Building Your Domain Authority as a New Blogger

Photo by Ivory Mix

If you are a new blogger just starting out, you are probably looking for ways to bring more traffic to your site. You can share on social media, but you also will want to increase your domain authority, so you can get more organic traffic from search engines like Google.

In the beginning, you will not likely be getting a ton of blog traffc right off the bat, unless you already have a big following on social media that you can get excited about your writing. Blogging is a process that takes time to build success.

Blogging can be a great side-hustle for moms, and anyone else who is interested in being their own boss and working from home. However, before you start, make sure you do your homework and learn about the world of blogging so you don't feel like you are jumping in blind.

What is Domain Authority?

Domain authority will help your website or blog to rank top spots on a search engine when someone uses the keywords that you used in your blog post. The higher a website's domain authority for a particular keyword, the higher an article will be on the search page.

When you are getting started as a new blogger, you might try googling your article title or topic to see where you are ranking. Chances are, your blog post will be buried at least 5 pages back where not many people will ever see it. The more you use the same keywords over and over in your blog posts, and the more people click on them, the higher your website will rank.

According to Wix Encyclopedia,

Domain authority is a search engine ranking metric that measures the quality and reliability of a website, as well as its ability to rank in search engines.

As search algorythms rank your website, they take several different factors into consideration. They will rank human-written content higher than content that is noticably created by AI. Google typicall does not consider AI content to be high quality. Also, it is important to give legitimate information that is fact-based and well researched.

Wix Encyclopedia continues, with providing four pillars of domain authority:

• The age of a domain. The older the domain the higher domain authority it may have.

• The amount and quality of content published on a domain. Make sure your content is well-researched, as original as possible and answers the intent of users on your site.

• The link profile of a domain. The number and quality of backlinks pointing to it from other websites. The link profile of your site is also important for your website’s overall SEO.

• The apparent or perceived trustworthiness of the site. This is often determined by citations from other sites or backlinks to it.

If you have a new site, it will take a while to build up your domain authority and rank higher in searches. You will naturally be doing the most important part of achieving a higher domain authority by always striving to create high quality content. This makes your site reputable and trustworthy.

You can check your domain authority with this free tool from Moz. When you go to check, you just type your website name into the search bar, and it will show you your Domain Authority, as well as what keywords you are ranking for, and what sites you are competing with.

Here, you can see how this website is ranking compared to top competitors. You can also see that the sites above mine are pretty big sites - like Wikipedia. It would take a lot of work on my site to rank higher in search than a big name like that! Seeing who your competition is can help you to determine how your site is doing overall.

There are a couple of search terms that my website ranks really well in. For example, I searched "PTSD from narcissistic parents" on incognito.

This is the most popular post on my site currently, and it has over 5K views.

Backlinks

A backlink is when another website provides a link to your site. You can see the backlinks I am using in this article (above in the purple) that will take you to the other sites I am referencing when writing this blog post. When other sites mention your site and link to your content, that shows search engines that your content is valuable.

One of the best ways that you can get backlinks to your site is through networking with other bloggers to do guest posts or round-ups. A guest post is a blog post that you write for another website, and they will link back to your site at the bottom of the post.

This is an example of a guest post that I wrote when I was first starting out:

The Path Out of Darkness by Nicole Dake | PTSD: My Story Project #001

You can see here the website owner has linked back to my website.

A round-up is a post where a blogger will have multiple other bloggers contribute to a piece, so that there is a variety of content provided.

Here is an example of a round-up post that I did for Thanksgiving two years ago:

Celebrate Thanksgiving on November 25, 2021 - What we are grateful for!

To get started with guest blogging, here is 40+ High DA Sites That Accept Guest Posts (In Multiple Industries) These suggestions can get you started with trying to guest post. You can also find guest posting opportunities through building relationships with other bloggers through Facebook groups. Meeting people and having a genuine friendship and collaboration can help you quite a bit in the long term.

Another way to generate backlinks to your site is by using another blogging site to republish your content. Some examples of this would be:

• Medium (DA 95)

• Newsbreak (DA 71)

• Vocal Media (DA 78)

• Tealfeed (DA 43)

• Substack (DA 91)

These are all blogging platforms you can use in addition to your own website. Just check the rules with each site regarding republishing content from your site prior to doing so. I have had Vocal reject a couple of my pieces that were reposted citing plagarism, so I had to appeal and prove that the original content was from my own cite. It was a bit annoying having to do this, so that is why vocal doesn't top my list.

When it comes to popularity, I think that Substack and Medium are at the top. Both are easy to use platforms where you can repost your content and link back to your own site, and both also allow you to monetize your content through their platforms as well.

If you are strictly looking for backlinks, I think that Medium and Tealfeed are the best, because they let you enter the cannonical link to your blog post when you are setting up your draft to publish on their platforms.

Posting on other high DA sites allows you to get backlinks, and build your own website's authority in the process. It will take some work, but it will eventually get your site ranking higher.

Also, don't forget about Pinterest!

Pinterest is the world's largest visual search engine. I know a lot of people think of Pinterest as a social media site, but it isn't your typical social media!

According to Rhapsody Strategies,

Google might be the most obvious choice, but the reality is that Pinterest is a search engine as well.

With guided search capability you can quickly sift through and discover content based on keywords.

Also, as Pinterest’s “domain authority” (a measure of the power of a domain name and is one of many search engine ranking factors) continues to grow, your pins will have greater visibility in search engines like Google.

In other words, the higher your pins are ranking on Pinterest, the higher your website will be in the Google results as well. Pinterest is great for marketing your website, as it has a domain authority of 94.

Because of all the perks it can provide, I would highly recommend getting a Pinterest business account, and adding pinnable graphics to each of your blog post. This way, your readers can easily save your blog post on Pinterest too!

Beware of Shady Tactics

There are other ways that supposedly can raise your domain authority which may help you in the short-term but can hurt your site in the long run. Making sure to steer clear of bad practices like paying for backlinks can avoid having these tactics negatively effect your DA in the long term.

According to Ahrefs, here are some of the practices you will want to steer clear of for building backlinks:

1. Buying links

2. Keyword stuffing

3. Blog comment spam

4. Article spinning

5. Negative SEO

6. Rich snippets spam

Building your authority in an ethical way takes time. But if you buy into any of these negative tactics as a way to rank faster, you run the risk of violating Google's Webmaster Guidelines. If this happens, Google will penalize your site in search results, and you will be back to the bottom of the list buried on page 5 where no one sees your articles.

When you are first starting out, there are people who will spam you on social media and offer to provide these type of services to you for a fee. Typically it is not cheap, either. So, be wary of this type of scams and don't fall prey to them.

If someone messages you offering you a service on social media, be sure to ask for their own website so you can read through it, as well as references from previous customers. You can also quickly find scammers by searching "Is [website name] a scam?|

Chances are, if someone is trying to scam you, they have done it before. If you do your due dilligence you can avoid most of the shady people out there. Having a sense that there are people out there who offer to help that have bad motivations can make you aware of common scams.

Concluding Thoughts

There are many things that can boost your domain authority as a new blogger. However, to rank higher in search will take time and work on your part.

You can get backlinks if your content is helpful and other sites refer back to your website. This makes creating high quality content the backbone of your business. It doesn't matter how many links you get to your site if you aren't providing a high quality. Quality is what drives return traffic, and helps to build trust with your audience.

To get backlinks, you can network with other bloggers to do guest posts and round ups, post on paid blogging sites, and make sure to take advantage of Pinterest! If you follow these tips, you will see your domain authority starting to increase.

If you haven't started your blog yet, check out: Blogging is a Great Side Hustle for Moms