Domain authority is a vital thing to understand when it comes to marketing your website and reaching as many people as possible online.
For a lot of businesses these days, the majority of customers come from online searches. After all, whenever you are seeking out a service or particular product, the first place you most likely turn to is a search engine such as Google. This also applies to your audience, and therefore, you need to ensure your website is easily found in search engine results.
Search engines rank their results based on several factors, with one of the most important being domain authority.
You can increase domain authority of your website and ensure that it ranks higher on search engine result pages, therefore garnering more attention from potential customers.
In this guide, we are sharing everything you need to know about domain authority and how this works for your business, as well as techniques to improve your current score.
Table of Contents
Domain authority, also known as DA, is a form of online metric that is used to determine where websites will rank in search results.
Originally developed by Moz, the domain authority score of a website is given between 1 and 100.
While the domain authority score of your website is not a specific Google ranking factor, domain authority as a whole is an important thing to consider when it comes to search engine optimization and improving your ranking in search results.
The higher your domain appears on search engine results pages (SERPs), the more traffic you will obtain, which also translates to more potential customers for your business.
Although the domain authority of a website is not a Google ranking factor, it is a good metric to use when determining the next steps to take in terms of marketing and can contribute to better ranking in the future.
It also provides a good insight into how your competitors perform and what you can do to be better.
Many website owners will use domain authority to determine what work needs to be done to their website and how this can impact their ranking in search results.
Moz is no longer the only SEO tool that provides domain authority scores, as this is a common practice across the internet.
Websites need to keep track of their overall domain rating but also have the option to determine page authority for the rest of the content they publish online. All of this can be used to determine what marketing techniques should be your next focus, as well as for assessing how your competitors are performing.
This domain authority metric is calculated using several major factors from your website.
This process will vary based on the tool you use, as each has its own process when it comes to developing DA scores, but all are given between 1 and 100.
In terms of Moz domain authority scores, over 40 different factors are considered to produce a single DA score.
From a marketing standpoint, only a handful of these factors are considered to be the most important as they highlight what can be worked on by your team. There is a lot that goes into the assessment of domain authority scores, both on page and off, but for those wanting to improve their search engine rankings and reach more people, only a few are relevant.
These include:
MozRank
This refers to the number of websites linking to a particular web page, as well as assessing the quality of these links.
Link Profile
This relates to all linking domains, both internal and external, towards one website to showcase relevance and reliability.
A domain’s authority is also considered when assessing your link profile and, therefore, needs to be considered when generating hyperlinks.
Root Domains
These refer to unique backlinks used on your website.
With this, even if your website has a billion new links, if these all come from the same source, they are considered to be one root domain.
To improve your website’s domain authority, you need to not only obtain a good amount of links but ensure these all come from different sources for more linking root domains to appear in your assessment.
MozTrust
It is not only important to link your content to relevant websites but to ensure that these are trustworthy sources in terms of site authority as well.
SEO tools like Moz will assess the trustworthiness of all linking domains on your website.
Connecting with a governmental website, for example, will translate to a better trustworthy score than a newly launched independent blog.
Site Structure and User Friendliness
If you have attempted to work on SEO before, then you will be aware that it is not only the content on your website that matters but also the structure of the site itself.
This also applies to domain authority, and to get particularly high DA scores, your site needs to be structured in a way that makes it easy for Google to crawl the pages.
This simple, easy-to-navigate structure should also translate to user-friendliness because you are also making it easy for people to access your content and view your website.
Not only should your website be easy to navigate and accessible, but it should also offer a great user experience that ensures people spend time on your site and can get what they need from you with ease.
The Final DA Score
While these factors are specific to Moz, which is just one SEO tool you can use to determine your domain authority, they are relevant to all websites.
Even if you opt for another SEO tool to determine your DA score, these factors will still be considered and therefore should be used within your marketing efforts.
The names and particular focus of each factor may vary based on which tool you use for your DA score, but they all play a big role in determining where your website will rank in search results.
As we have mentioned, domain authority (DA) is scored from 1 to 100 on all tools.
Many factors are assessed to provide a singular domain or page authority score to a website, which can then be used to determine the search engine ranking of a website and how much traffic it will obtain compared to others in the same market.
While specific domain authority DA scores are not a ranking factor for Google, this domain authority metric is still incredibly useful for website owners.
It can determine which areas of your website need additional attention and what marketing techniques should be the main focus to obtain more traffic.
Improving domain authority can impact your ranking on the search engine results page (SERPs).
There is a domain authority scale that can determine whether your website is performing well and has a good score. As the scores are given between 1 and 100, the scale looks like:
- Below 30: Poor
- 30 to 40: Below Average
- 40 to 50: Average
- 50 to 60: Good
- 60 to 70: Very Good
- Above 80: Excellent
With this scale, it is clear that all websites should aim for a score of 60 or more.
However, it is important to note that it is easier to improve domain authority if your starting point is between 30 and 40 because there are more avenues.
You may find it difficult to improve your site with a score above 70, but this does not mean it is impossible.
Score Examples
As you can see, there is a fairly large domain authority scores range for your website to fall into.
According to domain authority calculations, high authority sites are those such as Google, Microsoft, and Apple.
These are websites that are highly established, have a good reputation, and have been online for a long time.
Conversely, newer websites will have lower overall domain authority because there is less to calculate.
When it comes to building domain authority and determining what steps you can take to get a higher score, it is a good idea to stay in your lane.
By this, we mean assessing similar websites on SERPs and keeping an eye on your competitors instead of larger, established sites, as we have mentioned.
Pay attention to which sites appear higher than others in results, as this can determine their domain authority. For example, if domain A appears higher than domain B it is usually safe to assume that domain A has the higher DA score.
While these have a high domain authority, they are unlikely to be a relevant comparative metric for your website and will, therefore, not help with your work.
As we have mentioned, website owners can use domain authority to determine where they will appear in SERPs and the amount of traffic generated here. A DA score is not a specific factor in Google search results, but it can be a useful device for marketing and improving your content as a whole.
Remaining focused on the website authority of those within your industry can help you improve your own content and reach your target audience easily.
While domain authority is not an official ranking factor for search engines like Google, it is an important tool to determine marketing focus and other aspects of improvement that can be made to your content.
Once you have your domain authority calculated, you can use this rating to highlight areas of improvement on your website to obtain more attention and more traffic online.
As we have mentioned, almost every inquiry these days starts on search engines.
Whether you are looking for goods or services, you will turn to your favorite search engine to find them.
A website’s ability to get noticed through search results is based on its domain authority, which is calculated by specific features across its content and site structure.
Each search you make online leads to thousands of results, which can make it difficult to get noticed. Websites that appear on the first few SERPs are considered to have a high domain rating and, therefore, get the most organic traffic from searches.
Although your DA score is not one of the specific Google ranking factors when it comes to results pages, it does play a big role in how your website performs and whether it will be recommended.
Attempting to get a higher score can lead to improving your ranking on search engine results pages because the two are connected. Search engine ranks are a good authority indicator for users, and appearing as one of the first few links can cause more people to see your website.
Opting to build domain authority by focusing on the various factors that are considered when domain authority is calculated can increase the attention you get online, leading to more customers for your business.
Now that you understand what domain authority is and how it works, it is time to start working on your own website.
Before you can begin working on your domain authority score, you need to know where you currently stand. You should first check domain authority scores for your own website, as well as your closest competitors, to highlight the best techniques you can work on during this time.
There are various ways that you can increase page authority metrics and get a better ranking in search engines, including:
Work On Your Link Profile
As we have mentioned, a website’s link profile is a large part of the domain authority calculation.
Your link data can greatly impact your site’s domain authority and, therefore, requires close attention to improve it.
To build domain authority, you need to work on obtaining high-quality backlinks with other high-authority websites.
Inbound links can be a great tool to increase page authority and also search engine rankings as long as they are high quality. It is possible to share the domain authority from one website to another using links, but only if you work with websites with a similar or higher domain authority score than your own.
It is also important to ensure you are not just working with the same domain when it comes to generating links.
When search engines assess the Link Explorer Web Index for referring domains, they are not only assessing the number of links but also the number of sources. External links to your website need to come from a variety of high-quality sources to have the best effect on your DA score.
Create Quality Content
To generate more external links, you need to have something worth sharing.
This is where content creation comes in, and it is a great tool overall for website owners, but it has a specific role to play in terms of domain authority, too.
Quality content contributes to a website’s authority because it gives the target audience something to talk about. If your content is engaging, informative, and relevant, it is more likely to be shared among your audience as well as easier to pitch to other websites in regards to generating backlinks.
You can not expect people, especially not those with a high page authority, to share your content – essentially recommending it to their audience – if it is not valuable.
This is why content creation is a vital aspect of digital marketing, and it can contribute to your overall search engine ranking score by contributing to your backlink profile.
Not only does great content get more shares, but it also encourages people to spend more time on your website, which translates well to sites like Google when it comes to ranking its results.
Improve Website’s Loading Speed And User Experience
A domain’s score depends on numerous factors, including user experience.
A website that has a slow loading speed and is disorganized, meaning it is therefore not accessible, is not going to perform well on SERPs, nor will it have a high authority score.
You want to ensure that your site is structured in a simple and manageable way, making it easier for users to get what they need and also for Google and similar sites to crawl your content for relevancy.
With so much competition online these days, you want to ensure that people can find what they need from you fast, which is why page loading speed is also important. If they struggle to open content or even get on your website, they will simply go somewhere else, and you are missing out.
You can use domain authority to determine which areas of your website need additional work in terms of user experience and see which pages are being ignored by Google in their crawling.
For ideas regarding a good structure, take the time to assess websites with a comparative metric to your own and use their website layout as inspiration for your own.
Website Improvement Summary
There are various ways you can work on improving your website in terms of domain authority.
It is a good idea to use your own authority metrics as a starting point and see which areas need the most attention. Moving forward, you can also access your closest competitors and see how the websites in your niche perform well based on authority and relevancy.
Although your DA score is not a specific factor used by Google in terms of its ranking results, it does play a large part in how your website performs in results and how much traffic you can obtain through this avenue.
In Conclusion
In this guide, we have answered the common query of what is domain authority and how it can work for your website.
Domain authority measures how your website will rank on SERPs and, therefore, how much traffic can be obtained from this particular platform. Although it is not an official ranking factor on Google, it is a good metric to keep track of as it can highlight areas that require additional attention on your website as well as focus your marketing efforts.
Websites with a high DA are considered to be the best results and get the most traffic.
To improve your business and ensure you are getting the attention you desire online, you need to continually improve your domain authority.
Searcharoo is a Link Building & Content Marketing company run by SEO’s based in the UK.
Our goal from the start has been to provide premium links and content services, at fair and affordable prices.
