**This is generally geared towards newer domains with a lower DA score, because once you get into the higher numbers, shit starts getting real. Or hard. Damn logarithms. But hey, good SEO practices are useful :D**

Last month, my DA score was 11, and it had been there from about July or August, I think.  With the latest MOZ update it jumped to 23 and I’m still kind of trying to let that sink in. I still don’t entirely understand SEO, but I guess I’m doing something right and I thought I’d share that. Because sharing is caring and I’m one of those people. 

Ok, so, background: I’ve had my domain for under a year. A few days over 8 months, if we’re being precise – I did all of the setup on the 19th of April (2015) and since then we’ve been www.fiixii.co.uk, instead of the blogger placeholder. I only really started learning about SEO after that, so my knowledge is bit-part and a little happy-go-lucky, but I have Stephanie from cocochic to thank for a lot of what I know. Seriously, her Tuesday tip post series has taught me so much. 

Terms:

Domain Authority: in short, how authoritative your domain is, often referred to as DA. The definition the Moz DAddies (stealing that from Vix because ahah ahhhah ahhahahahah) is this: 

Domain Authority is a score (on a 100-point scale) developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engines.

And then we get more in-depth with:

Domain Authority is Moz’s calculated metric for how well a given domain is likely to rank in Google’s search results. It is based off data from the Mozscape web index and includes link counts, MozRank and MozTrust scores, and dozens of other factors. It uses a machine learning model to predictively find an algorithm that best correlates with rankings across thousands of search results that we predict against.

So, in Layman’s terms: a score that gives you an idea of where google ranks your blog, tbh.

SEO: Search Engine Optimisation. Or, things that you can do to make your blog more friendly for search engines – considering you’re optimising your blog/content for those search engines. This one is relatively easy to understand the umbrella term of, but once you get into specifics, for me, it kinda involves a lot of staring at screens and googling terms. Still not entirely sure what White Hat or Black Hat SEO strategies are, I just know Black Hat is bad. (update: now there’s a stand-alone post about SEO and why you should learn it, fancy that!)

Terms out of the way, you’re probably here for tips, so tips!

1 – Create your own custom permalinks that are more relevant to the post.

There are loads of conflicting posts flying around in the ‘blog tips’ arena to do with post titles, and in all honesty I think titling a post is pretty personal to the blogger, and dependent on the content. Some posts are going to need less permalink rejigging than others, so that you get the best of both worlds: titles with personality + good SEO.

For example, posts like this one don’t need a lot of permalink doctoring, it’s concise, tells you what the post is about, and is pretty much good to go. My OOTD posts however, those permalinks need work.

It’s also good to know/remember that you can’t change a permalink once it’s gone live… since, you’ve just created a permanent link to your post. Permanent.

2 – Name your images!

How many times have you searched for IMG6006? Exactly. Renaming your images to something more search friendly is a great idea. I tend to rename mine after I’ve edited them, and in that rare case an image doesn’t need editing, I’ll rename in the folder. All before upload.

Once you’ve uploaded your images, don’t forget about Title text and ALT/Alternative text . Fill them in so that when Google/Moz indexes your blog, they actually know what your images are – or they’ll just skip them. Make sure it’s all relevant though 🙂 It’s also really nice to fill in the Alternative text, as that’s what is displayed/read out to those who are visually impaired.

3 – Distribute your links on high DA ranked platforms

First, do. not. spam. Please. Despite Korea’s weird relationship with Spam giftsets, spam in the internet sense is always going to annoy people. Or deeply disgruntle. Google especially doesn’t like spam, so there is also that.

I’m not entirely sure how much this helps, but I’ve been utilising platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Google+ to share my post links from the start of August.  They all have DA scores close to, if not actually, 100, so having your links on there can’t be all that bad. I also have a link to my blog/relevant blog post in the description of the videos I post to youtube, as well as a link on my channel page.

It’s all about external link building from sources that search engines trust – so try and produce posts with relevant content that will get shared around a lot. Guest post for blogs with a higher DA than yours, or try and write reviews for companies with good DA scores and ask them to share your link on their site.

4 – Link back to your old posts if it’s relevant

This is called ‘deep linking’ – it’s a good thing! It lets people find other content you’ve written on the subject more easily, and you’ve given that page on your site another decent link 🙂  For example, if I was doing an #ootd (outfit of the day) post, and have shown one of the items I’m wearing previously, on styled in a different way, then I’ll link that in the post so you guys can see it. Useful for you and me.

5 – Fill in your posts search description

If there’s a little box that lets you fill in a search description for your post, fill it in! I tend to think of search terms that I’d use if I wanted the post to show up in a search engine, and then pop them in. So for this I’d probably go along the lines of:

tips to increase your DA score, good ways to increase DA score

 You know, the sort of thing you whack into google and get what you want.

So yeah. If you hadn’t guessed already, improving your DA score is a mix of good, really good SEO practices, and strong linkage. I also changed my theme in between August and, well, now, so I don’t know if that’s helped at all? It may have? But really it’s about making your blog/site as internet friendly as it can be. And it’s nice to know that in 8 months mine has gone from 0 to 23.

I feel like I’m doing something, at least, right.

If you have any other tips, let me know – I’d super duper love to hear 😀

♥

instagram | twitter

Follow