How to Increase Domain Authority – Best 9 Methods
How to Increase Domain Authority – Best 9 Methods
Did you ever wonder why some sites rank for terms and queries even if they have written it at a later date and have less information than you?
This is where domain authority comes into play.
Domain authority not only helps you to rank for keywords but also makes your site appear authorities to search bots that mean whatever you write is considered important. And this indirectly means more followers, more sponsored post requests, and more value of your blog.
If you wanted to know how to increase your domain authority, this is where you will get it all.
In this post, I will explain all you need to take care while thinking to improve your DA. But before taking you for an information splash let me explain the core concept of domain authority.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain authority is a logarithmic score (ranging from 0-100) by Moz, which predicts how well a domain (web page) will rank in the search engine results. It is based on some other factors like Moz Rank, Moz Trust, social signals, linking root domains, total backlink profile, user experience, site loading time, traffic, etc.
Scoring a DA of 30 from 20 is easier than getting it to 90 from 80. Often authoritative sites like Wikipedia, Facebook and Google itself enjoy the ultimate DA score of 100. But that doesn’t mean sites with DA 50-90 are considered inferior.
It is a comparative value which means your site might see a degradation of domain authority if it is not updated or does not hold the quality signals true.
Domain Authority Vs Page Authority
Domain authority must not be confused with page authority that is a completely different metric. While domain authority gives you the ranking of the site as a whole, page authority is the score of that single page in question.
Domain authority is constant across the whole site, but page authority changes across sub-domains of the same root domain.
Domain Authority Factors
Domain authority shows how strong your site is as compared to others in SERPs rankings. It has nearly dozens of factors that are considered while calculating DA, so it is hard to influence DA with just concentrating on any one factor. Here is a complete guide on how to increase your domain authority. I have explained the factors that are the key players in deciding the DA of a site.
Domain authority is calculated on the basis of so many factors out of which the following play a vital role and is in our control:
- Linking root domains: Domain Authority is highly dependent on the number of domains (or sites) linking to you. It means getting a 100 links from one domain in no better than getting 50 links from 50 different domains. It looks for how many sites are linking to your site and that indirectly helps to increase the value of your site.
- Moz Rank: Mozrank of a website is based on its link profile and ranges from 0-10; the higher, the better. Mozrank emphasizes quality backlinks meaning a few link backs from high-quality sites is considered better than a large number of backlinks from poor quality sites.
- Moz trust: Moztrust is like Moz rank but it focuses on your proximity with authority links. Moztrust checks how well you have connections and networks with trusted websites. If a website linking to you is being linked to any authority site you are benefitted.
Suppose site A has linked my article on domain authority in its blogging resources post and this post is linked by some authority sites like a .edu site or search engine journal it’s my site that gets a bump in Moztrust. - Quality content: Quality content is the key to any rankings in the SEO world. When you write quality content, your tends to rank more, which means more people will be linking to it. This indirectly means a rise in your authority and ultimately in your DA.
- Social signals: This one is also a factor related to increasing your site’s domain authority. By social signals, it means the total number of shares and likes your articles get on the social platform.
Take it this way, when people share your content across social media, it means they like the article that was helpful to them. This means your site should be considered an authority. - Search engine friendliness: With SEO, your site will appear in the SERP for search queries more frequently. This means more people will read it and thus your authority increases.
How To Increase Your Domain Authority?
Domain authority is essential in terms of having your search engine rankings. If you have a domain authority that is very less, say 10-20 you wouldn’t be ranking well for your focused keywords. In the same way having a better DA score can do well if you are looking for more authority and you rank for more terms. This indirectly means you get better monetization offers through paid posts.
If you want to increase domain authority, you need to keep the following points in mind.
#1. Earn links from more sites:
Link building is always considered wrong, but you can earn links for you. As “the number of root domains linking” is a major factor to boost your domain authority, try to get more and more sites linking to you.
Writing helpful content and case studies that help your audience can get you more backlinks than just writing random stuff. Here are 2 guides to earn organic backlinks to your site, the right way.
#2. Start marketing your content:
Content marketing is the new game in the blogging world. You need to market your content to increase its reach. The more eyes on your content, the more will it help the readers and hence more link backs, more social shares, and more authority. Read below guides to getting started in content marketing.
#3. Not only diversification, but you also need a clean link profile:
While having a variety of sites linking to you might seem lucrative at first, they always are not in good terms with standard search engine optimization practices. You need to put a check on spammy and very low-quality sites linking back to you. This also applies to the forums and community link backs that Google considers improper.
Do not indulge in improper SEO practices like buying links, site wide link ads, or linking from low-quality sites.
If at all you fall prey to negative SEO attack, and too many low-quality sites link to you, disavow them. You need to check regularly your Google Webmaster tool for seeing who is linking to you.
#4. Build a well-planned internal link structure:
Internal links are said to have occurred when a link in an article takes you to another related article on the same site. In other words, interlink all your posts to have better on page SEO and finally an improved domain authority.
Here are certain points to keep in mind while internal linking.
- Use a variety of anchor texts. Do not overuse a given anchor text and do not use exact anchor texts.
- Set an optimum number of links within a post.
While internal linking an article, beware you don’t interlink too many posts so that the number of links on a given page rises reasonably. Try to maintain a balance between your external links and internal links within a page.
To quote Google on how many links we should have per page,
When we thought about how many links a page might reasonably have and still be under 100K, it seemed about right to recommend 100 links or so. If a page started to have more than that many links, there was a chance that the page would be so long that Google would truncate the page and wouldn’t index the entire page.
So, it would be better not to overload a page with too many internal or external links whatsoever.
#5. Write epic content and nothing less than that:
When you want to prove your authority, you need epic content that no one can beat. Epic content in the sense; content that provides value to the readers.
You need to write posts after reading that your reader might not wander anywhere else for the same problem. Avoid duplicate content issues. If you have a post that is somewhat similar to an existing one or is an updated version of it, use therel="canonical" feature to point out search engines to the source of the article.
Use Google trends and Buzzsumo to find topics that are trendy and in demand. Then write a relevant and detailed post on it. If you cannot write on a topic that is new, simply take up any article that has good rankings but has chances of improvement and then apply Brian Dean’s skyscraper technique to rob him of his rankings.
The final say here is to prove your authority no matter what.
#6. Off page SEO:
To have positive search engine optimization, you need to have proper off page SEO too. The major points your off page SEO strategy should include is:
- Guest posting: Guest posting for link building is dead. But it has far more benefits than just link building. You get tons of eyes on your skills, increase the reach of your content, and can prove your authority in the niche; all through guest blogging. Read here about guest blogging concept in detail.
- Social bookmarking sites: Social bookmarking sites will help your content reach audiences beyond your readership. This means global viewers and more readers. It will surely improve your domain authority as these readers would reshare your content (remember you have to make them share your epic content)
- Blog Commenting: Blog commenting is a great way to get more link backs to your site. It has many more benefits like stealing your competitor’s readership with your thoughtful and relevant comments. Here are some more tips on increasing comments on your blog.
#7. Social media optimization:
When you are wise, you wouldn’t want to put all your eggs in one basket. Having total dependency on search engines would be foolishness. In fact, social media can give you referral traffic and brand value too.
Use social media to market your content and reach more audience. The more the people affected by your writing, the more the authority of your articles.
Get people to share your content by writing great content. Also, use sharing buttons for making social sharing a cake walk for your readers. You can also try paid advertising to reach more dedicated readers.
Being active on social media can also help you brand your blog that will indirectly increase your fan following. Increasing fan count is directly proportional to your authority. You may be interested to read these two awesome articles from this blog:
#8. Increase user friendliness of your site:
All SEO, every social plugin, and even awesome content, everything is nothing without your readers. If you want readers to your site, you have to make your site user-friendly. No one would like a site that loads for ages. Keep your site load timeunder 2-3 seconds or even lesser.
Do not jam-pack your site with ads that pop up now and then. And increase white space by removing clutter from your site.
#9. Have patience, let your domain grow:
Domains don’t grow, at least not lengthwise. You need to age them. Keep working on your site patiently and you will see your rankings improving with time. You can use this domain age checker tool by Webconfs to check your or other’s domain age.
How To Check Your Domain Authority?
You can check your domain authority by using the official toolbar from Moz. Alternatively, you can calculate your domain authority by going toopensiteexplorer .
Check Your Domain Authority
Other handy free domain authority checker tools are Moonsy and Smallseotools. (Read SmallSeoTools review)
Remember, DA is updated fortnightly, so there are fair chances for you to calculate your progress.
What is a Good Domain Authority Score?
Domain authority is a number, and you can always hope to increase it. Anyone with a DA score of 10 would want to achieve 20 in the next update, and similarly someone with DA 52 would hope to make it 75 the next time. So it’s a relative factor.
Having a domain authority of above 50 is often considered an achievement and your blog reaches the influential zone. However, it is not the zenith. Industry experts enjoy a DA ranging from 70-78 or even 80, but that’s again with aged domains being active since 8-10 years.
So to cut the long topic short I would say, don’t chase numbers. Work towards proving your readers a better experience (steps mentioned above) and work towards increasing your domain authority with each update.
Final words:
Did you notice a correlation between all the points above? Those points are all the factors of a quality blog. If you want to increase your blog’s domain authority, just work towards creating epic content and giving your readers a great reading experience.
What are your strategies to increase DA? Do comment in the comments section below.
