Master of your Domain: What is Domain Authority and Why Should You Care?

When it comes to measuring social media effectiveness, you can look at “likes” “followers” and even blog traffic, but is that really the best way to know how your business is faring out in the big bad digital universe? More and more, domain authority is proving its prominence as a way to measure effectiveness of online activity.

Essentially, domain authority is a metric that looks at how well a website should perform competitively in search rankings. The higher the score, the more credible the website looks to the algorithms that determine search engine rank. In layman’s terms: if you look legit and authoritative then your website will rank higher on Google, Bing and all the other guys too. Because it takes into account a host of factors including keywords, links, tags and more; the resulting score is a better representation of your website’s comprehensive effectiveness than any single factor.

Where can you find your domain authority? The original index was developed by the big-brained folks over at Moz, and you can take a free look at your domain authority here:  The score is ranked on a logarithmic scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being the highest. But, like any other leadership pyramid, it’s tough at the top. As you move up the ranks, each increment gets harder to obtain; meaning it is easier to go from 10 to 20 than it is to go from 80 to 90.

Why should you care? This answer could take us down a rabbit hole so long and deep, so twisty and turny, that we may actually bump into Alice. Suffice it to say, ranking high is the whole point. It is how people – potential customers most importantly – will easily find you. It shows if your efforts are working AND if you are doing it better than your competition. Because after all, you are not trying to rank in a vacuum.

What should you do with it? Information is power, my friends. And, knowing where you rank is a good place to start. So, once you’ve checked your own score, plug in the URL of a competitor or two. How do they rank in comparison to you? Is this surprising? Take time to do some competitive analysis of these sites and really look at what they are doing differently than you.

Once you get a sense of how you are doing, make your plan of attack. If you are far ahead of your competition, then keep on keepin’ on. Whatever it is you are doing is on the right track.

If you are in the middle of the pack, do some strategic analysis: what are you good at that you can do more of? What is lacking entirely? Then, make time or hire some pros, to execute on those objectives.

If you are far behind: start making your website a priority. Fix broken links, make sure your copy is relevant to what you are selling. Include images that are relevant and show not just what you are selling, but what your company is all about. There are tons of things you can do; some are immediate and some that take time to develop, that will put your site on the right track to success.

The good news is, it is never too late to start. Get to know your domain authority today and start yourself on a path to improved SEO.