If you are working on the SEO for your website, you’ve likely come across these two terms—backlinks and referring domain. While the two terms are similar and often used anonymously, they mean two different things. A common feature between backlinks and domains is that they increase traffic to your website. However, they can also impact your website’s performance negatively. Find out the difference between backlinks and referring domains and their role in SEO from this article.
Understanding Backlinks and Referring Domain
Hyperlinks that point from one website to another are called backlinks. SEO professionals use backlinks to support factual information or expound more on a topic. Backlinks are also known as inbound links because they bring another website’s traffic to your site. They improve your website ranking on search engines.
On the other hand, a referring domain is a website linked to your site. For example, if you are quoting a statistic from Forbes and linking your article to the page, the page URL is the backlink, while your website is the referring domain.
Difference Between Backlinks and Referring Domain
Backlinks are the URLs of the pages linked to your website, while referring domains are the websites linking to your site. Having more backlinks than referring domains is normal because a website can link to yours multiple times. You can use tools like Ahrefs and Semrush to view your website’s backlinks and referring domains. They also indicate your domain rating score.
Read more: Types of Backlinks You Really Need for Your Business
Role of Backlinks in SEO
Quality backlinks can bring more traffic to your website, hence more revenue for businesses. Marketers, therefore, run link-building campaigns to increase backlinks to business sites. Guest posting is a practical way of link-building for small and medium businesses. This involves creating content in your niche and linking it to industry websites. When Google views your article linked to authority websites, it develops trust and confidence in your site. This improves your site’s ranking.
You will also get the following benefits through backlinks.
- Referral traffic from external sites. (Inbound traffic)
- Higher conversions lead to increased revenue. More visitors to your site translate to a bigger customer base.
- High organic traffic because your website ranks high on the SERPs.
Get a Professional to Improve Your Website Ranking
Although there is a difference between referring domains and backlinks, they work together to improve your website ranking. You need them to improve your online visibility and get more traffic to your business.
If you need an SEO Specialist in Atlanta, contact SEO Guru Atlanta today. We help businesses reach their target audience and get more conversions through backlinking and other SEO strategies.
