprocity—there’s that word again.

How to find roundup opportunities:

1. Follow blogs and publications in your niche and look out for calls for expert contributions.
2. Using Google Alerts, create alerts for phrases like “expert roundup” to get notified when new opportunities arise.
3. Use tools like Buzzsumo. They allow you to search for content based on keywords and filter by content type, including “roundup posts.”
4. Use search operators on Google, like:
   1. “keyword” + “roundup”
   2. “keyword” + “expert roundup”
   3. “keyword” + “link roundup”
   4. “keyword” + “best of”
   5. “keyword” + “weekly roundup”
   6. “keyword” + “monthly roundup”

The best part about participating in expert roundups? I’ve found that if you consistently contribute valuable insights and actively promote the roundups you’re featured in, you’ll soon find that new opportunities come knocking on your door. Backlinks without the effort. Can’t beat that.

Tactic 5: Video Content

If you’re already publishing video-based content to YouTube and haven’t already added a backlink to your site, you’re missing out on one of the easiest high-quality referring domains ever. It’s literally right there in front of your nose.

The play? Simply whack a link to your site in one of your video descriptions. It’s as easy as that.

There are more quick wins here, too. Other platforms like Vimeo and Dailymotion also have video descriptions too, of course. So upload, link, and earn yourself high-quality backlinks. Easy-peasy.

If you aren’t uploading to YouTube or are looking for more opportunities, why not collaborate with other creators? Recorded podcasts are a no-brainer, but there is a heap of other video content types you could explore. Get your outreach on and earn yourself another unique referring domain.

Tactic 6: Guest Posting

You’ve probably heard of guest posting. It’s been around forever. But if you haven’t, guest posting is when you write content for someone else’s website. Why on earth would you bother? The host site gets free content to publish to their website while you get a backlink to your website (because, of course, you linked to yourself).

Sounds easy, right? Well, there’s a little more to it. Pitching’s involved, and that’s a whole artful in itself.

Here’s how to pick out the perfect host website:

1. Don’t just pitch anyone. Look for authoritative websites in your niche that accept guest contributions. The ideal guest posting host is a website with high domain authority, engaged readership, and content that aligns with your expertise.
2. If they’re available, dig into the host’s guest posting guidelines. Once you know their jam, tailor your pitch accordingly. Some sites have specific requirements for content length, formatting, or topics. Don’t be that person in a recipient’s inbox who sends a generic pitch. Anything that screams, “I didn’t even bother to read your guidelines,” isn’t going to cut it.

A little heads up: many website owners are allergic to guest posting outreach emails. My inbox is riddled with them. You’ll need to be very tactful to stand out or take an alternative approach.

One such approach is to use our guest posting services. We’ll do all the hard work, and you get to focus your energy on something else. If you need, we’ll even write the guest post for you. Can’t beat that.

Tactic 7: Broken Link Building

Broken link-building or dead link-building. Pretty simple concept. Simply find broken links on third-party websites and offer your own content as a replacement for the broken link.

It fixes a previously unrecognized broken link on their website, saves them the time of finding a replacement resource, and scores you another backlink from an authoritative website. Total win-win.

Here’s the play:

Use your favorite SEO tool to analyze the backlink profiles of third-party websites and identify any broken links pointing to a 404 page. Preferably, you want the websites you’re targeting to be relevant to your niche. And for them, they’ll want the same—a website that’s relevant to the topic they’re covering.

Resource pages—a content type that includes links to many helpful resources—are another broken link haven. A broken link checker like that offered by Ahrefs (here’s a link to it) was born for this task.

Once you’ve found a handful of broken links, then what?

It’s time to create a replacement resource. The best replacements, those that are most likely to be accepted, are relevant to the broken link’s original target and offer even more value than the previous resource. You might have something already up your sleeve. Or you might have to create something from scratch. It all depends on the broken link and the context of the anchor and surrounding text.

Next? Sorry to break it to you, but, yup, more outreach.

Reach out to the website’s team and offer your content to replace the broken link. In it, show the broken link and highlight that your resource is a good fit as a replacement. Nail this, and another quality backlink will come your way.

Tactic 8: Resource Link Building

I just called them out: resource pages—curated collections of links to valuable resources. The external resources typically cite articles or tools.

An example: on our blog, we’ve created a resource page that features over 200+ SEO tools suited to agencies, freelancers, and in-house marketers (if you want to see what a resource page looks like in action, here’s a link to it: 200+ SEO tools). On this page, we link to each tool we’ve featured.

If you offered an SEO tool, your website could be one of the 200+ resources featured on our page, earning you a (tooting our own horn here) quality referring domain.

On the other hand, you could create your own resources pages, put together a list of potential resources, get our outreach on, and organize a link exchange—a win for both parties.

You see, resource page link building is a two-way street. You can either be the one offering a spot on your resource page, or you can be the one asking to be featured on someone else’s.

First, here’s how to be featured on someone else’s resource page:

• Use search operators to find relevant resource pages in your niche. Using the gardening niche as an example, try searches like:
  • gardening intitle:resources inurl:links.html
  • gardening intitle:links inurl: resources.html
  • gardening inurl:.com/resources
  • gardening inurl:resources intitle:resources
• Analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles to see where they’re getting featured.
• Use SEO tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to identify resource pages that are linking to similar websites.

Next, it’s time to create a killer pitch email:

• Personalize your outreach and show the website owner that you’ve done your homework.
• Highlight the specific benefits of including your resource on their page.
• Make it easy for them to say “yes” by providing a clear description and a direct link to your content.

Okay, so how do you go about creating your own research page? Observe:

• Select a topic that aligns with your niche and target audience’s interests.
• Don’t just list any random website. Choose resources that are truly valuable and relevant to your audience.
• Make your resource page easy to navigate by categorizing the links and providing clear descriptions.
• Share it on social media, submit it to relevant directories, and reach out to other website owners to let them know about it.
• Reach out to the websites you’ve featured and suggest a link exchange where they link to your resource page, and you link back to theirs.

Nail resources pages and say hello to leading referral domains. Killing it.

Tactic 9: Digital PR and Outreach

Alright, it’s time to step into the spotlight and make some headlines. Positioning yourself as a valuable resource to journalists and media publications is one of the best ways to earn backlinks from some of the leading referring domains. We’re talking about the Washington Post, Comcast, PC Gamer… with the right approach, whoever it is that covers your niche, you can get them linking to you.

How? Digital PR—building relationships with journalists, bloggers, and influencers.

Here’s how to go about it:

1. Position yourself as a go-to expert in your niche. Offer valuable insights, data-driven analysis, and unique perspectives that journalists can’t resist.
2. Sign up for HARO (Help a Reporter Out) and get daily emails with queries from journalists seeking sources for their stories.
3. Attend industry events, engage in online communities, and connect with journalists on social media. Building those personal connections can make all the difference when it comes to getting your story featured.

A shameless plug: We offer HARO and press release services. So, if you’re unsure where to start or don’t have the resources, we’ve got you covered. Agencies, FYI, we can white label this thing so you can add them to your service offerings. No problem.

Tactic 10: Linkable Assets

And the most high-effort tactic? Creating linkable assets. In some niches, this could be lower down on the list. But for many niches, in the last few years, online competition has heated up significantly, and attracting backlinks from unique referring domains is, I’d argue, harder than ever.

But that doesn’t mean it’s out of your reach. You’ll just need to focus your efforts on creating content that’s so valuable, so informative, and so darn shareable that other websites can’t help but link to them.

Try out these content types to help you attract backlinks:

1. People love to see real-world examples of how something works or how it has benefited others. Case studies provide concrete evidence and social proof, making them highly linkable and shareable.
2. Everyone loves a good statistic or data point to back up their claims. Conduct some original research and provide unique, valuable information that can’t be found anywhere else.
3. Offer something useful and practical that people can use in their own work or daily lives. Take our free DA checker tool, for example. It’s one of our most popular pages, attracting over 100 unique referring domains.
4. Thought-provoking and well-argued opinion pieces spark debate and attract attention—no better thing than to increase social shares and attract backlinks.
5. Create interactive tools, calculators, or widgets that other websites can easily embed into their content, providing added value to their audience and naturally attracting backlinks to your site.

Sure, attracting backlinks organically is not as easy as it used to be. But it ain’t impossible. Just fill a need, and you’re on the right track.

Identifying High-Quality Referring Domains

Before you head off, here’s a quick word on gauging the quality of referring domains.

For years, the SEO industry has used these two metrics, domain authority, and domain rating, to gauge whether a referring domain is a website you want pointing to you or not. And for years, Google has repeatedly stated that it doesn’t use metrics like domain authority or domain rating.

But guess what? This was all turned on its head when it was revealed through the leak of the Google API Content Warehouse document that G uses a metric called “siteAuthority.”

The leak suggests that the siteAuthority score takes into account a site’s backlink profile—exactly what domain rating and domain authority are heavily based on.

We can then infer that websites with higher domain rating and domain authority scores are more likely to rank well in search results and are exactly the types of referring domains you want pointing to you.

I’ll admit this might be too much of an intellectual leap for some people. Some would argue that domain authority and domain rating still aren’t that insightful. But, hey, at the very least, it’s the best we’ve got, it’s become industry standard, and it’s a damn sight better than flying blind.

Conclusion and Next Steps

You’ve landed—the end. But before you shoot off, just remember that link-building and referral domains are just a tiny sliver of the SEO pie.

Website owners: from guest posting to digital PR, we’ve got a ton of link-building services that are sure to be up your alley.

Agencies: all of our services, SEO and PPC, are white-label and ready to be added to your own offerings.

👉 Simply head over to our homepage, select the service you need a hand with, and let’s kick this thing off.