Marketers want to increase their website’s domain authority (DA) because it’s a good predictor of their ranking performance on Google.
The higher your DA, the higher chances your website will rank on search engines.
But as you know, it is hard to increase your DA scores.
It takes a long time and a lot of effort to increase your domain authority.
That’s why I asked several website owners and marketers who have reached DA scores of 40 and higher on what they would do differently if they were to start over again.
If you’re struggling to improve your domain authority, their answers can be a great starting point.
Here’s what they had to say:
- Don’t strive for perfection
- Use schema markups and infographics
- Be more active online
- Keyword research matters a lot
- Create your own resource page
- Develop mutually beneficial relationships
- Quality over quantity
Don’t Strive for Perfection
I have to be honest. For my first website, I fell into this trap too.
I felt like I have to produce the best-looking site out there. But with no design skills, it took me months (yes MONTHS!) before I was even proud of telling other people about my site.
I wish I would have not spent so much trying to create the perfect website in the early days. I would have started interviewing famous and successful entrepreneurs right out of the gate if I could go back to the beginning.
Kristin Marquet Chester, DA 40
This time around, I knew better.
I launched this site in 24 hours upon registering my domain. And it’s something I recommend new website owners do as well.
There’s this concept in economics called the law of diminishing returns. How this applies to marketing is you take whatever project you’re working on (e.g. website) and make it good enough. Then, focus on other stuff that will add more value.
This doesn’t mean you do sloppy work.
At a certain point, spending more time on something to make it perfect will not provide additional value.
Focus on getting it at an acceptable quality, not perfect. Then, reprioritize. Move on to the next problem or project.
If time and resources weren’t an issue, then go ahead.
Spend a lot of time perfecting that idea. But because you don’t live in isolation, and the world doesn’t stop just for you, you have to release what you’re working on to the public.
Real results can only come from outside your organization (or company or brand).
This reminds me of a quote by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, “If you aren’t embarrassed by the first version of your product, you shipped too late.”
Focus more on execution. Progress over perfection.
Use Schema Markups and Infographics
What Vinny shared isn’t something new, but most websites out there still don’t take advantage of schema markups. I recently wrote about a particular schema markup and how it helped grow my organic traffic by 7%.
I know that number isn’t very high, but for just an extra 10-15 minutes, my traffic increased. That’s not a bad investment in my opinion.
I wish we had integrated more schema markup and infographics/media to more quickly share the information on our website with audiences.
Vinny Dolan, DA 47
While there seems to be no correlation between using schema markups and ranking higher on the first page of Google, I know for a fact that they bring additional traffic to my site.
Every little bit helps.
Also, I recently just published my first infographics as well. Take a look. I’m pretty sure you’ll find the information there very interesting.
Be More Active Online
This is one of the tactics that don’t scale as much as other tactics, but brings in a lot of results.
In fact, Neil Patel conducted a study about comments as a backlinking strategy and found that despite most comments give you a nofollow link, it still helps drive your overall DA score higher than if you don’t do it.
I would do things differently if I had more time. Specifically, I would blog more frequently, I would guest blog more frequently, I would comment on more like-minded blogs – in short, I would be a lot more active online
David Leonhardt, DA 42
But again, as a fellow marketer, please don’t spam. Comment only if you can provide additional value to the post.
The other thing I liked about this tip is something that I often don’t see a lot of marketers do—participate in online discussions. Oftentimes, when we use social media such as Facebook or Twitter, we tend to just talk about ourselves.
We post regularly, sure, but it’s usually a one-way street.
It’s all about the company/website talking AT their audience.
So, the next time you open up your social media accounts, remember to engage in a discussion. Reply on a threat. Comment on a post. Thank the other person. Ask them a question and actually reply to their answers.
Keyword Research Matters…A Lot
Researching keywords and topics you want to rank for is very important. In fact, this could be the biggest factor you should pay a lot of attention to especially when starting out.
- if you create content around topics/keywords that people aren’t searching for, you’re not going to get much benefit from it.
- if you choose keywords/topics that are too competitive, and you’re starting out, you’ll take a longer time to get results
But if you find the perfect balance between high volume keywords and low competition, then you can see results coming in faster.
I would do a lot more keyword research. Back when I started my blog, I understood nothing about keyword research, and I believe I could have built traffic and Domain Authority much more quickly if I had known better.
Dr. Jason Cabler, DA 45
I’m actually writing another guide on how you can do step-by-step. This is perfect for those sites who are just starting out. Here’s the basic idea:
- Identify your competitors
- Find keywords they are ranking for
- Filter a certain volume and difficulty score
- Group them together
- Create the content
I’ll update this once I’m finished with that guide.
Create Your Own Resource Page
You might have come across a link building strategy where you create a 10x content then search for resource pages. You reach out to these resource pages in the hopes they add a link to your shiny new guide.
But here’s another take on that: you create your own resource page.
My favorite one is resource link building which is scaleable and achievable even for brand new sites. Basically, you create helpful resources (noncommercial in nature) that other site owners would want to link to since it helps their users. This is a virtually cost-free technique that any new site owner can employ. This method can land you a lot of links from high authority sites. I wish I knew this at the start, for if I did I think our site’s DA would be above 50 right now.
Anthony Martin, DA 42
This might look like you’re just doing your competitors a benefit since you’re linking out to them. But remember, you serve your customers.
The best way to earn their trust (and money) is to provide them with resources to help solve their problems. This means you don’t have to stick to linking only to your own content.
I know this may seem like a controversial topic, but if you really want to provide value to customers, you have to point to credible resources.
Personally, if you link out to your competitor, it shows me that you are not afraid of them. It shows your belief in your products/services that even if you link them to your competitor, they will not just sign up with them.
You are helping your (potential) customers make a better informed purchasing decision.
And by doing so, you deserve more credit.
Develop Mutually Beneficial Relationships
This next tip is something that is often forgotten in our fast-paced world.
I would work for increasing PR and build healthy relations with influential people in my industry.
Abdul Rehman, DA 52
I want to highlight what Abdul mentioned above if he were to start over again—build healthy relations. Sure, it might still be considered self-serving, but that’s pretty much what every other marketer is doing anyway.
When people do link building outreaches, oftentimes it’s because they want something out of the other website. Yes, a request will definitely benefit you, but it’s important to add value to them and their audience.
And for me, that’s what it means to have a healthy relationship. Both parties benefit from one another instead of one party just leaching off the other.
Focus on Quality over Quantity
I really like this quote from Katie.
She mentioned something that a lot of marketers and SEOs won’t probably do—delete old content that aren’t bringing in results.
As far as regrets and what I’d do differently, I’ve found that only by publishing high-quality content do you get any natural inbound links, and therefore any SEO traffic – so the key is to focus on quality over quantity. We’ve deleted a bunch of fluff pieces that weren’t really that useful, and before publishing anything now, ask if this is really providing any additional value over similar pieces online.
Katie Holmes, DA 70
This puts emphasis on consistently creating high-quality content. Don’t publish for the sake of publishing new content. There are approximately 1.5B new blog posts being published each day. Don’t add to this noise.
Focus on adding value to your audience.
One way to avoid publishing low-quality content is to use AI-assisted tools when researching and creating the actual content.
Conclusion
If you want to improve your domain authority scores, follow the tips shared in this article.
But remember, getting high DAs should not be your goal by itself. A high score doesn’t mean anything if your business does not get results from it. Also, DA scores are comparative and not absolute. Don’t obsess over this single metric.
Even if you increase your DA score to the 80s, but you don’t generate leads, customers, or revenues from it, everything would have been futile.
Focus on providing value to your readers instead.
All DA scores are at the time of writing. This may go higher or lower over time. Note that Google does not use domain authority in their algorithm. Rather, it’s only a metric developed by Moz to predict how a website might perform on Google.