Effecting Domain Authority

[Joseph.Lusso]

I've taking an old brochure website and done 61 Pages and 10 Post pages On-page SEO and my Domain Authority is still a '1.'  I've used Low Difficulty Keywords and gotten Grade A in On-page Moz reports. We've even keyworded 400 images - Alt text. My competitors have done nothing and they have domain authority at least in the 40s...... Am I doing anything wrong?

[Andy-Halliday]

It sound like you have done some great on site SEO work.

However Domain Authority (DA) is based more on external factors, i.e. links pointing to your site. You might want to read http://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority

How you go about getting links is a whole different conversation. I would recommend doing it the hard and slow way. Trying to cheat Google / Moz will only get you penalised in the long run. DA is a Moz score, but Google will have a similar score, even though they will never reveal your score.

Try producing good content onsite that people in your niche want to link to. Once written instead of waiting for these people to find your content (they never will, or it will take years), be direct. Pick up the phone and speak with influencers in your niche.

There are two parts to SEO, technical and content / links. The content / link strategy is what was called PR 10 years ago and its all about getting mentioned and links in relevant areas. There is no point getting a link to your site from sectors which aren't relevant. Google will see through these.

Also never pay for a link, and never trust any of these emails you get offering to get you amazing links from PR6 etc sites. These never work in the long run and only will do more long term damage than help you.

I hope this is helpful in explaining why your DA hasn't improved and what you need to do to improve it. Also DA only updates around once a month, so any work you do now may take a few months to show. You have to wait for Moz to find the link, then wait for their next update. The more popular the site you get the link from the quicker Moz is likely to find it.

Thanks

Andy

[davidangotti]

Hi Joseph!

It sounds like you have been busy and I'm sure you are ready to see the fruits of your labor! One thing that may be helpful to realize is how DA and PA work. There is quite a bit of delay due to crawl frequency and delays associated with the crawl and these metrics are delayed by approximately four weeks or so. This is the same reason that a recent article on HuffPo or TechCrunch will show a PA of zero. This could easily be what is going on here. I use a combination of more real-time metrics (i.e. AHREFS and Majestic) in addition to moz metrics.

That being said, to increase DA/PA you have to build high-quality links into the site. My opinion is the best way to do this is to make ridiculously good assets and content and then promote them to influencers in the nice.

Good luck with the site!