Domain Authority – the secret sauce behind improving organic search rankings

Your ad spend is based not only on the amount you are willing to spend – your maximum bid – but also on what Google’s algorithm thinks will serve the RIGHT content to the searcher. There’s a good reason we all use Google… it works, we find what we want. For more on Ad Campaign tips and tricks CLICK HERE. Google’s algorithm judges your worthiness based in no small part on your Domain Authority ranking.

Moz offers a great tool for all marketers to use to view their DA score and more, it’s their OSE free tool – check it out here: MOZ OSE . It is actually free, not like other tools where you can perform one search and then you have to pay, you can search 15 sites… your competitors, your own site, your clients’ sites and get loads of information of not only their DA score but the backlinks that point to them and where they link out to.

To build your DA you need to start thinking strategically about what you write, where you link and how you can get those backlinks going. Be careful when using tools who claim to offer minimal cost and thousands of backlinks. Your DA score is also dependent on WHERE your backlinks come from. The higher the linking site’s DA the more valuable that link is to your score.

Your DA is based on a scale of 1 – 100 with 100 being the very best. Most good business sites that have been around for 5+ years sites rank in the 40s or 50s and raising that score takes time and effort. If your score is in the 20s, don’t worry – you can move the needle pretty rapidly (in organic search terms) by following these steps:

1. Clean up your backlinks: make sure you don’t have backlinks to your site from disreputable sites. If you do find those, try to have the webmaster remove them or disavow them.

2. Start interviewing. By that we mean, interview industry leaders, spotlight a client per month AND get interviewed. Reach out to local papers, magazines and podcasts and send them a fun and pertinent fully-written article in your ask – they have a lot of content they need to produce each month and you can help them just as they will help you.

3. Fire up your YouTube channel. How to videos are the winners on YouTube (behind cat videos) and If you can share the wisdom in a short video weekly or monthly those links will count.

4. Host an event. Put your RSVP on Eventbrite and put the event on Meetup – links links links and those two sites have great Domain Authority scores so links from them count toward your score.

5. Blog. Write articles that link internally to other relevant content like How To Write a Great Blog Article with killer SEO optimization and externally to resources to support your reader like this article from Neil Patel who is an AMAZING resource for all things marketing.

It’s time consuming and can feel tedious but when you do improve your DA you will pay less for your Ads, you’ll get leads from organic search and as you build these habits you’ll reap rewards across the interwebs of name recognition and brand awareness.

Stay tuned – more secret sauce is coming.