How to rank on google search
Trying to Rank for a Keyword on Google? Don't Fall for These 3 Myths.
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Over the past decade, I've experienced and navigated through dozens of Google updates and led SEO operations for many big brands. Throughout my SEO career, there has been no ranking factor that's as debated as backlinks. The mystique around backlinks has led many people to believe that all you need is a high domain authority (DA) to rank competitively on search engines
.
This has led many people in SEO to use DA or domain ranking
(DR) as the primary factor for search engine rankings. Backlinks are one of the
most important ranking factors for search engines, and they are difficult to
get, but that doesn't mean they are the only factor that determines your
rankings.
In this post, I want to cover the common fallacies and false
beliefs held around domain authority and uncover why it is not enough to rank
well for a given keyword.
What is domain ranking/domain authority?
Before diving into the different intricacies, it's important
to understand what domain ranking is. Domain ranking, also referred to as
domain authority, is a metric that helps indicate the authority of a site. More
specifically, it is an estimate of how authoritative a site is based on the
number/quality of backlinks. Backlinks are a very powerful ranking factor on
search engines, and the domain authority of a site will help indicate how much
authority a site has
According to Ahrefs, domain ranking is a metric that
indicates the relative strength of a website's backlink profile. According to
Moz, domain authority is a search engine ranking score that tells you how
likely a site ranks on search engine results pages SERPs. Ahrefs' DR ranking
and Moz's DA ranking are the two most popular ways to quantify domain
authority. With DR and DA, a site is given a ranking from 0 to 100. The higher
that number is, the more authoritative a site is.
To give some context, here are the DR and DA rankings of
some well-known sites:
HubSpot.com (DA 93, DR 93)
Nintendo.com (DA 91, DR 89)
Porsche.com (DA 88, DR 86)
Fallacy #1: High domain authority guarantees that you will outrank competitors
One of the most common myths about SEO is that high domain
authority will immediately allow you to outrank competitors. It's very easy to
look at SERP results and immediately assume that higher DA sites are ranking
better than lower DA sites. In most cases, correlation does not equal
causation. The reason that many high DR sites still outrank other sites is that
they perform all of the other on-page SEO and technical work in addition to
link building. It doesn't matter if you have a higher domain authority if the
content you produce is poor and your site is slow.
Here's a great example that illustrates this. Below are
metrics for the top five sites that rank for the keyword "email marketing
agency" on Ahrefs:
Site 1: Clutch.co: DR 89, UR 20
Site 2: Soapmedia.co.uk: DR 59, UR 18
Site 3: Thebrainsmakreting.co.uk: DR 47, UR 13
Site 4: Digivate.com: DR 45, UR 15
Site 5: Digitalagencynetwork.com: DR 76, UR 13
Although Clutch.co is outranking other sites, you can see
higher DR sites are being outranked by lower DR sites. This isn't an anomaly
because there are other factors that account for why a site ranks well. If you
look beyond the SERP results and click on the specific blog articles, you'll
find the higher-ranking ones offer more content, and they've optimized their
on-page SEO better. You will see similar results for most other keywords
because high domain authority does not guarantee your site to outrank your
competitors.
Related: 8 Ways to Make Your Content Rank Higher on Google
Fallacy #2: You can rank for competitive keywords without
topical expertise
If you have a high DA site, and you write one blog post
about a primary keyword, the chances of you ranking competitively are slim.
It's easy to rank for content that has low search volume and is not
competitive, but that traffic is not going to move the needle. In order to rank
for competitive keywords, you need to show Google that your site is an expert on
a specific topic. To do this, you need to develop a library of content that's
topically related. Without this, you will be outcompeted by sites that have
better and more content covering your niche.
Fallacy #3: You can make up for poor content with high DA
Another dangerous practice of some high-authority sites is
skimping out on content. Although high DA sites may get more impressions and
clicks on search engines, readers will bounce quickly if the content is poor.
If a site isn't nailing searcher intent and optimizing its on-page SEO, having
high domain authority will accomplish nothing. The vast majority of content
teams understand this, but few thoroughly understand what poor content is.
Understanding this is essential to prevent your site from falling into the trap
of low-quality content.
Examples of poor content include:
Thin content: Thin content is the most common form of poor
content. There's a place for thin content (like definitions), but most of the
time, you should be producing more in-depth content. If you're writing on a
primary keyword (e.g., "What is content marketing?"), your content
should be over 1,000 words. A good litmus test is to see the top-ranking pages
for a keyword and compare the word count. If most of them are over 1,000 words,
you know you need to produce something similar.
Content that's regurgitated from other sources: A common
criticism of SEO is that many sites on the SERPs regurgitate the same content.
If your content has the same headers, same formatting and same ideas as other
sites, it will be categorized as regurgitated content. If you're going to take
content from other sources, make sure to cite them, restructure them, and add
your unique point of view.
Content that's not well-written: A telltale sign of poor
content is content that is not well-written. This encompasses AI-spun content, content
with many grammatical errors and content that's hard to read. If a reader lands
on your page, and the writing is hard to read and unnatural, it's poorly
written.
Related: 6 SEO Myths Every Business Owner Should Ignore
Avoiding these types of content on your site will help
improve the quality of your writing and give you a better chance to rank on
SERPs, regardless of your domain authority. Some advanced content teams use a
variety of internal checklists and software to ensure that their writing is up
to par; you can create and use a similar process for your content operations.
As illustrated by some of the examples above, domain
authority is not the be-all-end-all ranking factor for SEO. Although backlinks
are a very important part of SEO, they're not enough to overcome little to no
effort in content and optimizing your site. If you're trying to rank for a
specific keyword, take the best possible measures instead of relying purely on
backlinks. Make sure your site is fully optimized, you have enough content to
cover the topic and that your content is high quality. By continuing to invest
in all aspects of SEO, you'll give yourself the best shot possible for ranking
for any keyword you desire.
