If your website isn’t ranking well on Google, it’s time to improve domain authority. When potential customers do a Google search for your business’ niche, it’s important that your website ranks high on search engine result pages. A higher ranking on Google will lead to more website traffic—and likely more business. If your website’s ranking is in the pits, it’s time to enhance your SEO strategy. One often overlooked way to do so is to improve domain authority.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain authority (DA) is a score between 1-100 that measures a website’s search engine ranking. It was developed by Moz as a tool to predict a website’s performance on search engine result pages (SERPs). A higher score means that the website is more likely to rank higher on SERPs, and a low score indicates a poorer ranking and thus less traffic to your website. Note that Google does not use a singular authority metric, such as DA, to determine search rankings. Rather, Google measures ranking based on a multitude of factors; DA is a predictor tool.
DA scores are calculated based on over 40 factors. In short, the score is a sum of linked root domains and the total number of links on a domain. A strong DA score indicates that a site has a ton of high quality external links, which are more influential than internal links.
Think of external links as your website’s reputation. If you produce quality content that third-party sites share on their domains, search engines consider that a “vote” for credibility. The metric of external links is really difficult to manipulate, so search engines use it as an objective measure for a domain’s popularity. The more popular the domain is based on external links, the higher the ranking power. A stronger DA score improves SEO performance overall.
Improve Domain Authority to Out-Rank Your Competitors
There are two things to keep in mind about DA scores. First, a DA score is comparative rather than absolute. It’s not so much about having a “good” or “bad” score, but rather how your score compares to your competitors. You don’t need to have a high DA score—you just need to have a higher score than domains that you compete with.
Second, the 100-point DA score is logarithmic, which means that it increases nonlinearly. As the number increases, so does the “distance” between each number. If your score is 20, it is easier to boost it up to 30 than it is to boost a score from 80 to 85.
Ways to Improve Domain Authority
The best way to influence a DA score is to improve overall SEO. One way to do so is to build up its link profile. Link building refers to getting other websites to hyperlink to your own. One way of doing this is to add another domain to a website that has a strong DA score. Pointing different domains to your website will improve domain authority. The more high-quality links there are that direct to your site, the higher Google will likely rank your site. The higher the ranking, the more traffic your website will get—which likely means more business.
There are many techniques to go about building links; Moz has a great beginner’s guide to get started on it. Remember, improving your website’s SEO isn’t a quick fix. It takes a lot of time and effort to find the most effective strategy to do so. To learn more about how to improve domain authority, check out Moz—they’re a great resource. They also offer a free domain SEO analysis tool.
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If you’re struggling with your SEO strategy and need tips on how to improve domain authority, get in touch with us. Our team of experts is ready to help your business grow.