Do you want to know how to build domain authority? Are you worried that your domain authority isn’t high enough and are wondering why you aren’t getting the rankings you need from Google?
In this article, you will learn exactly how to build domain authority, the mistakes you need to avoid, and why domain authority might actually not be as important as you think.
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What is Domain Authority?
If you’re not familiar with what domain authority is, it is basically Moz’s metric of measuring the authority of a website.
This metric stems from the theory that the higher your domain authority, the higher your rank will be on Google. But, it is important to remember that when it comes to Moz’s metric, it is basically all about backlinks.
How Do Backlinks Affect Your Domain Authority?
If you try to Google how to build domain authority, you will see a lot of talk about on-page SEO. However, on Moz’s official page, they state that backlinks are the most important way to increase your domain authority.
What this means is that if you haven’t already, you need to start building authoritative backlinks to your website. The more backlinks you get to your site, the higher your domain authority is going to be.
This might sound pretty straight forward, but it’s exactly how Moz’s metric works. So, if you want to grow your site, it usually comes down to backlinks.
If you want some easy techniques on how to grow your site by link building, I would recommend starting with the Skyscraper Technique, HARO, and Guest Blogging. These tools are very efficient when it comes to building backlinks for your site.
When you start getting links from authoritative websites, your domain authority is inevitably going to increase. But, since there are millions of websites out there, this may take time to do. And Moz’s crawler has to go through each of these sites to index your backlinks.
Once you start link building, it could take up to three months before you see an increase in your domain authority.
Backlinks : Quality Over Quantity
When building your domain authority, you need both patience and consistent link building with authoritative sites. In addition, you also need to focus on quality.
Many websites have backlink profiles that include low quality links. If you don’t focus on quality backlinks, you won’t increase your domain authority, and may even cause more harm than good to your site.
When it comes to Moz’s domain authority algorithm, it is designed to ignore very spammy links. So, if you’re getting tons of backlinks, but they’re all low quality and spammy, Moz’s domain authority metric will ignore those links.
As a result of this, your domain authority will not increase. In fact, if you get lots of spammy links to your site, not only will your domain authority be negatively effected, but your site rankings as well.
Essentially, building a thousand backlinks alone will not ensure an increase in your domain authority. The quality of the backlinks you have is actually more important.
Get Links From High-Traffic Sites
Moz also states that if you get links from websites with high amounts of traffic, you will probably increase your domain authority.
If a website is getting traffic from Google, it means that Google likes that site. Therefore, you’re more likely to have an authoritative link.
However, if the website doesn’t get any traffic, it means that Google doesn’t like it, likely because there is not a single high-quality link present. Remember to always check a website’s organic traffic levels whenever you are link building.
Higher Domain Authority Alone is NOT Enough
Another thing that you need to remember is that even if you do build your domain authority, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your website’s rank is going to improve.
This type of thinking is a huge oversimplification of SEO. Most people think that a higher domain authority will improve your website’s ranking overnight, but SEO doesn’t actually work like that.
Domain authority is a decent indicator of how authoritative a website is. But, if you just look at that and nothing else, then it’s simply a vanity metric.
It won’t really make much difference to your rankings. It isn’t even an official ranking factor for Google. So, even if you do increase your domain authority, it doesn’t mean your rankings are going to improve.
When it comes to SEO, you have to look at your website from different angles before you start seeing an increase in rankings. You have to make sure you’re not focusing on the wrong things.
If you only focus on increasing your domain authority, while ignoring other crucial elements, such as your website’s keyword strategy and other on-page factors, you will most likely fail to achieve a higher ranking for your site.