10 Steps to Increase Your Domain Authority

The future of business is undeniably online, and to beat the competition, it’s incredibly important to establish domain authority. Without domain authority, you have less of everything. Less traffic, which leads to less repeat visitors which leads customers which less to less reviews, less data – you get the point. Domain authority is critical for your brand, and in order to maximize it, and your potential, you need to understand what it is and how to get it.

What is Domain Authority?

A website’s domain authority put simply, is a measure of how high that website would appear in search engine results. The higher the score, the better the website will do.  There are a number of factors that influence a website’s domain authority. If you want to stay on top, you’ll master the following:

Think about the content: Your content supports your image, and it will be among the first point of contact with potential customers. Put your best foot forward.

Think about your customer: You’ll have to know your users and make yourself available to them if you want to secure their business.

Think about your website: Namely, the mechanics. As the foundation of your online presence, streamlined hardware/software will make or break your domain authority.

Keeping these three things in mind, the following ten steps will strengthen your domain authority:

Concerning Your Content-

Establish a Good Domain Name

Seems like a no brainer. In order to make the most of your brand, you need a distinctive and memorable domain name. Think of something that’s easy to remember, easy to spell, and indicative of everything you have to offer.

Ensure SEO Content on the Page

Also pretty straightforward. Everything on the page should be optimized to provide the best results in search engines. Anything else is a waste of space.

Provide Quality Content

Building off the previous point, it doesn’t matter how optimized your content is if it is of poor quality. Content should excite,inspire confidence, and generally be free from errors. Figure out what your audience wants to see and provide it for them.

Concerning Your Customers-

Make Sure That Your Website is User Oriented

At the end of the day, the point is to secure customers, and to that end, establishing an incredible user experience is key. Customizable features and personalized memory/settings are simple things that will delight a customer and secure their patronage. Little things can go a long way.

Make Sure Your Website is Mobile Friendly

Mobile devices continue to grow in popularity. Chances are, the majority of visitors to your site will be connecting through a mobile device. If you’re not optimizing your website for mobile interaction, you’re alienating a large number of potential customers.

Establish a Presence on Social Media

Much like mobile devices, social media plays a large role in customer interaction. A presence on social media helps to spread the word and generate additional links to your domain. The higher number of social media pages you maintain, the more traffic will find its way to you.

Concerning your Website-

Linkable Content

Everything is connected, and the Internet is far from an exception. In order to make the most of your domain authority, you’d best strengthen your connections. This starts with linkable content. You can even link to other separate domains you own to strengthen domain authority.

Check/Clear Links

When dealing with links, it is a good idea to make sure they are in working condition and connected to relevant sites. Old, expired, dead end links, or links to irrelevant content all give off an impression of low quality, and that’s definitely going to hurt your reputation and your traffic.

Make Use of Networking and Diversifying Links

On the subject of connection, it doesn’t hurt to establish allies and build partnerships with related brands in order to strengthen domain authority. Find another brand that you synergize well with and establish back links between one another to build rankings.

Optimize Your Website Speed

In a world of convenience, speed is essential. What good is an optimized mobile site if it takes forever to load? Even users of desktop devices appreciate quickly loading pages. Keep your website running fast by streamlining the content and increasing the processing power.

If you take the aforementioned ten steps, your domain authority will increase significantly. However, there is one more detail to consider- time itself. Obviously, you have to invest time to streamline your website and optimize all of the individual parts, to establish linking sites and partnerships. Once all of that is said and done, there is a waiting game as well. One of the significant factors affecting domain authority is the age of a website. The longer it’s been around, the more of a pull it has. What does that mean for your fresh domain? It means with a little hard work, and a lot of patience, your domain authority will build itself.

5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Use a Free WordPress Theme

At first, a free WordPress theme for your blog may seem like a simple and effective way to garner attention and attract customers to your products. It’s true that there are a lot of color and layout combinations, and given the advantage of saving money, it’s easy to see why a free theme might be the way to go. However, a free wordpress theme will actually end up hindering you in the long run due to opportunity costs.  If you’re thinking about a free wordpress theme, before you finalize that choice, here are some things you should definitely consider.

A Free WordPress Theme is Not Unique

A free WordPress theme has already been created and made available to everyone. If you decide to go with a free WordPress theme, another business has also probably selected the same theme. More than likely, several other businesses have also selected the same theme. If you’re looking to make your business stand out, you want to make sure that your products, services, and platforms stand out from the competition. Consider a list of the top 50 free WordPress themes: big picture background, words laid over it. Impressive, right? Think again.

A Free WordPress Theme is Not Personal

Along the same vein, it is distinction and brand distinguishing that wins in marketing. If your product and platform looks the same as everyone else’s, it doesn’t matter if you’re offering superior quality. Branding requires a personalized touch that clearly separates your business from others, complete with qualities and features customers can’t find anywhere else. A free WordPress theme is not made with your vision in mind, and therefore has no ability to convey that vision, quality of service, dependability, or system of values. It’s a generic template with no life or personality.

A Free WordPress Theme Indicates Little to No Effort

If you settle for a free WordPress theme, it suggests to your customers that the products and services you provide are nothing special (see distinction). If you have a generic, basic platform, potential customers probably think your company is also generic and basic. If customers don’t believe you care to present and support your products thoroughly, they certainly won’t care to invest their money in those products. You didn’t invest in your own product. Why would they? A customer would no doubt prefer to see commitment and control. Speaking of control:

A Free WordPress Theme Offers Less Flexibility

A free WordPress theme comes completely set-up, right out of the box. As mentioned earlier, it lacks personalization, and you are limited in your ability to add to this. You have a limited ability to tailor it to your needs, and if you do so it’s at your own risk. What does this mean? Well, if for whatever reason you end up having difficulty, you’re on your own for the most part. That’s never good. Furthermore, you become reliant on plugins or add on packages, which may or may not be available, in order to stay up to date and secure. Essentially, it’s like buying a car, except you only get half of the trunk space, have to rely on maintenance to come to you on their schedule when something breaks, and you never get to look under the hood to make any real modifications. Would you drive a car like that?

A Free WordPress Theme Offers Poor Search Engine Optimization

This last heading is misleading. A free WordPress theme doesn’t really offer search engine optimization(SEO) to begin with. That is up to your business, your marketing department, etc. However, when you consider the previous points about personalization, customization, and the lack of support, it becomes clear how difficult SEO is when working with a free WordPress theme. Sound bad? It gets worse. When it comes to websites and hosting in general, the thing about free themes is that there is often some kind of cost in trade, usually in the form of a plug. Somewhere in the html, there’s likely to be advertising- only it’ll be advertising WordPress, rather than your business. That plug won’t help you climb search rankings. In fact, it will definitely hurt your rankings.

All in all, a free WordPress theme is not going to do enough for your business when you consider all the costs and limitations that come with it. Not convinced? Take a look at a comparison between a free theme and its premium counterpart. Even setting functionality aside, perception is king; having a custom made platform well tailored to the specifics of your company increases your image rather than taking away from it. In the long run, you’re better off with a professional, personalized website that is continuously customizable and upgradeable; one that fully expresses your vision and demonstrates quality of care and commitment to customers.