Moz’s introduction of domain authority in the digital world changed the prediction of website ranking significantly. Nowadays, the competitive environment has made it mandatory to keep your website's DA high.
If you're entering the field of SEO and want to learn more about DA, here’s what you need to know. In this article, we will take you on the journey of understanding Domain Authority and how to increase it for your website.
Introduction to domain authority
Domain authority is a crucial metric developed by Moz to predict the ranking ability of your website in SERP. It is calculated on a scale of 1-100; a higher DA means better ranking potential. Thus, a good DA score represents your domain’s strength or authority.
Many factors are taken into account to calculate the DA score. Some of the factors include the root domain and total links, which are then used to compare websites. Let’s learn more about them in the next section.
Calculation of domain authority
As per Moz, a website's domain authority is assessed after comparing the domain in search results with its competitors. For this purpose, a machine learning algorithm prediction is used to understand how frequently Google uses the same domain in the search results.
In case a particular domain A is going to appear more in Google SERO in comparison to domain B then we can say the domain is better in terms of DA. The following factors are important for domain authority:
Link Profile: This comprises the internal and external links on your web page. Your website will have a great link by adding links to high-authority sites on your posts and getting linked back to some reputed ones.
Root Domains: Moz considers the number of unique backlinks for calculating the DA too. For instance, imagine you are getting 100 links from a single website then Moz will treat it as one room domain. That’s why you have to generate backlinks on your site from multiple high-authority sites.
Spam Score: Here’s another valuable metric to know whether your website is spammy or not. This metric compares your website with others and checks your entire backlink profile.
This was all about the calculation part, it’s time to move on to knowing a good domain authority score.
What is a good domain authority score?
Usually, a good domain authority score is above 60, and between 40 to 60 can be called as good. If you are in a highly competitive niche, a good DA score reflects strong ranking potential.
To get an idea, let’s start with some renowned sites with multiple visitors and backlinks. One of them can be Google with DA between 90 and 100. On the other side, a new website will always come with a low DA.
Yes, you can improve the DA by adding backlinks and other SEO ways. And the moment it reaches higher, increasing DA will take more time and effort. Don’t lose your mind when the DA of your site is average in your niche.
After all, Google has no use of DA for ranking. It’s just that DA will aid in judging your site’s ranking capability.
Best ways to increase DA
Boosting your DA demands a long-term strategy, so don’t expect to see changes within a couple of days. Sometimes, it can take months to build links and improve your website. Partnering with a website design company in Dubai can help enhance your site’s structure and user experience, contributing to better rankings.
Generate high-quality backlinks
Backlinks contribute a lot to the calculation of domain authority and keep in mind that the backlink is an essential Google’s ranking factor.
A website with insufficient backlinks will not be able to generate much organic traffic. If you want to generate backlinks for your website, check for the referral sources. There are many sites connected to you from where you are getting the traffic.
Look for the sources as much as possible. Start reaching out to the top sources for backlinks. As a WordPress user, it’s much easier to do using the MonsterInsights plugin. It provides you referral report in the WordPress dashboard which can be accessed anytime you want.
For now, MonsterInsights is one of the best Google Analytics plugins. It presents you with a detailed report directly on the WordPress dashboard. You can also set advanced tracking features in it. Google Search Console, LinkMiner, and Buzzsumo are a few other alternatives to get backlinks reports.
Another way involves building backlinks by spying on your competitors. Go through their sources and acquire backlinks from the same places. In general, you will have to follow the add+earn+ask+buy concept.
Add means visiting the sites which allow you to add links manually. If you are not able to find such sites, go for earning it on your own or ask. Sometimes none of them work then you have to buy the backlink by paying a certain amount.
Write link worthy content
Content is always the king! Never forget this. Craft compelling content so that other sites will show the desire to link with your website. The more insightful and helpful your content will be, the higher number of audience it will attract. They will share your content and elevate the chances of generating backlinks from high-authority sites. Not only do you get links from trusted sites, but the number of linking root domains will boost up too as well leading to a secured DA.
Sometimes, creating new content is a tough task for newbies. You can hire a content writer for your website or start finding one by checking for the most famous pages. Research your industry well and see what keywords and content are performing best. Find out which pages of your site are receiving the most traction.
Audit your website
Many times, the importance of website audits is underestimated by owners. You should keep auditing your site to identify the loopholes. A major reason for poor DA can be due to corrupted links. Moreover, links from a spammy website will affect your website's domain authority. Google can also penalize your website if it’s highly spammy.
To avoid this situation, check your website for the damaged links and eliminate them. There are many tools to audit your website. SEO Optimizer and SEMrush are two of the most commonly used. If you fail to remove such links after completing the website audit, Google Search Console can help you to ignore them.
Optimize your website
A website audit provides detailed information about your website. Other than corrupted links, page speed, 404 errors, and cache, all data will show up. You can use the given data to optimize your website and make it user-friendly. Easy navigation will increase your domain authority too.
In fact, proper structure aids in crawling and indexing your site pages in a better manner. Your visitors will easily get the desired info within seconds. Moreover, search engine crawlers will make it more accessible to potential visitors. You can help them by developing a sitemap containing all the pages. It will help search engines in navigating and indexing your page without any hassle.
First of all, improve the site experience by optimizing it for mobile because the majority of your website users are on the phone. Even Google is following a mobile-first approach to provide accurate results to its users. It will carefully check your website performance on mobile first to ensure proper functionality on mobile devices.
Work on internal links
Don’t underestimate the internal link structure of your site. To keep the visitors engaged on your site, link one page to another. At the same time, internal linking eases accessibility for search engine bots to crawl your website and keep indexing your pages.
There’s one more advantage of building a well-crafted internal link structure. When you do so, it will transfer “link juice” to your interrelated site pages. In SEO, it is the page value passed from one page to another web page. In addition, it works as a vote of confidence because more links to a page build credibility. Considering all leads to an increase in domain authority.
What else you can do to improve DA?
Stay aware of what’s happening in your industry. For this, your competitors will be the perfect source of learning. They know what’s working in the industry and what’s not. Keep an eye on them and the updates Google introduces in its algorithm. Hiring an SEO marketer can be a great move to improve the overall ranking of your website.
Conclusion
All the secrets of increasing domain authority have been shared here for your convenience. Follow these tips to boost the DA and stand out from your competitors. Initially, it may take some time but being consistent will provide you the required results.
Make sure to use the right tools and SEO techniques for improvement in DA. However, you can get the full picture of your SEO by using a combination of other metrics like organic traffic, page speed, etc. If you want to check the domain authority for free, choose Moz or some other reliable DA checker.