Improve domain authority: What is it and how to improve it?

Looking to improve your domain authority? Well look no further. First you must understand that in order for a website to appear on the first page of search engines, meticulous and rigorous work must be done at the SEO level. For such a job, it is essential that the site has proven itself worthy in the eyes of Google (by providing quality content for example) and it may take time before your efforts are rewarded.

Nevertheless, there is a great way to know if your website has a chance to be well positioned on search engines: its domain authority. The domain authority is a score from 0 to 100 that can predict whether a website will be well indexed or not. Of course, this is only an indicator for SEO and having good domain authority is not sufficient to fully position your site on Google’s front page.

By knowing your domain authority, you will to be able to assess the quality of your website. And if all you want is to improve the SEO of your site, the domain authority will be a good indicator of progress.

Moz domain authority

The domain authority is a score out of 100, which was developed by Moz. The higher the score of a website, the higher its value/credibility in the eyes of Google. Internet sites such as Google, Facebook and Wikipedia have a score of 100, and it obviously demonstrates the authority of these sites on the web.

To receive a high score you need to meet several demanding criteria. Moz takes into account the number of external (or inbound links) and internal links, Moz Rank and Moz Trust among others things.

The Moz Rank is a score from 0 to 10 indicating the popularity of a web page based on the number of inbound links (and quality of these links) that have been registered. As for Moz Trust, this score does not measure the number of links but the authority of the link. If a website dedicated to schoolbooks gets an inbound link from a large recognized university like McGill, Moz consider this link to be trusted. The more a website is close to a trusted site, the higher the moz Trust score will be.

The domain authority is thus determined through all these criteria and Moz uses machine learning to understand how search results appear.

Since the domain authority is acquired over time, a new website will always start with a domain authority of 1. For a website to gaining authority, SEO optimization is essential to have a chance to obtain an excellent positioning on search engines.

SEO of your website

To improve a domain authority is to improve SEO. Therefore, it is essential to optimize all the technical aspects of SEO on your own website such as title tags, meta descriptions, link structure, images and web pages with a minimum of 400 words.

Title tags and meta descriptions should always be optimized because these extracts are the first elements that a user notices your website on search engines.

Moreover, it is particularly advisable to choose a keyword for each page of your website and optimize the page for one keyword. This allows the search engine robots to understand the subject contained within every web page. The link structure is also important in optimizing a web page with the web marketing keyword, and a much better SEO will be obtained if the term appears in the link.

The domain authority will thus be improved if the basics of SEO are applied to the website.

Domain authority via content quality

One of the basics of SEO also includes the written content on a website. Providing quality content allows a website to have a better chance to rank on search engines. Thus, it is important that each indexed page (the pages that search engines can position) has a minimum of 400 words (500 and 600 is even better).

However, we must not stop at the main content of your website (that is to say services pages etc.) because search engines will evaluate a site as being better when it is updated regularly when compared to another site that has not been updated since its creation. Creating a blog section is therefor paramount to demonstrate not only to users, but also to search engines, that you’re an expert in your field.

Quality content and respecting the drafting rules of SEO certainly contributes to a better SEO and can be a positive factor for the domain authority.

Internal linkage and domain authority

Quality content also creates an effective internal linkage network. This internal linkage network means linking your different web pages together. For example, when you write an article about web agencies in Montreal, please include a link to your service page (only if you are a web agency course).

The internal link system lets you demonstrate to users and robots that your website makes sense. Indeed, being a web agency, you can have pages on SEO, online advertising and web design. Thus, by linking each of these pages to each other, it allows search engines to understand your field.

Internal linkage also supports user navigation as well as letting them know they can find additional information on the same website.

Inbound or external links

As previously reported, the domain authority includes the number of inbound (sometimes referred to as external) links to a site. Acquiring links is a SEO strategy to be regularly used to demonstrate once again to search engines that your website has to offer relevant content to its users.

Many links to your website can be obtained if you offer quality content through articles. Inbound links have a very positive influence on SEO. However, beware that every inbound link comes with a certain level of trust. As we have explained, the domain authority includes the of Moz Trust score. So if you get an inbound link from “bad” website (spam site or advertising), your SEO will be affected in a negative way.

Social networks

Thanks to quality content, the internal linkage network can be optimized and the acquisition of links can be facilitated, especially content can be shared on social networks. The influence of social networks is increasingly important in SEO. Certainly the more your content is shared, the more chance you have to bring traffic to your website.

Social networks carry a real weight these days, and if quality content is offered, feel free to share with your community so that you’re continuing to grow and that your articles are increasingly read. Quality traffic to a website will be a positive influence on the domain authority.

Conclusion

The domain authority can be described as a confidence score of a website from search engines. The higher the score, the higher your site weighs in the eyes of search engines. But SEO requires hard work that must be maintained over time because this score also takes into account the age of the domain name.

If you do not see your domain authority increase after following all our advice, just be patient. But beware, the domain  authority of a website can be improved but it can also be diminished. So do not stop optimizing your site’s SEO.

Do not hesitate to contact us at 514 572 7758 or via our contact form if you would talk to an expert who will answer all your questions.

Eugénie Delhaye

Cofondatrice et Spécialiste Marketing Internet et Référencement Naturel (SEO) Ma maîtrise des techniques de référencement, combinée à une analyse minutieuse des tendances du marché, me permet de créer des stratégies SEO sur mesure, efficaces et durables.