HOW TO: Improve Your DA Score

So, what is DA and what’s the whole fuss about it? You see other people stating their DA score, yet you have no idea what it is, where it came from and what it wants. Well, don’t worry, I’m here to help.

Domain Authority (also known as DA) is pretty much a search engine ranking score that predicts how well a website will rank in search engines. For example, if you type ‘Apple’ into Google, Apple’s website comes up first, rather than a website for the fruit (weird example but let’s move on haha). The score ranges from 1 to 100. The higher the score, the better as that shows the higher ability to be ranked first in search engines. You can check your score via various websites, such as this one. Make sure you scroll down and look for DA, not the other bits and bobs (although you might find those interesting too).

There are various things you can do to improve your DA score. The key to it all is to be patient though. Don’t expect the score to change overnight. It’s a process, but it’s not impossible.

1. Develop Internal Linking

This something that’s extremely easy to do, but I have not seen many bloggers utilise this. It is probably the easiest step that you can do immediately all by yourself. Developing your internal linking means linking other pages and posts in all of your blog posts, where possible. For example, at the beginning of a digital marketing post, I would say “check out my other digital marketing related posts here!” This creates a network within your own site. As long as your blog has a strong internal linking, it will make it connected, therefore increasing your domain authority.

3. Develop a Good Home Page

This correlates with point 1. Your website’s home page is perhaps one of the most important pages of the whole website. It should have quality information that explains what your website is about, as well as internal links as spoken about in point 1. The information on your home page has to be spelt and punctuated correctly, and you should use keywords that you believe people will search for to find your type of content. The most important part to increase your DA score is to do internal linking. For example, link to all of the main categories or topics of your website on your home page.

2. Develop External Linking

The more your content is linked by other businesses and bloggers, the more it will benefit your blog’s DA score. There is a reason why you might get emails from people wanting to guest post on your blog or seeing people post about guest post opportunities on Twitter. If someone links to your content from their website, it will start to improve your DA score! It is even more efficient if that is done by someone with a high DA score already, as they are seen as people who link reputable content, enhancing the quality of your content in the eyes of the algorithm. As mentioned, you can do guest posts to complete this step, but most importantly it is about creating the kind of content people would like to link back to. Also, leaving comments on bloggers’ posts with a high DA score that also allow you to leave your links in the comments help majorly as well. So keep working hard!

3. Remove Broken Links

Broken links are links on a website that no longer exist. Every now on then you should make sure you get rid of all of your broken links. For example, this could happen if you have linked to a page or a site that has been moved or deleted. If you have a large quantity of broken links, it could damage your DA score. Even if you have the best internal and external backlinks, these broken links could mean that your DA score remains low.

5. Remove Low Quality Links

Try and make sure that the content that you link from your webpage is reputable. You do not want to link back to spammy websites as that will also affect your DA score. Always check what you link and promote on your blog!

6. Ensure a Good Page Speed

Page speed (otherwise known as load time) is an essential part of a website. Not only is it one of the factors of your DA ranking, it can also make your current readers uninterested and potential new readers leave your website and not look at your content if it is too slow. The speed of your website can be influenced by the large file sizes and many more factors. Any file size of 100 kB or more takes longer to load. Let me know if you’d like me to write a post on how to reduce your website’s load times! You can check your website’s speed on many websites, for example this one.

Be kind, be humble.