How to Increase Domain Authority To Help With SEO

If you’ve spent any time in the world of search engine optimization (SEO), you’ve likely come across the term “Domain Authority” (DA). Originally developed by Moz, Domain Authority is a scoring system (ranging from 1 to 100) that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s not an official Google metric, but it has become a popular proxy for measuring a site’s “strength” in the SEO community. The logic goes like this: the higher your site’s DA, the more likely it is to rank favorably on Google, Bing, and other search engines—meaning more visibility, more clicks, and potentially more leads or sales.

However, increasing your domain authority is not a matter of adding a simple line of code or publishing one viral blog post. It’s a long-term endeavor involving multiple facets of SEO—from building a robust backlink profile to ensuring your website follows technical best practices. Improving your DA often requires patience and consistency. Although you won’t see dramatic results overnight, the payoff can be substantial once your site establishes a solid reputation and trustworthiness in the eyes of both search engines and users.

But why is Domain Authority so important, and what exactly does it measure? In essence, Domain Authority looks at the quantity and quality of backlinks pointing to your site, along with other factors like site structure, user engagement signals, and content quality (at least indirectly). These elements combine to form an overall “credibility score” that can help you benchmark your SEO efforts and compare your site’s performance against competitors.

The Challenges of Increasing Domain Authority

1. Stiff Competition

One of the most prominent hurdles to boosting Domain Authority is the sheer volume of competition on the web. If you’re in a saturated niche—like finance, health, or lifestyle—there may be hundreds or even thousands of websites vying for the same audience and keyword space.

• Established Sites: Longer-standing sites often have amassed large backlink profiles and strong brand recognition over time.
• Niche Competition: Even in narrower markets, multiple competitors might already rank well, making it difficult to stand out.

Why It’s Tough:

• It’s challenging to attract high-quality backlinks when authoritative websites in your industry are already linked to established players.
• You may also be competing with sites that have huge marketing budgets or teams dedicated to SEO.

2. Low-Quality or Sparse Content

Another major stumbling block is content that either lacks depth or fails to engage readers. Search engines evaluate the user experience, and if visitors routinely bounce from your pages because the content is superficial or irrelevant, it signals low value.

• Keyword Stuffing: In an attempt to rank for specific terms, some sites overuse keywords, making the text awkward and reducing credibility.
• Lack of Expertise: If your articles or guides aren’t well-researched or fail to address users’ questions thoroughly, people (and potential backlink sources) won’t take them seriously.

Why It’s Tough:

• Creating high-quality content requires time, expertise, and a good understanding of your audience’s needs.
• Without strong content, reputable sites have little incentive to link to you, which directly impacts your DA.

3. Inconsistent Link-Building Practices

When it comes to Domain Authority, backlinks are king. But not all backlinks are created equal. Links from low-authority or spammy sites can do more harm than good, while high-quality links from industry leaders can catapult your DA forward.

• Unnatural Link Building: Some site owners fall for “quick fixes” like buying links or participating in link farms, only to face penalties later.
• Lack of a Strategy: Without a coherent plan for earning backlinks, your efforts might be random and ineffective.

Why It’s Tough:

• Building relationships with authoritative sites requires networking, outreach, and consistent quality.
• Cleaning up bad links (through disavow or removal) can be time-consuming and may not fully repair reputational damage.

4. Weak Internal Linking Structure

Most people focus on external links, but internal linking also plays a vital role in how search engines crawl and understand your site. Without a clear, logical structure, your best content may remain undiscovered by both users and bots.

• No Content Hierarchy: If your website has random blog posts or product pages floating without context, it’s harder for Google to index them properly.
• Missed Link Opportunities: Sites often fail to link older, relevant articles to newer ones, causing a lost opportunity for passing “link juice” internally.

Why It’s Tough:

• Maintaining an optimized internal link structure requires careful planning and regular updates as you add more content.
• Overdoing internal linking—such as stuffing too many links—can also appear spammy and reduce user experience.

5. Technical SEO Gaps

Even if you have amazing content and a healthy backlink profile, technical issues can hold back your Domain Authority. Slow load times, broken links, poor mobile responsiveness, or incorrect canonical tags can all send negative signals to search engines.

• Page Speed Issues: Large images, unoptimized code, or unreliable hosting can slow down your site.
• Indexing Problems: Broken sitemaps, robots.txt errors, or canonical errors can make certain pages invisible to search engines.
• Security Concerns: Lack of HTTPS encryption or a poor security setup can discourage both users and Google from trusting your site.

Why It’s Tough:

• Technical SEO can be complex, especially if you lack coding experience.
• Keeping up with evolving standards (like Core Web Vitals) requires continuous monitoring and optimization.

6. Poor User Engagement Metrics

Domain Authority isn’t solely about backlinks. While Moz’s metric itself might focus heavily on link-related signals, real-world SEO success also depends on user engagement: time on site, pages visited per session, and bounce rate. A website that fails to engage visitors won’t attract organic links or social shares.

• High Bounce Rate: If people leave immediately after arriving, it’s a strong signal your site didn’t meet their expectations.
• Low Time on Page: Thin content or poor design can result in users quickly moving on.
• Lack of Social Proof: Few comments, shares, or community interactions can make your site appear inactive or less credible.

Why It’s Tough:

• Engagement depends on multiple factors—site layout, content quality, speed, and even how you market your site.
• Improving these metrics requires a holistic approach, not just a focus on one aspect of SEO.

7. Impatience and Lack of Long-Term Strategy

Finally, one of the biggest challenges is that increasing domain authority doesn’t happen overnight. SEO is a marathon, not a sprint, and many website owners give up before they see significant results.

• Hasty Decisions: Engaging in black-hat SEO techniques for quick gains often leads to penalties that damage your site’s long-term prospects.
• Lack of Planning: Without a clear roadmap, it’s easy to get stuck in a cycle of random efforts that yield little or no improvement.

Why It’s Tough:

• Consistency is key, but it’s also the hardest part for many who want rapid results.
• If you’re constantly pivoting strategies, you might never build the momentum needed for a meaningful DA boost.

Strategies to Increase Domain Authority with SEO

Having explored the challenges, let’s dive into specific strategies that address each hurdle head-on. Implementing these steps will help you build a strong foundation for higher DA—while also naturally improving your search rankings and site credibility.

Focus on High-Quality, Original Content

Why This Matters
Content is at the heart of any SEO strategy, and that holds especially true for domain authority. Websites that consistently publish in-depth, well-researched, and engaging articles tend to attract more backlinks and social shares.

How to Do It

1. Conduct Thorough Research: Use data from reputable sources, cite studies, and offer unique insights or analysis.
2. Solve Real Problems: Identify pain points in your niche and create content that addresses them—whether it’s how-to guides, case studies, or FAQs.
3. Use Multimedia: Incorporate images, videos, infographics, and interactive elements to keep users engaged.
4. Format for Readability: Break content into bite-sized paragraphs, use subheadings, and include bullet points to help readers skim.
5. Stay Current: Regularly update older articles with fresh data, stats, or examples to keep them relevant.

Pro Tip: If you’re short on time, consider creating fewer but more comprehensive pieces of content rather than numerous shallow articles. Quality typically trumps quantity when it comes to attracting high-value links.

Implement a Strategic Link-Building Plan

Why This Matters
Links from authoritative, trustworthy sites can dramatically boost your DA. However, link-building must be handled carefully to avoid penalties or wasted efforts.

How to Do It

1. Guest Posting: Reach out to reputable blogs in your industry and offer valuable guest posts. Include a link back to your site within the article or author bio (where allowed).
2. Broken Link Building: Find relevant pages on other sites that contain dead links. Suggest your content as a replacement, offering a win-win for the site owner.
3. Resource Pages: Identify resource lists or link roundups in your niche. If your content is genuinely helpful, submit it for inclusion.
4. Influencer Outreach: Partner with influencers or thought leaders. Co-creating content (like interviews or roundup posts) can yield high-quality links.
5. Skyscraper Technique: Look at top-performing content in your niche, create a more comprehensive version, and reach out to websites that linked to the original.

Pro Tip: Avoid any schemes that sound too good to be true—like paid links or link wheels. These can trigger Google penalties and severely harm your DA in the long run.

Strengthen Internal Linking

Why This Matters
Effective internal linking helps search engines understand your site’s hierarchy and the relative importance of each page. Plus, it offers users clear paths to explore related content.

How to Do It

1. Create Topic Clusters: Organize your content into clusters around central themes. Each cluster has a pillar page linked to relevant subtopic pages.
2. Use Descriptive Anchor Text: Hyperlink text should describe the target page. For example, link “best SEO tools” rather than “click here.”
3. Update Older Posts: Whenever you publish a new piece of content, revisit older articles to add relevant internal links.
4. Limit Irrelevant Links: Don’t overload a single page with too many links. Focus on quality and relevance.
5. Use Breadcrumbs: This navigational aid helps both users and search engines keep track of where they are in your site’s hierarchy.

Pro Tip: An internal linking audit tool (like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb) can help you identify orphaned pages (those with no inbound links) and spot link equity distribution issues.

Tackle Technical SEO Issues

Why This Matters
Even the best content and link-building efforts can be undermined by technical glitches. A site that’s easy for search engines to crawl and index lays the groundwork for higher domain authority.

How to Do It

1. Boost Site Speed: Compress images, enable browser caching, and consider a Content Delivery Network (CDN).
2. Ensure Mobile-Friendliness: Use a responsive design that automatically adjusts to different screen sizes.
3. Fix Broken Links & Redirects: Regularly scan for 404 errors and set up proper 301 redirects for outdated pages.
4. Optimize Sitemaps: Create and submit XML sitemaps to help search engines find all your important pages.
5. Secure Your Site: Install an SSL certificate and use HTTPS. This is a ranking signal and builds user trust.

Pro Tip: Keep an eye on Google Search Console for crawl errors, mobile usability issues, and other technical red flags. Addressing these promptly can prevent bigger SEO problems down the line.

Leverage Social Signals (Indirectly)

Why This Matters
Social media presence might not be a direct ranking factor, but it can indirectly influence your DA by increasing brand visibility, driving traffic, and leading to more organic backlinks.

How to Do It

1. Share Your Content Regularly: Use platforms where your audience is most active—LinkedIn for B2B, Instagram or TikTok for lifestyle brands, etc.
2. Encourage Sharing: Add social sharing buttons to your blog posts, emails, and landing pages, making it easy for readers to pass along your content.
3. Engage with Your Audience: Respond to comments, participate in relevant group discussions, and collaborate with industry peers or influencers.
4. Run Contests or Giveaways: Offer something valuable (like a free e-book or discount) in exchange for shares or tags.
5. Repurpose Content: Turn a blog post into an infographic or a short video to reach a broader audience and increase the chances of backlinks.

Pro Tip: Track your social media analytics alongside website traffic. A well-performing social post can often lead to spikes in visits—and sometimes, valuable new backlinks.

Improve User Engagement

Why This Matters
Search engines pay attention to how users interact with your site. While Domain Authority as a metric leans heavily on backlinks, user engagement can still be a significant contributor to how others perceive and link to your site.

How to Do It

1. Streamline Your UX: Make navigation intuitive, reduce clutter, and ensure CTAs (Calls to Action) are clear.
2. Optimize for Readability: Use larger fonts, short paragraphs, and plenty of white space to invite visitors to stay longer.
3. Add Interactive Elements: Quizzes, polls, and embedded videos can increase time on site and reduce bounce rates.
4. Encourage Comments and Feedback: Creating a community around your content can boost loyalty and social sharing.
5. Use Internal CTAs: Prompt users to explore related articles or sign up for your newsletter.

Pro Tip: Tools like Hotjar or Crazy Egg can help you see exactly where users click and how far they scroll, giving you actionable insights to improve engagement.

Clean Up Toxic or Irrelevant Links

Why This Matters
Having backlinks from spammy or low-quality domains can drag your site down. While removing such links won’t necessarily skyrocket your DA overnight, it prevents penalties and preserves the integrity of your link profile.

How to Do It

1. Use a Backlink Checker: Tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or SEMrush can help identify suspicious inbound links.
2. Evaluate Domain Quality: Look at each referring domain’s own authority and relevance to your niche.
3. Reach Out to Webmasters: Politely request that they remove the problematic links.
4. Disavow Links When Necessary: If the webmaster doesn’t respond or refuses, use Google’s Disavow Tool to tell Google you don’t want those links counted.
5. Monitor Ongoing Activity: Schedule regular checks to spot new spammy links before they pile up.

Pro Tip: Be cautious when disavowing links. Only do so for clearly spammy or harmful sources. Legitimate, even if low-authority, links typically don’t require disavowal unless they’re part of a known scheme.

Track and Benchmark Your Progress

Why This Matters
Domain Authority is a metric you’ll want to watch over time, but it shouldn’t be your only benchmark. Tracking multiple KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) helps you see how each part of your SEO strategy contributes to overall growth.

How to Do It

1. Set Clear Goals: Whether it’s reaching a DA of 40 or earning 100 new backlinks, know what you’re aiming for.
2. Use Multiple Metrics: Combine Domain Authority with organic traffic, keyword rankings, and conversion rates to get a fuller picture of performance.
3. Monitor Competitors: Compare your DA with rivals in your niche to understand where you stand.
4. Check DA Over Time: Domain Authority updates can lag, so look at trends, not just snapshots.
5. Adjust Strategies Accordingly: If you see no improvement in DA after consistent efforts, reevaluate your link-building, content strategy, and technical SEO steps.

Pro Tip: Don’t obsess over small fluctuations in DA. Even if your site is improving, external factors—like Moz updating their algorithm—can temporarily affect your score. Focus on the big-picture trend line.

Practice Patience and Consistency

Why This Matters
Increasing domain authority is more about planting seeds and tending to them consistently rather than expecting immediate results. Patience coupled with steady improvements is the recipe for success.

How to Do It

1. Create a Long-Term Plan: Outline quarterly or semi-annual SEO goals, so you have milestones to work toward.
2. Stay Updated: SEO best practices evolve. Keep learning through reputable blogs, podcasts, and conferences.
3. Build Authentic Relationships: Networking with other website owners, bloggers, and influencers takes time but yields reliable backlink opportunities.
4. Continuous Content Refresh: Keep older pages up-to-date, especially if they rank well or attract backlinks.
5. Celebrate Small Wins: Hitting incremental goals—like acquiring a link from a respected site or seeing a DA bump from 20 to 25—helps maintain motivation.

Pro Tip: Instead of solely fixating on your DA score, also track growth in search rankings, organic traffic, and conversions. These metrics often paint a more holistic picture of your website’s success.

Cheat Sheet To Increase DA

Strategy	Top 5 Tactics
Focus on High-Quality Content	1. Conduct thorough research 2. Solve real problems 3. Use multimedia 4. Format for readability 5. Update regularly
Implement a Strategic Link-Building Plan	1. Guest post on reputable sites 2. Broken link building 3. Leverage resource pages 4. Influencer outreach 5. Skyscraper technique
Strengthen Internal Linking	1. Build topic clusters 2. Use descriptive anchor text 3. Update older posts with new links 4. Limit irrelevant links 5. Use breadcrumbs
Tackle Technical SEO Issues	1. Boost site speed 2. Ensure mobile responsiveness 3. Fix broken links/redirects 4. Optimize sitemaps 5. Secure your site (HTTPS)
Leverage Social Signals	1. Share content on key platforms 2. Encourage social sharing 3. Engage with your audience 4. Run contests/giveaways 5. Repurpose content
Improve User Engagement	1. Streamline UX 2. Optimize readability 3. Add interactive elements 4. Foster community (comments, feedback) 5. Use internal CTAs
Clean Up Toxic or Irrelevant Links	1. Check backlinks using SEO tools 2. Assess domain quality 3. Request link removal 4. Disavow if necessary 5. Monitor ongoing activity
Track and Benchmark Progress	1. Set clear, measurable goals 2. Combine DA with other KPIs 3. Monitor competitor performance 4. Check DA trends over time 5. Adjust strategy as needed
Practice Patience and Consistency	1. Establish a long-term plan 2. Stay updated on SEO trends 3. Build genuine relationships 4. Continuously refresh content 5. Celebrate small wins

Conclusion

Increasing your Domain Authority isn’t just about impressing a scorecard; it’s about building a site that’s genuinely authoritative, trustworthy, and valuable to your audience. That’s why the process encompasses everything from creating stellar content and forming meaningful backlinks to nailing down technical SEO and user engagement. If you tackle each of these areas methodically, you’ll see your DA rise over time—often alongside improvements in organic rankings, traffic, and conversions.