So you’ve started a business and purchased a website. Now you’re wondering, how do I get traffic to it. You have no links, not much content, so how does Google even know who you are? At this point the answer is basically, they don’t. So how do you build domain authority quickly so you don’t have to buy all your traffic?
There are some steps that you can take that can help you build your domain authority without using tactics that will eventually harm you.
Create High Quality Content
Creating content that people will want to read or watch isn’t always easy. But, if you want links built to you and is shareable, you need to take extra time in your early writing or video creation to make sure it’s the best work you can create.
Use tools like Google’s keyword research tool to make sure that the keywords you want it ranked for are worth the effort. Once you have that, optimize the content piece for that keyword. While it won’t rank quickly, it’s there to use for other things that will help it be shared.
Promote Your Content on Social Media
Even if your social followings are your mom, your employees, and a handful of friends you should still promote what you create. Don’t be afraid of a little shameless self promotion. There’s no business that ever grew by standing in the corner and not letting people know they’re there.
Social media links may not be a huge factor in the algorithm itself, but social engagement has been shown to be a trigger for Google that your a reputable website.
Collaborate on Content
Do you have a business colleague with a podcast or a blog? Reach out to them and do some guest writing or podcasting. Those links back to your website have value. If you do it well enough, some of their fellow businesses may wish for you to create content for them. Sooner than you know it you’ve got a link portfolio that’s both diverse and high in quality.
The great part about guest content creation is that your friends or business colleagues get something for their link juice. Of course promoting their content on social media won’t hurt either. Your mom sharing a friend’s podcast on her Facebook wall saying, “my kid did a thing” can help your brand as well as your the person who had you do the content.
Get Your Directories in Order
Google My Business is just one of hundreds of mapping and listing sites out there. Getting your information, including your map locations, in these directories will help Google establish not only a location, but an internet-wide knowledge of what you do.
Look for Bad Links – and Kill ‘em
If your website was ever hacked you might find that you have hundreds, if not thousands of bad links to your website. These links aren’t helping your domain authority, they’re causing Google to think that you too are a spammer. Luckily they give you the ability to disavow those links.
You can get a spreadsheet of all your links, and clean up the ones that need to go away. After that you can upload that list to Google and they will analyze and scrub those links from your website.
Conclusion
When it comes to increasing your domain authority there’s a lot of things you’re able to do just with the people you know. It takes a little work, but in comparison to large link building campaigns this relatively simple.
The main point is that you do something to help signal to Google that you’re there. So many company websites fail, and then they blame their website for not performing to their expectations. But the reality is, that they never let anyone know they existed. Doing just a little work will make a huge difference in building your domain authority quickly.