How Domain Authority Affects Your Backlink Strategy?
Backlinks play a crucial role in ranking well on Google and other search engines. However, not all backlinks have the same effect. The domain authority or DA of the site providing the backlink has a major influence on that backlink’s value and SEO impact.
Domain authority is a score developed by Moz that predicts how well a particular website ranks in search engines. It depends on various factors, most importantly the number and authority of sites linking to that domain. Sites with higher DA tend to achieve better search rankings compared to lower DA sites.
So backlinks from high authority domains can pass on significant ranking power and search visibility to your site. This is why domain authority matters when building an effective backlink strategy. The DA of your link sources can determine whether the links you build translate into tangible SEO results and higher rankings or not.
Let’s explore in more detail how domain authority affects the relevance, trust, and overall influence of the backlinks pointing to your website.
The Influence of Domain Authority on Backlinks
Domain authority has a considerable influence on the quality and SEO value of backlinks. Let’s examine how it impacts the relevance, trustworthiness, and ranking ability provided by backlinks.
Relevance and Trustworthiness
Websites with higher domain authority are perceived as more relevant and trustworthy by Google. When such an authoritative and respected site links to your website, it signals to search engines that your content is credible and worthy of being linked to.
For example, if a website like Forbes.com, which has a very high DA, links to you, it suggests that your site offers value to its audience. This passes on the trust and relevance of a reputed publisher like Forbes to your own site. A backlink from Forbes confers more credibility compared to a link from a newly established blog with very low domain authority.
Google’s ranking algorithm relies heavily on trust and relevancy signals to evaluate websites. So earning backlinks from reputable and popular domains directly improves your site’s trust and topical relevance in the eyes of search engines. This can in turn boost your search rankings and visibility.
Impact on SEO Effectiveness
Gaining backlinks from websites with higher domain authority provides considerably greater SEO value compared to links from low DA sites. The authority passed on by a link is directly proportionate to the DA score of the linking website.
For instance, a backlink from a site with a DA of 90 passes on much more link juice and ranking power than a link from a 50 DA website. According to studies, web pages that obtained backlinks from sites with a 90+ domain authority saw over two times more search ranking uplift compared to pages that only had links from sites with a DA between 50 to 60.
This demonstrates that focusing your link building efforts on securing backlinks from authoritative domains with high DA scores can improve your SEO performance and search rankings much more efficiently. Just a handful of quality links from reputable sources might have the same impact as hundreds of links from inconsequential sites.
Quality over Quantity
When evaluating websites, Google cares more about the quality and authority of the linking domains rather than just the number of backlinks. Having 10 high-value backlinks from websites with a DA above 80 is infinitely more powerful than acquiring 100 links from spammy sites with a DA under 10.
Google’s algorithms favor quality over quantity when it comes to assessing the value of backlinks pointing to a website. Just having a high link count does not help much if most of those links are from shady or irrelevant low-authority sites. Such links may even get penalized by Google for appearing manipulative and unnatural.
On the other hand, a small number of quality backlinks from highly authoritative and topically relevant sources have a much more positive influence on your rankings. Therefore, you should always prioritize securing links from reputable domains with higher DA, rather than simply chasing a large volume of links regardless of quality.
Building a Backlink Strategy with Domain Authority in Mind
Now that we have seen why domain authority matters for link building, let’s discuss how you can develop an effective backlink strategy while keeping DA in mind:
Researching High-DA Websites
The first step is to research authoritative websites related to your niche that have a high domain authority score. Use tools like Moz and Ahrefs to find websites with a DA of 60 or above in your industry.
Thoroughly analyze the content of these high-DA sites and identify specific pages where a link to your website would provide value to their audience, and appear editorially relevant. This can uncover strategic link opportunities to pursue.
You can also search for authoritative domains that already link to your main competitors but not to your site. These represent prospects to pitch great content to, in order to get mentioned on their site as well.
Link-Building Techniques for High-DA Sites
Here are some of the most effective white hat link building techniques to obtain backlinks specifically from authoritative and high-DA websites:
- Guest Blogging: Identify popular blogs and reputable publications that accept contributor posts within your niche. Ensure your author bio contains a link back to your site. Getting featured on established sites with high domain authority allows you to benefit from their reputation.
- Interview Outreach: Reach out to leading podcasters, video channels, and other authoritative publications to get interviewed as an industry expert. Being featured on these platforms allows you to insert a valuable contextual backlink.
- Roundups: Contact respected high-traffic sites related to your field and pitch your content to be included in their roundups, lists, and comparison posts which are often updated regularly.
- Sponsored Giveaways: Partner with reputable third-party sites catering to your target users and sponsor giveaways, contests, or other crowd-pulling content on their platforms.
- Broken Link Building: Check high-quality pages on authoritative domains for broken links to resources and offer to replace those with your content, earning a backlink in return.
Diversification is Key
It’s important not to over-optimize by getting all your links from just one or two domains, even if they have high DA scores. Too many links from a single source appear manipulative to search engines.
The ideal approach is to diversify your backlinks across multiple authoritative domains related to your topic. Just a handful of quality links from varied reputable sources will seem much more natural and organic.
Make sure to mix up your link-building tactics like guest posts, interviews, giveaways, roundups etc across different authoritative sites. This diversity strengthens your overall link profile considerably.