What is domain authority and can you increase your score?
It’s an SEO numbers game and to win you gotta get the highest score! Domain authority is a 1 – 100 scoring system and was created to help predict how well a website can rank on Google, using a similar algorithm to how Google ranks a website. The aim of the game is to score high… the higher the number the better your Google rank.
So how does domain authority work?
As we say, the system is similar to Google’s method of ranking websites, but don’t go thinking you can get a ‘ton-up’ from the get-go, for instance – Google and Facebook have a score of (just) 99!
As your domain authority score gets higher, it’ll get harder to continue climbing the ladder and increasing your score:
- If you’re a new website on a fresh domain, in twelve months your score will increase from 0 to 10.
- Going from 10 to 20 will require some more work – refresh your content regularly – blogging helps!
- 20 to 30 is where you need to put some extra effort in – start optimising your content and engage in digital marketing practices that will bring more traffic to your website.
- If you want to increase your score from 30, you need to continuously optimise your website and add new content weekly. Gaining backlinks will also do a lot for your domain authority.
What is a good domain authority score?
A ‘good’ score is relative and depends on your business, product or industry. If your competitors have a high score of, say 73, you know that you have some work to do to match or beat that. However, if they have a domain authority of 25, you can employ some simple, good practice steps (we can help) and you will soon outrank them and start to dominate the rankings in your field… let’s go!
How can you increase domain authority?
As above there are lots of practices you (or we) can do continuously that can increase your domain authority over time, but below are the two most vital tasks that will be the foundation of all work to increase your domain authority.
Content
Regularly create quality content, that relates to your channel and your clients or customers. If you sell shoes on your website, write about footwear! For example, you can write an article about the latest style or innovation in trainers or a how-to guide to getting sizing right for walking boots.
When you create quality content, Google will crawl your website much more often. If you don’t update, Google will get bored (as that’s what your audience will do) and will be crawling your website less often.
Top Tip: Stay on target!
Ensure that everything you’re writing and creating is related to your business, its services and your customer base.
Don’t stray – your authority score is based on your niche, focus on that.
All Google wants to do is send its customers to the best content that relates to their search term – keep that in mind and you can’t go too far wrong.
Backlinks and referrals
As above, if other sites or social platforms link to your website it tells Google that your content is really trustworthy and you are experts that are worth linking to, as a result, you’ll score higher on your domain authority.
You should try to get mentions on media and news sites – those with high readership or that are relevant to your business such as industry publications (Design Week for us). If a website with high domain authority mentions you, that will increase your domain authority too. Experts recommending experts, again – Google loves this.
Where can you find your domain authority score?
So having read this far you are probably keen to find out your website’s current domain authority score, you need a domain authority checker. The two leading sites for this are:
Check your competitor’s domain authority
Whilst you are at Semrush.com check out your competition’s score, this will give you something to aim for and a good gauge of how much work you need (or may not need) to do. Also, if you want to do some link building, check the domain authority of the website you have in mind to link to and see how link-worthy their website is and if it’s worth engaging them.
We can help you improve your search ranking and domain authority score
As (we hope) you can tell by reading this article we know our SEO onions – so if you want some help with increasing your domain authority or wider SEO or digital marketing, just give us a shout – we’d love to help!