As a full-time blogger, my domain authority is very important to me, and I know it is the same for many bloggers. As a Blogger and Blogger Outreach Consultant, I know many brands tend to work with bloggers that have a minimum domain authority of at least 20, so improving and maintaining a good domain authority score is very important if you plan to make money from your blog.
A blog’s domain authority is set by Moz Open Site Explorer, and it is simply a score that shows how your website is really doing. It works by crawling the web to find sites that link back to your site; it then measures the value of these links and generates a number based on the results.
Before you can have a valid domain authority, you need to have your own domain. So yourblogname.com, co.uk or net, but not .wordpress, or blogspot, if that makes any sense. Many new bloggers tend to think they have a domain authority with a free WordPress/Blogger blog, but they don’t, as their blog is piggybacking on the host platform, which explains the very high domain scores. However, blogs with a vanity domain (that is a blog with a domain name but hosted on WordPress/Blogger) do have a valid domain authority, so you don’t need to be self-hosted to have a domain authority. I see this question come up a lot online, so I thought to clarify this bit before going further.
So how do you improve your domain authority? I have blogged for over 4 years now on Fashion and Style Police, and at the moment, I have a domain authority of 33. I going to mention things that I believe has helped me.
Regularly Posting Quality Content
I blog almost every day and I think my blogging regularly has helped improve and maintain my domain authority. But the key is to post regular quality content and not just churn out post after post that have no depth.
Posting regular quality content would get you views, comments, likes, link backs, and shares, which all help your domain authority massively.
Using SEO Properly
Using SEO properly means your blog posts would appear on search engines, which makes it more likely to get views, comments, shares, and the likes. What use is a great post or blog if no one can find it? Good use of SEO increases the number of eyeballs on your blog, which will eventually increase your domain authority.
Build a Social Following
A blog’s social following does have an impact on its domain authority. If you have a decent following on social media with engaged followers, you will see an increase in your blog views, comments, shares, and the likes, which eventually helps the overall domain authority of your blog. I wrote a little more about this in my book – How to Cash in as a Blogger, so go have a read and please leave a review on Amazon once you are done. I need them reviews like I need air!
Commenting on Other Blogs
Commenting on other blogs does have a massive impact on the domain authority of your blog because it links back to your blog, if you leave your blog link details in the website box. However, I would advise you don’t leave your blog link under your comment except the blogger is happy with this. I personally don’t like it because I have to deal with broken links every now and again, and these links are usually the main culprits. Leaving your website link in the allocated section should do the work fine, and also make sure your comment is a decent amount of words, I would say at least 10 words if possible.
Writing at Least 300 Words Posts
The minimum word count of a blog post should be at least 300 words. I know sometimes it may be hard to write-up a post up to 300 words especially for Giveaway posts but that should be your ideal target. Research and experience has shown me that longer posts help improve the domain authority of a blog. And these posts also rank high on Google so it is a win-win.
Try these tips for 6 months and see if your blog’s domain authority increases.
Do you have any domain authority tips to share?
If you have enjoyed reading this post, please do leave a comment and share.
Thank you.
Nice post
Thank you.
Great tips. I optimize for SEO as I go as I find it’s easy to just do per post. I find checking broken links and guest blogging also helps x
Yea they do too. Thanks x
Lot’s of interesting points – despite blogging for years I don’t understand the world of SEO, Domain Authority etc. As it’s always been a hobby I’ve not needed to know, but now I’m interested in taking it to the next level these tips have come at the perfect time, thank you 🙂
Helen x
Thanks for reading Helen. Glad you find the tips useful x
Fantastic post this! I’ve been working really hard on increasing my DA over the last 6 months!
Thanks..
Fab tips – I am literally just writing a post on this. I think a lot of people are a bit at a loss about how to do this so this post will be so helpful to them!
Thank you.
Great post Stella, thanks for the tips. I never knew that about 300 words before. I use to do a lot of silent pictures and blog hop with not many words. Think I need to work more on my writing 🙂
Thanks for reading Claire..
Thanks for the tips! I find it a minefield! I never used to work on my DA and it always went up. Now I’ve been trying to work on it for a few months, it’s gone down. Arg!
I am sure it will come back up x
Awesome DA tips for us bloggers!! I don’t find DA too important as it doesn’t really take into consideration your blog post views and monthly unique visitors but I know its important to many Mrs and brands if you want to work with people!
Yea it is..
These are great tips! I need to make domain authority more seriously and put these tips to use.
Thank you..
Great tips – I have been blogging three years and my DA is 42 which I am very pleased about. Kaz 🙂
Oh wow..Nice work Kaz.
Great post, I’d been wondering how to increase my DA. I think I’m doing all the right things so far so I’ll just give it time 🙂
Yes it will increase eventually.
Wow call me stupid, but I did not know anything about domain authority until I read your very interesting post. Thanks for sharing girl!
Learnt something new today 😊😉❤
xx
Saabri
Thanks for reading Saabri. Glad you found it useful.
Ooh I didn’t actually know these tips but I think I do them anyway so thats a good thing for me! xxx
Oh good xx
These are great tips. Thank you for the clarification re what DA is etc. I’m a new blogger (only 2 months) and I’m using free WordPress at the moment, I was very confused when I went to check my domain authority and it came back really high, but this explains it. Good to know I can get my own domain authority by buying my domain name and not necessarily having to go self hosted. Thanks
Thanks for reading. Glad you found it helpful.
As always a great post, I do check my DA regularly, but thanks for enlightening as to what’s involved to get that number up!
Thanks for reading..
This is a great post Stella. One can not over emphasise great quality contents.
Thanks for sharing.
X
Thanks for reading xx
Brilliant tips here – thanks for sharing your knowledge with us!
Thanks for reading Sophie.
Good tips. I wasn’t sure about the value of checking broken links in comments before.
Thanks Janet.
I have recently got my own domain so I am struggling to get hang of it. You post helped a lot. Thanks
Oh good. Thanks Madeeha.
these are great points! I agree with all of them. I may add investing in some ads may help to boost the DA a bit, but if you have the followers and the visits, the DA is only a number 🙂 x
Thank you x
These are fantastic tips! My DA was going up and up, and now it’s going down! I think it might be because of broken links! :/ I am pinning this! Thank you!
Thanks Sarah.
An interesting read and I’m glad I am doing the right things to help increase my DA.
Oh good. Thanks Melanie.
I have a domain authority of 33 too although it was 36 before my move to WordPress. I agree that commenting on other people’s blogs help massively x
Yea it does x
I worked so hard on improving my DA score and it went to 17 & fell back to 14 twice. I’m still searching for ways to increase my score.
I am sure it will get back up again. Just keep at it.
Superb..
Thanks.
I’m reading a bit more on this as I’ve just recently bought a domain and want to increase my DA. This post has helped a lot, so I might save it and refer back to it if I have any questions (I have really bad memory! haha)
Thanks for the help!! xx
Thank you for reading xx