Domain authority shows the standing of your website in the digital realm. Websites that have a higher domain authority rank high on the search engine. This position on SERPs increases organic traffic and conversion rates. Moz first brought this metric into existence. However, other software organizations followed suit by developing similar systems to rank websites compared to peer webpages.
Larry Page, one of the founding members of Google, was the first person to give the idea of ranking based on the website’s authority. He used PageRank as a metric to measure the significance of websites on the SERPS, which is handy even today.
What is the Domain Authority?
Domain authority is a rating score ranging between 1 and 100. This score indicates the website’s power and trustworthiness and tells how well it performs on search engines. Domain authority is different from Google’s ranking scores, as these scores can have an actual influence on the website’s ranking.
Software systems such as Moz are working their way towards stimulating the Google ranking algorithm by teasing factors that can affect the ranking. In simpler terms, your website’s domain authority is measured by Moz’s data, which might vary compared to Google’s information.
However, it is not unusual to have a low DA and high ranking on SERPS for a website.
Practical Steps on How to Improve Your Domain Authority
Once you have a clear picture of DA and its role in your website’s ranking, the next is to look at how to improve it. Below are some steps that will help you enhance your website’s DA and digital presence. These steps will help you gain an edge over the competitors and rip search engine rankings apart! Let’s go.
Step 01: work on off-page SEO
Link profile holds a high place in your website ranking metrics. Webpages with an immaculate and strong link profile are highly likely to bag a good DA score compared to those that do not have a good profile.
Off-Page SEO is a process used to improve the website’s link profiles. A good practice is to generate high-quality links via link building to boost your website’s authority. It is crucial to acquire links from websites related to your niche. Although link building is a challenging and time-consuming step, its long-term benefits are well worth the investment.
Similarly, removing poor links from your link profile is another good off-page SEO practice. You can achieve this by using tools like SEMrush or Moz to filter out bad links from your profile. Once you’ve identified these links, you can reach out to the website’s owner to remove them or devalue the links by adding a no-follow tag to them. If this approach fails, you can seek the help of Google disavow tools to remove low-quality links from your website’s profile altogether.
Step 02: Work on on-page SEO
Once you have worked on your off-page SEO, it is time to improve your domain authority by enhancing the On-Page SEO. The benefits of optimizing your website for search engine visibility will not only increase your website’s domain authority but will also significantly contribute towards any online marketing efforts you employ in the long-run. Most on-page techniques revolve around fine-tuning your website’s content, including:
- Descriptions and search engine optimized titles
- Appropriate placement of headings
- Maintenance of the URL structure and permalinks
- Optimization of graphic content such as videos and images
- Natural incorporation of keywords into the content
- Incorporation of internal links to strengthen the SEO
- Formatting the content in a way to bag higher Google ranking scores
Recently, Google has disclosed in one of its SEO guides that it is imperative to ensure that your web content is fresh, unique, and abides by the rules. And since Google is the numero uno search engine, there is a reason why content will always be king!
Step 03: Work on your technical SEO
This procedure entails low-level activities that you must cater to once, and if fixed, you don’t really need to with them again. However, suppose the technical aspects of your website are not in place. In that case, you will be at a high risk of losing your ranking and, ultimately, its domain authority.
Some of the significant SEO settings you need to check on are:
- Registration of the website with tools such as the Bing webmaster and Google Search Console
- Optimization of the XML sitemaps and their submission to Google
- Keeping a check on your website’s robots.txt setting and using Google or Fetch to make sure that your website remains free of bugs and spiders from other search engines
- Migration of your web address to HTTPS
- Addition of structured data to enable search engines to understand better the context of your web content
- Ensuring that you have an appropriately structured breadcrumb menu on your webpages
Step 04: Make your website mobile-friendly
It’s 2021. Should we even have to tell you this? Mobile responsiveness has become an absolute necessity if you wish to maintain a high domain authority. Websites that are not mobile-friendly usually rank low on Google rankings simply because most internet users now use smartphones to search, browse and shop. If your website is not mobile-friendly yet, your missing out on a significant potential window of sales. Responsive websites create enhanced user experiences that increase the amount of time visitors spend on your website. On the contrary, a non-responsive website increases bounce rates, which adversely affects your domain authority.
Step 05: Enhance your website’s speed
Page speed is one of the most critical signals for the Google ranking algorithms. Websites with fast loading speeds get the upper hand in Google and domain authority ranking scores than those that take forever to load.
Like mobile responsiveness, fast loading speeds enhance the user experience and decrease the bounce rate. Besides improving your website’s DA, it also has a positive impact on lead generation and sales. So be quick!
Conclusion
Domain authority is essential, but do not be too obsessed about the scores. These rankings are just numbers that indicate how well your website is doing when compared to other sites within your domain. A low domain score does not mean your website is bad or will not perform well on the Google SERPS. However, it can you identify some areas that need improvement. Look at the bright side!
