4 Surprisingly Effective Tricks to Raise Your Domain Authority

Domain Authority (DA) acts as a ranking metric to predict how well a website will rank. The higher it is on a scale ranging from 1 to 100, the more traffic your website is going to generate and the better is its SERP placement going to be. This is especially important if you use link-building through guest-posting to build your brand authority.  

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#1. Disavow bad or malicious links

Checking your backlink structure with a proper SEO tool is by far the most important step to improve your DA score. Everybody knows that domain authority is strictly dependent on your backlinks quality, and while adding new quality links is obviously critical to increase it, getting rid of the bad ones is just as important. You never want to link with another website just because it’s available. In the same way you want your network of business professionals to be strong, you want your links to be strong.

Sometimes your website can be the target of an intentional malicious spam attack, or it could simply receive backlinks from adult material sites, gambling sites or even just non-relevant sites. This can happen even without your notice and is exactly why seo tools are so useful. You should never underestimate the importance of conducting regular link audits. Disavowing links is the quickest method to remove all this clutter from your backlinks structure, and will make Google very happy.  More importantly, you’re able to cut ties with any links you haven’t consented to.

#2. Interview other people for your website

I know it may seem odd, but interviewing people is a curiously effective way to generate traffic to your website and a lot of links as well. Why? Well, thanks to human narcissism, that’s why. Anyone who gets interviewed obviously wants to be seen by as many people as possible, and will start linking that article or video everywhere he can, anytime he can.  If that person has an impressive following, you’re likely to get a ton of traffic that will add to your domain authority.

When the interview is live you’re actually tapping into that person’s full network, and will start gaining a lot of natural and relevant links as well as a steady amount of traffic. The best part? If you pick a person that’s relevant to your industry you’ll also be getting a ton of qualified traffic too. Just sit down and let them work for you!

#3. Use Q&A sites such as Quora

The basic assumption of this premise is a simple yet effective one: you give a hand to someone and he will do you a small favor in return. In this specific situation, you’re helping someone who’s asking a simple question in a Q&A website such as Quora by providing a satisfactory answer. You can be sure that person is going to read it, as well as many others, and you can add a link to a page in your site where you dig in that same topic a little further.  

This is a great way to build your authority with users you already know are interested in what you’ve got to say. The link is going to be absolutely natural, so you know there is a good chance your post is going to be shared, and people will flow to your website – it’s a win-win situation. You can also reword the same question over and over again and post it on dozens of different websites to grab their juice as well!  Even a half hour a week spent answering questions can go a long way when it comes to building authority for your domain.

#4. Replace other people’s broken links

Broken links are a hidden source of penalties that many people are not even aware of. By offering a site owner the opportunity to replace one of his broken links with a working one that points to a relevant content you posted in your site, you’re actually doing them a favor. This inclines them to scratch your back and return the favor. It’s also a great way to grab the attention of influencers that may or may not be out of your league.

There are plenty of tools to identify broken external links, and the easiest way is probably to analyze your competitor backlinks to find them. The best part of this tactic is that you’re going to take full advantage of the already established authority of a page that may even be years old. On top of that, you’re also going to choose the best anchors to substitute the previous link with your own.  As an added bonus, you get to feel good knowing you helped clean up the mess of links that are strewn across the internet.

Conclusion

Raising a site DA is all but a simple feat, and many wrongdoers simply try to cheat their way to the higher rankings with black hat tricks. Don’t do it!  Even the best have fallen for this temptation and even if it brings initial traffic, it ends up hurting the authority of the website more than it helped.  

All in all- black hat seo moves simply aren’t worth the heartache.  Although you may get some bonus on the short-term, you can be sure that’s going to negatively affect your whole website on the long run. Remember, slow and steady always wins the race.

What do you do to clean your website and raise your domain authority? Which tools do you find work best? Please share your expertise and insight in the comments.  

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