People all around have been obsessing over it, it’s all around the internet. Well, I can’t judge it! Because believe me or not, Domain Authority is giving results.
Now, if we have a look at the background in very simple terms, my quest for domain authority started with a peek into the concept when I was steering through the paths of SEO. I incorporated DA to sharpen my SEO rankings and guess what? It worked!
The good news is that, in this article, I will try to give you all the information on What is Domain Authority and the strategies you will need to build it.
In simplest words, DA is an SEO ranking score. Even though the concept was introduced in 1999, Moz polished it and presented it in a way that actually became fruitful for SEO enthusiasts.
It predicts how well a site will rank on SERPs by considering several indicators, including the number of backlinks to your site and the quality of the sites on which those backlinks are located.
We all know that Google ranks the sites that have strong backlinks. Now, Moz developed the Domain Authority to predict the ranking of websites on Search engine page results over its competitors.
The scale is marked as 1-100. 100 means the strongest authority while 1 means the weakest authority. Let’s take Instagram for instance. Its domain authority is very high i.e. 94. What does it mean? It means that Instagram has strong backlinks that make sure that their site ranks at the top in SERPs.
Will I always need the highest DA score?
Well, frankly talking, no! You won’t need the highest DA score because the Domain Authority is a comparative tool. Then what should be your goal? Let’s take another example here! Suppose you own a site that sells books.
Now, you want to check the ranking of your site. Would you compare your site’s DA with another site’s DA that sells books or Facebook’s? Exactly! Here’s my point. Your goal should be to compare the DA score of your site with your competitors. Otherwise, it would become impossible to rank and If you’re looking to increase your website’s Domain Authority, you can book a consultation call with us.
You will have to keep improving your site’s Domain Authority until you beat your competitor’s DA. That way, your site will appear higher than theirs in SERPs. Your site would be more visible and it will draw more organic traffic. So, all in all, the higher your site’s Domain Authority, the higher success rate!
But let me warn you, maintaining and increasing your Domain Authority is not a piece of cake. You’ll have to face challenges as the algorithms in Search engines keep changing from time to time as well as the calculation of Moz can be shifted by internet updates. So if you or your competitors think it’s a one time job to achieve a high DA score, you both are wrong! You will need to be consistent with the changing trends.
How can I Build Domain Authority? (The Top 5 Strategies)
Okay, coming to our main focus “How to Build Domain Authority”. Many factors can contribute in building a good Domain Authority, the top being your profile’s “backlink quality”.
1. Go through the backlinks and remove the useless ones
The basis lies in the backlinks. All the links available on other sites that direct users to your site are called the backlinks.A backlink audit involves evaluating and analyzing your backlink profile to assess its quality, relevance, and overall impact on your site’s SEO performance.
Now the backlink audit is very important because if your site is linked to any disreputable site, your site’s Domain Authority will be highly affected (in not-so-good terms). So, the key is to analyze for the links that may play a part in decreasing your site’s DA and remove them ASAP!
Another method that you might want to opt for is to go for the directories that boost SEO. For doing that, you will need to use Google Search Console or any other backlink analysis resource to analyze your backlink profile.
Analyze the whole information containing the list of your backlinks, and domains linking to your site’s anchor text. Find the bad backlinks that may drain your DA, contact their located sites, and ask for the deletion of those links. If the concerned site does not respond, you can simply disavow the links. By disavowing the bad links, the search engine will automatically overlook them while ranking your site.
2. Create high-quality Backlinks
Now just do the opposite! On one hand you delete the bad backlinks, on the other, you will have to insert high-quality backlinks that would draw traffic to your site and increase it’s ranking. You will find many strategies that would help create high-quality backlinks but not all of them are capable of it. Pay attention to three things that would surely drop your DA and SEO.
- Selling your links.
- Buying links.
- Incorporating links in disreputable directories.
Creating high-quality backlinks would require a hell of patience and time, so buckle up for it! Let me suggest you “Internal Building”. It is the easiest way to build your links. Do guest posting. Reach out to the influencers, and take reviews from them.
Another important thing that I would like to mention here is the difference between do-follow links and no-follow links. Do-follow links are the good links, Google will take them into account while ranking whereas the No-follow links are the bad ones, Google will not take them into account and then, guess what? Phew! Bad Domain Authority. You wouldn’t want that, right?
3. Make Eye-Capturing Content
Natural link building is the best way to create a strong backlink profile. You post something, someone likes it, they link your work to their site and BOOM! A link is made! So, create engaging content that would appeal to people. Now, how can you create high-quality content? First of all, try to make long-form content like a blogpost and make sure that it resonates with your target audience.
Secondly, try to add captivating images in your content. Some people get tired of reading so adding a few visuals can ease their understanding as well as become a source of entertainment for them. Use compressed images to make sure that they don’t slow your site down.
Further, you may also try to get your audience engaged more by calling them to action, such as posting comments, subscribing or sharing. And last but not the least, pay special attention to on-page SEO. Appropriate keyword density and page slugs can increase your ranking.
4. Make your pages accessible
Backlink’s breaking is very common and it may hinder your site’s ranking. For example, someone finds your site’s link on another site and they click on it, but to their surprise, they are redirected to a 404 error page. It would be a bad impression, right? Not only would it be a bad impression but your site will miss a view as well. The traffic to your site would be hindered.
So, conduct a backlink audit and find the broken backlinks. Once gathered, contact the sites they are placed on and ask them to change the links to new ones. Or you may also redirect the broken links. This would surely help increase your site’s Domain Authority.
5. Promote! Promote! Promote!
Even though social media would not impact your SEO or boost your rankings in Domain Authority, it would draw traffic to your site. You can build links on social media, promote your brand, and make your audience circle large.
For instance, you can add the link to your site in your Instagram Bio and get a few clicks. All in all, you will get natural links. The traffic to your site would increase and so will the Domain Authority.
Conclusion
Maintaining and increasing your domain authority score can be a little challenging. It would require your interest, determination, and patience. But once you get a hold of balancing the above mentioned components, you will score a good DA.