Do you know the role your domain authority plays in your SEO and how well your website ranks online? The answer is a massive role.
Effectively your domain authority indicates how important Google believes your domain is. Google measures this based on how many backlinks come through to your website and the quality of those links.
Aim:
The aim is to get more backlinks from higher-quality sites than your competitors.
As a business owner, you’re likely already aware of the importance of creating and boosting your authority online. But do you know how to do it? This is where the digital marketing skills of web presence, back-linking, citation building, and web branding come into play. But it’s not about being present everywhere; it’s about being present in the right places for the right reasons.
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at how you can boost your domain authority:
Understanding Web Presence
One of the best ways to become an authority in your field through digital marketing is by boosting your web presence, web branding, back-linking, or citation building… It’s got numerous names, but ultimately it’s how we get your business found more and more throughout the internet.
However, we want it on good-quality websites, not crappy irrelevant ones. It’s got to be relevant – a website where we would want our business to be found, or associated with. It’s really important to stop paying a lot to “SEO companies” to just do backlinks. Instead, you want to build strong backlinks that build a really good web presence and brand that continually grows and adds value and authority to your business.
Complete Regular Backlink Analysis
One of the first tasks is to get a good idea of what your current backlink profile is like. Is it good and healthy coming from positive sites or are there some links coming from low-quality or spammy sites? We want to be crystal clear of your position today. So, you want to pull a list of all the domains that link through to your site and check their quality.
- Use great tools: You can use tools such as Google Search Console to generate this list and then identify all the spammy or dodgy backlinks and disconnect them. You only want to keep the high-quality links, as the lower-quality links will just bring down your site’s authority.
- Do this regularly: We recommend doing this quarterly. There are more and more things popping up on the Internet each day and many of these new sites are spam. So, to keep your domain authority high, you need to regularly remove the crap and get stuck into how we build a good web presence and backlinks to your website.
Establish Strong Digital Foundations
What are the foundational websites you should be on? That’s all the main business directories and citation sources:
- True Local,
- Yelp,
- Yellow Pages
- etc.
There are 20 to 40 that we want to get your business listed on because it’s the right thing to be doing. You should be found on those sorts of websites. By getting listed on these high-quality and highly authoritative platforms you can establish yourself as a credible source or information and services and effectively boost your online presence.
Mapping It Out on Digital Maps
Geographical web presence is also vital, especially for local businesses that rely on local customers and foot traffic. To boost your geographical presence, ensure your business is listed on digital mapping services such as Google My Business, Bing Maps, and Apple Maps. By being visible on these platforms, you can boost your local search rankings and reach more customers in your area.
Engage With Your Industry
Next, it’s time to get more specific about the industry you are in. To become an industry authority, engage with industry associations, directories, and communities related to your business.
- What are all the industry associations, industry directories etc, that we can get you on?
- How do you get active within your industry?
- How do you help run some training seminars for your industry association?
- How do you get on the board of it?
- How do you put some workshops on?
- How do you share your content?
It is really good business practice to get active in your industry because you’ll learn from them, and you’ll see what they’re up to. It’s really important for you to do that. Obviously, we want to benefit accordingly with better and better organic search results.
Support the Local Community (On and Offline)
Then there’s your local community and sponsorships. Community engagement is both a good deed and a smart move. Sponsor local events, sports teams and schools and ensure that your involvement is visible on their website or social media so that people are aware of the good work you’re doing. Not only does this benefit your business, but it also fosters goodwill within the community.
- How are you actively contributing to your community?
- What’s the local football team that you’re sponsoring and how do we make sure we get on their website with a link through to yours?
- How do we then obviously promote that on your social channels?
- How do you have a web page saying you’re sponsoring the local scout group or whatever it may be?
Aim for Awards and Recognition
Doing all this work is great for your business, it’s great for PR and Google loves it. But now that you’re putting in the extra effort, we want to see if you can win some awards from it. Winning industry awards and the positive community recognition that comes with these awards can significantly enhance your online reputation.
Customers tend to trust businesses that have received accolades from their peers and community more. Google also rewards such achievements with better organic search results, making this a win-win strategy.
Like with all the really important things we do in life, there’s got to be some awards that we can win. So once again, these are really good business practices. Nothing dodgy about you. Just do the right things and Google will reward you.
Embrace Social Engagement
Finally, it’s time to get social! Engage socially with your target audience through social media and word-of-mouth. It’s time to get them to be your biggest fans, your promotion army as they share your ideas, education and information with others because they love it so much. Encouraging your audience to share your content, creates a ripple effect that expands your reach, reputation, and industry authority.
Leverage These Tips to Build Your Industry Authority
Becoming an industry authority is a multifaceted digital and physical marketing endeavour. It’s about legitimacy, relevancy, and making the right connections and building relationships. By following these steps, you can enhance your online visibility and reputation, ensuring that your business stands out for all the right reasons.
