Hello Steemians!
Welcome to the sixth tutorial in my SEO tutorial series. We've already covered one of the core parts of SEO which was "Keyword Research" and if you have read the previous tutorial, you'd probably think like how easy it is, to run an online business and get traffic to the business site! But guess what?
Keyword Research is a process which let you day-dream because it shows that you can turn only 1 keyword into thousands, take your desired keywords and use them without fear or any other techniques. In plain words, it paints the deceiving picture. Because the truth is, no matter how many keywords you have in your hand, we're competing with world class SEO optimizers. So, what's the key? Are those keywords not useful at all?
Actually, the thing is, you will need to find "Low Competitive" keywords in order to out-rank your competitors and rank above them! We need to grab one of the Top 10 positions on Google search for those keywords whose demand is high! And guess what? There are millions of people, searching for the same thing, aiming for the same 1st page of Google!
So, the second core part (or call it a key to success) is the ability to analyze keyword's competitiveness and difficulty level. And to do well in Keyword Difficulty Analysis, you must be aware of the leading SEO metrics which are considered extremely useful in many sectors of SEO. There are several leading industries, offering their unique metrics but we'll look into them one by one.
So, in this tutorial, I'll be revealing some great metrics introduced by MOZ with their explanation like what is their purpose and what exactly they measure!
MOZ - Domain Authority And Page Authority!
Image Credits: Moz
A few years back, it was not hard to rank for even 2 words phrase because there was no tough competition. A few minutes of work and 500 words article used to suffice to rank on the first page of Google if it's well optimized with On-Page SEO.
But as time passed, the field of SEO became known to millions of people. They started to use same strategies which others were using, and as a result, Google couldn't handle the burden and they had to update their ranking algorithm which resulted in a great loss even for legit optimizers because they lost their rankings too!
Some of those strategies are famously known as Black-Hat SEO because Google blacklisted those methods and still kick those people who practice those strategies.
Then, MOZ placed its foot into the industry and introduced its own metrics which are called:
- Domain Authority (DA)
- Page Authority (PA)
What is Domain Authority?
Image Credits: LeadGeneration
Domain Authority is one of the metrics developed by MOZ to measure how well a site is expected to do in search engines result page (SERP). Moz updates its index on monthly basis, and new sites take some time to show up in their index.
Domain authority is a score between 0 to 100. Generally, the higher the DA score of your site is, the greater are the chances to rank well in search engines.
Sites with DA of 70 to 80 are considered "Kings" and sites with DA of 20-30 are considered "Average". Although that's my understanding based on my past successful experience.
How Domain Authority Works?
Image Credits: ClipCubeMedia
Domain authority works on link algorithm. Generally, if sites like HuffingtonPost link your site with a Do-Follow link, then it's links-juice will pass to your site. The higher the DA of the site (which is linking to you), the greater the impact will be on your site.
Domain Authority of HuffingtonPost is 98, and if you get a do-follow link from that site. That means the value of your site will skyrocket, and even if you consider to sell your site, it will be sold easily for $300 to $500 because of the quality of the link.
What is Page Authority?
Image Credits SeoServiceInIndia
Page Authority is the second metrics developed by MOZ to predict how well a page (in-page post) is expected to do in search engines result page (SERP). People do not pay enough attention to PA.
Page Authority is represented in a score between 0 to 100. The higher your page authority, the greater are the chances that your page will be ranked better in SERP.
It follows the same algorithm (which is used for DA), so that's why I'm ignoring "how it works" part.
Which One Is More Important?
Although both are co-related. If PA of your site is high, then most probably DA will be high too. But there are still some cases where PA is higher than DA. According to my experience, PA is more important than DA, because you want to rank your pages that contain keywords.
Is It Possibly To Game The System?
Yes, it's very possible. But be assured that such cheats will not be beneficial at all. In fact, if your site is caught by Google, then most probably your site will be de-indexed for the lifetime and will be banned from Google Search Results.
Why Will Someone Game The System?
Most people game the algorithm because expired sites with good metrics have good demand. They want to increase their site's worth (which worth 12 dollars) but after they increase their metrics through those unnatural means, they will sell the same domain to you for 500 dollars or more!
Important Info:
In coming tutorials, we'll start discussing how to calculate keyword difficulty and competition level, which keywords to choose, and keyword's density, type of keywords to target and purpose-targeted keywords etc. We will get there one by one. I love to explain every aspect in detail so that you could learn better. But before that, we'll have to understand all metrics because as I said, if you don't know those metrics, you won't be able to measure difficulty level.
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