- Domain authority refers to the hypothetical authority you have in the organic search landscape based on the amount of links you have pointing to your site.
- If your domain name is new and holds no authority, you’re going to have to be doing a lot of work to build up your authority.
- Fortunately, you can still build links to your site without any domain authority.
- Links can be built via local press, by leveraging your expertise, by participating in interviews, and by creating great content for your own site and others.
We get it, you’re a small business owner or startup founder just learning about the world of digital marketing. You’re reading articles about on-page SEO, content marketing, and link building and probably asking yourself, “How the heck am I going to do all this work on my own?!” You’re absolutely right!
Search engine optimization campaigns, let alone link building campaigns, can be a team’s worth of work. And, if your domain name is new and holds no authority, you’re going to have to be doing a lot of work to build up your authority. But wait, there is hope! In this article, we’ll share our tips on how you can build links for your domain even if you have no domain authority.
Domain authority, what’s the deal?!
Before we give you our recommendations, let’s talk about domain authority and why it’s important. Domain authority, which is also known as Authority Score or Link Equity, refers to the hypothetical authority you have in the organic search landscape based on the amount of links you have pointing to your site. The score is based on a scale of 0 to 100 and gives SEOs an idea for the SEO value that a site might have. We go into more detail on domain authority here. Essentially, the higher your domain authority, the more likely you are to rank in search results for the topic you write about.
While the score itself has absolutely nothing to do with how Google perceives your site, it does help you directionally. Domain authority is important because it gives you an idea of the overall growth of your website and backlink profile. Theoretically, if you scale your website all the way up to 100, Google trusts your content and will be generous with its rankings.
Ways to build links without any authority
Generate local press (community service events, tradeshows, etc.)
So, if you’re a start-up or small business with no domain authority, the best place to start generating links is by participating in your local community. In our opinion, this is the easiest way to build links because all you have to do is participate! Here are a few ideas:
- Host a networking event and invite local press to promote it on their news sites.
- Sponsor a tradeshow/corporate event: Most tradeshows have websites where they link out to vendors to let attendees know what vendors will be there.
- Participate in a charitable event or community service.
Leverage your personal expertise
Since you are just starting out and might not have a ton of content on your site, the best way to get links is to leverage your own industry expertise! Reporters all over the world are constantly looking for experts to provide them insight on a specific topic so HARO can help with that!
Help-a-reporter-out, HARO, is a 3x daily newsletter where journalists pose questions about topics for articles they are writing. The mutual understanding on HARO is that if a journalist accepts your pitch, then they are supposed to include you in their article and link to your website. So, if you are starting a business in an industry you know a lot about, HARO is a great way to leverage expertise you already have to help journalists out. HARO is very well known, so while it may be extremely competitive, there are tons of journalists from large publications that can dramatically benefit your business.
Continue to write great content
It’s that simple. When you dedicate as much time as you can towards your blog and stay consistent, the backlinks are just going to roll in. Why you ask? Well, it’s because Google rewards great content with rankings. So, the more great content you produce, the more organic rankings you’ll get. And, as soon as other writers get wind of your great content, they’re going to link back to it without question.
Your efforts shouldn’t stop here, though. You are going to want to amplify this content on social media simply by sharing the link or creating a fun graphic or video around it!
Write content for others
Say hiring a fancy PR agency is out of the question or consistently writing great content is too difficult. Then, your next best option is to write content for others and propose they allow you to link back to your website or promote your product in some fashion. In the SEO world, this is referred to as guest posting or guest contributing.
Guest posting is a great way to boost your personal brand awareness and thought leadership while building links for your website. To do this, simply contact each and every blog in your industry, locate the contact information of editors or writers, then pitch them a great topic!
Participate in interviews
Finally, participating in interviews is another great way to leverage your expertise to build up your domain authority. To do this, simply scour the web interviews with other industry experts, then just contact those writers or editors. You’ll obviously want to pitch them an interview idea and share what value you can bring to them and their readers.
Bonus tip: Tap the experts!
Link building is a lot of work but thankfully we’ve given you an arsenal of tactics to use if you don’t have any domain authority. The great thing about these tactics is that some are more low effort than others so depending on your bandwidth there is something in here for everyone! If this still sounds like too much work, do not hesitate to reach out to the link building team here at Redefine Marketing Group.
