So, what is domain authority? Simply put, is a metric used to measure the ‘pull’ that your domain has to search engines. The scale goes from 1 – 100, with 1 representing bad DA, and 100 representing perfect DA.
Many factors go into the weighting for this final score, backlinks, number of referring domains, page speed, keyword relevance. The final number given for your domain authority is in essence a summation of your domain’s SEO.
Most large media outlets, like Forbes or MarketWatch, have domain authorities in the 80’s. Websites on the higher end tend to be those that are used by everyone, Google, Wikipedia, Facebook. These larger platforms are the only websites relevant enough to have domain authorities of over 90. Keeping this scale in mind, a good domain authority for a small business can range between 30-70.
Is Domain Authority Important to SEO?
Domain authority is a great indicator of the direction your SEO campaign is heading in. If your domain authority is tanking, consider changing plans. Needless to say, DA is massively important in the health of your domain’s SEO.
You can use this information to scope out the competition in your niche. Does your competitor’s domain stack up to yours when it comes to domain authority? If they are outperforming you, consider investigating SEO techniques they are employing.
Also important to note is page authority score. This refers to the specific score of any given page on your website. This is important to keep in mind for your webpages as well as those that you have backlinks on. If your domain is receiving links from web pages with low page authority scores your SEO will suffer.
How to Increase Domain Authority
Keyword Strategy
Before anything, you’ll need to make sure your webpages have proper keywords set. Doing this will ensure that your pages get ranked for the proper keywords. Select keywords that are relevant to your niche and have low competition. Your web pages will have to be constructed with these keywords in mind.
Building your pages around your keywords means writing copy with them at the front of your mind. You’ll need to dedicate a percentage of your web page’s text to referring to keywords and related keyphrases.
The meta data for your pages must also contain keyword information. Include references to your keywords in image metadata, and more importantly the page url slug and meta description. Also consider including the keyword in your page title. This also goes for blogs and guest blogs you may write in the future!
If your strategy is harmonious, your pages will revolve around targeting a specific keyword and maximizing the SEO related to it. Backlinks targeting your web pages should use your keywords as anchor text. Additionally, it helps if the page pointing towards your domain is in a similar niche.
Backlink Building
Domain authority score is affected by all of the noteworthy SEO tactics. Backlinks especially play a large role in DA. The amount of backlinks, as well as the number of referring domains are taken into account when calculating domain authority.
You should aim to have backlinks from only other high domain authority websites. Additionally, make sure that you have backlinks from a variety of domains rather than just one. Your score is heavily affected by the number of high quality domains referring to you, don’t forget it.
Guest posting on websites that offer the service is a great way to increase your domain authority while building backlinks. Seek out high quality blogs or websites that offer guest posts. Ensure that they have a high domain authority score themselves, as well as a high average page authority.
The backlinks from these posts should be anchored to text relevant to the pages they are linking to. Make sure you are also doing this when internal linking and external links on your domain. Quality backlinks earned through well written blog posts will not only increase your DA, but drive organic traffic.
Organic Traffic
The other large factor in your domain authority is your website traffic, specifically your organic traffic. This means that trying to use paid traffic to raise your DA won’t work. You’ll need to drive genuine organic traffic to your domain.
Visitors visiting from referring websites other than search engines will count towards organic traffic in this case. This means that if your guest posting strategy is already utilizing engaging click drawing content, you should be secure here.
If your backlink strategy involves a lot of backlinks that will never be clicked, you may want to step up your game. Also, consider using Schema markup on your webpages to increase their screen real estate on search engines.
Schema allows you to flag pages for special featured snippets which can provide information like review scores, FAQs, and pricing options. This can draw in a lot of eyes from Google and Bing, thus increasing your organic traffic. If you keep all these things in mind while creating your outreach campaign, your DA will surely skyrocket.
Where to Check Domain Authority
Got your fill of domain authority information? Good, now you just need to find out what your domain authority is. Lucky for you, Digital Marketing Whiz can tell you your domain authority when you get a website audit.
Get a free website audit and we’ll tell you your domain authority along with many other useful website insights. Along with our domain authority checker, you’ll get a glimpse at the things slowing your domain down. We’ll even offer a follow up consultation where we can walk you through the solutions to your domain’s problems.
