Importance of Domain Authority in SEO: Should you Increase DA?

Google, the biggest search engine in the world, denies domain authority as a ranking factor. But if you could see top-ranking pages on SERPs, one thing is common! That is higher domain authority!

If you are into SEO, the Domain Authority (DA) is something you should never skip. Google on one end denies such a thing while ranks websites with higher domain authority at the top.

In fact, domain authority is one of the main link building metrics.

Before moving to the original topic, you might need to know what exactly it is and why it matters for your website’s success.

In this guide, I will explain DA in simple words and break down ideas linked to this term. Then we will further move to why it is crucial for your site and how to increase the DA of a website.

You will get to know everything you should know as a webmaster or as a beginner. This guide will help you learn about:

• Domain authority & its importance
• Whether you should care about domain authority
• Common mistakes to avoid

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What Is Domain Authority?

Domain Authority (DA) is a standard that was introduced by “Rand Fishkin” to predict the ranking capability of a particular website.

It helps to find out how well a website will rank on search engines like Google.

There are scores on a scale from 1 to 100 that help to measure the DA.

The higher your DA, the more authoritative and credible your website appears to both users and search engines.

On the other hand, the lower your DA, the more spammy or low-credible your website seems to users and Google.

But we cannot say that DA is the only direct ranking factor in the eyes of Google, yet it matters strongly with higher rankings.

That’s why most webmasters aim to boost their DA as part of their comprehensive SEO strategy.

Why Is Domain Authority Important?

Here are 3 main points that exactly explain why domain authority matters:

1. Better Rankings: The higher DA websites typically rank higher in search results by Google. It also helps in bringing more organic traffic to the website.
2. Stronger Backlink Profile: A high DA is something that portrays you have a good backlinks profile and also contributes to the credibility of the website in the eyes of Google and its users.
3. Competitive Edge: If your competitors have lower DA and you have higher DA, it is obvious that you will outperform them in the search engine rankings.

How Is Domain Authority Calculated?

As the standard was developed by Moz, so its calculation is also defined by them. Moz calculates DA using several different factors. However, here are the key elements that matter to calculate DA:

1. Backlink Quality: The quality of backlinks should be high, as it passes link juice to boost your DA.
2. Link Building: The number of backlinks on the website and the diversity of those backlinks also play an important role.
3. Domain Age: The age of domains is crucial, as the older domains mainly have higher authority.
4. Content Quality: The higher the quality of content on your website, the more it satisfies the purpose of users. This further contributes to better rankings and higher DA.
5. Toxic Backlinks: You should get rid of these low-quality backlinks. These backlinks negatively impact and can harm your DA.

It is obvious that we cannot control all the above-mentioned factors at once. However, we can focus on getting quality backlinks and better off-page SEO. These two are the key elements, and they will help you improve your DA significantly.

How to Increase Domain Authority

As we have already covered the basics of domain authority, now it's time for the actual topic, which is about the actionable strategies to increase the DA of your website.

1. Build High-Quality Backlinks

The Domain Authority depends mainly on the backlinks, just like our backbone. However, backlinks are of different types and not all backlinks are good.. You should always focus on the following two aspects:

Focus on Quality: Always try to look for the backlinks from the high-authority websites, but they also need to be in your niche. Let’s take an example: A backlink from Forbes carries more weight compared to a backlink within a blog comment on an irrelevant website!

Avoid Toxic Backlinks: It is better to avoid links from spammy or irrelevant sites. They can negatively hurt your website’s authority. I recommend you use tools like Moz or Ahrefs to identify toxic backlinks and get rid of them immediately.

Pro Tip: You should create link-worthy content. The content with detailed guides, infographics, and original research attracts backlinks naturally from high-quality websites.

2. Improve Your On-Page SEO

People mainly focus on off-page SEO when we talk about DA, but the reality is that on-page SEO has a big role in affecting the domain authority.

Follow the below-given points to keep your website optimized with respect to on-page SEO:

• Optimize Keywords: Always try your best to use relevant and high-intent keywords in your content. They should also come in titles and meta descriptions.
• Improve Page Speed: Google loves faster websites. These websites offer better user experiences, and it makes them rank higher.
• Use Structured Data: As we all know, click-through rates improve when we have rich snippets. It also contributes to enhancing the credibility of your website.

3. Focus on Internal Linking

Link equity develops when we properly distribute the internal linking on our website. This further improves the authority of key pages and in turn, increases domain authority.

Pro Tip: You should create a logical site structure. The structure where each page supports the others from high to low preferences. If you structure your links from high-traffic pages to less-visited ones, it will boost the visibility of all pages.

4. Audit and Remove Low-Quality Backlinks

If you have a pretty old website, then there is a 90% chance that it will have some low-quality backlinks. This might not happen if you keep it maintained from time to time. These links can decrease your website’s authority and damage your DA.

Pro Tip: You can use tools like Google Search Console, Moz, or Ahrefs. All of these help to identify harmful links. After that, you can submit a disavow file to Google. This will further prevent those links from affecting your rankings.

5. Create High-Quality Content

Content is always the king when there is any matter regarding the website and its SEO. The same is the case with the domain authority. The better your content quality, the more likely other sites are to link to it.

Pro Tip: You need to focus on writing comprehensive and high-demand content that solves problems for your audience. Moreover, you can include visuals like charts, graphs, and infographics to make your content more engaging.

6. Improve your website’s technical SEO

Search engines crawl mainly websites that have great and up-to-date technical SEO. This helps to make sure that there is smooth indexing of your site on the search engines. In order to improve the technical SEO of your website to increase domain authority, follow these steps:

• Fix Broken Links: You should look for any broken links first, as they waste the link equity in your website and create a bad user experience.
• Use HTTPS: you should make sure that you have a secure website. It helps to rank higher and build trust with users.
• Mobile Friendliness: You should optimize your site pages for mobile friendliness. This makes sure that the overall website looks and works great on all devices.

7. Leverage Social Signals

This is the most underrated factor to increase DA, but believe me, it is worth the effort. It may not directly but indirectly boost your SEO efforts. Social media holds so much power to boost the website traffic and, in turn, the domain authority by linking with social channels.

Pro Tip: You can share your content on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook. It helps to drive traffic and attract quality backlinks. You can also focus on building relationships with influencers who can share your content with their audience.

8. Maintain Consistency and Patience

Someone said it right that consistency is key, and it applies to increasing domain authority as well. This process never happens overnight or in a few days. It takes consistent effort, high-quality content, and months of focus on link-building.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

If you are one of those who go for the shortcuts, then increasing DA is not for you. SEO isn’t just about building backlinks.

There’s so much in it and as an SEO specialist, you should work with a proper link building strategy.

Here are some common mistakes related to DA which you should avoid:

1. Building all types of backlinks without knowing their impact.
2. Using one link building method and totally relying on it. For instance, your web 2.0 backlinks strategy should be to diversify backlink profile. If you rely on this technique solely, you’re not helping your website in the long run.
3. Buying backlinks from freelancers or backlinks sellers. Oftentimes they sell low-quality links that Google identifies and takes a strict action against.
4. Creating so many backlinks in a short span of time.
5. Only considering domain authority as a main metric and not considering others.
6. Ignoring content and speed related issues of the website before creating backlinks.

These are some of the common mistakes SEOs or new website owners often make. Instead of this, visit Repute Post and find high authority websites within your niche to buy guest posts and link insertions.

Since we manually approve each website after looking at its organic performance, it will help your website get the authority it is required to rank number one on Google.

Tools to Help You Track Domain Authority

I know there is no other way to measure the DA and keep tracking the authority from time to time. But, there are some tools that you can use to find what the domain authority of your website is.

Moz, Ahrefs, Semrush, Ubersuggest are some of the top online tools that you can use for finding your website’s domain authority.

Your website’s domain authority will not be the same on all these websites and their tools. All of them use different formulas and names for “authority”. So, don’t confuse this.

In case your website’s DA is less, try to build genuine backlinks. Quality guest posts and niche edits service is usually a better way to get authority in less time.

The authority increases slowly as it takes time for Google to trust a website. Therefore, be patient and keep on working hard.

Wrapping up

You all must have got the idea by reading the whole article that it is not an easier thing to increase domain authority. However, without building authority, you cannot attain the love of the audience and search engines, especially Google.

You should never ignore quality backlinks, mobile friendliness, and optimizing your SEO to get the boosted DA. I used to believe that off-page is more important, but when it comes to DA, on-page has its own importance.

Moreover, keep avoiding harmful practices if you want to achieve your goal. In the end, all I can say is that consistency is the main element, and long-term strategies are beneficial. It will not happen overnight; rather, it takes 6-12 months of consistent SEO efforts to increase your domain’s authority and rank on search engines.

Start implementing these strategies today, and watch your DA climb over time!