The majority of websites are competing to get higher rankings on search engines. To rank higher, many factors contribute to the process. In point of view, there are over 200 factors that determine rankings at Google SERP. The two most important factors are backlinks and content. But, only these two are not enough to rank at the top. Still, they are an essential part of SEO.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority (DA) refers to a score of relevant website backlinks. The number of links pointing from other reputable sites contributes to your DA score. DA is a useful metric to know how much organic traffic you may receive from Google. But, since developing authority will take time, don't be worried if you don’t get results right away. MOZ measures possible rankings at Google of a web page via several factors. MOZ has created this metric to find where a website lies on search engine results pages (SERPs). This score of a website tracks the ranking strength over time.
Some websites become authoritative without even seeming to try. It is because the keywords in their website exist naturally. Let us take an example of a website called IMDB. It has a high Authority due to naturally occurring keywords throughout its content. So when you use correct tactics about the keywords, you can optimize your website better. One more point to remember here is that it is not all about keywords. Backlinks are also crucial to include in your content. The better your backlinks are, the more will be the chance of increasing your DA score.
Moz Domain Authority is measured by using around 40 different factors. These include SEO performance, social signals, root domains, relevant backlinks, and so on. Websites with a higher number of quality backlinks, like Wikipedia, tend to have high DA. Also, you should know how exactly to use a backlink and type of backlink that matters for SEO. Without having many incoming links, a website may have a lower domain score. With the logarithmic nature of domain authority, it’s difficult to increase the score when already higher in the rankings. But it is easier to jump to a higher score if starting with a lower one. That means an improvement from 10 to 20 as compared to 70 to 80 is much easier. The main point that should be kept in mind here is that the metric Domain Authority is by Moz and not by Google. So is not used by Google but still correlates with the SERP ranking.
But how do you measure the Domain Authority of your website at Google?
Knowing your domain authority helps in creating and improving your marketing plan. Checking the authority gives a more comprehensive understanding of its health. The most popular metrics to predict the ranking of a website is Domain Authority. Although DA isn't used in rankings algorithms, researchers have found a correlation between DA and SERP ranking. It's likely to receive more traffic when you have a greater domain authority score. But how do you know what the domain authority of your site is?
There are several ways to check the Domain Authority of any site. Page authority is also measured. It is also a metric like DA, but it looks at a specific page rather than the whole site. Page authority like Domain Authority is calculated by 1 to 100 logarithmic scales. Checking various sites at once is also possible by LinkGraph's DA Checker. This will let you check 10 URLs for free at a time. Checking DA for even more domains can be done by Rankz’s SEO Rank Tracker. It will allow you to check hundreds of URLs at once.
You can use MozBar, Moz's Link Explorer, or the SERP Analysis of Keyword Explorer. Furthermore, Moz also has a free detailed domain SEO analysis tool. Other than the Moz tool, you can use Ubersuggest also for having some of this information. It also finds metrics like linking domains, ranking keywords, featured snippets, and more. You can see a downfall of competitors using your keywords too.
How to Improve Your Domain Authority Score
Boosting DA is a long-term process, but there are many ways to go about it. Websites having numerous valuable inbound links tend to rank higher on the DA scale. While only fewer links pointing to any website tend to begin with a score of one. Keep in mind, a DA score only predicts a site’s ranking ability. It cannot be viewed as a result when it comes to rankings. To improve the DA of any website, here are some tips you can do:
● You have to build a profile or your off-page SEO. It is one of the most important metrics to include for improving the DA of a website. You have to build stronger backlinks from related high-authority websites. Check validity for your site links, and it should not include black-hat SEO strategies. Remember that all links are not equal. So, avoid getting spammy backlinks or remove any low-quality links from your page.
● Next, you have to optimize your On-page SEO. When we talk about improving DA score, on-page SEO is a crucial thing to include. Try to have detailed content that covers each aspect of the topic. Moreover, focus on optimizing from title tags to every element used on your On-page SEO.
● Lastly, you must create high-quality and updated content. Linkable content is necessary if you want to make your site authorized. Make sure to remove the content that is no longer in use or is outdated. Also, you should keep in mind whether your content is helpful to your target audience or not. Moreover, your content needs to be well-written and engaging.
What is a Good Domain Authority Score?
In brief, the Domain Authority score predicts the ability of a website to rank at search engines on a scale of one to 100. When you start a new website, its DA is one. DA tends to fluctuate over time and identifying why it changes is challenging. Many websites are having too many backlinks and have higher domain authority. While small sites with lesser backlinks generally have a lower Domain authority. The higher the score, the better is the ability to rank higher.
So are you confused about where to get the information about improving your site? Try this free website analyzer for unlimited websites. It will help you know where you are lacking behind to compete in the market.
How to Integrate Your DA into SEO Strategy?
After being familiar with the DA influencing factors, what should you do next? Start with giving other sites a reason to link to your business site. Try to give them better informative articles as compared to your competitors. Especially if you have something unique offers for a service, then working for it will be a great start. Also, you can collaborate with small businesses to increase your online presence. Outreach to the companies with whom you already have relationships. There are many tactics to have between mutually beneficial partnerships. You can implement swapping of your testimonials to support each other. You must try giving backlinks to other content for opportunities for backlinks. For instance, if you publish about any international academy, then add a link to their website. It may happen that if they track their traffic, they will know you are linked to them. And in return, they may feel inclined to return the favor as testimonials.
Guest posting also can help you reach out to new potential customers. But when you are going to guest post, it is better to first know which blogs to guest for. You must check if the links they are giving are followed or not followed. This will impact how useful the link is for your website. Though all links are helpful for users to get to your website, thinking of links as a referral traffic tool is well. Also, you should check their Domain Authority and Page Authority for target pages. Other than that, check for how long their posts, and who their audiences are. If their site is not like yours, guest blogging would be of no worth. Of course, you have to make sure all the backlinks you have are of high quality. Because it’s good to have fewer effective backlinks than tonnes of ineffective ones.
Conclusion
Domain authority may seem to be confusing and difficult at first. Because many factors contribute to ranking, analyzing all of them becomes complicated. Even so, once you are aware of DA and its importance, it is worth the time and effort. Google tends to change its rankings' algorithm frequently. Thus, content creators are also evolving new ways in their marketing strategies. The more updated content you publish, the more likely you are to rank. The crucial thing is to know the proven ways to get free backlinks to your website.
