Domain Authority — What It Is and Why It Is Important

So, you’ve been all around the internet looking for SEO tips and tricks to maximise your website’s SEO. However, no matter where you go, you always seem to run into a specific term: domain authority. You might think to yourself, “Is this even important at all?” Well, to answer that question, we must first understand what domain authority is. Only after knowing what domain authority is can you see why it is essential to maximise it for your website and the sake of your SEO.

That said, let us talk about domain authority—what it is and why it is important:

What Exactly Is Domain Authority?

Simply put, domain authority, a term coined by people over at Moz, predicts how well a website can do on a specific search engine.

Domain authority is indicated by a score, and each website has its score. The score itself can be taken from Moz’s tool Link Explorer, although it isn’t the only tool now that can be used to understand a website’s domain authority score.

Keep in mind that these tools will typically use slightly varying criteria to calculate the final score.

This means that the score you can get from your website using Moz’s Link explorer can differ slightly or significantly compared to other tools.

Regardless, they all measure the same thing: your website’s SEO.

Taking Moz’s tool as an example, they calculate your domain authority using various factors like link strength, linking root domains, and the like.

The final score given is anywhere between one to one hundred, where the higher the score, the better the website’s domain authority.

However, keep in mind that this score isn’t fully indicative of the website’s final performance. With a high score, you might think that your website is strong and ranks number one on many keywords.

However, the number is just referring to your website’s general power and authority.

Why Is Domain Authority So Important?

Knowing that a high domain authority score doesn’t guarantee that a website will bring the best results day in and day out, why is it even necessary in the first place?

It’s essential for one reason: it helps you understand how Google ranks a website.

Again, the tool measures a website’s SEO, and a higher score means that the website’s SEO is better, resulting in a higher rank.

As such, even if it doesn’t guarantee a website with excellent domain authority will be successful no matter what, it is usually the case where a website with a higher domain authority will perform better than websites with lower domain authority.

Conclusion

Domain authority is a good way for you to understand generally how well your website is performing on a search engine, and the higher the score, the likelier it will perform great.

Now, if you notice that your domain authority score is disappointingly low, there are plenty of ways to improve it, and they all affect your website’s SEO.

Action such as eliminating spammy links to linking to real, authoritative websites can help enhance your website’s domain authority score.

In the long run, this will allow you to build a strong website that people can rely on and that Google is more than happy to reward with a better rank!

JRR Marketing creates and manages websites for local businesses on the Gold Coast, turning lifeless websites into high-performing ones.

If you are looking for SEO consulting services to help you improve your website’s domain authority, reach me out today.