If a website has an existing visitor base, it has gained a performance score known as domain authority. It measures the relevance of the content of the website vs the keywords they are targeting. More visitors + returning visitors means the content is relevant to the keywords that the website is targeting.
As an example if you search about “tennis balls” and you will get many results, among that you will choose one website that you may think is good. If the website has good relevant content regarding tennis balls, you will spend more time on that website. Also, next time you need to read about tennis balls, you will go to that website directly by entering the exact url of the website or search the website’s name without searching “tennis ball” again. This behaviour is recorded by the search engines/ related services and recognizes it as a good characteristic and increases the domain authority of the respective website.
Bounce back
But if the website you went to has less relevant facts about tennis balls or nothing useful related to tennis balls, you won’t stay in that website for a long time. You will go back. This is known as “bounce back”. The search engines will record this as well and identify it as a bad characteristic and reduce the domain authority of the respective website.
Domain authority’s effect on search rankings
Domain authority plays a key role in search rankings. If domain authority is higher, the search rankings will be higher. As an example, if two websites with same content which targets for the same keywords the website which has higher domain authority will have a higher place in search rankings.
The competition to stay on the top gets higher among the top ranked websites since changes in the domain authority will change the place of the website.
Why long tail keywords ?
If a new website which delivers java coding tutorials for beginners, targets the keyword “java”, that website will have to compete with every top ranked website which targets “java”.
If a reputed website which has java development kit download, java forum, java coding competitions and java tutorials will target the keyword “java” and that website will have greater community and domain authority than the above mentioned website. Because of that the website will be ranked further down the list because they don’t have high domain authority compared to other websites.
What is the 1st step?
Best thing is to target long tail keywords which define the exact content which the website has and compete with the websites which have lower domain authority. Then after getting some views and domain authority, short tail keywords should be targeted if needed.
Now you can understand that seo process needs time and attention to get best results.
In the next article, let’s discuss how to find keywords that are suitable to start a new seo campaign.
