Discover Our Tips on How to Improve Your Website’s Domain Authority Score
Domain Authority can be an extremely beneficial metric to know the status of a website in relation to similar competitors. Google and other major search engines highly regard reputable and trustworthy websites. In fact, search engines factor a domain’s authoritativeness into their decision for which results to display at the top of the search results.
So, how do you know if your website is authoritative in Google’s eyes? Well, first of all, you need to look at the authority of your domain. Your website’s Domain Authority score measures how trustworthy your site is, as well as how it compares to your competitors’ sites. This, while not an exclusive Google ‘ranking factor’, can help you understand how search engines see and rank websites in the search results – so that might be something worth paying attention to!
Domain Authority (DA) is a metric that was developed by an SEO metric company called Moz. DA predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). A Domain Authority score ranges from 1 to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank. Domain Authority is calculated by evaluating things such as linking root domains and the number of total links – all factors that contribute to the strength of a given domain.
Domain Authority considers factors like the number of inbound links, the quality of those links, and how long your website has been around. In general, it’s a great way to predict how well a website will perform in the SERPs. Web pages with a higher DA are more likely to rank higher than those with a lower DA.
Domain authority is a powerful metric to benchmark your website and track its performance over time and is a measurement of how link equity flows through your site. That’s why many SEO specialists still use DA as a helpful tool in their digital marketing arsenal to measure strategies that are proven winners with Google’s algorithm updates constantly changing things up!
Measuring your DA score can help you understand how well-optimised your website might be. So how do you find out what your DA score is on your website? In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know to measure your Domain Authority, as well as 9 tried-and-tested tips to boost it and, in turn, improve your search rankings!
Ways To Improve Domain Authority
Once you have Domain Authority scores for yourself and your competitors, it’s time to start working on improving your own. Here are 9 top tips to improve your DA:
1. Regularly publishing high-quality content on your website (i.e. blog posts, infographics, eBooks, etc.)
2. Optimising your website for SEO
3. Improve your link profile by acquiring links from high-DA websites
4. Promote your content across social media channels
5. Increase the click-through rate (CTR) of your website
6. Encourage social shares of your content
7. Improve the time spent on site
8. Reduce your website’s bounce rate
9. Build a strong internal linking structure
What Is Domain Authority?
Domain authority (or website authority) is a score calculated by Moz that estimates how well your site will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). It’s estimated using various signals, including the quality of domains pointing to you, the number of inbound links & ranking keywords. Other factors include proprietary algorithms like backlink age or historical Google queries associated with those websites. Since being developed by Moz, other popular SEO tools have also followed suit with their own metrics.
SEO has changed a lot over the years and so too have popular Search Engine Optimisation tools. Specifically, SEMrush has an Authority Score, which is calculated from backlinks, referring domains, and search traffic, whilst Ahrefs uses the Domain Rating score, which measures the link popularity of a website based on the number of unique domains pointing back to the website and the authority of those domains within a certain niche or industry sector.
Why Measure Your Domain Authority?
Whilst Domain Authority isn’t an ‘official Google ranking factor’, it’s still valuable to use as a benchmark for your website. You can see how your site compares with your competitors and track the strength of your site rankings over time.
Having a high DA influences how well-ranked your web pages will be on search engines like Google or Bing and increases the chances of your site appearing in search results when users enter specific keywords relating to your products or services. Keyword rankings are also correlated with high domain ratings, according to Ahrefs.
So How Is Domain Authority Calculated?
According to Moz:
“Domain Authority is calculated by evaluating multiple factors, including linking root domains and total number of links, into a single DA score. This score can then be used when comparing websites or tracking the “ranking strength” of a website over time”.
Domain authority incorporates over 40+ factors in its calculation, however, these are considered some of the most influential:
- Linking Root Domains: This is the number of backlinks a website has earned from unique domains. Having more linking domains is a valuable part of your site’s ranking, demonstrating that your website is seen as authoritative by more than one source.
- The Total Number of Inbound Links: The DA score also measures the total number of links pointing back to your website from all domains.
- MozRank: This is Moz’s proprietary algorithm that scores the strength of the external backlinks pointing to your website based on the quality of that website between 0 to 10. This means that a website with fewer backlinks but of high quality can score higher than a website with more backlinks of lower quality.
- MozTrust: This measures how closely your site is connected to trusted websites, such as a .edu or .gov website. Like MozRank, MozTrust is scored between 0 and 10.
- Social Signals: Both Moz & Google use social media signals as a way to gauge whether a site has quality content. Social media actions, such as Facebook likes, LinkedIn shares and retweets, determine a website’s Domain Authority score.
How To Check Your Site’s Domain Authority Score
Despite all the factors that go into calculating domain authority, finding your own website’s DA score is a quick and straightforward process. You can get a free snapshot of your domain authority at any given time by searching for it on Moz Link Explorer.
All that’s required is signing up to use their free service and then filling out some information about yourself like your URL and full company – after which they’ll provide an overview with both current data as well as charts tracking changes over time. Moz will generate your Domain Authority report with an overview of your DA score, linking domains, inbound links, and ranking keywords.
Understanding the metrics that matter most regarding your website’s organic traffic is critical for any marketer or business owner looking at building an SEO strategy. Luckily, with just a few clicks on Moz’s Link Explorer, you can access vital information about how authoritative your site is and how this metric may have changed over time. Armed with this knowledge, you can make more informed decisions about whether or not to pursue specific marketing strategies in relation to your clients or business.
The best part about this tool is that it lets you see how your website stacks up against your competitors. You can also use the data collected from analysing other sites and compare them with yours, which will give insight into what needs improvement or if changes need to be made at all.
What Is Considered An ‘Ideal’ Domain Authority Score?
Domain Authority is a score ranked on a 100-point scale, that determines how likely your website is to rank in the search engine results. A higher score corresponds with greater chances of being found by visitors on major search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo!. and an average or below-average DA will make it easier for competitors with better scores than yours to outrank you on SERPs.
A DA between 40-60 is considered average, while scores above 60+ are excellent. However, this all comes with a caveat as your DA score is relative. If you have a DA score of 40 but your competitors are averaging 20-30, then you’re likely to outrank your competitors. Likewise, if your DA is 80 but your competitors have a score of 90+, you’ll probably appear below them in SERPs.
Domain Authority vs. Page Authority
Page Authority is another metric created by Moz. As the name suggests, domain authority measures how well an overall site performs on SERPs, while page authority or PA tracks whether or not specific web pages rank in those search results. Like DA, Page Authority is measured on a 100-point scale and is calculated in the same way, only it’s at the individual page level rather than the domain level. It can be found using the Link Explorer tool and inputting your URL and selecting “exact page”.
How To Increase Your Website DA Score
Now that we have covered off what domain authority is, it’s a perfect time to outline ways in which you can boost your website’s DA. There are several ways you can improve your domain authority score, from creating linkable, relevant content to becoming an authority within your niche. The following 9 methods will help you improve your domain authority score – and your search engine rankings.
It’s essential to keep in mind that the Moz score is a logarithmic scale, meaning that it is much easier to improve your score from 20 to 30 than it is from 80 to 90. Let’s jump in!
1. Select a Logical Domain Name
The first part of improving your website domain authority starts well before you begin optimising your web pages or building backlinks. It’s all in your name! Choosing a domain name that’s linked to your business is especially important and should be easy for your clients to remember. If your brand name is taken or it’s too long to remember, think of something as close as possible such as your initials.
Plan on opening your own business in the future? Want a head start? The tip is to register your domain name as soon as possible to build up authority as it ages. It’s possible to actively work on improving most aspects of your score, but one thing you can’t fake is how long a domain has been around. In addition, you can purchase a pre-existing domain name so you don’t have to wait for it to naturally build DA.
2. Optimise Your On-Page Content
- On Page SEO: A website’s on-page SEO refers to any activities done on the page itself to improve its ranking. A few of these include internal linking, content marketing & optimised site structure.
- Off Page SEO: An off-page SEO strategy includes tactics that are carried out off your website, such as link building & social media marketing to boost your online presence.
- Technical SEO: This ensures that Google’s search engine spiders can crawl and index your website.
Successful on-page SEO helps drive visitors to your website. Your web pages are the building blocks of your domain authority and if you want to be successful, they need to be relevant for both users and search engines. The on-page SEO process entails ensuring that all clicks lead towards relevant information while avoiding unnecessary backlinks from sites not related in any way (or just competition).
Make sure you follow best practices when creating your on-page content in order to improve your domain authority. This means you should apply the following to your web pages:
- Give each page an optimised SEO title tag, meta description, and image alt tags.
- Use H1 headings, as well as H2, H3, and H4 subheadings throughout your pages to break up the content.
- Incorporate your target keyword and related keywords into your copy.
- Add schema markup to explain your content to Google in a format that it can easily understand.
- Select a practical and user-friendly website design and fonts that are easy to read.
3. Create Linkable Content
Linking to high-quality and appealing content is one of the best ways to increase your domain authority score. Spend time crafting valuable posts that other sites want to link back to, like informative blogs, ‘best of’ guides or original research papers – remember it doesn’t have to be an essay!
4. Improve Your Internal Linking Structure
Internal links are considered the ‘lifeblood’ of any website and serve 3 key functions. Firstly, they help users navigate through your content and find exactly what they are looking for. This is especially true for search engines that use them as signals about what’s worthwhile reading or viewing next – so having these carefully placed strategically can be invaluable!
Internal links also help spread link juice throughout all other pages on your site to boost your overall DA, not just your page authority. They also allow Google bots to easily follow links and discover different pages on your site. Consider adding internal links wherever they make sense on your website, such as blog posts to main services pages.
5. Get Rid of Toxic or Dodgy Links
Not all backlinks are created equal. Some can be spammy or from low-quality websites that actually end up hurting your site’s domain authority – in the worst cases, even getting you penalised by Google!
Luckily there is a way to identify these harmful links so they don’t harm yours either: use SEMrush’s Backlink Audit tool and Ahrefs’ Site Explorer for regular audits of what kind(s) of bad links that might have formed versus superficial partnerships with reputable sources. If you find any of these, you can either contact the Webmaster to request that the link gets removed or submit a disavow request to Google.
6. A Mobile Friendly Website is Essential!
The number of people who access websites from mobile devices is about half of the global total. Optimising your website for small and large screens will help you increase your domain authority score.
You can determine how mobile-friendly your website is by running Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test, then use these findings to make it more mobile-friendly. You should also keep these mobile SEO best practices in mind when developing new content.
7. Establish Yourself as an Expert in your Field!
Building up your influence within the industry by publishing relevant content, guest blogging on other websites in related fields and actively contributing to discussions online can help you rank higher with Google.
Google prioritises high E-A-T content, which stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. When you boost your reputation as an authority within the industry by publishing relevant articles, then it will improve both your MozTrust score and your DA alongside it too!
8. Increase the Loading Speed of Your Web Pages
Google introduced its Core Web Vitals as a ranking signal in 2021, making loading times an essential factor in your website’s domain authority. The load time of your site and individual web pages plays a crucial role in determining its DA, so it pays to focus on improving this if it is struggling.
Slowly loading pages have a higher bounce rate, which indicates poor user experience or irrelevant content. The Google PageSpeed Insights tool can be used to check your site speed, then follow the recommendations under the “Opportunities” and “Diagnostics” sections.
9. Promote Your Site Content via Social Media
Getting social is the key to boosting your backlink profile. One of the main factors that determine a website’s domain authority score is social ranking signals. By sharing your content across all your owned social media channels, and encouraging users to leave comments on your posts, you will increase your content’s visibility and engagement online. Your followers can also help spread the word by clicking on the social share buttons on your blog posts too.
Improve your Domain Authority & Boost Your Web Traffic with iOnline!
With a UX & high-performing website, the right on-page optimisations and a solid link building strategy in place, you should see your domain authority score improve over time. It’s important to remember that building your DA is a long-term strategy that takes time and you won’t necessarily see immediate results so you need to hang in tight. However, following specific practices like creating new content and updating older content on your site, analysing your backlinks and using your social platforms to spread the word about your brand and website can help you increase your website’s online visibility on SERPs to boost traffic to your site.
Improving your domain authority score is just the beginning though. You must implement a comprehensive SEO and online marketing strategy that includes targeted local SEO, extensive keyword research, and high-quality content marketing to rank higher in the search results. Working on these will help you increase the quality and quantity of your leads rather than just solely your Domain Authority score alone.
This is where we can help! With over 22 years of experience in the SEO, digital & web design and development fields, iOnline’s expert team can assist you with all your online marketing needs! We will ensure that your website is optimised for the keywords that matter most to your business to maximise your efforts and reach the right people at the right time.
Let our digital marketing specialists help you get the revenue-shifting results you deserve through a range of effective marketing solutions and search engine optimisation strategies. Get in touch with us today!