Domain authority is a search engine ranking score that predicts how well a website will perform in organic search results.

A domain with a high authority score is more likely to rank higher in search results, while a domain with a low authority score is less likely to rank. So, how can you increase your domain authority?

Keep reading to discover ten steps to increase your domain authority score and boost your website’s ranking on Google!

What Is Domain Authority And Page Authority?

Domain Authority (DA) is a metric created by Moz that measures the strength of your domain. This score is determined by analyzing a domain’s backlinks, age, domain-level content relevance, and domain size.

The higher your DA score, the more likely you are to rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).

A good domain authority score is about 50, and one of 80 or higher is considered excellent.

Here are more details:

• Poor: 0 to 30
• Below Average: 30 to 40
• Average: 40 to 50
• Good: 50 to 60
• Very Good: 60 to 70
• Excellent: Above 80

However, it is essential to note that the domain authority score is one of many factors determining how well a website will rank on SERPs.

Several other factors must be considered, such as the website’s content, targeted keywords, and overall SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Page authority measures the strength of a single page on your domain. It is determined by analyzing the number of quality backlinks pointing to that page, domain-level content relevance, domain age, domain size, and other factors.

Both domain and page authority are important for SEO because they help determine your website’s visibility on SERPs.

How Is Domain Authority Calculated?

Domain authority is calculated by taking into account different factors, such as:

Domain Age: which is determined by the number of months a domain has been registered. The older the domain, the higher the domain authority score.

Quality And Number Of Backlinks: The number of higher-authoritative websites you have linking to yours. Getting a link from a domain that is related to yours and has a DA of 70 or more will impact your domain authority more than getting a link from a domain with less authority.

Content Relevance: The content on your domain must be relevant to the domain you’re trying to increase domain authority. For example, if your domain is about healthcare, you should create content related to healthcare topics.

Domain Size: The number of pages and subpages on your domain also affects domain authority. It is crucial to create relevant domain-level content containing the keywords users are searching for.

Nowadays, Google uses over 200 different factors when ranking websites. Domain authority is just one of them. It is important to remember that domain authority can be improved, but it will take time.

It takes time to increase domain authority and to get your domain ranking higher on SERPs.

Why Is Domain Authority Important For SEO?

Domain authority is essential for SEO and helps increase website visibility in Google search results. Let’s go more in-depth:

1) Web Pages Rank Better

Web page ranking is significantly improved when domain authority is higher. When domain authority is higher, web pages rank better in SERPs, leading to more organic search engine traffic.

2) SEO Scores Improve

Your domain authority can also be used as a metric for improving overall SEO scores. A domain with a high authority score usually has higher domain-level content relevance and more backlinks, affecting SEO scores.

3) Increased Visibility

Having a high DA score also means that your domain is more visible to search engine crawlers, which can increase your website’s visibility.

4) Improve Social Media Presence

Domain authority can also improve your domain’s presence on social media platforms. A domain with a higher authority score is likelier to get noticed by users and increase engagement.

How Fast Can You Increase Your Domain Authority?

If you have a new website, domain authority won’t be built overnight. It takes time to improve domain authority and to get your domain ranking higher on SERPs.

The exact amount of time varies from domain to domain. But for a new website, your domain authority often takes at least six months to increase.

Your DA only grows as long as you work on the proper steps, which I will explain shortly.

How Can You Check Your Website Domain Authority?

You have several DA checker tools available online to help you measure your website’s domain authority.

Moz’s domain authority tool is a popular option that can be used to monitor and track domain authority scores over time.

You can also use it to analyze the domain authority of other websites in your niche, allowing you to uncover new link-building opportunities.

Ubersuggest is another domain authority checker tool that you can use to track domain authority scores and gain insights into the domain’s performance in search engine results pages (SERPs).

It can be used to compare your website’s domain authority with other websites, helping you identify areas where you need to focus your efforts.

By tracking domain authority and understanding how it works, you can ensure your website is optimized for SEO and increase your domain’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). You can improve the site’s domain authority score over time with the right strategies.

So let’s look at some key steps you can take to improve your domain authority.

How Can You Increase Your Domain Authority Score?

Increasing domain authority is a process that takes time and effort. You can achieve this by following the next ten steps.

1) Create High-Quality Content

You should create high-quality content. People sometimes think a good blog post must be written like a Hemingway book. But it does not have to be that complicated. It just needs to be easy to read and answer the person’s search query as best as possible.

Meanwhile, the post needs to be properly optimized for the search engines. This means making sure the content has enough keywords, subheadings, images, and external links. But everything should sound natural and not forced.

This means that if someone reads your post, they will not think you are trying to make it look better for search engines.

2) Build Strong Backlinks

Getting strong backlinks from other websites that are relevant to your domain can significantly boost your domain authority. You want to get links from websites that have more authority than yours.

In other words, if you have a new website with DA 20, you don’t want to get links from a domain with DA 10.

You can start by reaching out to other websites in your niche with a DA score over 40, offering to write a guest post. Initially, guest posting is the best link-building strategy. It can help your website quickly build some authority.

I also recommend using Linkio. This software is designed to help professionals with their cold outreach and prospecting.

It will help you work more efficiently and save time. Click here to get more information about Linkio.

Once your website gets some traction, your audience will build links naturally. Furthermore, other sites will want to link to your domain as they will see you as an authoritative domain in the niche.

If you want to learn more about how to get high-quality backlinks, keep reading here.

3) Easy Navigation and Good Site Structure

You should ensure that your website is easy to navigate, has a good structure and shows MVP meaning of your business. This will improve the user experience, making it easier for them to find what they are looking for in your domain.

Your pages should be two to three clicks away from the homepage. This helps your visitors find what they are looking for quickly and easily. But also allows the search engines to crawl and index your newer web pages.

I suggest using Screaming Frog SEO Spider Website Crawler. This tool will help you quickly see your site’s structure, find broken links, and more. You can use it to see how your website is structured and find any broken links that may hurt your domain authority score.

4) Optimize Your Website For Mobile

Optimizing for mobile will improve the DA and overall user experience. In 2021, 4.32 billion people used the internet on their phones. This means that more than 9 out of 10 people who go online use a mobile phone to access the internet.

So it makes sense to have a website that looks great on mobile devices. You should use a responsive design that automatically adjusts the content to the user’s device.

Furthermore, people who use mobiles often don’t have much time and patience, so you should make sure your domain loads quickly on mobile to avoid frustrations.

5) Internal Linking

Using internal links is a great way to increase domain authority. This will help search engines better understand your domain and allow visitors to explore more pages on your domain.

You should link to other pieces of content on your domain when it makes sense. This will help the search engines understand which pages are more important and increase their DA score.

For example, if you have a blog post about “What Are Linking Root Domains?” you can link to this post when you talk about domain authority or any other related topic.

6) Website Uploading Time

Search engines consider domain loading time while calculating domain authority.

If your domain loads quickly, it will improve user experience and ensure that the search engines can crawl and index your pages more efficiently.

You should use a content delivery network (CDN) to make sure that your domain loads quickly from around the world.

You can use Cloudflare for this, as it is free for most users. If you’re using WordPress, you can use a plugin like WP Rocket to improve domain loading time.

Install a light theme and optimize your images to ensure the domain loads as quickly as possible.

My favorite theme is the Astra theme combined with Elementor Pro. Astra is a lightweight WordPress theme that comes with lots of customization options. Although Elementor is a fantastic drag-and-drop page builder, it has the potential to slow your website uploading time.

So be careful when installing page builders and only install the necessary plugins. Often the more plugins you have, the slower your website uploads.

You can quickly test your website speed using tools like Pingdom, GTmetrix, and Google PageSpeed Insights.

7) On-Page SEO

I mentioned crucial on-page SEO factors such as uploading time and internal linking. However, there are some other things you should consider.

You should see each article you have written as an opportunity to improve your domain authority. For this reason, it is important to optimize each page for SEO.

This includes adding the correct meta titles and descriptions, keyword research, image optimization, and more.

Nowadays, good SEO isn’t about spamming the same keyword over and over again. Instead, you should focus on creating content relevant to search intent. Or in other words, create content that answers users’ queries.

Also, sprinkle related keywords throughout your post. This will help search engines understand your content better.

8) Monitor Your Domain Authority Score

To monitor your domain authority score, you should use domain authority tracking tools such as Moz Domain Authority Checker or Ahrefs Domain Rating.

This will give you an indication of how well your domain is performing in terms of domain authority and also overall SEO efforts.

It’s a good idea to review your domain’s performance every few months and make any necessary changes to increase domain authority.

There are other metrics that can be measured, such as page authority, domain citation flow, and domain trust flow. You should also check these metrics regularly and try to improve them.

Keeping all of these points in mind, you should be able to boost your DA quickly.

9) Create Link Bait Content

If you have a website where you write posts about your products or someone else’s products, visitors and other website owners are not likely to link back to your site.

For this reason, you need to create link-worthy content. I call this link bait content. You should create content that is interesting and valuable to the readers.

Link bait content can include animated infographics, data-driven articles, interviews with key influencers in your industry, as well as videos and other interactive elements.

I enjoy writing extensive list posts like “53 Laziest Ways To Make Money Online For Beginners.” This content will encourage readers to share and link to your domain.

If you’re writing posts for other websites, you can link to these posts in the guest posts. As a result, this will improve your website’s DA as well.

10) Reduce the Website’s Bounce Rate

If a domain’s bounce rate is high, it may indicate that site visitors stay only a short time. This could be because the domain is slow or there is little content on the page.

You should always ensure that your domain loads quickly and that you have interesting content on each page.

Here are some tips to help you:

1. Avoid misleading post titles and descriptions, as this will lead to people bouncing away from your domain.
2. For instance, you have a post titled “11 Best Link Building Strategies,” but the post only covers 4 of them. This will lead to a high bounce rate for this domain and a low domain authority score.
3. You should include your content in different formats. Not everyone enjoys reading a huge blog post, or they don’t have the time. For these visitors, consider adding a video or audio version of your content.
4. This will help keep visitors on your domain for longer and reduce the bounce rate.
5. Use tools such as Hotjar or Google Analytics to help analyze the visitor’s journey on your domain and identify pages with high bounce rates. Once identified, you should improve those pages to reduce the domain’s overall bounce rate.

Wrap Up

Domain authority is one of many factors determining how well your website will rank on search engine results pages.

One important thing you should remember is not to stress.

It takes time to build domain authority. It’s essential to be patient and keep in mind that domain authority is just one of the many ranking factors search engines are looking at.

You should focus on creating good content and obtaining quality links rather than fretting over domain authority scores.

Building a successful blog is a game of patience. There will be times when you’ll wonder why the domain authority score isn’t going up. Don’t worry!

Just keep doing your job, and you will eventually succeed!

About the Writer

Jordan Alexo is a digital marketer who’s been making money online since 2011. He specializes in self-publishing, content creation and teaching others how to do the same thing he does best! He inspires you on his website with strategies that have worked for him and product reviews that help you grow your online business.