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How Do I Improve My Domain Authority (DA)?
Posted by Dr-Pete
The Short Version: Don't obsess over Domain Authority (DA) for its own sake. Domain Authority shines at comparing your overall authority (your aggregate link equity, for the most part) to other sites and determining where you can compete. Attract real links that drive traffic, and you'll improve both your Domain Authority and your rankings.
Unless you've been living under a rock, over a rock, or really anywhere rock-adjacent, you may know that Moz has recently invested a lot of time, research, and money in a new-and-improved Domain Authority. People who use Domain Authority (DA) naturally want to improve their score, and this is a question that I admit we've avoided at times, because like any metric, DA can be abused if taken out of context or viewed in isolation.
I set out to write a how-to post, but what follows can only be described as a belligerent FAQ ...
Why do you want to increase DA?
This may sound like a strange question coming from an employee of the company that created Domain Authority, but it's the most important question I can ask you. What's your end-goal? Domain Authority is designed to be an indicator of success (more on that in a moment), but it doesn't drive success. DA is not used by Google and will have no direct impact on your rankings. Increasing your DA solely to increase your DA is pointless vanity.
So, I don't want a high DA?
I understand your confusion. If I had to over-simplify Domain Authority, I would say that DA is an indicator of your aggregate link equity. Yes, all else being equal, a high DA is better than a low DA, and it's ok to strive for a higher DA, but high DA itself should not be your end-goal.
So, DA is useless, then?
No, but like any metric, you can't use it recklessly or out of context. Our Domain Authority resource page dives into more detail, but the short answer is that DA is very good at helping you understand your relative competitiveness. Smart SEO isn't about throwing resources at vanity keywords, but about understanding where you realistically have a chance at competing. Knowing that your DA is 48 is useless in a vacuum. Knowing that your DA is 48 and the sites competing on a query you're targeting have DAs from 30-45 can be extremely useful. Likewise, knowing that your would-be competitors have DAs of 80+ could save you a lot of wasted time and money.
But Google says DA isn't real!
This topic is a blog post (or eleven) in and of itself, but I'm going to reduce it to a couple points. First, Google's official statements tend to define terms very narrowly. What Google has said is that they don't use a domain-level authority metric for rankings. Ok, let's take that at face value. Do you believe that a new page on a low-authority domain (let's say DA = 25) has an equal chance of ranking as a high-authority domain (DA = 75)? Of course not, because every domain benefits from its aggregate internal link equity, which is driven by the links to individual pages. Whether you measure that aggregate effect in a single metric or not, it still exists.
Let me ask another question. How do you measure the competitiveness of a new page, that has no Page Authority (or PageRank or whatever metrics Google uses)? This question is a big part of why Domain Authority exists — to help you understand your ability to compete on terms you haven't targeted and for content you haven't even written yet.
Seriously, give me some tips!
I'll assume you've read all of my warnings and taken them seriously. You want to improve your Domain Authority because it's the best authority metric you have, and authority is generally a good thing. There are no magical secrets to improving the factors that drive DA, but here are the main points:
1. Get more high-authority links
Shocking, I know, but that's the long and short of it. Links from high-authority sites and pages still carry significant ranking power, and they drive both Domain Authority and Page Authority. Even if you choose to ignore DA, you know high-authority links are a good thing to have. Getting them is the topic of thousands of posts and more than a couple of full-length novels (well, ok, books — but there's probably a novel and feature film in the works).
2. Get fewer spammy links
Our new DA score does a much better job of discounting bad links, as Google clearly tries to do. Note that "bad" doesn't mean low-authority links. It's perfectly natural to have some links from low-authority domains and pages, and in many cases it's both relevant and useful to searchers. Moz's Spam Score is pretty complex, but as humans we intuitively know when we're chasing low-quality, low-relevance links. Stop doing that.
3. Get more traffic-driving links
Our new DA score also factors in whether links come from legitimate sites with real traffic, because that's a strong signal of usefulness. Whether or not you use DA regularly, you know that attracting links that drive traffic is a good thing that indicates relevance to searches and drives bottom-line results. It's also a good reason to stop chasing every link you can at all costs. What's the point of a link that no one will see, that drives no traffic, and that is likely discounted by both our authority metrics and Google.
You can't fake real authority
Like any metric based on signals outside of our control, it's theoretically possible to manipulate Domain Authority. The question is: why? If you're using DA to sell DA 10 links for $1, DA 20 links for $2, and DA 30 links for $3, please, for the love of all that is holy, stop (and yes, I've seen that almost verbatim in multiple email pitches). If you're buying those links, please spend that money on something more useful, like sandwiches.
Do the work and build the kind of real authority that moves the needle both for Moz metrics and Google. It's harder in the short-term, but the dividends will pay off for years. Use Domain Authority to understand where you can compete today, cost-effectively, and maximize your investments. Don't let it become just another vanity metric.
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Source: Moz Blog
Monday, April 15, 2019
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Thursday, April 11, 2019
Why You Should Revisit Your Old Content – Regularly
The post Why You Should Revisit Your Old Content – Regularly appeared first on ProBlogger.
This post is based on episode 145 of the ProBlogger podcast.
Is your obsession with new content hurting your blog?
As bloggers, we tend to focus on what we’re creating now rather than what we created months or even years ago.
Of course, it’s important to put time and effort into creating new content for our blogs. And that’s what we do here with both ProBlogger and Digital Photography School. We want to make those posts useful and practical, and to ensure they’re well edited, attractive to the reader, and optimized for search engines.
It’s good that we do all that. And it’s also good that we promote our new content. We share it on social networks, put it in our newsletter, and encourage engagement through comments on the blog and on social media.
But here’s the thing: The week your post goes live is only the beginning of its life online.
Sure, it will get a spike in traffic for a few days after it’s published. But what happens in the months, years, and potentially decades after you hit ‘publish’ can completely dwarf those first few days.
That’s why evergreen content is so important. I won’t get into creating it too much in this post, but if you want to know more there are plenty of resources on ProBlogger including:
- How to Build Your Blog’s Audience with Long Form Evergreen Content
- The Ultimate Guide to Creating Evergreen Content for Your Blog (podcast episode 136)
- 7 Types of Evergreen Content for Your Blog (podcast episode 209)
Why Your Archives are an Amazing Asset
If you’ve been blogging for a year or more, your archives probably contain loads of great content that can really help your readers.
It may take a while for your regular readers – particularly the newest ones – to get to those archive posts. But readers who come in from search engines are more than likely to land on one. In fact, when I looked at the Google Analytics for Digital Photography School, the 14 most recent posts got only 15% of the overall traffic. The remaining 85% went to older posts.
So don’t assume your archived posts don’t matter or aren’t useful. They’re almost certainly getting a large share of your traffic.
And don’t assume the people who subscribe to your newsletter or keep coming back to your blog each week have read them either.
Here’s how to focus more on your archives, which can provide a number of benefits.
Revisiting Archived Posts
Each day on Digital Photography School I look back at what we published six months ago (which will almost always be two separate posts), and ask myself:
#1: Is the content evergreen? If it is, I schedule both posts to be published on Facebook the following day.
#2: Is the post still relevant? If it’s related to a promotion or competition that finished nearly six months ago, or linked to some news that’s no longer relevant, I consider deleting the post.
#3: Are there any mistakes in the post? I look for errors in the post – factual errors, spelling mistakes, broken image, embedded tweets that no longer work, and anything else.
#4: Could I (or my team) improve the post? Maybe it can be enhanced by updating the image or adding some additional formatting to the text. It may even seem a bit dated. (This doesn’t happen too much with six-month-old posts, but occasionally I need to make tweaks to keep them up to date.)
#5: Could we link the post to newer content, or link to it from newer content? This helps readers find their way deeper into the site. (It also helps a bit with search engine optimization.)
#6: Does the post need additional optimizing for SEO? This means looking at how it’s ranking on Google and potentially tweaking the titles and keywords, or even the alt tags used for the images in the post.
#7: Could we publish a follow-up post tackling the same topic? If the original post got a lot of discussion going, the questions in those comments sometimes give me an idea for a fresh post. Or maybe I’ll ask one of our writers to write a post that takes a different angle.
#8: Is it worth repurposing the post into a new medium? If the post has done really well, I consider whether it’s worth turning the content into a podcast or video.
#9: Does the post need a new call to action? Sometimes the call to action we used six months ago is no longer relevant, and we may want to promote a new Facebook group we’ve started or new product we’ve released instead.
#10: Do any comments need to be dealt with? This where I delete any spam that has managed to slip through the moderation system. It also gives me the opportunity to reply to comments I haven’t responded to yet.
#11: How is the post performing in Google Analytics? If the post has a lot of comments, or gets new comments regularly, I might look in Google Analytics to see how it’s performing. If it’s doing well, it’s a sign I need to pay attention to that post. For instance, I might be able to get it ranking even better.
As I go through these questions, I usually find the posts only need a few small tweaks. But even if I don’t update it, looking at that post helps me put it to the front of my mind.
Repeating the Process So You Cover All Your Posts Annually
Once I’ve done this for the posts from six months ago, I do it again with the posts from 12 months ago.
I get into a rhythm when I do it, so it only takes me a couple of minutes to look over each post.
I then go back 18 months, 24 months, 30 months, and so on – right back to the start of the blog in 2006.
All up it takes me about an hour. And it’s one of the most valuable things I do each day.
I look at every post in our archive (of more than 6,000) at least twice a year. And many of them get little tweaks along the way.
You might want to try a different system, such as looking only at the posts published one and two years ago. Or you have some other way of looking at posts in your archives – some of which you may have forgotten were even there.
Why This Process is So Effective
When I share older posts on social media other people often share them too, which helps to bring in even more traffic.
And updating old posts can help search engines view them more positively – potentially bringing in a lot more traffic over time.
I also get loads of new ideas when I do this. For instance, if I see that posts on a particular topic are doing really well, I might think about creating additional content. A while ago we realized a lot of our Digital Photography School posts on Adobe Lightroom were doing especially well, which gave us the idea to create a course on Adobe Lightroom.
This process also keeps my archives from looking dated and out of touch. I don’t want 85% of people coming to my blog thinking “Meh, this is no good. It’s out of date”.
You may not have an hour a day to devote to this. That’s fine. Make a start anyway. Even spending ten minutes on one post in your archives each day can make a huge difference over time.
I’d love to hear how you maintain your archives and keep older posts up to date (and visible to your current audience). Feel free to share your tips in the comments.
Image credit: Matthew Dockery
The post Why You Should Revisit Your Old Content – Regularly appeared first on ProBlogger.
Source: ProBlogger