Increase your domain authority (Domain Ranking)

What is Domain Authority? Domain authority is a crucial factor for website ranking in Google search results. High authority often translates to better visibility, thus generating more clicks. These clicks can then convert into sales or leads. Understanding how authority works is therefore essential for passively increasing your site's success.

Why is Authority Important? The internet is full of information, and anyone can publish content. Google's primary mission is to provide the most relevant and reliable results for each search. Given the abundance of content, how does Google identify credible sources? This is where authority comes in. Websites with low (or no) authority rarely see their pages rank well. It's one of the mechanisms Google uses to distinguish quality content from spam or unreliable information.

How do search engines evaluate a website's authority?

They use programs called crawlers (or spiders). These bots browse the web by following links from page to page. Starting from one page, a bot can discover several external links leading to other pages, and so on, creating a true map of the web.

To assess a site's importance (like Facebook, for example), search engines analyze, among other things, the number and quality of incoming links (backlinks) from other distinct websites. Essentially, a link from site A to site B is interpreted as a "vote" of confidence from site A towards site B.

However, a challenge arises: a malicious actor could create many low-quality sites all pointing to the same site to manipulate its authority. To counter this, search engines do not give the same weight to all links. A link from a site already considered popular and reliable will have much more impact than a link from a new or little-recognized site. This fundamental concept is the basis of Google's PageRank (PR) algorithm, although modern authority evaluation is more complex.

In summary: Obtaining incoming links (backlinks) from recognized and relevant websites is essential for acquiring authority.

How to Concretely Increase Your Authority? As mentioned, to improve your site's authority in the eyes of search engines, it's crucial to obtain backlinks from popular, thematically relevant, and trusted sites.

However, there's an important nuance. Receiving a link from a site with very high authority (say 80 on a scale of 100) isn't always as beneficial as it seems. The authority (often called "link juice") that a site can pass is divided among all the outgoing links present on the page. Thus, a site with an authority of 80 that links to hundreds of other sites will transmit relatively little authority via each individual link. In comparison, a site with more modest authority (e.g., 30) but which only points to a few very relevant external sites could potentially pass proportionally more value via each of its links. Quality and relevance often outweigh the raw authority of the source.

At Innov Agence, we place great importance on the domain authority of our clients' websites. That's why, as part of our SEO strategies, we can integrate quality link acquisition to strengthen your site's authority. This is one aspect that can differentiate a professional approach from a site created on platforms like Wix or Shopify, where you generally start with zero authority and no active link-building strategy. With a strategy designed by Innov Agence, your site can benefit from structured authority development aimed at attracting qualified traffic.

What to Do Once You Have Acquired Authority? Once your site benefits from a certain level of authority, it's important to use it wisely. Higher authority allows you to rank better on Google, especially for targeting more competitive keywords. For example, generic terms like "car insurance" generate a much larger monthly search volume and are more competitive than more specific phrases like "car insurance comparison for young drivers." For these highly sought-after keywords, competition is fierce. Your site's authority is one of the determining factors (among others, such as content relevance, site technical quality, and user experience) that help Google decide which site to display in the top position for a given search.

What is "Good" Authority? Generally speaking, it's always beneficial to seek to improve your site's authority; it's ongoing work within an SEO strategy. "Good" authority is relative: it's considered satisfactory if it is comparable to or higher than that of your main online competitors. When we talk about competitors here, we don't necessarily mean the business next door (unless it's also very present online), but rather your organic competitors: the other websites that appear in Google results for the same searches you target. Analyzing their link profile and authority level can give you a target to reach or surpass.