One of the factors that influences the positioning of any business is the domain authority of the website. The higher your domain authority, the better your ranking will be and, consequently, the more chances you have to appear in the top positions of the SERPs.
In today's article you will learn:
- 🛡️ What is domain authority?
- support Measuring tools
- bullish Techniques to increase domain authority in your e-commerce
Domain authority is part of any SEO strategy. If you are not yet an expert in this field, I recommend that you download our free white paper on SEO best practices for online stores , with which we help you optimize your search engine positioning.
What is domain authority?
Domain authority is nothing more and nothing less than the popularity of a website on the Internet in relation to others.
It is one of the many factors that the Google algorithm uses to determine the quality of a website and, based on that quality, determine its position in search engine results pages.
“Domain authority is the search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank in the SERPs . Domain authority is measured on a scale of 1 to 100 , so websites with higher scores will rank higher.” says MOZ
Note: When we talk about domain authority, we should not confuse this term with page authority, since each one follows different metrics to improve positioning. The former refers to the authority of the website as a whole, while the page authority refers to the authority of each of the website's pages.
Domain authority is measured based on several aspects that qualify a website, some are for example:
- Total number of domains and links pointing to a website
- The quality of those domains and links
- The quality of the website's internal link structure
- website traffic
- The user experience
As you can see, much of a good strategy to increase domain authority revolves around the links or backlinks you generate.
The more links and domains pointing to your site, the better.
But when we talk about links, we mean both dofollow and nofollow links . It is important that these terms are clear since each type of link fulfills a different function.
dofollow link vs. nofollow
Nofollow link: These links receive the nofollow attribute indicating to search engines not to follow those links. As these are untracked links, they have no influence on your domain authority. Example: Anchor Test
Dofollow link: These are usually set by default so no html attribute is needed to place them. These links do get crawled by search engines so your domain authority will benefit. Example: Anchor Test
Now you are probably thinking that the links that interest you are only dofollow because they help you increase your domain authority.
Well, it's not quite like that.
Let me tell you that Google created the nofollow attribute back in the day to control manipulation and improper positioning in search results and, in this way, facilitate the ranking of safe sites.
For you to understand better:
Imagine that you start a paid advertising campaign on other portals so that all the banners link to your website. Google will consider this action as manipulative since they are not backlinks generated thanks to the quality of your site but because you have invested money.
If all your links are only dofollow, Google and other search engines will be suspicious of manipulation and will classify your links as spam, in a way that will negatively affect your ranking.
For this reason, it is recommended to have a balance between both dofollow and nofollow links.
Tools to measure domain authority
In order to apply the right techniques to increase the authority of your domain, it is important to have an overview of the state of your website and the aspects that require more dedication.
In this section we present two very popular tools that will help you measure the authority of your domain and obtain relevant data about it.
MOZ
Both domain authority and page authority were developed by MOZ company. It is a software that offers a series of resources to analyze and optimize websites and, in this way, carry out SEO strategies that best suit each business.
MOZ Open Site Explorer: This tool developed by MOZ allows you to know the domain authority for free by simply inserting the URL of your website or the site whose domain authority you would like to check. Prior registration is necessary.
Some of the information that this tool can provide you with is, for example: the URLs that have recently been created, the age of the domain, the reputation of the site, the sites with the best rankings, the number of internal links and backlinks, the keywords most used by the website, etc.
AHREFS
Unlike MOZ, with this tool you do not need to register beforehand and you have the possibility to check at a glance and for free, your domain authority or that of other sites and the number of dofollow links. This allows you to quickly analyze how effective the backlink strategy you are carrying out is being.
With Ahrefs you have the possibility of knowing the backlinks that point to a website and their origin, as well as information about: the evolution of the positioning strategy, the analysis of keywords, the SEO on page, the authority of page (URL Rating), etc.
Naturally, both MOZ and Ahrefs also have extra paid features that will allow you to expand your knowledge according to your needs.
Techniques to increase the authority of your domain
As we have already mentioned before, the domain authority of each of the websites depends, to a large extent, on the number of backlinks that direct to your site. Having said that, here is the first technique to increase the authority of your domain.
Develop a successful link building strategy
Linkbuilding is a technique that consists of creating external links that point to your domain to generate web authority and thus improve positioning.
*The higher the authority of those domains that point to yours, the better. *
For this reason it is important that, when generating backlinks, you make a good selection of the websites that you would like to link to your domain.
And the question now is: how do I get those damn backlinks?
There are several ways to generate links to develop a solid and effective link building strategy. Some of the methods are, for example:
Make a guest post
The famous guest posting basically consists of publishing your content as a guest author on a third-party website. In this way, you will have the possibility of including in the content that you generate some other backlink that points to your domain.
This practice, sometimes, is usually converted into an exchange of content between both websites , in such a way that the website or blog in which you have published your content, will have the possibility of also publishing its content on your site, including links to your domain. This is an action that is usually carried out for free and both parties will benefit.
Guest posting has become an effective way to increase both traffic and domain authority of websites.
Tip: Please keep in mind that when selecting the blog or website you would like to write for, it is vitally important that their target group and industry match yours. Otherwise, you will not attract new users to your site and your collaboration efforts will have been in vain.
Imagine that you have an online store that is dedicated to the sale of pet care. The most logical thing would be for you to write for a blog whose readers are pet owners who are interested in, for example, cat food.
Having said that… Don't just start generating backlinks like that!
Domain authority in this case is also related to increased conversions . So, once again, select the site you would like to write for conscientiously.
If your online store has several domains... link them together!
If your business has a presence in other markets, this gives you the opportunity to create your own link building strategy between your domains without requiring much effort, and thus increase the authority of each of them.
So that you understand it better, I am going to give you the example of the “experiment” that we carried out at Trusted Shops.
A couple of weeks ago we announced the launch of our website for online merchants in Portugal . Well, to reinforce the authority of the Portuguese domain, each of the domains (Poland, France, UK, Italy, Spain, etc.) reported on their respective blogs about this event, including a backlink pointing to the Portuguese website.
As you can see, this experiment has borne fruit. A few weeks after launch, the domain authority of the Portuguese website went from 1.7 to 14. What a success!
If your ecommerce has a blog, you could announce the launch of the online store in Portugal (or in other countries) or even write, for example, an article about the best-selling products in other countries and take advantage of the occasion. to include backlinks to the respective domains.
There are thousands of ways to link your domains, surely you can think of many more apart from those I have named.
Get third-party mentions
Another alternative to guest posting, but which would involve some type of cost but less effort, would be to make an agreement with a blogger or influencer who refers to your products or services.
If, for example, you offer sporting goods in your store, a good solution would be to make an agreement with an important blogger in that area so that they refer to your site in their content.
This action, again, will help you increase the reach of your products and the authority of your domain.
Another way to get third-party mentions would be through the media . This is perhaps the most powerful way to increase your domain authority.
In addition, getting mentions and backlinks in authoritative media outlets will provide your brand with greater visibility.
And this is not so difficult to achieve...
Keep in mind that journalists are always looking for interesting content to write about. So, look for something interesting to communicate about your brand or your services and thus revive your content marketing strategy!
And this brings us to the second technique.
Work on your content marketing strategy
Content marketing has become an essential SEO tool. However, to this day, there are still many online sellers who undervalue it and focus only on paid advertising.
There are thousands of ways to incorporate a good content marketing strategy into your online store. From product descriptions to launching a blog, organizing webinars, creating podcasts , etc. In fact, many podcasts transcribe the dialogue and create a verbatim post, so you could take advantage of this to include backlinks to your site.
If your ecommerce sells sporting goods, for example, it will be more relevant to Google if it had a blog with recommendations and relevant information for athletes.
Both Google and the media love to see a site stay active by creating fresh content. With the help of, for example, guides , tutorials and additional information about your products, you are not only helping your customers, but also increasing the chances that third-party sites link to yours.
Tip: Make use of social networks to spread your content and thus reach more users. This will, in the long run, have a positive impact on your domain authority.
Generate natural internal links in your content
Once you have established your content marketing strategy, it is time to put this third technique into practice.
Always try to link the content you generate with other internal content or product pages, in a natural way . It is a way to demonstrate to Google that the contents are related to each other and that you follow a coherence in your theme.
A clear example of this is the blog of the Lucía Be online store. In one of her articles, Lucía gives advice to her readers on how to lose weight and feel better about themselves, according to her own experience. During the course of the article, the author takes the opportunity to announce her panties from the latest collection by linking to the respective product pages.
In addition, internal (proper) links offer a good user experience , something that Google also scores for more domain authority.
Do you know where to place your backlinks for an even more positive effect on your site? Find out what Google employee John Mueller recently revealed about the algorithm.
Check broken links
And now if we come to the fourth and last technique. But not because it is the last, it ceases to be less important. On the contrary, it is an essential technique if we do not want to lower ranking positions and lose domain authority.
Just getting links to your site and generating internal links between your content is not enough to improve your authority. It is also essential to pay attention to the maintenance of these links.
By this I mean that if you point to a site that has been modified or removed for any reason, the link will point to a page that does not exist ( 404 error ) and you will lose domain authority. The same thing happens if third-party sites point to certain content on your site that has ceased to exist.
For this reason, it is necessary to identify the links that no longer exist and remove them from your page. You do this, for example, with tools like ahref that give you an overview of broken links on your site.
Another option would be to practice from time to time the 301 redirection by which Google is informed that a URL has been modified in order to avoid broken links.
Summarizing
It is not so important the number of backlinks that your website has, but the quality of these. If third-party sites pointing to your site are relevant, you'll notice a positive impact on your domain authority.
And in the end we always end up talking about the most important thing: an effective content strategy. As I have already mentioned in previous articles, content is and will always be the "king" , so if you want to stand out so that more and more websites refer to yours, it is essential to create quality content that provides added value to websites. users.
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