Domain Authority

[cback]

I am very new to SEO. I've built a dog grooming website for a business that my wife and I have established. www.petsalonbarkavenue.com  When I try and check the metrics out, it keeps showing I have a 1 on page authority, and a 1 on domain authority.

When I check a competitors site, they have certain anchor text that Moz has identified. I am pretty certain that our business is listed on the same directory as this competitor, yet Moz doesn't identify my site's anchor text.

Am I doing something wrong? or is my site so new, that Moz hasn't been able to find it?

Craig

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Craig,

Welcome to the baffling world of SEO

First of all, I would suggest you read the MOZ beginners SEO guide here. That will cover off a lot of the best practices that you need to be following.

In terms of your question about domain authority, this is going to be looking at links that have been built to your site - if you haven't done this yet, then I would suggest you read Chapter 7 on how this is handled. I also note that you mentioned a directory - as a rule of thumb, steer clear of these, unless they are niche or something like Yelp. For the most part, links from directories will at best do nothing, and at worst, cause you to get a penalty from Google.

-Andy

[Jantaro]

Stay away from directories and never pay for links. If I were you, I'd consider the following:

1. If you have a newsworthy story of any kind, try to approach journalists in your area or any local news site/forum. Any kind of publicity is likely to lead to natural links coming back to your website.

2. Use Meetup.com to find bloggers in your area or people with a passion for dogs that blog. Networking and making friends in your target community will be good for your website, but it will take time.

3. Creating a Facebook page is less important than it used to be as reach is down (i.e. your posts are unlikely to reach the people who've liked your page), but you should still have a Facebook page as it's a good way to update everyone on what you're doing. It also helps build authority.

[cback]

Thanks! The Dog Grooming industry isn't the most widely blogged about, but thanks for the Item 2 and I will look into that! And I have an idea for Item 1 that might be a good option in the next couple months.

[Jantaro]

Dog grooming is not blogged about much, but perhaps you could try to arrange an event for dog owners to teach them about dog grooming, or perhaps you can try to speak at an event where dog owners gather? By establishing yourself as an expert on dog grooming in your area, you should start to rank well in local searches.

I'm not an expert on local search, but it probably won't hurt to be on Foursquare and so on as well (http://webmarketingtoday.com/articles/for-local-seo-use-check-ins-at-foursquare-and-facebook/)

[Andy-Halliday]

Also depending how new the site is Moz Domain Authority score only really updates once a month (ish) next update is due on 24/7. http://moz.com/products/api/updates so you probably wont see any movement until then.

Like mentioned above welcome to the world of SEO where nothing makes sense and can drive you up the walls. Google is a cruel mistress that you won't never understand and are always trying to please.

And have to agree with Andy - never ever pay to go on directories and in honest stay well clear of them, I am trying to get old links removed from these places. A few years ago this was the thing to do to get to number 1 in google and was very simple, now it actually hurts you more in the long run than benefits you.

If you are new you might want to run read this history of SEO as a starting point http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/history-of-seo-glimpse-into-future-tl-ss

[cback]

I am a CPA by day, so this whole SEO/website stuff sort of makes me crazy. But its a fun hobby (I would never be able to do this for a business),  you SEO guys sure have some patience.

I have actually stayed off of directories pretty well, I've avoided all the SEO package things out there that want to throw your info on every directory in the world for a fee. I guess I meant in my original question that we offer certain grooming products, and our shop is listed on their page as a location that sells the grooming products. So our competitor is on there, and so are we, but yet the Competitor seems to get credit for it as a link, yet our site does not. Maybe I will just have to wait until another crawl comes through and check the results.

Thanks!

[David-Kley]

I have a disagreement about this to a degree. True, buying a link isnt a good practice, but buying the ability to have a citation profile that creates a link for you can be. Think of sites like the BBB, Chamber of Commerce, Business Journal, etc. These are trusted resources, that I highly doubt Google would penalize.

Facebook can be next to useless for a business unless your potential clients seach for services or use that service frequently. We have done many studies on this, and LinkedIn seems to be a better fit for service-based business, and Facebook better for product-based services.

To the original poster, if you are looking to build domain and page authority, begin by creating as many trusted citation links as you can. Yellowbook, Yelp, Patch, CityGrid, Axiom, FourSquare, Google Places, Bing Local, etc etc etc. We have a list we call the top 40, and that has been extremely sucessful for our local clients.

Blogging can help if you are typing things people will want to read and share. You can easily perform a search to find popular dog and pet grooming topics, or simply base the blog posts off of questions customers ask you everyday. Chances are, thats what people will want to know, and might have searched for before they even came to your location.

[David-Kley]

Without looking into the other places your competitor has links coming from, you cant say they are getting MORE credit for the link. Since your site is new, the competitor's site has had more time to build authority and links.

The tools for seo are just that, tools. I have seen sites that have a lower page authority and pagerank out rank sites with high PR and authority. All comes down to the details.

[cback]

Good point, our site actually shows up pretty well in Google. Not very well in Bing or Yahoo. I am up against sites that rarely update their content, and we do.

Then today, I did a search to check my status, and a new competitor shows higher than us! And yet their page looks like it hasn't been updated at all. Gotta love it.

Then again, if they got other links out there, maybe their ranking improved. Right?

[David-Kley]

It all depends. One of the reasons you show up so well in Google is because you have done things that Google likes, and not looked at other search engines. We blogged about this a while ago on our site. Look at number 8:

"Dont focus just on Google"

Do you have listings set up in Yahoo, and Bing? Is your site added to Bing webmaster tools? (yes, its real and it does exist lol) Have you submitted URL's through Bing? Lots of ways to get noticed by other search engines.

"I am up against sites that rarely update their content, and we do."

Updating content isnt enough. Blogging and creating additional pages for the sake of appearing more valuable to a search engine is pointless and a waste of time. I'm not saying don't write the blog, but to look more closely at your content marketing strategy, and see how it fits in with your seo strategy and goals.

If you are interested, I'd be happy to look at the site, and see how your ranking could be improved. PM me on here if interested. If anything, you could get some pointers and advice.

[WhoWuddaThunk]

I agree with Andy, it's probably just a refresh issue.  To check if your site is listed on that website you can use search dommands.  Type this into Google using their domain, and your business name

site:theirdomain.com your business name

If you are listed, and the page is indexed by Google, it will find you.