How Long Does it Take to Increase Domain Authority?
If you are here to know the exact answer to the question:
How long does it take to increase domain authority?
…you might be disappointed.
No one knows precisely how much time it takes to increase a site’s domain authority.
It can take months, and it can also take years – depending on your efforts.
The good thing is that we do know the answer to the question of how does domain authority increases.
However, it is a mixture of multiple things.
You can’t say that fetching a particular number of backlinks, designing an awesome content strategy, and gaining ‘n’ number of social media followers will increase domain authority.
The answer to the question of how to increase domain authority fast is not simple.
But before finding what is the best way to increase domain authority, let’s find out what is domain authority, and why do you need it?
What is Domain Authority?
Domain authority is a metric developed by Moz that determines the potential of a website to rank higher on SERPs.
It is measured on a scale of 100, where 1 is the lowest DA score and 100 being the highest.
The lower domain authority means that you have fewer chances of ranking higher on SERPs.
The higher domain authority means that you have more chances of ranking higher on SERPs.
And what makes “how do I increase domain authority” so challenging for SEOs is because DA is designed on a logarithmic scale.
In easy words, it means that it is easier to increase your domain authority when your DA score is low. But it gets difficult to take a major leap with a high DA score.
Here is how Moz defines a logarithmic scale:
But what does domain authority have to do anything with the website ranking?
Here is your answer:
Why Domain Authority Matters for Ranking?
Moz doesn’t randomly assign domain authority to sites.
It evaluates different factors of a website (around 40 to be precise!) that Google also considers determining the quality of a site before defining the domain authority of the website.
If a website has a high DA score, it means that it has many good things in its kitty that Google also loves.
So if your website manages to get a high DA score, Google automatically starts considering it authoritative.
And being authoritative in Google’s eyes means that it will consider you for ranking on SERPs.
Google wants to give the best, most reliable, and valuable results to its users. So Google trusts authoritative sites to show them higher on SERPs against a query.
For example, here, I searched for a keyword, and Google showed me this:
The top-ranking search result has nothing to do with my search query.
It was tapping a more generic topic and just slightly mentioned Huffpost guest posting somewhere in its content.
But because Huffington Post had a higher DA than other ranking sites, Google considered it credible to show in the search results on the top.
So having a high DA means that you will become the favorite child of Google.
If you want to become Google’s favorite (that we all want to!), here are some factors to increase domain authority for a website.
How to Increase Domain Authority of a Website?
Before getting down to those factors that play a key role in defining your DA score, let me tell you clearly that there is no fastest way to increase domain authority.
Improving a site’s authority is not a magical work where you swipe your wand a few times, and everything takes a 360-degree change.
It takes time, effort, and patience to improve the DA of a site.
Even if you start working on your DA increasing factors from today, it will take some time to change things – just like SEO.
In fact, don’t see DA and SEO as two separate things.
Well, that’s what Moz also recommends you:
Make these below-given efforts – things will change – slowly, but definitely!
STEP 1: Do Your Site’s Link Audit
Just like Google, Moz has also not disclosed its algorithm that determines the DA of a site.
However, the fact that it mentions a link profile specifically as an essential DA determinant means that the link profile is really a significant player.
So your first step should begin by conducting a thorough link audit.
Link audit helps you check the health of your link profile.
That means checking:
- Are your links fetched through white hat link building practices?
- Are they broken or intact?
- Are they good for your site or not?
- Are they likely to become risky for your site?
Unlike the popular perception, the link audit is not only important if you have been once involved in fishy link building practices.
Link audit can be a good fit in many other ways as it can help to:
- Build a good link building strategy
- Enhance your SEO efforts
- Design a strategy to outrank competitors
So your first step towards improving your site’s DA should begin with a detailed link audit.
STEP 2: Build High-Quality Backlinks
Question: Do backlinks increase domain authority?
Answer: Yes.
The number of powerful links coming to your site also plays an important role in making a site authoritative.
So once you know where your link profile is standing, the next step is to start building powerful links.
It is not going to be easy, and you might have to spend a lot of time.
But once you start getting high-quality links from high authority sites, Google will start considering your site as authoritative.
The formula is simple:
The more high-quality link votes you get, the more authoritative your site becomes.
But from where you get links matters a lot.
That’s what you should consider while selecting sites to get backlinks. It will define:
How to increase domain authority and page authority?
You can’t expect to build a couple of links and see your DA skyrocket. It is a continuous process, and consistency is the key.
Gather as many high-authority links as you can.
STEP 3: Create Valuable Content
Half of your headache goes away when you start feeding your website with high-quality and valuable content that readers can’t resist reading.
New sites kick start with low domain authority. Obviously, they are just other digital capturers for Google at that time.
But Google starts giving attention to your site and considers it once you start embellishing your site with high-quality content.
Valuable content helps you in many other ways as well:
- Supports your service pages
- Gives people reasons to link to your site
- Establishes authority among readers
- Attracts readers and develops awareness
STEP 4: Work on Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the most neglected boy in the SEO world.
It is so useful and capable to increase your authority, yet it is so underrated.
You shouldn’t be the one doing that.
Technical SEO, irrespective of what it sounds, is not rocket science.
Consider it more like doing things to increase users’ experience and improve search engines’ interaction with your site.
In fact, technical aspects of a website are one of those factors that Moz has revealed as part of their algorithm.
So if your website has a poor structure, slow speed, difficult navigation, and is not responsive to all digital devices, get ready to bag a low DA score.
So work on these factors if you want to give Google and users the best experience.
- Responsive Website: Make your website responsive to give a better and user-friendly experience on all digital gadgets.
- Increase Page’s Speed: Minimize website loading time and focus on enhancing the loading time of web pages.
- Site Architecture: Create simple and easy to crawl site architecture so that Google crawlers don’t get lost in the dense maze of architecture.
- Easy Navigation: Give a better user experience by creating an easy to navigate website with a clear call to actions.
Working on providing the best possible user experience will not only meet many evident ranking factors.
It will indirectly impact other ranking factors as well, like decreasing the bounce rate, etc.
So when you are sorting the equation: How long does it take to increase domain authority, don’t forget technical SEO.
Don’t take technical SEO as just a plush of the SEO world. It is as important as backlinks or good content.
STEP 5: Tweak On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is everything you do on your website to optimize it.
It includes everything from the right keyword selection, writing optimized content, creating optimized Title tags to writing impressive Meta descriptions.
Though companies are investing more time and money on SEO…
…often they forget focusing on minute SEO details that play a major role in rankings.
Here is what you need to be doing for on-page SEO:
- URL Structure: Keep the URL structure simple, readable, and optimize it.
- Keywords: Select keywords according to the users’ intent and use them in important places to catalyze optimization.
- Title Tags: Write title tags so that the search engine knows what the site is about.
- Meta Descriptions: Create relevant and engaging Meta descriptions to increase the click-through rate.
- Internal Linking: Internally link pages to distribute authority throughout the website and make crawling easy for bots.
Conclusion
The domain authority of your website is an important ranking factor.
But the good thing is that instead of finding a related service, like increase domain authority service, you can yourself work on it.
Domain authority is not something that lies beyond the horizon of your SEO effort.
If you are doing your SEO the right way, it simply means that you are also working on improving your domain authority.
It will take time, maybe more than you expected, but eventually, things will start working in your favor.
