Domain Authority: What is it and How to improve it
What is Domain Authority?
Domain authority or DA from Moz is a complex indicator that displays the quality of a website . The higher the number of points, the higher the probability that the domain will take the best positions in the search results for the necessary queries. The lower the indicator, the more likely it is that the link from the domain will be of poor quality.
What is Page Authority?
Similar to domain authority, page authority (PA) is an assessment of the authority of a particular page or URL on a website.
Why are authority metrics important for SEO? To determine which pages rank above all others, search engines calculate the authority of pages and websites. In SEO, this authority is mainly determined by links, in particular links from other sites to yours.
The more authoritative (popular) a web page (and the website it refers to), the more likely it is to give better answers to its users.
What Factors Affect Domain Authority?
- Age of the domain: Websites that have been around longer and receive ongoing maintenance are likely to be given more authority. The search engine trusts this website the longer it exists.
- Good backlinks: If a website receives backlinks from trustworthy sites, your trust and thus your domain authority will increase. Backlinks from these sites are often associated with a great deal of effort and must be "earned".
- Ratings: Ratings in online portals (sales/recommendation portals) should play a role in domain authority.
- Reputation: The reputation of authors on the web (e.g. press, e-books, blogs or social media channels) can have a positive impact on authority.
- Link diversification: Topic-related backlinks from websites send positive ranking signals.
- Inclusion of blog, video, infographics: Not proven, but publishing this content can promote domain authority.
- Security: The use of https or whether a site has been hacked can have an impact.
How do you improve your domain authority?
Getting backlinks from more unique websites (referring domains) is the only way to improve your website's domain ranking (authority). But link building should not be the main goal.
Instead, it's better to focus on getting backlinks from STRONG pages of websites that are established in your industry to the pages you want to rank for. Because there is a clear correlation between the number of referring domains per page and the amount of organic traffic it receives.
The number of domains linking to a page is the strongest correlated link factor in terms of ranking. Let's know some other ways:
On-page SEO :
- Create a user-friendly website structure
- Use text links in internal linking
- Create a sitemap for the user
- Pay attention to the outbound link ratio
- Link internally sensibly
- Avoid broken links
- Work on your website's loading speed
- Avoid keyword spam
- Build permalinks verbally and briefly
Content:
- Understand user intent
- Generate appropriate, unique content
- Ideally, the content should be “ evergreen content ”
- Design the content to suit the target group
Off-page SEO :
- Distribute the content via social media
- Reach out to influencers who may share it
- Use channels like email, ADs
- Approach website operators to link your content
Social Media:
- Build a social media presence or profile
- Connect with trusted users
- Share your content
- Participate in the community
Conclusion
When building up the domain authority, the core is brand building (classic marketing). In the natural setting, you would do the best you can for your website, position yourself (the company) as an authority, and get involved. In this way, you also create trust among users in the offline world, which is also mirrored by the domain authority. To improve the Google ranking, work on these factors within your SEO strategy.