If you’re putting a lot of time and resources into improving your SEO, you want to make sure it’s worth it.
Domain authority is one way to measure the success (or failure) of your efforts.
Domain authority refers to the strength of a given domain. But it’s also a key metric developed by Moz — an SEO-building powerhouse that focuses on helping companies run successful SEO campaigns. Domain authority predicts how likely a website is to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs) and has become a standard metric for analyzing overall website quality. Domain authority ranges from one to 100 — the higher the score, the higher the ranking.
Your domain authority score is made up of multiple metrics and calculations — from linking root domains to the number of total links — but Moz has yet to reveal the crux of its algorithm. Even though Google doesn’t use it in its rankings, websites with higher domain authority rankings correlate with higher rankings on Google’s first page.
We know you have questions. And we’ve got some answers.
Q: How can we check our domain authority score?
A. Several sites, like SEO Review Tools and Ahrefs, provide a free basic domain authority checker. Moz offers 10 free link queries when you register on the Moz Link Explorer.
Keep in mind, if you’re a start-up with a brand-new website, your score always starts at one.
Q. What’s a good domain authority score?
A. That depends. If you ask Ahrefs, your domain authority is good if it’s higher than or comparable to similar sites in your niche. Let’s say you discover that your domain authority is 31. If your competitors have a score of 30 or below, then you’re in better shape, relatively speaking.
But 31 is a looooooong way from 100, so there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
Q. How do we enhance our score?
A. There’s a clear connection between the number of referring domains a page has and the amount of organic traffic it produces. To increase your score, focus on backlinks from unique, reputable sites in your industry. The better your backlinks, the better your chances are for upping your domain authority score. In SEO, nothing lasts forever unless you put in the work to make constant improvements.
One of the best ways to increase your links is to fill your website with fresh, relevant content. Provide solutions to your audience’s questions and address their pain points. You’ll generate more traffic and grow your domain authority score.
Another score-boosting strategy? Conduct a link audit. This will uncover any spammy backlinks that can hurt your authority. Ideally, you want high-quality links from sites that have a higher domain authority score and lower spam scores relative to yours. It also helps to purge your own site of external links that point to questionable domains. If you’re not sure, ditch them. Better safe than sorry.
Even if your score is solid, that doesn’t mean you should abandon your improvement efforts. The competition is likely optimizing their sites for search results, and your organization should be doing the same.
Now what, you ask?
In a nutshell, domain authority is your website’s ability to rank highly for a related search query. Once you know where you stand, how the competition stacks up and where you want to be, your domain authority is worth keeping tabs on to help improve your website traffic and accomplish your overall goal of generating more business.