Domain Authority (DA) is a crucial piece of the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) puzzle. If you’re working on creating or improving an SEO campaign, it’s probably safe to say you’re already looking for ways to increase it as well. DA is a metric developed by Moz that determines a site’s overall authority in its area and its potential usefulness to users. Sites with higher authority are more likely to rank high in search engine results and will, therefore, receive more traffic.
A site’s overall DA score is the most important one for influencing its placement in search engine results, but there are individual page rankings as well. You can use a bulk DA checker as a way to see your site’s highest ranking content and develop ways to repeat that success. Before you can seriously think about making improvements to your DA, however, you’ll need to know how it’s calculated and how to take the information.
What determines DA?
DA is represented on a scale of 1 to 100. The higher the score, the more trustworthy a site is considered, and it will receive higher placement in search engines. Scoring gets much more competitive in the 70-80 range, so it is significantly easier to improve a site’s DA when it’s lower. The overall score is largely determined by the amount of backlinks incorporated into an authority and linked content. Generating unique backlinks will typically improve your score more, and other sites linking to your content will often raise it as well. Generally, the higher the quality of content on your site, the higher your DA will be.
It may sound extremely difficult to improve DA scores, especially in the higher ranges. It’s important to note that DA is a comparative measure of quality rather than an absolute one, though. You can’t very well launch a competition against the entire internet, and you luckily don’t have to. To get a high placement in search results, you just need a higher DA than your direct competitors. Stand out amongst the sites in your general focus area, and you’ll see your traffic increase.
Directly influencing DA
A wide variety of factors are taken into determining a DA score, and because of this, it can be tricky to reliably influence the process. This is by design, as search engine results are so competitive, Moz wanted their metric to be highly competitive to simulate the process.
One of the most reliable ways to influence your DA is by improving your link building. Use external links sparingly and with purpose. If you’re frequently linking to outside sources without others linking back to your content in return, you’re essentially pushing users away from your own content. You can also build backlinks by creating guest content on other sites. Lastly, you need to evaluate your backlinks to determine their usefulness. For example, some search engines consider paid links or links from games to be harmful.
It’s also a good idea to increase your site’s dwell time. This refers to the amount of time a user spends on your webpage before clicking back into search engine results. The more time users spend on your site, the better your rankings will be. Increased dwell time also means users are more likely to explore your site further. You can increase dwell time by creating longer posts, linking relevant information and videos underneath posts and setting external links to open in new tabs.
Lastly, it’s important to keep up to date on any changes to the algorithms that determine DA. New algorithms are always announced, so you’ll have time to update your strategy as time goes on if necessary.
