The Complete Guide to Improving Your Domain Authority

You definitely want your website to appear on the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs), right? Of course, that’s the dream of every website owner. The key is understanding how search engine optimization (SEO) works in general and taking the right actions. There are several factors that affect website ranking. Today, we will discuss one very important factor: Domain Authority (DA). We’ll talk about what a Domain Authority is, factors that affect Domain Authority, and things you can do to increase your Domain Authority.

WHAT IS DOMAIN AUTHORITY AND HOW DOES IT WORK?
 

Domain Authority is a search engine ranking metric, between a range of one to 100, developed by Moz to predict how well your website will rank on the search engines. 100 is the highest attainable Domain Authority and 1, the least, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank.

This metric is dependent on several factors which will be discussed in this guide shortly.

WHAT A *GOOD* DOMAIN AUTHORITY LOOKS LIKE
 

With 1 and 100 as a minimum and maximum DA respectively, you might want to get the maximum score which will mean perfection. However, a Domain Authority of  40 to 50 is considered average, and above 60 is really great. You should know that it is easier to promote a Domain Authority from 20 to 30 than from 70 to 80 because the Moz scale used in measuring DA is a logarithmic scale.
 

WHY IMPROVE YOUR DOMAIN AUTHORITY?
 

DA is very important for search engine ranking. Sometimes, a website with high DA but with much less engaging content may rank higher than a website with low DA and engaging content. If you want your website to consistently make it to the first page of SERPs, you should strive for a Domain Authority that is above average. Why? Because of the higher your website's Domain Authority, the better your chances of ranking high on search engines. In other words, high Domain Authority -> high search engine rankings -> more traffic.

Although there are several claims that DA directly affects search engine ranking, Moz states that Domain Authority is not a metric *used by Google* in determining search rankings and has no effect on the SERPs.We think it's safe to think that DA only predicts how well a website will rank on the search engine results pages, thereby giving you some sort of "guide" to work with. By "guide" we mean, you'll get to know how much of a chance your website stands to compete with other domain names in your niche for top rankings. Also, if you wanted to do business with another website, say placing ads or guest posts on there, a quick check on the site's DA will give you an idea of how big the site is and how much to invest in it. But generally, DA and search engine rankings have some type of correlations, hence you should take it seriously.

FACTORS THAT AFFECT DOMAIN AUTHORITY
 

There are several factors that affect the Domain Authority of a website but we will discuss on a few, most relevant ones.

• MozRank: This is another metric developed by Moz and it ranges from zero to 10. It shows the strength of your website’s backlinks. While the number of links pointing to your website is very important, the quality of those links is even more important. This is what MozRank focuses on. With 10 as the highest MozRank value, a ranking of 3 is considered average.

• MozTrust: Just like MozRank, MozTrust uses the same metric to measure the number of trusted websites pointing to your website. Examples of trusted sites are .gov and .edu sites. Your website’s closeness with such trusted sites will determine the MozTrust of your website. This has a great contribution to your Domain Authority.

• Search Engine Friendliness: Websites with high Domain Authority are those with very good search engine optimizations. These include great site structure which makes such site easy to navigate and user-friendly, fast page loading time, good on-page and off-page SEOs, and so on. Such websites are easily indexed by search engines.

• Social Media Interactions: A website with content that is well appreciated and shared on social media platforms is considered of good quality. This social signal affects a site’s Domain Authority.

• Quality Content: Content is the most important part of a website. Of course, all other factors are dependent on a website’s content. There will be no backlinks, MozRank or MozTrust if a website has nothing good to offer in terms of content. So, a website must have quality, well-optimized content if it must get a good Domain Authority.

HOW TO CHECK YOUR DOMAIN AUTHORITY
 

Before you go on a spree to improve your Domain Authority, you'd want to first check it to see what your DA is. With the Small SEO Tools' Domain Authority Checker, checking your DA is an extremely easy process. You can even check DA for multiple sites at one go. 

Here's how:

• Go to https://smallseotools.com/domain-authority-checker/

• Input your site URL in the space requested for your domain

• Click on “Check Domain Authority” and wait for a second.

This will display your Domain Authority alongside the Page Authority and MozRank. It's as easy as that!

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR DOMAIN AUTHORITY
 

Now that you know all the basics, it's time to actually get to work with improving your Domain Authority. Below are the techniques to apply:

• Update your sitemaps regularly

A sitemap is a list of all link URLs in a website arranged according to the various sections of the site. Sitemaps help search engines like Google to find information on your website faster and more efficiently. This means that you must update your sitemap regularly to ensure that information on your website is easily found. This improves not only your DA but also your site's overall ranking.

• Optimize your page loading speed

Does it take forever for your website pages to load? Internet users searching for answers are usually very impatient. It is important that your pages are well-optimized to ensure that they load fast else searchers will leave out of frustration.

Optimizing the media on your page, minimizing redirects, improving server response time, and installing a cache plugin are just a few ways you can optimize your page loading speed.

Here's our tool for testing page speed.

• Build quality trusted links

The quantity of backlinks you get to your website has a positive effect on your Domain Authority, but the quality of those backlinks should be of more concern. This is because low-quality backlinks will only cause damage to your website. Because links have a great impact on your Domain Authority and overall search engine rankings, it is essential to build high-quality backlinks from trusted websites.

Here's our Backlink Maker tool for generating high-quality backlinks fast.

• Kill toxic links on your website

It is very important that you always go through your link profile and ensure that bad backlinks are removed. Also, links that are broken or leading to bad websites should also be removed as they have negative impacts on your Domain Authority and search engine rankings. Start by conducting a link audit to identify possible potholes in your link profile.

Our Backlink Checker will provide you with all the details you need.

• Become an authority in your niche

“Jack of all trades, master of none” mostly does not apply to successful search engine domination. If you want to make it easy for your site to rank high, become an authoritative voice in your niche.

Many people like to be seen as an allrounder; they don’t want to miss out on any part. Well, this is not bad but the best thing to do is to find a focus. Choose a category you are good at and focus on it. When you focus on a given niche, you develop rapidly and you become an authority at it. At this stage, you deliver high-quality content and people know you for that.

Over a period of time, people believe that you are reliable and trusted. You get more backlinks and attention. This is one way to increase your Domain Authority.

• Encourage social media interactions

Your website shouldn't just sit there without people sharing your content on the different social media platforms.

The more social interactions your website generate, the greater your Domain Authority, and by extension, your search engine rankings.

• Ensure your website is mobile-friendly 

Today, over 50% of internet users are using mobile devices. This means that if mobile users are finding it difficult to access your website, then you may also find it difficult to improve your Domain Authority. Having a responsive website which can detect devices is key to this. No one enjoys zooming in and out, here and there.

Having a mobile-friendly website will ensure serving more people, thus increasing Domain Authority. Here's our Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

• Pick a domain name that is relevant to your niche

This is a very important thing to do if your Domain Authority must be above average. The domain name you choose for your website must be relevant to the content of the website. Your domain name should hint users on what the website is about.

Also, it is very ideal to choose a domain name that is easy to remember by users for future reference. Use this tool to search for great domain names.

• Optimize on-page SEO

On-page SEO is very important if you must promote your Domain Authority. Your title tags, image alt tags, and the main content must be well optimized.  Just like Google search engine ranking, Domain Authority ranking can be promoted if you carry out thorough on-page search engine optimization.

• Produce high-quality content

As said earlier, content is the most important part of your website. Creating content is one thing and creating *high-quality* content is another.High-quality content is original, informative, educative, helpful, and creative. It involves making interesting and credible content people will link to and share on social media. Doing this always will make you more trusted and can increase your MozRank and even MozTrust.

• Include internal links to improve user experience

The relevance of internal links is quite underrated as people pay more attention to external links. Well, internal linking entails easy navigation which is very important to improving user experience.

The use of internal links helps users to navigate to other related content on your site. Aside from improving user experience, good use of internal links allows for easier search engine indexing of your site. Here's a helpful link analysis tool.

CONCLUSION
 

A website without traffic is as good as your personal diary where you write for your personal reference. Having traffic that converts is the main deal and this is only possible when you have a good Domain Authority. Understanding what Domain Authority is and how to improve it is one big step towards search engine relevance. People love good content but many other things matter too — from your technical SEO, to the quality of your backlinks, and to the quality of your content.
The higher you can raise your Domain Authority, the easier it is to be found on the search engines. So go ahead and use the techniques we've shared to increase your Domain Authority as well as your search engine rankings. But know this: while these techniques will help you improve your Domain Authority, you must understand that you may not experience some sudden surge but consistency and patience will yield great results. Remember to look at our list of quality SEO tools you can use any day for free to improve your SEO and gain more traffic.