Some companies and brands use Domain Authority (DA) to study and evaluate the results of their digital strategies.

But what does this metric really mean? Should we really strive to improve it? Will a high domain authority help us rank better on Google? 

Domain authority can be a very useful metric to know the status of a website in relation to similar competitors, but we must emphasize that it is not a ranking factor for Google. 

Domain Authority: What is DA And How To Increase it? In this post, we’re going to define what domain authority is — and what it isn’t — and what you’ll want to take into account to optimize it. 

What is domain authority?

It is really important to define what domain authority is and what isn’t in order to point your digital strategy in the right direction. 

Domain Authority (DA) is a metric first developed by Moz that predicts how likely a domain is to appear in the SERPs compared to its competitors:

It’s important to highlight that Google doesn’t use Domain Authority as a ranking factor to decide how to rank websites. So it isn’t a metric that will improve your ranking in the search engine results page (SERPs). However, domain authority is a good indicator that will help you assess the performance of your website in relation to competitors.

Nowadays, this metric is not only used by Moz. Different SEO tools such as SEMrush have developed their own Authority metric — which is an algorithm that uses data from backlinks, referring domains, or search traffic, among others, to decide the Authority score. So, although it isn’t an official ranking factor used by Google, it’s a useful metric to know your site health in relation to your competitors. 

What is a good domain authority score?

To know what is a good domain authority, you need to check how much a website reaches on a scale from 1 to 100, with 100 as the best possible score.

Moz’s Domain Authority search engine ranking score ranks from 1 to 100, with the higher numbers meaning probability of better results in the SERPs. To define this metric, the SEO tool takes into account both the quantity and quality of links that a webpage receives. 

When Moz created this metric, they also made the tool available for website analysis. You can also check DA using Moz’s Keyword Explorer tool.

To rank website domain authority consider that:

• Scores between 40 and 50 are considered average.
• Domain Authority between 50 and 60 must be rated as good.
• Scores above 60 rate the Domain Authority as excellent.

It is also important to acknowledge many different contexts when evaluating DA. 

If you are running a small business website with SEO optimizations underway and still get something around 40 points, that score can be considered very good.

With more work and investment power, you must expect to achieve great DA values. If the score does not reach above 60, then the evaluation is bad considering this context.

If a page has backlinks from pages with a high authority — such as Google, Wikipedia, governmental pages, renowned newspapers or magazines — it will have a higher probability of having a better score. 

Depending on the type of industry or the characteristics of the website, it will be more likely — and more useful — to get some backlinks over others.

For instance, a training center may seek links from national newspapers, universities, and academic articles or government sites. A local business website, on the other hand, likely prefers being linked to by regional newspapers or industry magazines, since those backlinks are more valuable to the business’ target audience, even if they don’t have the highest domain authorities.

Determining good domain authority, then, is different for each business. Ultimately, it’s important you analyze your top competitors and draw conclusions tailored to your own website, based on your ranking as well as the rankings of your competitors. 

How can I check my Domain Authority?

On Moz, you can check your website’s Domain Authority for free through Link Explorer. You just need to enter your domain’s root URL (like HubSpot.com) and your webpage’s Domain Authority score will appear automatically.

The digital tool provides other features, as well — such as the number of unique external linking domains (Linking Domains), the number of unique pages linking to a page (Inbound Links), and the total number of keywords for which this website is ranking within the top 50 positions on Google (Ranking Keywords), among other metrics. 

Domain Authority vs Page Authority

While Domain Authority measures the probability of an entire web domain to rank in the SERPs, Page Authority focuses specifically on the probability of ranking each of the pages of the website individually. 

This enables you to determine the performance of individual pages — such as blog posts or product pages — to analyze which ones might need some fine-tuning to obtain a higher score. 

The Page Authority indicator can help you prioritize and define the next actions to develop within your digital strategy based on the pages with the most scope for improvement. 

How to Build And Increase Domain Authority

Now, let’s take this into practice: how can you build domain authority and rank better than your competitors?

As Google points out, It isn’t just about the total number of links to your site or the total number of domain links, but the quality of those links, the ones that are relevant to understand what your website is about. 

To reach a good Domain Authority, you have to work on specific points of optimization.

Some main issues have a major impact on your site’s DA rating. Below we will show you what they are and how you can improve them.

1. Test the responsiveness of your website

Websites need to run smoothly on every device of access including mobile.

A responsive website is more likely to offer a satisfying experience to all users, regardless of whether they are on smartphones or tablets.

One of Google’s ranking factors is responsiveness. So, if your site can adapt to any type of screen, certainly this will have a good impact on your SEO.

Likewise, a site with good responsiveness can also achieve a high DA score. 

2. Ensure the page loads quickly with PageSpeed Insights

Quick page loading is another key parameter for sites with good Domain Authority.

1.Get backlinks.

To build Domain Authority, here are a few tips to keep in-mind: 
Backlinks are essential to building an awesome Domain Authority for your website.
Quality, before quantity. Prioritize relevant backlinks, before thousands that aren’t significant.
Analyze your backlinks and make sure that all the interesting sites with backlinks have a do-follow.

You just need to be careful about how you get these links. You must naturally earn them, always in mentions or partnerships with companies in the same industry.
A high-quality link profile will fundamentally impact your site’s DA, since this is the main factor considered in the score.

To get good backlinks, you should:
• Find backlink opportunities with top referral sources.
• Use outbound links to form partnerships.
• Use Google Search Console Reports to get backlinks.
• Pat attention to your competitors.
• Find broken links to build backlinks.
• Create high-quality content.

2. Create quality content.

Create quality content which makes it easier for you to get natural backlinks. Generate content focused on your core audience, which can be attractive to them and go viral

3. Update your older content.

Go through those pages with unindexed content or with a low page authority score and add new information of interest for the user.

4. Identify your competitors and compare yourself to them.

Analyze things that you do and don’t do that can help you increase your website’s visibility.

5. Study where your main competitors get the backlinks from.

Can you get similar ones, too?

Spread your web content on Social Media
in an original and unique way, through other channels such as social media or newsletter.

Ensure the page loads quickly with PageSpeed Insights
Quick page loading is another key parameter for sites with good Domain Authority.
Therefore, monitoring this loading time is fundamental as a continuous task. To do this, use specialized tools such as PageSpeed Insights.
The average time is 0.5 to 2 seconds. If your site is above this limit, then you have reason to work on optimizations

4. Acquire guest posts

Guest posts are also a great strategy to exchange backlinks with reputable companies in your market. 

This way, you link your brand to other businesses that have good Domain Authority.

You must make these connections in a partnership format. This exchange of posts helps you capture the authority of another company and bring that to your audience.

Besides the expertise of partner companies, you also gain some great backlinks in the process.

So always have guest posts in your monthly planning. If you get 1 to 2 in that period, your site will start to gain more authority at a higher rate.

How Important is Domain Authority for SEO?

Tracking Domain Authority is a job that requires consistency.

It is like baking a cake: if you don’t check the oven from time to time, the cake will surely burn.

With websites, the same monitoring is fundamental. If there is no strict monitoring of your Domain Authority, you take the risk of making your site less qualified than your competitors’.

This need for constant monitoring and updating is very common for SEO. 

There is always room for improvement, and if you don’t work on it, your site will likely lose ranking positions.

Therefore, monitoring your Domain Authority is essential to ensure that more and more, you can get your site to rank high in the SERP and still get good traffic.

Next, check out some points that show how important it is to monitor this metric for your site!

Better ranking

Every company wants its website to appear in the first results of Google’s SERP.

Achieving this position requires consistent and organized SEO work. Amongst these efforts, DA helps to monitor the progress made.

The higher the score, the more likely you are to achieve a good position on the SERP. However, keep in mind that your competitors are also working to achieve the same.

In other words, good Domain Authority alone is not enough! 

It is essential to comply with several SEO requirements, including exploiting keywords well, to rank high. 

Good SEO work parameter

Work on SEO will never stop being important. 

Google’s algorithms constantly update their parameters, so improving your site must be a continuous process.

When you know how to answer the question “what is a good domain authority”, it is because you keep DA under control. 

This work is essential to ensure that your site not only ranks but achieves good positions.

Optimizations for the web will allow you to capture more qualified traffic and give your company relevance.

So if you always keep an eye on your Domain Authority results, you can also measure if your SEO work is good.

Wrap Up: A Good Domain Authority is a High Domain Authority

This post was intended to show what good domain authority is and its impact on successful websites. 

Therefore, the sooner you start the optimization work, the faster you will achieve amazing results for your business. 

We hope that the tips in this post will help you!

As we said, page load speed is a fundamental parameter for SEO. So, check out our blog post to understand better how to use Google PageSpeed Insights!