“What is your DA?” When I ask for guest blogging on my website, most people ask me this question.

I was wondering why people care about DA. Well, what is DA? Why it is important?

I didn’t know, so I googled it!

DA stands for Domain Authority. It is a search engine ranking score that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine result pages.

Domain Authority scores range from 1 to 100. According to Seopressor, domain authority between 40 and 50 is considered average, between 50 and 60 is considered good and over 60 is considered excellent. (1)

I see. Now, I checked my DA and found out it’s 3. Yes, my DA score is 3 (as of June 2021). How cute! Lol

I also did research on how DA calculated, why it is important, how to improve it, etc. If you want to know how does domain authority calculated and how to boost your domain authority score, keep reading!

DISCLOSURE: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a small commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no additional cost to you. Please read my full disclaimer here for more info.

How Does Domain Authority Calculate?

First of all, although domain authority provides a better understanding of your rank in search engine results, it doesn’t mean that your website is not useful. Domain Authority is also not a Google ranking factor. If you want to know more about the Google ranking factor, read my How to Boost Site Speed and Improve Google Ranking here.

I personally think the Google ranking factor is more important than the DA score. Google ranking factor included very user-friendly evaluation items.

Well anyways, DA is based on machine learning calculations including 40 different factors. These include things like: (2)

• Linking root domains
• Total number of links

How to increase Domain Authority Score?

Because Domain Authority scores change constantly, there isn’t really a definite way to boost DA scores. I believe SEO also doesn’t have the right answers.

However, Moz mentions that the best way to influence the Domain Authority metric is to improve your site’s overall SEO health. (2)

How? Here are some suggestions from Moz: Focus on the quality and quantity of external links pointing to your site.

What does it mean? If someone includes your website link in their website or blog post, this is considered an external link to your site. “Focus on the quality of external links to your site” means someone who includes your website link in their blog post or website needs to have a good DA score.

“Quality of external links” are created by trusted websites, popular websites, higher DA score websites, etc.

“Focus on the quantity” means many websites need to send links back to your site. For example, 20 external links from 2 different websites are not “quantity” even though you’ve created 20 external links. It only counts as 2 linking root domains. Earning a link from 20 different websites will boost your DA score because it counts as 20 linking root domains.

Because of this, some people do “paid link-building.” When a website pays a third-party domain for a followed backlink that points back to their domain, that’s called “paid link-building.”

An easy way to say this is “you buy an external link from another website.” Don’t do it. Paying for links is strictly forbidden by search engines.

Many famous bloggers also refused to sell their links. Follow search engine rules to run your healthy online business.

How to Get Quality Links Without Paying for Them

Exchange Links

For example, I included Bella Wanana’s blog post “Online Jobs for Teens: 50 Opportunities to Try” in my “Massive List of Gig Economy Jobs for Extra Income” article. In exchange, Bella Wanana’s website included my blog post “The Ultimate List of Tools & Resources for Online Business” in their article “20 Best Stay-at-Home Mom Jobs.”

I think this is a clever way to exchange links as well as build a blogging community. It’s a simple collaboration with other bloggers but potentially creates a good SEO effect on both of us. It’s a win-win!

Guest Blogging

Write content for other websites or bloggers and ask them to include your site link. You provide free content; they provide a free external link. Again, it’s a win-win!

Here is a great guest blogging case study from Adam Enfroy: (3)

• Duration: January 4th to January 18th, 15 days
• Sent emails to 68 different websites for guest blogging
• Out of 68 sites, 28 were interested in guest blogging from him
• Of these 28, he pitched topics to 18
• Of these 18 sites, 8 has high DA score such as 81, 73, 60, 66, 71, 61, 94, and 84
• He has created 32 new referring domains and 247 new backlinks from these gests blogging
• As a result, his DA score increased +12

Related Post: How to Write a Guest Post Offer That Will Accept

That’s an amazing result. I’m just simply surprised that he created 18 pieces of content within 15 days. I can barely make 12 contents in a month, sometimes less. Lol

As you can see, he collaborated with higher DA score websites. It’s so obvious that 3 backlinks from high domain authority sites will be much more effective in increasing your score than 20 backlinks from low domain authority sites.

However, I guess higher DA score websites are very selective for guest blogging. I think collaborating with other bloggers in your niche could be a good starting point if you are new to guest blogging.

I offer guest blogging for this website to create new relationships with other bloggers. My DA score is 3 (as of June 2021) and I know it may not be beneficial to you. But I’m really happy to connect with other bloggers and am willing to make a bigger freelance community here. If you can join Happier Freelancing, contact us via Twitter. (All are appreciated.)

Create High-Quality Content

Extraordinary content attracts your site visitors. People will share your content if it’s a good one. The more people share your content, the more you gather backlinks. Simple but effective.

How to Analyze SEO Health on your site to boost your DA score?

Good site SEO health directly impacts your DA score and google search ranking. It’s always a good idea to analyze your site’s SEO health!

For instance, a WordPress plugin like AIO SEO allows you to analyze your entire WordPress site to detect critical errors and get actionable insights to boost your SEO and get more traffic.

With AIO SEO, critical errors are all explained in detail with the resources given. So, you know exactly how to fix them yourself. I really like these types of educational plugins. You learn SEO along the way to improve your site’s SEO health. Very helpful!

AIO SEO Pricing:

• Basic: $39.60 a year
• Plus: $79.60 a year
• Pro: $159.60 a year
• Elite: $239.60 a year

2,000,000+ professionals use AIO SEO to improve their website search rankings.

Wrapping Up

In my opinion, it looks impossible to boost my DA score unless focusing on link building. Therefore, I’ll do a guest blogging case study like Adam Enfroy after my side project is done. I’ll share the result with you on whether my DA score of 3 will improve or not. Stay tuned!

Now, it’s your turn. What are your strategies to increase your DA score?

Resources:

1. V. (2021, March 9). 9 Simple Steps to Increase Your Domain Authority. SEOPressor Connect – WordPress SEO Plugin. https://seopressor.com/blog/how-to-increase-domain-authority/
2. Moz. “Domain Authority: What Is It & How Does It Work?” Moz, 10 June 2021, moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority.
3. Enfroy, Adam. “Guest Blogging in 2021: How I Wrote 80+ Guest Posts in 1 Year.” Adam Enfroy, 10 May 2021, www.adamenfroy.com/guest-blogging?_ga=2.91736474.1602071427.1625075116-1820565101.1615340782.