How To Increase Domain Authority For Your Blog

This post will be sharing how to increase domain authority for your blog.

The domain authority of my lifestyle blog recently went from 22 to 29 in about six months.

In fact, it should be hitting 30 any time from now because of how aggressive I am with building my backlink profile.

So, I thought I should share all the tips and tricks I’ve been using.

If you are a blogger who wants to earn money through sponsored posts, one of your key priorities should be increasing your domain authority, or DA.

This is because it is the most common determining factor for many brands and agencies.

More often than not, you might not be asked about your monthly pageviews.

But you will definitely be asked about your DA.

It goes without saying that the lower your DA—typically under 20—the lower the amount of money you will offer, and vice versa.

Also, a higher DA means more room to negotiate so it is worth working for.

What is a Domain Authority?

Without getting too technical, according to Moz;

Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz.

It predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine result pages.

Domain Authority scores range from one to 100, with higher scores corresponding to greater likelihood of ranking.

moz.com

A high domain authority tells a brand or agency that any blog post you write has a high chance of ranking on search engines.

And as such is worth investing in.

It also means more exposure for their business because of the traffic your blog will get as the DA increases.

Here’s How To Increase Domain Authority Quickly

When it comes to SEO and Google issues, you always want to ensure that you’re on the right side of the law to prevent penalties.

You should be fine as long as your tactics and strategies align with Google.

While some people believe that some strategies, like guest posts, are outdated, as long as they align with the fundamentals of link building, they will always work.

Let’s get down to it!

Via Journo/Press Requests on Twitter

One of the ways you can get a high-quality backlink is by reaching out to journalists who need sources.

More often than not, these journos work with high authority websites including media companies.

They’re also always willing to give you a link back as compensation for responding to their request.

Just make sure you remember to ask. Just last week, I got a link back from metro.co.uk.

I’ve also gotten from wellandgood.com in the past, as well as stylist.co.uk

Here are some tips on how to utilize Twitter for backlinks:

• Create a Twitter list with the title Journo Request.
• Add the account @PRJournoRequest to the list. They always retweet tweets with the hashtag #journorequest, which is much more effective than adding random journalists to your list. Also, you get a daily stream of nonstop tweets to choose from.
• Whenever you find a journalist request relevant to your blog or niche, respond to the journalist by DM. Never let it move to emails. In my experience, you have fewer chances of getting feedback when it moves to the email. So, start and finish your entire conversation, including responding to the journalist request via DM.
• Before responding to a journalist’s request, check their bio and make sure they write for a reputable, high-authority website. If you’re not sure what a reputable website is, click on the account on their bio and check out their website. A handy tip I use is the MozBar Chrome Extension; it shows me the DA of any website at any time. Also, sometimes, when the journalist introduces themselves in the DM, they mention what company they work for.
• Decide what journalist requests are worth responding to. Thankfully, you have the option to turn down a journalist’s request. Sometimes, they want something as simple as a quote. Other times, they want an entire blog post, which I don’t have time for. So, choose your battles wisely.
• Since I’m always on Twitter, I try to sieve through the list daily or every other day.

Via Help A Reporter (HARO)

If you want to increase domain authority, you should sign up for HARO.

I wrote about it in my post on How to Get Your First Google Featured Snippet, but I’ll touch on it briefly again.

Think of HARO as the email version of the Journo Requests Twitter List.

When you sign up for HARO, you get three daily emails with all the journo requests from different websites of various sizes.

In theory, it looks and sounds like a great idea, but after using it for a while and getting just a single response, I stopped using it.

There’s nothing better than talking to an actual person on Twitter.

If you don’t use Twitter and want to try out HARO, go ahead.

Here are 3 Reasons To Start a Blog

Via Link Swaps through Facebook Groups

It cannot be overstated how important it is for a blogger to have the right balance of inbound and outbound links in their blog posts.

But sometimes, you can’t be bothered to research relevant outbound links to include in your post.

This is where link swaps come in.

Earlier this year, I discovered these Facebook groups, where bloggers can connect with other bloggers in their niche and swap links to increase their domain authority.

Talk about the literal meaning of lifting others up. Anyway, I joined and before I knew it, I could swap links with other bloggers in my niche.

This in turn boosted my domain authority.

Here are some link swapping/exchange links for you;

• Choose blogs in your niche. As my lifestyle and travel blog, I never stray from those niches.
• Choose posts that are most relevant to your existing posts. For instance, I was happy to link to a fellow blogger with a post on the Top French Cafes To Try for my Paris Travel Guide post. Make sure the swap is as natural as possible.
• Choose blogs with higher domain authority than yours. With a DA 29, I always look for blogs with DA 35 and above. The higher the DA, the more significant the link juice it can pass to me.

Via Guest Posts

Guest posts used to be the primary strategy for building backlinks.

While it still works, I don’t find it as effective anymore.

This is because contributing to high-authority sites has become a lot more complicated.

Finding genuine websites that check and respond to their ‘Write For Us’ emails is also tricky.

This doesn’t mean that guest posts don’t work.

Of course, they do, they are just more time-consuming and tasking.

If you still enjoy guest posting, use Facebook groups to find genuine blog owners.

Via Advertising

Blog advertising is another method I’ve seen bloggers use to increase their domain authority.

Again, this can only be effective if the blog you’re advertising with is in your niche and has a higher DA.

Exploring organic and paid methods is essential for everything in digital.

In Conclusion,

I hope you have found this post on increasing domain authority useful, especially if you have been struggling.

I’m looking forward to putting even more effort into getting my DA to 35 before the end of the year.