Most bloggers and website owners share one common goal:
- Rank higher in search engines.
There are hundreds of web metrics out there, but there is one web metric that has grown exponentially in importance since it entered the world of SEO.
That web metric is Domain Authority (DA).
You may have heard of Domain Authority. If not, then you should read: What is Domain Authority (DA)? – A Complete Guide for Beginners .
Domain Authority is a rating or score (ranging from 0 to 100) developed by Moz to assess a website's ranking on Google and other search engines.
Websites with higher DA scores are likely to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Do you want to know how to improve your website’s DA?
In this post, I’m going to share 7 practical ways to help you improve your website’s domain authority. But before we dive further into the 7 methods, let me first explain to you why it’s important to improve your website’s DA.
Why is it crucial to improve your website’s domain authority?
Improving your domain authority will increase the likelihood of your website ranking higher on Google and other search engines. Sometimes, you may have seen that a website with a lower DA ranks lower than a website with a higher DA but less engaging content.
DA is very important for search engine rankings.
Here are some facts about domain authority :
- To calculate Domain Authority, more than 40 signals are taken into account.
- Websites that rank higher on search engines tend to have higher DA.
- High domain authority -> high search engine ranking -> more traffic.
- Domain authority doesn't increase overnight.
There are a number of things we can do to improve our DA score. Sounds good, right? Well, it won’t be easy, but it won’t be like climbing Mount Everest either.
How to Improve Your Website’s Domain Authority
Well, Domain Authority cannot be bought or stolen from another high Domain Authority website. To improve your DA score, you need a great strategy, thousands of quality content , and a lot of patience.
If your DA is around 10 or 15, then you can easily improve it to 30 or 40. But when your DA score is over 50, the work becomes much more arduous and quite slow.
So let’s go ahead and look at the 7 steps that can help you get a better DA score.
1. Publish high-quality content
You need to write quality content to get a good DA score. Unique and approachable content has value everywhere. If you want to write quality content, you need a great strategy.
It doesn't matter how long it is; what matters is that it is unique and relevant.
Remember this sentence:
- Content is king.
Content is the key to attract visitors, you cannot compromise on it. Use images, GIFs, and videos to make your content more engaging and interesting.
A picture is worth a thousand words
You can also use infographics because they can make your content viral* (and they’re embeddable).
Good content should also be of appropriate length. Appropriate length means more than 800 words.
Longer articles are considered “more informative.” If you publish content that is too short and boring, your site will definitely suffer.
Please note the following:
- Do not copy other people's work and paste it into your posts.
- Use synonyms instead of using the same word over and over again.
- Do not go off topic and discuss unnecessary things that are not related to the topic.
- Make your content look “professional”.
2. On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is another optimization method. It plays a vital role in boosting your DA from low to high.
It includes technical factors such as page title, keyword placement, and keyword density.
Here is a simple checklist to help you maintain on-page optimization:
- Keyword density – Avoid keyword stuffing and keep the density between 0.5 and 1.5%.
- Heading Tags – Use heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to highlight key points.
- Target keyword – Choose a perfect keyword for your blog post. It’s better to use long-tail keywords because they are easier to rank for. If possible, use the focus keyword once in the first paragraph of your article.
- Permalink Structure – Use an SEO-friendly permalink structure that includes your focus keyword.
- Meta Description - Fill in your meta description. Do not leave it blank. Your meta description should include your focus keyword.
- Write keyword-rich titles – Your blog post title should be attractive and keyword-rich. It’s best to start with your focus keyword.
- Image Optimization – Optimize your images to boost your SEO status.
If you don’t focus on SEO, it will be difficult for your website to rank well on Google. On-page optimization is the best way to attract interested visitors to your website.
Proper SEO will improve your domain authority.
3. Internal Linking is Key
The best example of internal linking is Wikipedia (which has a DA score of 100).
Internal linking reduces bounce rate (increases the average time a visitor stays on your website).
Linking to your older posts will make your current posts more informative and engaging.
But there is a problem here:
- Only link to older posts that are similar to your current post.
This will help search engine bots find your site's content and crawl them easily. Internal links also help spread link juice and page authority (PA) throughout your site. Internal links will allow users and search engines to navigate your site easily.
To do internal linking effectively, make sure every internal link is do-follow.
4. Generate high-quality links for your website
Generating high-quality links to your website isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.
Many bloggers and webmasters make this mistake. They end up creating low-quality links that do not add any value, thereby lowering their website’s ranking on Google.
Let me tell you where they were wrong: they were using a rubbish approach.
For example, they generate links using sites like Fiverr, which guarantee to generate backlinks in minutes. These links are terrible.
I mean, there are a lot of people who work hard day and night just to get quality backlinks; what the hell is wrong with them? In fact, they are right, and those who generate backlinks through illegal means will pay the price for it. They may lose rankings, and their website may be penalized by Google.
So what are some “good ways” to generate high-quality links?
I recommend you to follow these steps:
A. Share your content on social networking sites - Most social media sites have high domain authority. When you share your blog posts on sites like Facebook and Twitter, you reach out to new audiences. If your content is good and gets more shares, it will go viral quickly.
remember:
- Even the best content needs to be shared and promoted.
Don’t be a spammer, make a schedule. Social media sharing is a skill. It takes a good strategy and lots of practice to master it.
- [Best WordPress Social Media Plugins
B. Guest Posting - Guest posting is one of the best ways to boost your brand authority and increase referral traffic. It is safer and more profitable than blog commenting.
I find that guest blogger posts are getting spammy because many guest bloggers use the wrong methods. Some of them try link stuffing, rich anchor text stuffing, posting low-quality content, etc.
Gone are the days when guest posting was the primary source of link building. Don’t use guest posting to get more links for your website because it doesn’t work.
Guest posting is still a very powerful and convenient way that will help improve your website’s ranking if you do it in a systematic and correct way. If you want to make the most of guest posting, then you should follow these points:
- Think outside the box and create amazing content.
- Try posting on high authority sites.
- Avoid link stuffing as it can affect your site’s ranking. And you may get penalized.
- Only post on topics that are relevant to the site you plan to publish on.
- Use relevant links.
C. Content is a natural link builder - Yes, there is no other way that works better than this. You just need to produce good content - content that is informative, legal, easy to read and understand.
Not only does quality content benefit your site (and your readers), it helps other sites, too. How?
Let’s look at an example:
Let's say Sam creates a great and descriptive post on his website, and Brad finds Sam's content very unique and relevant to his post. Brad links to Sam's post to make his own post more informative and interesting. As a result, Sam gets a mention, and Sam's post helps Brad write a good post of his own.
Create lots of linkable content to get more and more natural links to your website.
While there are many other safe and practical ways to generate high-quality links, these three techniques are very effective.
- You may want to read: 51 Ways to Get High-Quality Backlinks for Your Blog .
5. Disavow bad links
It is essential to regularly remove bad links that affect your website's ranking on Google. Removing harmful and spammy links is just as important as gaining quality links.
You have to keep your link profile clean and tidy. Many bloggers don’t focus on this important fix that needs to be done on an ongoing basis. If you don’t deny the bad links that are hurting your website little by little, then you might lose your ranking in the SERPs.
Bad links directly affect your domain authority, as having a good link profile is necessary to get a high DA score.
In order to have a good link profile, you should focus on removing bad links and generating high-quality links.
6. Wait patiently for your domain to age
The age of your domain will help improve your site's ranking and DA score. If your site is 3 or 4 years old and still active, it means you have been around for a long time. It also means that you have been publishing quality content and your site is probably not a spammy site.
[Tweet “Older sites are more likely to rank higher in Google search results.”] If your site is only a month or two old, you don’t have to worry about your DA score or keyword rankings. Just keep publishing quality content on your site and your DA will improve over time.
Domain age is an important factor in SEO. Now, this doesn’t mean that new websites can’t achieve high rankings or improve their DA. They certainly can, but it takes more time.
So be patient and let time pass. Another good practice is to reserve domains for the next 3-4 years. Did you know that ShoutMeLoud has already reserved domains for the next 8 years?
7. Increase your posting frequency
To keep your blog updated, you have to increase your posting frequency.
FAQ => How often should I blog?
I would say this: you should blog regularly.
It’s not easy to post regularly. But if you do it, then improving your domain authority will be easy.
Most bloggers are not very stable. That’s why their DA fluctuates.
If you post regularly, your domain authority will increase, but if you don’t, your domain authority may decrease.
Other benefits of posting regularly:
- Higher traffic, higher revenue, higher page ranking.
- There is a ton of quality content to link to.
- Develop writing skills.
- There is always something new to share with readers.
- Build trust among your visitors.
- Increase conversions and sales.
On my blog, I’ve experienced many benefits of publishing blog posts regularly. You may have experienced these benefits, too.
Generally speaking, the more frequently you blog, the more traffic you'll get. Most of your traffic will come from your older blog posts. The more posts you publish, the more old posts you'll have stored on your site.
Check your domain authority
It is very important to check your DA score at least once a month. This will help you understand the strength of your website.
A higher DA means a higher search engine ranking.
There are many free domain authority checking tools available that can help you check not only your website’s DA score but also your competitors’ DA.
Here is one way to check your domain authority:
- Go to Open Site Explorer.
- Enter your website's URL.
- Click the Search button to get your DA score as well as your Page Authority and Spam scores.
Getting a DA score above 50 is very challenging and takes a lot of time to achieve. But I promise that if you follow all the steps in this article, you will get that score one day.
Using content marketing to improve DA and SEO
When it comes to improving DA, content and optimization go hand in hand. You can’t improve DA without improving the overall SEO of your website. So make a plan and work accordingly.
Your focus should be on content. Content marketing is the key that opens all doors to your online business. Believe it or not, a website with stupid, creepy content is unlikely to rank highly no matter how well you optimize it.
For me, content is always the most important.
If you follow all of these steps, your DA score will undoubtedly increase over time.
That’s all I have to say about DA. Feel free to ask questions or make any suggestions in the comments.
Did you like this article? If so, don’t forget to share it with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn!
Here are some selected articles you should study to get better rankings:
- How to Use SEMRUSH for Blog SEO
- A Practical Guide to Increasing Blog Traffic
- How to Deal with 404 Errors in SEO
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