Why Does Domain Authority Matter for SEO?

SEO 101: Why Domain Authority Matters to SEO

In our first SEO 101 post on Domain Authority, we addressed the question of what’s Domain Authority? Today, we’re building on that and digging deeper into why Domain Authority matters to your website or blog.

Why Does Domain Authority Matter to SEO?

Your DA (Domain Authority) is a number from 1 to 100 that indicates how authoritative your website or blog is thought to be based on the number of links to it from other sites. Domain Authority matters because it’s an easy way for us to determine which website is more likely to rank for a keyword when someone enters a search on Google. 

If your website has a DA of 1, then it’s a really new or really unoptimized website and it’s not seen as authoritative yet. If your site has a low DA like this, you’re not going to rank high for searches that are competitive.

If your website has a DA of 40, 50, 60, or even more then you’re seen as an authoritative website or blog and you’re going to have a much easier time ranking for keywords.

Building your DA is the fastest way to help improve your keyword rankings for your entire website or blog. Every time you increase your Domain Authority you make it easier to rank every page on your website or blog.

How do you use Domain Authority?

We use Domain Authority to determine how competitive we are within our niche. It’s a quick way to determine if our website or blog is authoritative enough to outrank the competition or not. If your website has a DA of 5 and the competition is at 30, you have your work cut out for you. You’re going to have to work hard to raise your DA to at least 30 to be able to rank above them for terms you’re both optimizing for. It’s very unlikely that you’ll outrank them with your DA of 5.

Next Steps for Domain Authority

Use Moz’s Link Explorer and find out your Domain Authority and the authority of your top 2-3 competitors. Note them all and begin to track the DA rankings for all of them each month. If your website has the highest authority (by at least 10 points) then you may be OK but if you’re lower or very close to the competition then you need to work to build your DA more so that you’re more competitive.

How do I build my Domain Authority?

The best way to increase your website or blog’s DA is by building natural links to your site. You can leverage community partnerships and guest blog posts. To learn how to do this the right way, consider taking my SimpleSEO course, I walk you through everything you need to do, step by step, and include the email outreach templates, examples, and more so that you can make sure you do it the right way. Once your website or blog’s DA is higher you’ll rank better in Google’s Search Results, which leads to more traffic, which leads to more leads and sales, and isn’t that what we all want?