How can our company improve its domain authority / DA score?

Author: Ryan Walsh

Date: 31/05/2025

 

Businesses globally naturally want their respective companies to be ranked at the top of Google. This, in turn, translates to more clicks and can help your business to obtain more conversions/sales.

That is what we would call the obvious part.

What is far less evident to some businesses is how they achieve the top spot on Google?

How does a business improve its domain authority score from, say, 11 to 70, so it’s nearer to its competitors’ figures?

Well, that’s where our team comes in.

Through sheer grit and determination, we have over the last 10 years worked out how a business can climb through Google’s SERP’s and improving your company’s DA score makes up an essential part of this process.

 

Is DA a direct ranking factor that Google uses?

The answer to that question is no.

DA simplifies and quantifies the power and the strength of your business’s search engine optimisation. It primarily does this by calculating the business’s backlink profile.

Although businesses and marketing agencies obsess about their websites’ DA figures, it is not a direct ranking factor.

What do we mean by direct ranking factor?

As part of Google’s algorithm, what makes the algorithm work in terms of its ability to work out where to rank websites is based on the strength of a business’s “ranking factors”. These are the points of a business’s web presence, which Google and other search engines measure, calculate and work out how strong they are. For example, how strong is  the business’s backlinks?

Now, there are over 200 of these so-called ranking factors; therefore, it is natural for SEO tools will try to simplify this by focusing on essential metrics that are more measurable and quantifiable. This is where DA or domain authority comes in.

Tell me more about how domain authority is calculated

Domain authority is a metric that has been used in SEO for quite some time, dating back to the early days of when Google was using PageRank.

Now what it does do is provide a snapshot of how good a business’s organic SEO is, therefore where it might be placed in Google’s SERP’s.

SERP simply means “search engine results pages” for those who do not know.

Now, DA or domain authority was first developed by Moz, which, by the way, we think is a fantastic company.

If you are looking for SEO tools that can pretty much do it all, we highly recommend Moz.

Now, Moz website authority is calculated on many different factors.

We mostly believe it’s based on the strength of a business’s backlinks. However, it’s also thought that the age of the domain name and the quality of the content marketing are also factors.

 

Old domains

Has your SEO consultant ever said, ‘You have a new domain, so it will take longer to see SEO results’?

Well, they were not fibbing.

New domains do take longer, that’s because a new website can be like a blank canvas. As long as no prior optimisation work was carried out, then this means you are starting with a blank slate, a blank canvas if you will.

Therefore, you are starting from the foundations and building up.

This means more work, which is why the SEO work takes longer.

However, that is not necessarily a bad thing; it can be a good thing, as it means you have the opportunity to ensure that all the work you implement is of high quality and done correctly from the outset.

What is a good domain authority score?

How good are your competitors

If a business owner contacts you and wants to set up a car insurance broker business, yet they only have a 2k monthly budget, then this would be unrealistic.

Now, you might pause for thought, wonder, well, why? Why is that unrealistic?

It is unrealistic due to the hyper-competitive nature of that business sector, making it challenging to climb and scale the business with that marketing budget.

The competition (car insurance companies) will have large internal teams, external advisors, and large marketing budgets to spend every month.

Therefore, this is where DA comes in.

What’s the DA score of your direct competitors?

Is it relatively low? This can mean that the barrier to entry for getting on page one of Google can be a bit easier.

 

How can a business start work on improving its DA score?

Backlinks

Now, there are backlinks, and then there are backlinks —but what does that mean?

Some backlinks will be relevant, good quality and come from respected businesses.

Think of the companies in your business sector; perhaps there’s a magazine or news website in your business niche that you know is recognised as offering excellent advice?

Perhaps you visit that website as your primary source of industry news?

That’s the website that you will want to gain links from.

Always think quality, not quantity.

Rubbish links and spam backlinks can massively hamper your business’s optimisation efforts. Meaning if too many of the wrong sort of links are built, this could damage your website’s visibility, sometimes leading to de-indexation and penalties, which means you don’t show up anywhere on Google!

 

But how are backlinks obtained?

As a well-known SEO agency based in Cardiff, this is a question on most businesses’ minds: how can they obtain more backlinks?
How can that business obtain more links, which ultimately dictate where the company can then rank in Google’s SERPs?
Well, the answer comes down to many different ways of building links; however, at this agency, we have only ever used two link-building methods:

 

Create the best content marketing in the business

Okay, so you might not be able to create the best content marketing in your business sector every single time; however, this should not stop you from trying.

Good-quality advice is mentioned, linked to, and discussed in forums, etc. You explain how a farmer can repair an item of machinery himself, he may go on to mention you in multiple farming forums, on his business website, where he sells organic produce, etc.

Help someone; they may help you. It’s as simple as that.

Offer quality advice, offer the best advice that you possibly can, and that work might attract sometimes hundreds of thousands of visitors. Those visitors, some of whom might have their blogs or businesses, may link to you.

 

Get mentioned on high-quality and relevant business directories.

There are often a lot of high-quality business directories that relate to your business sector.

However, we must emphasise the quality of the wording.

Again, don’t focus so much on quantity; instead, focus on quality. Therefore, if there is a business directory for your industry, that’s recognised as a well-known business, that perhaps offers awards or certification, then do get a link and NAP listing/business listing from that business.

For example, the Gas Safe website for plumbers would be suitable for your plumbing business.

 

Spread the link equity.

Internal links are also handy and needed to spread the link juice across multiple pages.

Let’s say your business obtains an excellent link from a relevant website that has, for example, a domain authority score of 92. That’s a high

DA score; therefore, this should help nudge your business up Google’s organic rankings.

Yet, there are steps that the digital marketing agency can take to allow the link juice or link equity to trickle through to different pages. This is why marketing companies use internal links that interconnect relevant pages, allowing the link juice to work its way through and essentially increase the page authority of other pages that are being linked to.

It is said, and thought by SEO consultants, that the further the page is away from the original link, the less effect this will have in terms of improving the page’s ranking.

For example, an original link that has internal links, such as the 10th linked page to that original link, is unlikely to benefit from the internal link. However, a few links away could also raise the page authority of those linked pages.

Let’s give you an example of what we mean: a link comes from the BBC and links to a blog post you have written. It celebrates the business winning, let’s say, the best restaurant of the year in that area. You could then add an internal link, from the article page, directly to the restaurant’s menu page to raise the page authority of that other page as well, therefore giving the page an SEO boost.

 

An FAQ on domain authority

How can a business check its current DA score?

You can check your business’s domain authority score by using a backlink checking tool. There are various backlink checking tools available on the market; different marketing agencies have different preferences in terms of the link-building tools they use. At this agency, we have used Moz Pro for many years; we believe it to be one of the best backlink checking tools available.

 

How can a business improve its DA score?

Ultimately, this comes down to building more high-quality links, as well as creating content marketing with a high Google E-E-A-T score.

Over time, as a business earns more links, the number of links in the business’s backlink profile will grow. As you gain more powerful links, you will see the domain authority score increase; there is usually a direct correlation with where the business ranks. For example, firms with a very high DA score tend to rank at the top of Google.

The businesses with a much lower DA score tend to rank lower.

 

What type of backlinks should be built?

You should focus on building quality links that are relevant to your business sector. Only build backlinks which have a high DA score.

Which SEO tool/backlink checker do you recommend using?

Moz Pro, we have attached a link; we believe it’s one of the best backlink checking tools available.

 

Why is link velocity a vital SEO metric?

So, as any good SEO agency will tell you, it’s possible to build too many links too fast. Ideally, all businesses should strive to build quality links over a protracted timeframe.

 

Why must the backlinks be relevant?

The backlinks must be relevant because this helps send a signal to Google what your business is about. For example, if you have 100 backlinks from tool websites, and your website mainly sells chainsaws, this sends a clear message to Google that your business is all about selling tools. If you have spam links, you have not built, then its important to talk to an SEO agency who can help you to disavow those links.

 

Come to the best

Here at Walsh and Partners, we are one of the best SEO companies in the whole of the country.

How can we say that with so much confidence?

Well, the answer to that is simple: with 10 years of experience, working with a wide range of different businesses, plus also being mentioned by some of the best and most well-known SEO publications, we are good at what we do.

We offer free, no-obligation quotes, so no matter if you’re a small business in Cardiff or a larger e-commerce business, we are here to help your business obtain more sales.