Make Your Domain Dominate!

What is Domain Authority?

When creating a website, there are two very important words you need to remember: Domain Authority (DA). Domain Authority was created by Moz and is a score for search engine ranking. It calculates how likely a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPS). Domain Authority is scored on a one to 100 logarithmic scale. The higher the number, the better likelihood to rank.

When calculating a single DA score, there are a variety of elements that are assessed, such as linking root domains and the number of total links. This score is used to compare websites and to track how strong a website’s rank is over time.

How to Check Domain Authority

There are a few ways you are able to check Domain Authority. You can use Moz’s Link Explorer, the MozBar (free SEO toolbar), or in the SERP Analysis section of Keyword Explorer.

What is Considered a “Good” Domain Authority?

Websites such as Google have a huge number of high-quality external links, which leads them to having a high number on the Domain Authority scale. Smaller businesses and website that have fewer external links will usually have a lower DA score, and new websites will always begin with a score of one.

Having a high DA score should not be your only goal. Set a goal of having a higher DA score than the sites you are competing with. Use your DA score as a comparative number as you research which websites have more influential link profiles than others. Remember, Domain Authority is used as a comparative tool; therefore, there isn’t a “good” or “bad” DA score.

How to Improve Your Domain Authority

In order to improve your Domain Authority, you first need to determine who your competitors are and then make sure you are comparing yourself to the right ones. If you are having a hard time figuring out who your competition is, try using the Analyze a Key tool in the Moz Pro or the SERP Analysis feature in Keyword Explorer. By using these sites, you are able to see what other sites also rank for that keyword. If you notice that there is another site who constantly ranks for similar keywords, then they may be a good competitor. After you have found possible competitors, check to see if their site size, content, and DA are like yours. Once you have identified who your competition is, you will now need to analyze your links. The higher number of followed links you have in your back-link profile, the better. In order to get more followed links, you will want to create great, interesting content that people will want to link to. To find out what kind of content people want to link to, look at your top pages and the top pages of your competitors. You will learn what type of content people in your audience and market are looking for.

Another important thing for you to do in order to make sure you are improving your DA is to make sure your top pages are active and available. If you have pages on your website that include external links, you’ll want to make sure they aren’t resulting in a 404 and that they are available to anyone who might be trying to access those links. If you realize your top pages are not active, you might want to think about correcting them or redirecting the links to a more relevant, active page. You could also reach out to those sites linking to those resulting in a 404 and request that they update them to correct, live versions. There’s also nothing wrong with continuing to build your back-link profile through link building. By doing so, you are able to build more quality links from influential sites, resulting in an improvement in your DA.

Domain Authority is the most important part of search engine optimization (SEO). It is important to understand how it works and how you can improve your DA score. Having a higher DA score will help in how well your website will rank on SERPS.