As Domain Authority continues to become an increasingly prevalent topic in the digital marketing world, it’s important to understand what it is and how it affects your website. However, Domain Authority can be difficult to understand, especially at first. Here’s an overview of what Domain Authority is, how it’s calculated, and how to raise your Domain Authority score.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority (or DA) is a score calculated by multiple SEO tools that can help predict a website’s ability to rank in search engine result pages (SERPs). It’s a useful metric that can provide insight into your website’s technical health compared to your competitors.
How is Domain Authority Calculated?
Tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs consider dozens of factors when calculating how likely a website is to rank in SERPs. Some of these factors include:
- Backlinks: Backlinks are created when links on another website point to your website. Domain Authority uses the number and quality of backlinks to your website in its calculation of a website’s score.
- Subject-matter relevance: The more relevant your website is to your subject-matter and your audience, the more likely it is that your DA score will increase.
- Root domains: The number of root domains linked to your website are also incorporated into the Domain Authority Score. For example, if you have 10 backlinks on your page but they all come from the same website, they’re only counted as one root domain.
It’s important to note that the Domain Authority algorithm changes frequently, so reviewing and revising SEO strategies frequently is helpful in maintaining the highest score possible.
Why
So, What’s a Good Domain Authority Score?
Domain Authority scores range from 1-100, with higher numbers indicating better SERP rankings.
Brand new domains begin with a Domain Authority score of 1. As a website organically builds more authoritative backlinks, its Domain Authority score increases, which may take some time. If you don’t have a high Domain Authority score right away, that’s okay. Over time, as you create meaningful content that’s optimized for search engines, you will naturally generate backlinks. To create a website that drives substantial organic traffic, you need to be persistent and patient — content marketing is effective, but it’s a marathon, not a sprint!
Here’s a general guideline for Domain Authority scores:
- Between 40-50: Average
- Between 50-60: Good
- Above 60: Excellent
Your DA score is a comparison tool, not an absolute metric. Every website’s competitive landscape varies, and there’s no true DA range that fits every website.
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Four Tips to Raise Your Domain Authority
Regularly create user-focused content
Continuing to create meaningful content on your website is important to raising your Domain Authority. While many people may believe that content quantity takes the main priority, it’s important to focus equally on the quality of your content and your keyword strategy. We recommend adding content such as blog posts to your website 2-3 times per week.
Use technical SEO to increase your site health
Websites such as Semrush or AhRefs are tools we use daily at 434 to regularly audit our clients’ websites. These programs use many different metrics to score your website’s health, and they even provide you with the knowledge and tools necessary for you to make any changes needed on your site.
For example, Semrush’s site audit tool lets you see any broken links or empty meta descriptions lingering on your website and shows you how to fix them.
Ensure that your site is user-friendly
Keeping your users in mind when working on your website is important to raising your Domain Authority. Having a clear and logical structure helps search engines like Google to crawl your site, which may improve your Domain Authority.
Other ways to make your website more user-friendly are optimizing it for mobile devices and making it accessible for everyone through adding alt text to your images. You can also improve your website’s internal links, which take users from one page to another, and can help keep your visitors engaged.
Build a strong link profile
Creating quality content that is worthy of backlinks from other websites will help boost your Domain Authority. For example, if your site is for a local business, it may be helpful to gain backlinks from other local sites such as blogs or community newspapers. The quality of your backlinks is just as important as the quantity — focus on gaining a few quality backlinks before aiming for thousands.
What’s the Bottom Line?
Remember that while Domain Authority is an important metric, it’s not the end-all-be-all of your website’s organic search performance. Developing a high Domain Authority score is a long-term process that takes lots of planning, so having patience is important.
434 Marketing is Here to Help.
If you want to raise your website’s Domain Authority score, 434 Marketing can help. Whether you’re looking to build a website from scratch or make tweaks to an existing website, our knowledgeable and experienced team would love to help grow your website.
Brianna Arnold holds the role of Content Manager at 434 Marketing. As part of the 434 team, Brianna brings with her a career of experience in the agency world. She is responsible for ensuring client goals are achieved with measurable success. Brianna’s digital marketing experience spans a myriad of skills, including copywriting, content strategy, brand messaging and more.
