What is Domain Authority and How Does it Affect SEO?
You’ve probably heard of domain authority, but what does it actually mean? How does it affect SEO? And is it worth improving?
Domain authority is a widely used metric that shows the status of your website compared to competitors. But since it’s not an SEO ranking factor for Google, many businesses don’t give it the attention it deserves.
In this post, we’ll show you what domain authority is, why it’s important, and go over the proven strategies for increasing your DA score.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain authority (DA) is a metric that indicates how trustworthy and authoritative a website is. It was first developed by Moz, who uses domain authority to better predict how likely a website is to appear in SERPs compared to competitors.
Although domain authority isn’t a ranking factor, Google still uses it as a signal when rating the overall performance of websites. Although DA was developed by Moz, other SEO tools have also developed their own algorithms for analyzing domain authority, and it’s a widely accepted metric to rank websites.
What’s a Good Domain Authority Score?
Domain authority works on a ranking system from 1 to 100. The higher your DA, the more likely you are to appear in SERPs. It’s almost impossible to get a DA of 100, but the top-ranking websites in the world do have a perfect score:
- Google My Business
- YouTube
Generally, any score over 75 is considered very good, but your website might not need to rank that high to get high organic rankings. All you need is a score higher than your main competitors to help boost your rankings.
You can do a quick, free competitor analysis using free domain authority checker tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or SEMrush.
How is Domain Authority Calculated?
Your domain authority is calculated by evaluating several important factors, including root domains, the total number of links, and website age. Machine learning algorithm predictions calculate how often Google uses your domain in search results.
Since your DA score is based on machine learning, you’ll notice fluctuations over time. That is totally normal and one key reason why you should monitor your DA trends over time.
It’s also much easier for you to go from DA 20 to 30 than it is to go from DA 70 to 80. This is because giant platforms like Facebook take up the top spots, and since they have increasingly large link profiles, it’s almost impossible to knock them off the top spots.
Rather than looking at your domain authority as an absolute metric, use it as part of your competitor analysis and aim to be the highest in your specific niche.
Why Does Domain Authority Rating Matter?
You might be wondering, if Google doesn’t use domain authority as a ranking factor, why does it matter?
Your DA represents how often you appear in organic search results and helps you better understand how you compare to your competition. In every industry, DA is seen as a metric of trust and credibility, which is important for client retention, brand awareness, and growth.
Knowing where your brand stands in relation to competitors allows you to fine-tune your marketing efforts and establish yourself as the leader in your niche.
With a strategic digital PR campaign, boosting your domain authority rating is relatively easy, and you’ll see almost immediate benefits.
How to Increase Domain Authority
We don’t know the exact strategies algorithms use to score domain authority, but we do know the tried-and-tested methods that help boost your rating.
Make Valuable, Engaging Content Relevant to Your Audience
Your website must be filled with valuable, engaging content that readers love. Without it, you’ll find getting links back to your site extremely difficult.
If your website looks a little sparse, create 10-20 long-form blogs covering specific topics related to your niche. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- How-to guides for common processes in your industry.
- Listicles or round-ups of your favorite products or services.
- A comparison of two different services or products.
- An FAQ post.
- An interview with your CEO or an influencer in your niche.
Each post should be evergreen, meaning it doesn’t go out of date or become redundant with changing trends.
Analyze Your Backlinks and Build More Links
Creating a strategic link-building strategy is one of the most effective strategies when it comes to how to improve domain authority. Having links pointing to your website from high-authority websites shows Google you have a trustworthy, valuable website that is worth ranking in SERPs.
If you’re struggling to get backlinks from high-value publications, we can help. Our team at Linkifi specializes in creating winning digital PR campaigns that secure backlinks on leading publications in every niche.
Audit Your Existing Content
If you already have content on your website, do a thorough audit and make improvements wherever possible. Here are a few tips to help you conduct a successful content audit:
- Make sure every post has up-to-date statistics and research. Try to avoid dating your posts so they are constantly relevant.
- Add high-quality graphics, including images, infographics, tables, and graphs.
- Review your SEO strategy and create a specific keyword campaign for each blog.
- Add quotes and snippets from experts and trusted resources.
- Update your About Us page to create a professional, optimized page that showcases your expertise.
- Research competitor articles and find ways to make your existing content more valuable, in-depth, and insightful.
The more valuable you make your content, the more likely you are to get links pointing back to your website.
Noticed a lot of unlinked mentions to your website? Here’s how to turn unlinked mentions into valuable backlinks.
Syndicate Your Content
Content syndication means republishing the same piece of content to multiple sources. Publications of all sizes like to syndicate content because it means fresh information for their readers. Authors then benefit because they get new eyes on their content and links back to their website – win-win!
It’s important not to confuse content syndication with guest blogging. A guest blog is a unique article that only gets posted to one website. You should never republish these on other websites.
You can usually tell if you’re reading a syndicated article because it will have a disclaimer at the start that says:
“This story was originally published on xyz.com and has been republished here with permission.”
Google doesn’t like duplicate content, but as long as a website makes it clear that the content is republished with permission, it won’t harm your SEO efforts.
For syndication to work, you need a well-performing article with great stats. You can then reach out to large publications and pitch the piece for syndication. Trending topics are most sought-after, but if you have a post with a lot of traffic, any type of content can work well.
If you do get your content syndicated on a major publication, make sure you don’t end up with an unlinked mention – this won’t count toward your domain authority score.
Grow Your Organic Traffic
There is a correlation between organic traffic and domain authority, but increasing your traffic doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll see an increase in your DA score.
It’s a circular connection – a higher DA means better organic rankings, which means more clicks and more visitors, which can boost your DA.
However, some incredibly popular websites have high traffic and a low DA. That said, boosting your organic traffic is a great way to increase brand awareness, get more leads, and increase your EEAT signals, so it’s worth the time it takes to implement. Here’s how to do it:
- Optimize each page for people, not search engines – this means high-quality content focusing on value.
- Develop a keyword strategy and optimize each page for specific keywords.
- Publish regular content on your blog.
- Create FAQ sections on blogs and dedicated web pages.
- Create a simple, clear website map to help boost website navigation.
- Add ALT text to each image to boost SEO and help web crawlers categorize your content.
Domain Authority FAQs
What makes a good domain authority rating?
You don’t need to aim for a DA score of 100. If your direct competitors have scores between 30 and 40, you should aim for a score between 45 and 50, which is a much more achievable goal. Aim to outrank your competitors, and you have the best chance of showing up in SERPs.
How can I check my domain authority score?
You can check your domain authority score with free SEO tools like Moz, Ahrefs, and SEMrush. Enter your domain, and you’ll get an automatic domain authority score. You can also check on competitor websites to see how you compare.
Ready To Boost Your Domain Authority Score?
Working on improving domain authority is a long-term process. It involves creating regular, valuable blog content, boosting organic traffic, and creating a winning link-building strategy.
But if you have a low DA score, it can feel impossible to boost your numbers, which is where we come in.
We create professional digital PR campaigns that secure backlinks from huge publications, including Forbes, HuffPost, and the New York Times. Get in touch, and we’ll show you how we can boost your domain authority score for you.
