DA, SERP, or SS. In the field of search engine optimization, we like to use abbreviations. There are plenty of indicators and indexes on this topic, slowly as much as that we can be completely confused as to which indicator exactly means what, or which indicator is worth paying attention to. For example, many experts claim that SS (Spam Score) is a negligible indicator, but some say that it is useful to watch it. However, everyone agrees that the DA (Domain Authority) is an important metric. If so many people already agree with this then you definitely need to deal with it, right? Of course, you have to! Now we will show you what domain authority is and how you can increase that.
What is DA?
The domain authority is a metric developed by Moz that shows the strength of the domain. To put it a little more, it shows how much the domain is expected to rank in a high position in the search engine results list. We often hear in the public belief that the higher DA the better, is that so true? Basically yes, we can say this, since the higher DA value means that your website will be titled as a strong, useful or reliable page. That is what everyone wants, isn’t it? Obviously, everyone wants to achieve this, but remember to always consider this metric in relation to the theme of your website.
It does not make sense to compare the domain authority of an online marketing website to that of a car refurbishment page, for example. The value of 30 DA may already be good in the field of online marketing, but it cannot be ruled out that in another area this value is very low. Also, keep in mind that this value is on a scale of 0 to 100, and just Google has a value of 100.
Note that this metric can change fastly. Many factors can affect that, such as:
- SEO activities of other sites
- The appearance or termination of pages
- The quantity and quality of new links to your website
- Or just the termination of the links
It should be thought of as the stock market where the value of each security can change every second. For this reason, we draw your attention to the fact that achieving a high DA value cannot be the goal of SEO, precisely because of this constant change. Domain rating shows only a momentary strength, which can be useful when you analyze your competitors and in the field of link-building activity.
Watch out for your competitors
Now you know what is the point of DA, now we show you how you can increase the value of this metric.
Always know what competition you are in. You need to assess your competitors to know what situation you are in, in the market. By examining this, you can assess how the DA level of your website qualifies.
Suppose you get a low value, in which case you do not have to be scared, as the solution may be there in front of your nose. Continue to focus on your competitors, because you can learn a lot from them.
- The first thing to do is look at the structure of their website. Here you have to ask yourself, what are the factors that may make visitors find them more useful? Is its structure more logical, or do they share more useful or longer content? Do they have better partners than you? You need to ask yourself such and similar questions when you are watching the structure of a competitor’s side and you need to filter the conclusions from the differences on your own site.
- You may also want to monitor the size of your competitor’s pages. Believe it or not, the page size can matter a lot. A larger page with more features and more content – which is also relevant – suggests much more credibility and increases the value of your page. This is also positive feedback for search engines, and with this method, there is a bigger opportunity that your visitors will link to your page. Let us not forget that in addition to the increase in DA, it can also make the conversion funnel fluid. It can reduce the number of potential jams and can also increase your conversion rate.
Essential do-follow links
In the field of SEO, we can distinguish between no-follow and do-follow links. If you want to increase the strength of your domain, you need to focus on do-follow links. Here is a little overview of what the difference is between the two citation types:
- No-follow links: These links do not help to make your website more valuable or stronger. They communicate to search engine robots that a particular link has to be ignored. These can be citations that appear in paid ads. Moreover, it is important to only use a no-follow link for paid ads, since Google will penalize you if not this type appears on your ad.
- Do-follow links: These are the links that can give link power. They indicate to search engines that the link can be valuable and relevant to the topic. All links that are manually embedded – such as a link on a blog interface and anchor text – can be listed here.
In order to have a bigger DA, you need to look at the link profile of your page. The easiest tool to check this is the Google Search Console, but there are plenty of other free backlink checkers. You should aim for the vast majority of the links listed to be do-follow, as we already mentioned these are the ones that can add value to your site. If you see that not these links dominate, you may have to agree with partner sites and write guest posts or exchange links with them. In a word, you should start link building. You should start by googling for phrases like “write for us automotive“, or any other niche you`re interested.
In this case, it is also advisable to look at the links profile of the competitors, as this way you can see from which sites they get their do-follow ones, and with this, you can more easily compile a database of potential partners.
Quality or quantity
Although the two words are very similar in writing, they are completely different in meaning. But we think you knew that before. However, when we talk about DA value, we can also find differences between the two words.
If you want to increase your DA level then try to achieve the quality and not quantity. This is the basis of link building. Just imagine yourself in a situation:
- You are looking for information on how you can increase your website’s domain authority. You will find a page where articles appear daily on the blog interface and there is a lot of content on the topic, but none of the articles provide a comprehensive, complete answer to your question. You will then find another page where there are fewer articles, but a contribution carries all the information you may need. It uses informative images, gives examples.
We think you would choose higher quality content, and other people who are looking for information on that topic have the same opinion. More people will link to quality content, which will increase the number of do-follow links. And what do more useful links mean? You think well, that means an increase in the DA index. Of course, search engines also rate quality better.
We recommend that you analyze which sub-page is the most popular in the circle of links on your own page, and you should check your competitors’ popular pages too. This way, you can get a comprehensive picture of what quality content is like on the topic of your page, and you can improve if you see a discrepancy.
Avoid error codes
Error code 404 is everyone’s nightmare. Did you think it could also affect the strength of your domain? It can affect, in a negative direction.
If you do not want your useful external links to become useless, just because one of your subpages is no longer found then you should definitely deal with it. It is a bit of hard work, but it is worth it.
- First, analyze how many links point to your subpage from another page.
- Then check one by one to see if that subpage is still available.
- If you find a page with error code 404, enter it in a table.
- The repair process can begin, remove or make the page available again.
Now you might think it is OK, but Google does not even consider how many 404 pages I have. Why should I deal with that? You are right about that, Google does not really take into account the number of pages with error messages, however, it does look at the bounce rate on that page. And an error message can increase this value exponentially.
Google considers pages with high bounce rates as unreliable and of a poor quality website and this will obviously cause a decrease in the DA value. You can find countless great, completely free tools for this. All you have to do is to type “dead link checker” or “broken link checker” in your browser.
Link building activity
As we mentioned, Google’s current algorithm shows that your external links play a key role in increasing domain authority. Why not invest energy in increasing the number of these links? We recommend that you have to definitely work on it. If you want to increase the number of external links, you have two options.
Guest posts
Many people do not understand what a blog interface is good for. We have also heard that – “nobody reads it anyway”. First of all, we want to point out that blogging is really useful and popular. From where do people want to get knowledge right away? Of course, about the Internet, including blogs, where they can find information on specific topics. We add that quality content is very important for this.
But why is it useful to you? A blog interface is a great place for your external links. You have the option of posting articles to various relevant partner sites on their blog interface which also includes a link to one of your subpages. Here, it is important that the link cannot stand alone, an anchor text must contain this. The anchor text has to match the content of the link, so – for example, a text that “everything you need to know about fishing” cannot include a link to a real estate website.
In addition, care must be taken to make the text as natural as possible, as well as the placement of links.
Link exchange
Link swap means almost the same as a guest post. The only difference is that you do not have to write an article here, but you place a link that points to your page in a previous blog post on the partner page. You choose a keyword and a link will be placed on it. Of course, as its name implies, it is an exchange, so you have to do the same, it is a win-win situation.
We recommend that you compile a database of potential partner sites with which you can exchange links or accept guest articles, and keep in touch with them at regular intervals to keep the number of your external links growing.
Too high spam score
When talking about link building, it is important to mention whether it is a problem if the partner side has a high SS value? We recommend that you take this into account, as it does not matter what pages link to you. But first of all, what is SS?
Spam score indicator shows the percentage of penalized web pages by Google with similar content, structure, and operation. However, it is important to emphasize that this does not necessarily mean that the site is unreliable or poorly structured, or spammy. It is also important to note that a high SS value does not affect the DA score, so, a page with a high SS point may still have a DA value of 70.
MOZ evaluates this indicator by:
- 1-30% is a low value
- 31-60% is a medium value
- 61-100% is a high value
However, in the field of link building, it can be an important indicator. We recommend that you do not send guest posts or do not swap links with pages that have an SS value above 30%. Above 30% we consider it a medium or high value. We add that be sure to check that page beforehand, since a higher value may not be bad at all. Check what content is on the page, check the structure of the site, and you may have to look at the links to the page. If you do not find them appropriate, do not make a partnership with them, since your DA may decrease and your SS value may also increase.
If a page with a high SS value links to you, it can even degrade the reliability value of your website, and your DA value may decrease over time.
Back to marketing basics
Who said you cannot use marketing communications to increase DA? Communication is a perfect tool to promote the content of your website. Here, we would focus primarily on the opportunities provided by social media, as this is perhaps the most obvious form of advertising in the life of an online business. Promoting your content on social networking sites is important because it can increase traffic to your site, which in itself is a good sign if you want to increase the strength of your domain. But with this method, you can increase the number of people referring to you in the same way.
For this to be successful, it is important to advertise your content on platforms that are relevant to you. For example, if you want to promote a web analytics page, you might have to promote in groups that have related questions – such as how to run an A / B test successfully. These will be the groups who can actually read one of your blog posts and later even link to your page as a useful site.
As we mentioned, you will need to use a no-follow link here, otherwise, Google will penalize you. The convenience here is not even about having a do-follow link, but about showing people that you are a quality, useful site. To do this, you obviously need to have relevant and high-quality content that can be interesting for even a website with a higher DA score later.
Another benefit of advertising on social media is that if your website has a product or service, the number of your customers can increase.
Conclusion
Increasing domain authority is a very complex and long process. You should always make a plan before you get into this process since you can easily get lost in it. Keep in mind, however, that the difficulty of improving this value increases exponentially. So a page with a DA value of 30 is harder to reach a value of 35, however, a page with a DA value of 10 will be much easier to reach a value of 20.
Also, keep in mind that the strength of a domain also depends on the theme of the page, so do not be scared if your website has a value of 20. This is an indicator that can constantly change, and you do not want to increase your value at all costs, just remember, you cannot build your whole SEO campaign on this.
Be careful not to overdo link building, as if a page links to you too often, Google will perceive it as a detrimental thing.
We hope we can help.
