What is a good Domain Authority score?
Domain Authority scores range from 1 to 100. The higher your Domain Authority score, the more likely you’ll see increased performance in web traffic and SERP rankings.
The biggest, most authoritative sites on the Internet typically have a Domain Authority score of over 90. Other top publications will typically score over 70 and 80.
Here are some examples:
BBC News has a DA of 94.
The Guardian has a DA of 83.
Most sites won’t compete with authoritative news sites like the BBC and The Guardian, though.
Let’s say your website has a DA of 52. This isn’t too bad, but it’s much lower than BBC News, which ranks in the 90s.
But unless you run a small news site, you won’t be competing with the BBC for customers. Therefore, it’s pointless comparing your site to these kind of websites.
Instead, focus on researching the scores of your direct competitors.
If you find your competitors have Domain Authority scores in the thirties and forties, that means your DA score of 52 is pretty good!
To determine whether you have a good Domain Authority score, compare it to your competitors.
If it’s higher, great! If it’s lower, there’s some work to be done.
Is low Domain Authority score bad?
Having a low Domain Authority score isn’t all bad. In fact, all sites will start off with a low Domain Authority score before they start to gain any links.
The only exception is when a new site is built on an existing domain, which already has links pointing to it.
When you’re trying to build links to your own site though, it’s best to aim for high Domain Authority websites.
Low DA sites can potentially hurt your own score and rankings if they link to you in high quantities.
Is Domain Authority important?
Google does not class Domain Authority as a ranking factor.
It is simply a metric that SEO professionals and website owners alike should use as a relative number to compare against competitors and previous versions of the domain.
Google uses similar factors, but not solely this metric. You cannot judge a site just by its DA, or any single metric.
How can you check your Domain Authority score?
Grasping the concept of Domain Authority might seem confusing at first, but thankfully checking your Domain Authority is super easy.
There are plenty of SEO platforms out there that will allow you check your Domain Authority, such as Moz and SemRush.
Simply paste your URL into the search bar on the platform, and there you’ll see your Domain Authority score.
If you would prefer an expert to look at improving your Domain Authority score, it is worth contacting your digital marketing agency and asking them to check this for you.
Domain Authority vs Page Authority
Page Authority (PA) is similar to Domain Authority, but instead of ranking the entire domain, it just looks at an individual page.
Even as your improve your Page Authority, your Domain Authority will typically increase too.
How can you boost your Domain Authority score?
We’ve covered a lot about Domain Authority so far, but there’s still an important part we need to address…how you can increase your Domain Authority score.
Follow the 5 steps below and you’ll be on your way to having an excellent DA.
1. Carry out a link audit of your site
Firstly, you should conduct a link audit of your current site. But how does a link audit work?
Essentially, a backlink audit is the process of evaluating all links pointing to your domain. You’ll need to find the links, differentiate the good and bad ones, and develop a strategy to remove bad links and gain more good ones.
Here’s a list of what you should be looking at during your link audit process:
- Your current Domain Authority score
This will give you a benchmark to work from. How attractive is your domain for link building prospects? How does your DA compare to your competition? - Number of backlinks
This will allow you to compare your ‘backlink footprint’ to your competitors. - Removing bad links
It’s important to remove links from unknown, spammy websites to avoid being penalised by Google. Use tools like SemRush or Moz to identify any bad links, or ask your digital marketing agency to compile a list for you and remove them.
2. Publish content that people can link to
Creating content that is useful to users in your industry is the first step to better link building.
When writing new content, you should aim to make it better than anything else that’s out there. If it’s not, people will just link to better, competing sites.
Users will usually link to unique, high-quality content such as:
- New reports / studies
- Breaking news (if you are the source of the breaking news)
- Interesting opinions or thought pieces
- Helpful guides
- Quality in-depth content
- Roundup of statistics
The ideal scenario would be for users to find your content organically and link to it in their own content.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen too often, which brings us on to our next point - how to outreach to other sites and gain backlinks.
3. Try and gain some quality backlinks
Once you have created quality, linkable content, it’s time to reach out to others in your industry.
Contact relevant websites and let them know about the great piece of content you’ve written.
You can find websites to reach out to using platforms like SemRush, by manually searching, or by asking a digital marketing agency to compile a list and reach out on your behalf.
Then, it’s a case of writing an email introducing yourself and letting them know about your content. It’s best to try and emphasise how your content would be beneficial to their websites users.
Keep in mind that you’re not the only one performing this kind of outreach.
Many webmasters will be overwhelmed by outreach requests, and it’s common for some webmasters to not even respond to your email.
You can try and make your email stand out from the rest by offering something in return. For example, you could offer to share one of their posts on your social platform or email following.
4. Improve your internal links
Internal links are so important to your SEO success, but they receive little credit.
Many websites are so focused on gaining external backlinks, that they often overlook the importance of internal linking.
Internal links connect one page of a website to a different page of the same site. They help to direct users to what they are trying to find - ultimately improving their user experience.
Internal linking also defines the hierarchy of a website, therefore distributing page authority throughout the site.
Additionally, internal linking makes it easier for Google to index your entire site. See just how much value internal links can add?
So, how do you go about actually improving your internal link strategy? We’ve listed 3 ways to do this successfully:
- Create lots of content
To create more internal links, you need to create more internal pages to link to.
When you create lots of content, you have more linkable content. More links in more places will improve your internal linking strategy. - Deep linking
The deeper, the better.
When it comes to linking deep, there are two types of links you should avoid using too much in your content; homepage and contact us.
Try to avoid too many links to top-level pages on your site. Your navigation menu already covers this.
The best links to use are deep within the site.
If you’re about to publish a brand new blog, why not include a link to an older, but equally relevant blog post?
Link to other posts that match the context of your content to improve your internal linking. - Use relevant links
Internal linking is easier than some might think, but don’t just link for the sake of linking.
Following on from our previous point, link to content that is relevant. If there is not a strong connection between two topics, don’t link them. It won’t provide a great user journey, and will likely just confuse and frustrate your readers.
5. Unlinked mentions
This is a strategy that’s used when you spot a piece of content or an article where they have mentioned your website, but haven’t linked back to you.
You should then get in contact with the people running the website and kindly ask them to link back to your website. They will often be happy to this for you.
You’re probably thinking, how can I possibly find all the websites that have mentioned our name but not provided a link to our site?
Thankfully, it’s easy to automate the process.
Set up a Google Alert for your brand name, and whenever you receive an email notification, head to the website to see if they have linked to your site. If they haven’t, drop them a quick email asking for a link back.
Keep in mind, this tactic works best for sites that are more established. If people don’t know about your website, they are unlikely to mention you in the first place.
How to increase Domain Authority in 2022
If you’re looking to increase your Domain Authority in 2022, you need to start building links.
Sometimes it can be tricky to define the right link building strategy, or find the time to carry it out and you may benefit from some professional help.
If you’re searching for a digital marketing agency in Hampshire to help improve your Domain Authority, we can help. Set up a meeting with our team today - we’d love to have a chat.