Ways To Improve Your Blog DA Score | Jo Linsdell

Ways To Improve Your Blog DA Score

 

Ways To Improve Your Blog DA Score


Ways To Improve Your Blog DA Score

How to Boost Domain Authority


This post may contain affiliate links. Meaning, I get a commission if you purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Read the full disclosure here.


What is Domain Authority?


Domain authority (DA) refers to the number of relevant links to your website from other reputable sites. The relevance of those backlinks also contributes to your score.

Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). A Domain Authority score ranges from one to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank. - Moz


How to check your DA Score


You can check your DA score (and that of other sites if you want to see how your site compares to your competition) by using the free tools at https://moz.com/free-seo-tools.


What is a Good Domain Authority Score? 


Domain authority scores range from one to 100. When you have a higher domain authority score, it’s more likely you’ll see increases in web traffic and Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) rankings. 

When you create a new website, its domain authority is one. It gets harder to increase your DA as your score gets higher so it's significantly easier to grow your score from 20 to 30 than it is to grow from 70 to 80.

As a book blogger a DA score of 30 can be considered good. 


You might also like: SEO for Book Bloggers: How to Improve SEO for Book Reviews


How Can You Raise Your Domain Authority Score? 


So what can you do to increase the DA score for your blog? 

The good news is that there's actually a few things you can do to raise your DA.


1. Write quality content. 

You want to give other sites a reason to link to yours. Work to provide better information on your niche than your competitors do. 

The quality of the content you share is the biggest ranking factor of all for both on-page and off-page SEO. So if you improve the overall SEO of your blog, your DA score should also improve. 

  • Optimise titles and Descriptions 
  • Use Headings (H1 and H2) within your content 
  • URL structure and SEO optimise permalinks
  • Optimise your images, videos, and other media elements 
  • Use keywords naturally in your content (no keyword stuffing) 
  • Add internal links to your content 
  • Format your content in a way that increases your chances of ranking in Google’s featured snippets
  • The faster your site loads, the lower the bounce rate. If your site is fast, you have a better chance of ranking on Google over slow sites that drive high bounce rates.
  • Make sure your site is mobile friendly. The best way to start is to go to Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test and run the test for your domain. Google will give you a nice report with recommendations on how to make your website mobile ready.

As you grow your reputation as an authority in your niche, you’ll strengthen the identity of your brand. This not only helps increase traffic but also increases the number of external links you earn from other high-quality sources.

The more content you create regularly, the more likely you are to rank.


2. Get quality backlinks

The better your backlinks are, the better your chances are at increasing your blog DA. Domain authority is determined on a logarithmic scale. This means each singular metric won’t always increase or decrease the score to the same degree. The more important a metric is, the greater effect it’s likely to have.

The more sites with higher DA scores that link to your blog the better it is for your own DA score. 

So how do you get people to include a backlink to your site on theirs?

  • Guest posting. Being a guest on other sites helps get your name and site out there. Usually when you provide a guest post for a site they will include a backlink to your site in the post. 
  • Blogger outreach. Contact bloggers or websites running weekly or monthly roundups. Contact them with a link to one of your blog posts. If they think it's a useful resource they might include in in their next round up post. 
  • Write testimonials. As long as it's an honest review, in that you use their site/products, giving a testimonial can be a great way to be featured on someones site. There is a high possibility that they will include a backlink along with the testimonial when they post it to their site. 
  • Get interviewed. Look for websites that do interview features and tell them that you would like to participate. Let them know what knowledge you can contribute. 
  • Web directories. Submit your site url to web directories.
  • Find broken links. You can check the broken backlinks of sites in your niche, notify them, and offer them a link to relevant content from your site that would make a good alternative. 

Raising your DA is a long-term process so you'll need to be patient. It usually takes a few weeks before you'll see any change in your ranking. 


You might also like: Book Blogger Collaboration Ideas


How to Boost Domain Authority



The current DA score for this website is 32. What is your current DA score? What do you plan to do to help improve the domain authority for your site?


16 comments

  1. This was really interesting and helpful. Thank you Jo.

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    1. Thanks Tasha. I'm glad you found it useful. Always looking for ways to improve my blog and sharing the ideas with you all.

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  2. Thanks Jo. I lose track with DA scoring as mine was at 34 then it dropped a few weeks ago to 28 and now it is currently at 30. It is baffling especially when Google change the way it rates things every now and again.

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    1. Because they take into consideration so many factors DA scores can change and it's not always obvious why they did. Domain Authority is basically a "Best of" list. This means that even if you improve your blog you could still end up with a decrease in DA because the number of other similar sites also improved at the same time.
      The DA calculator is a comparative tool and so not a metric used by Google in determining search rankings. However, it is meant to be a predictor of a site's ranking ability. It's therefore a metric that is best used to look at to see how the DA scores for the sites you're directly competing with in the SERPs are doing and aim to have a higher score than your competitors.

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  3. So very interesting - as always!

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    1. Thanks Karen. I like to share the things I learn about in the hopes that it helps others too.

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  4. I need to work on many of these pointers. My DA is barely two digits currently.

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    1. DA scores can take a long time to grow so don't expect instant results. When you make changes you probably won't see the impact of them for a couple of weeks.

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  5. Such a helpful post. I knew nothing about this and my score is pretty low!

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    1. My pleasure Shellen. I hope it was useful.

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  7. All very helpful tips. I am eager to see my blog grow.

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    1. Thanks Robin. That's great! Let me know how you get on.

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  8. I did the exercise you recommended and looked at the DA scores of other bloggers in the same space who I know have higher follower/visitor numbers than I do. I was surprised to find I had a higher DA score than someone who posts practically every day. Other blogs that had lower DA scores than I do (mine came in at 34) generally were not following any SEO practices. So just reinforces what you said about quality content.

    Question for you - the Moz results included "Ranking keywords" and "Linking root domains" Any idea what they are?

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    1. That's great! Quality over quantity wins. Congrats on your score. You're doing an amazing job. Excellent result!

      "Ranking keywords" will show how many keywords your domain, subdomain or page is ranking for within those coveted Top Ranking Positions.

      "Linking root domains" is the number of linking root domains and includes only the number of unique root domains linking. Two links from the same website would only be counted as one linking root domain.

      I hope this helps. Keep up the good work.

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