Do you want your website to be on the first page of Google search results? Who doesn’t? But the crucial question is: How? What factors determine the ranking of a website in search results? The answer is simple and complicated at the same time.
On the one hand, we can easily find out all the elements that place one page higher than others. On the other hand, it’s not easy to figure out how much each factor contributes to improving a website’s discoverability. It’s often difficult for brands to identify and prioritise the crucial aspects of their online presence.
But one thing is for sure: Domain Authority is at the top. That’s why today, we embark on a fascinating journey exploring this concept. And we hope that by the end of this article, we’ve helped you understand how to increase your domain authority. So, here we go:
What Is Domain Authority?
Domain authority (DA) is a ranking metric created by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank in search engines. Domain authority values range from one to 100, with 100 representing the best website performance in terms of web traffic and SERP rankings.
Increasing domain authority is not a simple formality of marketing. On the contrary, domain authority is a crucial element in promoting your brand that shows the relevance of your site with regards to your industry or a specific topic.
Many variables impact domain authority, most notably the number of relevant backlinks – links to your website from other established websites – that the website has. The more relevant these backlinks are, the higher your website is likely to rank in the SERP. All in all, the critical insight we get from DA is understanding and improving the “ranking strength” of a website.
Improving the DA metric doesn’t always require complicated, extensive marketing campaigns, complex strategies, and tactics. Some brands are authoritative without any serious attempt to be so. They owe their success to solid and well-chosen keywords that they use to generate high-quality content.
How Do You Check Domain Authority?
Fortunately, you have many ways to check your DA score. Here are some of the tried-and-true tools:
All you have to do is enter the URL of your website or your competitor’s and view the domain authority. Moz Link Explorer also lets you see the number of unique backlinks, root domains, and keywords for each website.
Every SEO specialist knows Ahrefs. It is arguably one of the top 3 most solid tools to improve a website’s online ranking. Just keep in mind that the Domain Rating in Ahrefs may differ from Moz Link Explorer because each one uses different algorithms.
SEMrush is another widely used online SEO tool that you should know about. From analytics to domain authority, SEMrush can provide you with organised data-backed results.
What is a Good Domain Authority Score?
There are a lot of factors that affect a website’s domain authority score. Likewise, there are many ways to calculate it. But let’s give a rough estimate of what these values indicate. As a rule of thumb, reputable, well-known websites like Amazon, IMDB, or Google score between 95 to 100.
Now, if you create a new website and enter its URL into one of Moz’s tools to check its DA, you’ll probably get a score between 10 and 20. Of course, you can increase your domain authority over time, but you’ll always ask yourself one question. “What’s a good DA score?” But there’s a better way to ask that question: “What’s a good DA score for my website?”
Just about every website starts with a low score. You build excellent authority by gaining more backlinks and popularity over time. But remember that a good DA score depends on your direct and indirect competitors’ performance in that particular niche market. For example, a value of 50 may be a bad value for Amazon but sufficient for a local business.
That said, there is a frequently-used spectrum to categorise DA scores:
- Below 30: Poor
- 30 to 40: Below average
- 40 to 50: Average
- 50 to 60: Good
- 60 to 70: Very good
- Above 80: Excellent
Once you have reviewed the results of your website DA, you can research and compare the results of direct competitors. If not, read on to learn how to increase your domain authority.
How to Increase Domain Authority?
Back to our promise! Here are 7 ways to increase your domain authority:
#1 Improve Your Off-Page SEO
One of the crucial factors in increasing your domain authority is improving your link profile. A solid and reliable profile translates into a higher DA score. A strong link profile includes incoming links (backlinks) from high authority websites and links from unique domains. Equally important is low-quality links. Toxic links are very damaging to your domain authority.
Don’t worry if your website rating is too low due to a low number of high-quality links. There are many tactics for link building. It takes some detailed study, and some experience to master link building, but here are two main approaches we recommend to everyone:
- Natural Link Building: This method is based on creating links through insightful, useful, and easy-to-read content.
- Blogger outreach: Blogger outreach offers a more direct approach. For example, you can write to relevant bloggers and journalists and introduce them to your product or content. This is a highly effective way to grow your customer base and improve your brand image.
#2 Improve Your On-Page SEO
Working on your on-page SEO is also crucial to increasing your domain authority. That’s the area mainly occupied by web designers and content creators. We can’t go into this extensive topic in this short article, but here are some tips to boost your on-page SEO.:
- First, conduct an SEO audit and refine your site architecture
- Generate high-quality content (this is probably the most important factor)
- Update URLs and integrate keywords in your URL
- Optimise titles and meta descriptions
- Use relevant keywords throughout your page
- Optimise images, videos, and other media elements according to SEO guidelines
- Add internal links
- Don’t keyword stuff. It doesn’t do any good to your DA rating
#3 Pick A Good Domain Name
For some reason, people do not give much thought to choosing a domain name that is relevant to their website. They search for a few domains, and after realising their choice has already been taken, they decide on a random combination of words that comes to mind first.
But remember that you need a domain name related to your activity or the products you offer. It also needs to be easy to remember. Choose one or more keywords that stand for your website and use them in the domain name. And preferably, stick to the .com extension.
#4 Making Your Website Mobile Friendly
No one can deny the importance of a mobile-friendly website. A majority of Internet traffic is generated by mobile devices. That’s probably a rough estimate of your website visitors, too. So here are some tips to improve the user experience for all your audiences:
- First, choose a mobile-responsive theme or template
- Don’t use heavy images and CSS
- Adjust button size and placement
- Space out the links so they are easily tappable
- Use a readable font
- Get rid of pop-ups
- Constantly run tests and ask for user feedback
#5 Improve Your Page Speed
If a page takes a long time to load, how long are you willing to wait? Let’s face it, today’s Internet users are much more impatient than decades before. We’re always in a hurry, and no one has time for slow things anymore. Google doesn’t appreciate laziness either and won’t deliver results that load slowly and scare users away.
For this reason, page speed has become one of the most crucial factors for increasing your domain authority. Again, there’s no universal golden number to determine a good page speed. But most experts say that 3 seconds or less is satisfactory. If your website operates at a speed of more than 3-5 seconds, you should hire an SEO expert to revise your web structure and design.
#6 Promote your website through Social Media
One way to increase your domain authority is to focus on external traffic channels and media to build higher brand awareness. Social signals are proven ranking factors and valuable resources for any business. Without social media promotion, even perfectly structured and designed websites attract little attention from the audience.
A key contributor to a better DA score is online presence. Establishing a strong presence, supported by a solid follower base, significantly boosts domain authority. Here are some market-proven suggestions to get you started:
- Join relevant groups on LinkedIn or Facebook and represent your brand
- Create and publish video content on your social media accounts
- Promote your website with ad spend
- Use trending hashtags and hot topics
- Host a giveaway
- Try influencer marketing
- Create teaser images to build anticipation
- Publish testimonials and customer feedback
#7 Create High-Quality Content
Last but not least, you need engaging content. No website or app can survive without top-notch, well-written, and well-organised content. And, of course, it’s impossible to increase your domain authority and get natural backlinks without having original, quality content.
Create an editorial calendar, assemble a content creation team, and start publishing high-quality articles that contain helpful information. Ensure content is published on-time and regularly, and avoid publishing irrelevant information and articles on your website. You can also use royalty-free images and infographics to add visual interest to your content.
Bottom Line
At the end of the day, you cannot control your domain authority, but you can steer it in the right direction. It may be challenging to increase your domain authority, but remember that it’s all about being at the top of the competition. So every cent you invest here is money well spent.
If you don’t know where to start, we can help you at Broadweb. We have everything you need for your marketing toolbox with the hard-gained expertise in website optimisation. So, don’t hesitate to contact our team! We’re always here for you.
