10 min read
The success of your website depends on a combination of good practices including good SEO and domain authority, among other things. Knowing how to improve your SEO and Google ranking score largely comes down to knowing how to optimize your site and understanding the changes needed to improve site performance.
In general, in the most basic sense, the domain authority of a site is how reliable and reputable it is considered to be by search engines, Google above all others. Some might argue that while the domain authority of a site is just one of many factors that play into overall success, it is the part of a website that requires continual monitoring and effort.
To really improve your domain authority, you first need to understand what it is, how it works, and the steps you need to take to continually build your score.
What is Domain Authority?
If you’ve never heard of it before, you might be asking yourself what is domain authority. In summary, it is a numerical evaluation of a website that is calculated for search engines by looking at multiple factors in order to rank and compare websites. A website’s score is ranked from one to one hundred, the higher your number value, the better your domain authority is. For example:
(Image Credit: WebFX)
Other websites, search engines, and users consult the domain authority of a page in order to gauge the reputation and level of trust placed into a site. When it comes to search engines, domain authority is particularly important because it will determine where and how your site is ranked in search results. The better your score, the higher up a piece related to a particular search will be. So essentially, multiple pieces on the same topic are compared by domain authority scores that give each site comparable reputation values.
The many factors that play into determining your score include many small, but vital, site elements that collectively can be improved in order to raise your score. Everything from the number of links into and out of your website to the quality of your content to site load speed can change your score. Because of this, constantly improving and learning about the things that can improve your score are necessary to stay on top of.
How Do I Use a Domain Authority Checker?
To use a domain authority checker you will need to enter the homepage url of the website you are trying to check. Moz is the most commonly accepted and the authority on providing you with the best information you are looking for. Generally, both the page authority and domain authority are given at the same time by the tools that check for this information. There is plenty of additional information given that you can gather and analyze at the same time too. For instance:
(Image Credit: Moz)
The number that is given on it’s own can only provide so much information, but when it is ranked with results from similar searches you get the best idea of how well your site is performing. In addition to comparing this information when you initially gather it, continue to collect and compare domain authority over a matter of time. Use the first number gathered as your base point, and over time watch for this number to increase as updates are made. Make sure you go on to compare your base score to the base score of other sites. Then compare how your DA grows compared to comparable websites.
Finally, it is especially important to remember that these numbers will constantly change. Domain authority fluctuates up and down each time the information is updated by search engines. This is normal, and leaves room for constant improvement and tweaking. While the number is important to the success of your site, it is not an end all number and can always be improved.
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Do I Need Moz Domain Authority Checker?
Moz domain authority checker is not the only tool that can provide you with domain authority, or DA, but it is the leading provider of this information. Moz created the algorithm that is used to create a site’s DA score. It also created the tools that were first used by website owners and marketers interested in this information. Therefore, it makes sense that most people use the moz checker to gather this information for themselves.
There are other sites that can do most of the same ranking using their own algorithms, but they all work the same as moz and gather essentially the same information. The presentation of the information gathered is what differs, making these other tools either more or less user friendly or comprehensive. One of these other sites is SEO Review Tools and it looks like this:
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(Image Credit: SEO Review Tools)
Another website that has a domain authority tool is Diib, for example:
Moz domain authority checker is available for use free on a limited basis, but to really get the full use out of the tool you will need to purchase a subscription. Serious website builders and marketers come to rely on the information they gather and glean from the tool. For marketers, being able to quickly compare the domain authority of multiple sites at once takes out a lot of the work and effort that goes into finding websites to work with on brand campaigns and advertising. The best performing sites are always going to attract more traffic and get your product or brand the most visibility.
What is Page Authority?
To understand what is page authority you first need to understand domain authority because it works in much the same way on a smaller scale. In the same way domain authority is a score of a website, page authority is a score of a specific page within your website. The page authority score goes even further, predicting a page’s performance based on domain authority and many of the same factors that are used to establish domain authority.
In addition to the mentioned factors, there are additional factors that are taken into consideration. Because of this, you can have a page on a website with higher or lower page authority than the domain authority of the overall website that it is found on. Like DA, page authority is also scored from one to one hundred and can fluctuate over time.
(Image Credit: Big Rock Designs)
Maintaining decent page authority for the content you created to populate your website is important when you are trying to make your content visible. The higher the page authority number is the better. But again, it is a number that is comparative so it is hard to say what is good and what is bad unless you have another resource to compare it to.
What is a Good Domain Authority Score to Aim For?
As mentioned earlier, a good domain authority score is a hard thing to nail down because what is good for one site is incredibly different for another. Domain authority is comparative and is meant to be compared to a site’s previous scores. When you compare two news sites side by side, sites that are well established and each earn a decent amount of traffic, it is easy and fair to compare their domain scores with each other. However, it is not fair to compare an established news site to a new local news site. You can compare the growth and rise of the new site to itself over time and how well it is doing compared to the established site.
It is best to compare like sites to like sites overall, but it is necessary to understand how to look at the score each site is assigned. It is easy for a site with a score in the twenties to improve and rise in score with a few tweaks and active improvements to the site. However, it is much harder for a site with a high score to improve much more than it already is in order to gain a couple points over time. What is important to measure and watch for with a site that is ranking high, is what changes to the site do to DA. Not every change is good for domain authority even if it appears to be a great change to the appearance or function of the website.
Overall, do not become obsessed with what is a good domain authority and instead be sure to balance out all the things that go into making a site both searchable, user friendly, and fast.
How to Increase Domain Authority of Your Website
There are over forty factors that are measured in order to obtain the domain authority of any given site. Any one of these factors can be worked on over time in order to improve your domain authority. It will be hard to estimate how much each factor improves your score individually over time unless you perform each change one by one and then wait for the next update to take place.
One of the biggest factors to increase the DA of your website is search engine optimization, or SEO. The SEO of the website as a whole is just as important as the SEO that is contained on each page within your website. Take some time to learn about SEO and best practices, keeping in mind that this means you might need to go through and modify each page of old content as well as photos and website information.
Site speed is another huge factor in DA. Faster site speed results in an impressive rise in score as you improve the rate at which your website is able to load. Many website owners report that working on ways to increase their site speed improved their DA significantly. This in turn works to generate a huge bump in traffic as page authority rises in turn. There are quite a few sites you can use to test your site speed such as Google Page Speed Insights and SpeedLab by BrowserStack. Take a look at this test done by SpeedLab for mobile and desktop websites:
(Image Credit: BrowserStack)
The third largest factor to work on when you need to know how to increase domain authority is link building into and out of your site. It is important to link to other sites of authority in order to build the reputation of your own site as a provider of reputable sources and information. At the same time, you want other sites with similar information and in the same niche to link to your own site. This shows search providers that your site is a reputable source of information. This practice takes time and comes with growth. As you create content and establish your website the links you build in and out increase, and so does your DA.
As you begin to watch your score and improve the quality of your site, take time to focus on different aspects of your website in order to improve all factors that play into the algorithm. Some factors may only need to be improved or adjusted the one time while others require constant attention as you add new and fresh content to the site.
We hope that you found this article useful.
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Should I Hire Someone to Improve My Domain Authority?
Hiring someone to work on improving the domain authority of your site is possible, and a smart move for some website owners. The work that is involved with bringing a score up will depend a lot on the size of the site and the amount of information already published. Websites with hundreds of individual pages are going to require hours more than a site with just a homepage and a few landing sites. Many of the tasks involved with ranking can be handled by a professional that is able to go in and complete a mass overhaul of content and images.
Even a basic site audit from a professional is a great way to assess where there might be potential problems and where the best potential for improvements lies. These audits can help determine where to focus time and attention for the greatest return in order to garner the greatest score increase in as short a time frame as possible.
Creating a Long Term Domain Authority Plan
Now that you know all about domain authority and what it takes to reach a higher score, set a long term DA plan for yourself and your site. Regularly update and work on overall website issues on monthly, quarterly, and a yearly basis. Create a publishing checklist that you work through before publishing any new piece of information on the site in order to insure it is well within the guidelines of smart DA practices.
Creating and following a plan like this means that your domain authority score will continually rise with minimal time invested over the long term. Once you see the main issues it down to site maintenance to make sure that everything newly published to the site is not going to need attention later.
These long term plans will result in improved google search rankings and in turn more hits to your website. As the domain authority continues to increase, other sites within your niche begin to view your site as an authority, because you rank higher in search, and will create links to your site without any effort from you. This link building strategy in turn creates more traffic coming to the site and continues raising your score. Your brand and website’s growth will translate into increased ad revenue and rate of return if you sell any products.
Diib®: Check Your Domain Authority Now!
Overall, a healthy site is what every website owner is interested in. All the factors that are considered in domain authority contribute to the health of a site. Even if you are not invested in comparing your site to others, the checklist of factors for Diib and other DA tools compels you to look at are all worth your time and energy. Diib gives minute-by-minute domain authority scores, with in depth analysis for improvement. Here are some of the features that we love:
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FAQ’s
A good domain authority score is anything between 50 and 60, although the average is between 40 and 50.
Domain authority is a ranking developed by Moz that tries to predict how well a website will rank. It is an industry standard used when talking about SEO. It is measured on a scale of 1-100.
Simply Google a free domain checker and enter your URL in the input box then click the scan button. You should be able to see your score as well as individual pages.
If your domain authority has dropped, while your competition steadily increases, it could be one of several issues. It may mean you haven’t produced any new, relevant content since the last crawl of your site. Google may have spotted a bad link, duplicated content or keyword stuffing, which would surely decrease your DA score.
It can be difficult to test your domain authority when Google keeps changing the rules by adding new algorithms. That being said, if you have done everything right, you would likely need to wait a good 1-3 years to see a significant change.
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