How to Increase Domain Authority for Your E-Commerce Website

You have created your e-commerce website and started to sell your wonderful products through your website.

But one question remains: how do you let your e-commerce website rank high on search engines consistently so that you can increase your organic traffic?

One of the ways is to understand your Domain Authority (DA) score. Peter Drucker once said:

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”

By understanding the DA score of your e-commerce website, you’ll be able to plan out a proper SEO strategy to enhance your DA score. But before we proceed to the powerful techniques, let’s explore the basic of DA.

What is Domain Authority Score?

Domain Authority (DA) is a score or metric developed by Moz that reflects your website’s authority. The score ranges from 0 to 100, where a higher score indicates greater authority. According to Moz, it’s calculated based on 40+ signals, such as: 

• The number of incoming links pointing to your website
• The quality and relevancy of incoming links
• The quality of your website’s content
• Social signals (the popularity of your domain and contain in social media networks)
• Your website’s SEO performance

Therefore, you need to enhance your DA score if you want to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPS).

Why Your Domain Authority Score is essential?

Recently, Search Engine Journal published research to debunk the myth of Google’s ranking factors. According to the study, they found out that DA is not a ranking factor. It means that the score you see on the DA is not a metric that Google uses to rank websites on the SERP.

So you might wonder why I should care about my DA score since it’s not a ranking factor. However, a study by Ahrefs shows a correlation between domain authority and search engine results page (SERP) ranking, even though Google doesn’t have factor domain authority into their rankings.

The findings of this study suggest that DA is a useful metric for estimating the amount of organic traffic you receive from Google. On the other hand, some of the signals used by Moz in calculating DA scores (i.e., the number of backlinks) are also factors used by Google in their rankings. Moz also continuously updates its link index to represent your site’s ability to rank in search more accurately.

Therefore, you should pay attention to DA to improve your SEO rankings. However, remember that developing authority can take time, so don’t worry if you don’t see immediate results.

How Do You Check Domain Authority Score? (with Free DA Checkers)

Since DA is still crucial to your e-commerce website, you need to know your DA score to improve it. There are a few methods to check your domain authority score. Here are a few free domain authority checkers.

Moz Link Explorer

This is the official tool created by Moz to identify your DA score. Log in to Moz (you need to create an account to check your e-commerce DA score), insert the URL, and click Analyze. You will see the result as shown in the screenshot below. However, you can only search for ten queries per month if you’re using the free version. 

Pro tip: You can Install the Mozbar Chrome extension to check your and your competitor’s DA score faster.

Small SEO Tools

Another free tool you can use to check your DA score is Small SEO Tools. The best thing about this tool is that there is no daily limitation on DA checking. You can even check DA scores in bulk and export them as an Excel file. 

Don’t worry if your e-commerce website does not have a high DA right now. You can follow the best practices below to give it a boost. 

What is a Good Domain Authority for E-Commerce?

If you have just launched your e-commerce website, your DA score will be 1. This is because your website doesn’t have a strong link profile yet. But how high of a DA score do you need for your e-commerce store to be considered good?

One of the best ways to determine a good DA score is to measure it against other comparable or similar sites.

For example, if you have an e-commerce store that sells cosmetics and beauty care products, try to identify the DA score for your competitors. You can do this by searching for a few keywords that are relevant to your business. Then, use the MozBar chrome extension plugin to get an average DA score. 

8 Tested Techniques to Enhance your E-Commerce website Domain Authority

Now that you understand the basics of DA, how to measure it, and what is a good DA score, let’s discover some proven SEO techniques to increase your e-commerce store’s domain authority.

Create Unique Premium Content

Content is always one of the top three SEO techniques when it comes to a good SEO strategy. Here are some ways to create high-quality content for your e-commerce business:

• Perform competitor research. Select 3-4 high-profile competitors in your niche and Inspect the content they have on their website
• Conduct keyword research and place your targeted keywords in your content appropriately
• Use short and keyword-rich URL
• Write catchy titles, headings, and meta descriptions to enhance the click-through rate.
• Write detailed, helpful descriptions for each of your products. You can refer to how Amazon provides detailed descriptions of its products.
• Include relevant FAQs on your product page. Well-written FAQs not only help you to rank for more keywords but also solve your prospects’ questions.
• Optimize your product photos and videos. Add alt texts to your images.
• Showcase your great reviews from customers on your homepage or the product page. 77% of visitors read product reviews before they buy a product. This can enhance the overall user experience. 
• Perform internal linking to your content.

If you want to enhance your DA score further, you should put more effort into creating various quality, engaging content that encourages visitors and backlinks, such as blogging on your e-commerce website. Research from HubSpot shows 60% of consumers read blog content to learn something new from your website.

One of the great examples is Net A Porter. You can see that it has a very high DA score.

Build High-Quality Backlinks

Websites with a high DA typically have many high-quality referring domains. Hence, you should acquire high-quality links from domains with a higher DA than your website if you want to increase your website’s DA, 

While getting backlinks from higher DA websites is crucial, you should avoid getting backlinks from spammy sites. Here are the types of backlinks you should consider to improve your DA:

• Backlinks from high-quality websites: These links represent the SEO gold standard. They originate from websites with high authority and are regarded as a vote of confidence in your website.
• Links from relevant websites: Avoid getting high DA links irrelevant to your business. Getting links from your industry helps to demonstrate to Google that your website is a credible source of information for your target audience.
• Links from high-traffic websites: Links from high-traffic websites can drive significant traffic to your website. This can assist in boosting your website’s SEO ranking and conversion rate.

To get backlinks from these websites, follow these methods to get backlinks to your e-commerce website:

• Skyscraper Technique: A genius method created by Brian Dean, an SEO expert. Find out what are the content that get a lot of backlinks, then create a better content and reach out to those that link to your competitors. 
• Guest blogging: The benefit of guest posting is you provide high-quality content to a website with higher DA and get a backlink to your site with an anchor text in the guest post. However, different websites have different guidelines for their guest post, so make sure you follow them accordingly.
• Outreach: If your website is new, people need help finding you on Google. Therefore, you need to conduct outreach to promote your content. For example, you can provide some offers or discounts for your product to your target persona in exchange for getting a backlink to your e-commerce website.

Optimize Your Website Structure

Usually, an e-commerce website has more pages as there are many products. If you don’t structure your website correctly, it makes it difficult for the Google crawl bot to crawl and index your page, affecting its visibility. 

Hence, one crucial e-commerce SEO rule is to ensure visitors can reach all your pages within three clicks from your homepage. By doing this, you are making the link authority concentrate on your products, which helps rank your pages higher on Google.

Here’s an example of a good e-commerce site structure that you can follow:

Make Sure Your Website is Mobile-Friendly

Google has announced that mobile responsiveness is a ranking factor. Undoubtedly, you should make your e-commerce store mobile-responsive to enhance the user experience and thus improve your DA score. 

You can build a mobile-friendly site by:

• Use a responsive theme and plugins. If you’re using WordPress, make sure you choose a good WordPress theme that is mobile-friendliness.
• Select a mobile-responsive website builder. If you’re using other e-commerce platforms, choose website builders such as Wix, Benova, and Shopify that support mobile responsiveness.
• Redesign your pop-ups. Research shows that people hate pop-ups on mobile. However, you can still utilize the pros of pop-ups if you optimize them well. For instance, your pop-ups should be easy to close.   
• Enhance your website speed on mobile. Note that your desktop website performance may differ significantly from your mobile. You can use this tool from Google to check your website performance on both devices. Follow these advanced practices to enhance your speed on mobile. 

Source: Crazy Egg

Enhance Your E-Commerce Website Speed

Everyone doesn’t like slow websites, and it’s the same for e-commerce. Google has publicly stated that site speed is one of the few signals it uses as part of its algorithm. Hence, if your site loads slowly, it will also affect your DA.

However, site speed is not only crucial for e-commerce SEO; it also has a direct impact on your revenue. Research proves that slow loading time can increase shopping cart abandonment by 29.8%.

So, to improve your website speed, here are some suggestions for you:

• Compress your images and videos. High-res photos can consume a lot of bandwidth, making your site load slower. You can load your website faster with various image and web compressor tools.
• Audit your Javascript files. jQuery and JavaScript require time to load, interpret, and execute. Web page loading times may significantly impact if you use multiple API calls to render JavaScript/jQuery data. Hence, an audit can help you to remove any unnecessary files.
• Invest in Content Delivery Network (CDN). A CDN service is a distributed network of independent servers deployed in different geographic locations that can serve web content to visitors with high availability and performance. Although it’s not a must, investing in CDN can be cost-effective, especially if you want to grow your business in different countries.

Boost Your Site Social Appearance

Although Google considers links from social media as “no-follow” links, some research indicates that websites that rank highly on Google SERP have a high social share. Hence, you should not forget to use social media to enhance your website’s DA.

The most straightforward strategy is to actively share engaging content through official channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, to increase your website’s social signal.

You can also run your promotions, giveaways, contests and other marketing campaigns on your social accounts and funnel them to your e-commerce website. 

Another great way to leverage your social presence is by using a content repurposing strategy. 

For instance, you have published a video about nail painting. You can repurpose your video content by making it into a blog post, Instagram carousel post, infographic, or a 30-second short video. Then, share this different content across your social media to enhance your social profile. 

Improve Your Local SEO

Although improving your local SEO doesn’t directly impact your DA, it helps you to rank higher on Google SERP, especially on Google Snack Pack (formerly known as Local 3-Pack). This will enhance organic traffic to your website (even without getting a high DA!)  

To optimize for local SEO, you should consider the following: 

• Set up Google My Business (GMB) Profile. Google often ranks local businesses in their Snack Pack (or Local 3-Pack), which helps you to rank on Google faster and enhance your overall DA.
• Frequently update your GMB Profile. GMB allows you to create a post and upload new photos and details to your GMB profile. By continuously updating your profile, encourage visitors to return to your e-commerce store while attracting new visitors to your store. 
• Create a profile on relevant platforms. For instance, you can create a profile on Yelp or Foursquare, as more people will use these platforms to research.
• Encourage more reviews from your customers. Customer reviews are one of the most prominent factors to rank high on the Google Snack Pack.

Conclusion

Although Google doesn’t use DA in its ranking algorithms, it’s still a reliable metric to help you compare your website’s overall authority to your competitors. 

Even though it’s not easy to increase your DA score, especially when you have reached 50+, you can still follow the above techniques and incorporate them into your link-building strategy to increase DA and improve your website’s search engine ranking.

FAQ

What is Domain Authority?

Domain Authority (DA) is a score or metric developed by Moz that reflects your website’s authority. The higher the score, the greater the authority of the website. Although Google and Moz have confirmed that it’s not a Google Ranking Factor, it’s still a valuable metric that helps you to evaluate how strong your website is compared to your competitors. 

How to check your e-commerce website domain authority?

The most straightforward way is to use the Moz Link Explorer tool. You can also use Mozbar chrome extension to spy on your competitors’ DA and evaluate the opportunity to outrank them. Another great free tool to check your e-commerce website is the Small SEO tool. 

What are the top 3 strategies to enhance e-commerce DA?

Here are the top three strategies if you want to boost your e-commerce DA:

• Create premium content. Just check your biggest competitors in your industry.
• Build high-quality backlinks to your e-commerce website. Backlink is one of the top Google ranking factors. You can create link-worthy content such as infographics, free tools, or e-books. Other methods include guest blogging and content outreach,
• Boost the social appearance of your e-commerce site. Don’t underestimate the power of social media in boosting your DA. You can use a content repurposing strategy to encourage traffic to your e-commerce site.