What is the Moz Pro? How to Major DA and PA?

Imagine this: you launched your brand new website for your business, but for some reason, it seems to attract little attention. The problem is in how you position your website and how it is set up, which leads to your domain authority and page authority being quite low compared to other websites.

Your DA and PA are important as they show these metrics, which can tell you how well your website performs and what should be improved. Moz Pro can assist you in measuring your domain and page authority, so read on to find out how to use this tool to your advantage.

What is the Moz Pro?

Moz Pro is not just one tool but a set of SEO tools that allow you to perform actions ranging from keyword targeting to creating reports. Its most valuable features allow you to increase traffic, visibility, and rankings. Let’s look at each of its tools more closely.

Keyword Explorer

Keyword Explorer allows you to work with keywords faster, making finding relevant keywords easier. This helps you create great content and answer questions relevant to your target audience. Moreover, you can target keywords in appropriate volumes and difficulty metrics and save them in lists to track and update later.

Site Crawl

Site Crawl allows you to crawl and audit your websites and spot harmful issues, such as technical errors. It not only finds such issues but also tells you how to solve them. It also finds malfunctions in your site that prevent search engines from crawling your website properly. Besides, you get alerts for such issues discovered by the tool.

Rank Tracking

Rank Tracking is a feature Moz Pro offers that allows you to do exactly what its name says: track your rankings. It is somewhat connected to the keyword tool, but you can also track your competition with the Rank Tracking feature. You can track local and global searches and get a Search Visibility score.

On-Page Optimization

Moz Pro has a tool for on-page optimization that allows you to achieve several goals simultaneously. It audits the content on your pages to recommend to you what could be improved so that you rank better for your target keywords. Moreover, it also gives you suggestions for the kind of content you should create next based on your current rankings.

Link Explorer

Link Explorer is a tool for managing links, just like Keyword Explorer for managing keywords. This feature allows you to maximize the effectiveness of your current links and find new ones. You can also access various metrics, such as Spam Score, Page Authority, and Domain Authority. By the way, you can track your competition, too.

Custom Reports

Moz Pro’s last feature is the creation of custom reports. You can craft these by dragging and dropping various modules and annotations to form a customized PDF. Moreover, there is also an option to schedule reports to clients and stakeholders.

Regarding pricing, Moz Pro offers a 30-day free trial before switching to one of the paid plans, which range from $99 to $599 per month, depending on the features. The most popular plan is Medium ($179/month), which has everything except an Account Manager and Speed Crawling.

What is Domain Authority (DA)?

Domain Authority (DA) is a score developed by Moz that predicts the chances of your website ranking high on search engine results. Like the Page Authority score, the Domain Authority ranges from 1 to 100. The higher the number, the better your score, the higher your website will likely rank.

Multiple factors are taken into account when calculating your website’s DA. These include the total number of links and the linking root domains, among others. The Domain Authority score helps track your website’s ranking strength and then compare it to other websites’ DA scores. The scoring logic is the same as that of Page Authority.

It is important to mention that neither Page Authority nor Domain Authority is considered an official factor that can influence Google’s SERPs. Of course, they will be very useful for website owners, but they should be treated as orienteers rather than metrics set in stone.

Like PA, DA does not have a “good” or “bad” score. More often than not, websites with many high-quality external links will have very high DA scores. Websites that are just starting and have been recently created will score 1.

To check your website’s Domain Authority, you can take several routes:

• You can use MozBar, which is a free browser extension.
• You can also use Link Explorer, Moz’s backlink analysis tool.
• Alternatively, you can check the SERP Analysis section in the Keyword Explorer.

What is Page Authority (PA)?

Page Authority (PA) is a special score developed specifically by Moz that predicts the chances of your page ranking high in search engine result pages (SERPs). Page Authority scores are represented as a number between 1 to 100. The higher the score, the more chances your page will rank better.

Page Authority considers various factors, and Moz uses its web index to analyze the data it gets about your website’s pages. Every URL on your site will have a separate PA score calculated using a machine-learning model that focuses on the various algorithms and how they suit your rankings.

Moz regularly updates its algorithm to produce the most accurate PA scores. The scale is logarithmic, meaning it is much easier to grow your score from 20 to 40 points than from 70 to 90. Because of the constant upgrades of the feature, you may see occasional fluctuations in your score.

The best way to use your Page Authority scores is as a comparative metric rather than an absolute one. There is no concrete “bad” or “good” score, so don’t panic if your score is seemingly low. Besides, Moz will give you tips on how to grow your PA score, and you will eventually see it increase.

You can often view your Page Authority scores using the various SEO tools available online. Moz, obviously, also has this feature easily accessible in various places:

• You can view it through MozBar, Moz’s free SEO toolbar.
• You can also check it in the SERP Analysis section in the Keyword Explorer.
• Alternatively, you can purchase the fool toolkit through Moz Pro.

Difference between DA and PA

Page Authority and Domain Authority may seem like they are the same thing, but they are actually quite different. To understand these differences, let’s first look at the technical definitions of PA and DA:

Page Authority

PA is based on over 40 factors and is calculated just like DA. However, it doesn’t consider certain on-page elements like keywords and content optimization. Just like with DA, a machine-learning algorithm is used for PA.

Domain Authority

Unlike PA, DA is about the domain score rather than each separate page or URL on this domain. DA is also relative to other sites, so you will often see changes in your score (both for PA and DA).

The biggest difference is that PA is about specific page rankings, while DA is about domain (or overall website) rankings. PA and DA are important, but the latter is probably more important. A strong Domain Authority score will improve the rankings of the various pages on your website and give you more chances to compete with similar websites and come out on top.

Tactics for Improving DA

Your Domain Authority is probably way more important than your Page Authority score (as mentioned earlier in this article). This means that you may need to put more effort into improving your DA score and focus on it more. Here are the top tactics to try out:

Choose a Great Domain

If you haven’t launched your website yet, you must prepare a strategy to increase your DA score. Choose a great domain name that is relevant to your topic and easily remembered. You want visitors to return and find your site even after forgetting about it. Consider purchasing an old domain if that is a better choice for you. Remember that your domain should not be too long or complicated, which may confuse your visitors. Besides, sharing a short domain name is much easier.

Ensure Mobile-Friendliness

Your website is often accessed from a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet. This means that your number one priority should be mobile-friendliness. This is to ensure that your visitors get the best experience and improve your search rankings and your DA score. Google considers your site’s mobile version, so you will discover that you rank higher if you have such a version of your site (or if it is optimized for mobile differently). You don’t want visitors leaving because your website didn’t display well on their devices.

Improve Page Loading Speed

The faster your pages load, the more likely your visitors will remain on your website instead of leaving. You will need to improve the loading speed of each page separately, but it will all come down to your Domain Authority in the end. Page load speeds are directly related to your bounce rate, so this aspect is really important for your website’s performance. In the article’s next section, you will see a tool to help you check your page load speeds. Check it out.

Optimize On-Page Content

All of the content on your web pages must be optimized. Such elements as title tags, image alt tags, and other on-page code require special attention. And don’t forget about the content (whether it is text, image, video, or something else). Keep your permalinks short, and vary your keywords using short and longtail ones. You can also create a sidebar section for such things as new posts. Search engine optimization is an integral part of increasing your rankings and always has been such, so don’t overlook or ignore it.

Improve Internal Linking

The topic of link-building has been covered a bit in the section with tactics for improving PA, but it is still important to go through it here, too, as it is essential for your DA. It’s okay to be concerned with external linking, but that shouldn’t come at the expense of internal linking. Internal links improve user experience and engage visitors more. They also help bots crawl and index your website more easily. All of this leads to a better DA score and higher search rankings.

Remove Bad Links

As mentioned earlier, removing bad or harmful links will eliminate the possibility of them worsening your rankings. By the way, you should also look out for broken or outdated links as they do you no good. This often happens if you switch from one domain to another or change its form (e.g., you changed from yoursite.com to www.yoursite.com). Make sure that the old URL redirects to your new one. Reach out to the sites with broken links to your website and ask them to change the links. You will be doing both yourself and Google a favor.

Create Linkable Content

Linkable content is the one that other websites will want to link to. Read this as “high-quality, relevant content.” If you can create such articles, videos, and so on, you will be able to get the attention of everyone: search engines, visitors, and other websites. Publish content regularly and try to stick to a certain schedule to have a steady flow of relevant content for your audience and optimize it for search engines. Authoritative sites include links in their content; if your articles seem like the best option, you will only benefit from it.

Grow Your Authority

You need to become an authority in your niche for several reasons. It will improve your reputation dramatically, and you will be able to attract more readers. This will lead to better metrics and, in turn, better rankings. Besides, being an expert in your field is essential for your business to succeed. Guest blog on other similar websites and show your knowledge of the industry. Then, link to your articles and your website.

Use Social Media Promotion

Now is the best time to start if you aren’t using social media. Social media platforms are a great environment for growing your follower base, improving brand awareness, connecting with other businesses, and more. Choose the platforms where you want to have accounts and start posting! Depending on your goals, you can also start using influencer marketing or launch a Facebook Ads campaign. Don’t simply try to sell your product or services; instead, attract attention to your content.

Tactics for Improving PA

Now that you know what Page Authority and Domain Authority are, you should learn about some good techniques that will help you increase your PA and DA. Most of them may influence your scores indirectly, but they still work. Here are the top practices for increasing your Page Authority score:

Improve the Link Profile

Improving the link profile of the page that needs a better PA score is the perfect way to go. You can get external links from various high-authority pages on other websites. The essence of link-building is on the page level, so this tactic is best used for Page Authority rather than Domain Authority, even though it will still influence the latter and the former. Try to create content that other sites would be interested in linking. You can also use guest posting to get your links onto certain sites. Moreover, claim your links by finding websites that mentioned you but didn’t include a link. Reach out to the site owner and ask them to add one.

Spread the Link Juice Evenly

Some of the pages on your website will have a better PA score than others. You aim to divide the link juice among all of your pages equally. By linking your pages internally, you can redistribute the authority. So, for example, if you have a low-ranking page, make sure that you link to it and from it to your other pages that rank higher. Just make sure that the links are relevant to the topic. This way, your readers will get a better experience, and metrics like average time spent on your website will also improve.

Create Useful and Relevant Content

The better your content is, the more attention it will attract. You will start getting more backlinks from other sites, and your website visitors will stay on your site longer. Don’t diverge from the topic, and try to go into as much detail as possible so that you are truly helpful to your readers. Don’t stress about the length of your article, as there is no ideal length, and simply ensure that you’ve done a good job of covering the topic. Try to stick to the more popular article types, such as listicles and how-tos, as they have a bigger sharing rate (they are shared on social media more often).

Remove Harmful Links

Good links can improve your Page Authority, but bad ones can harm it. This is why you need to remove harmful links to your page regularly. Your rankings may drop if you don’t do this, as your hard work with useful links will be virtually nullified. Use the Google Search Console to conduct a link audit and detect the links that may be unfavorable to the well-being of your pages. Identify the links that have irrelevant anchor text, are site-wide links, or come from shady sites and questionable industries (e.g., porn, gambling, etc.) Reach out to site owners and request that the links be removed. If that doesn’t work, you can use Google’s disavow tool.

Remember about Domain Authority

In some way, your Page Authority score is closely linked and dependent on your Domain Authority score. This is why you need to work on your DA, too. The authority of each separate page can increase when your DA increases. There is no need to go into much detail about improving your DA score here because the next section in this article is dedicated specifically to that. The general techniques are quite similar, but you can try other things.

Tools to Help You

Along with Moz Pro, you can use some other valuable tools to help you improve your PA and DA scores:

• Keyword Tool: Find the best keywords for your topic, short and longtail.
• Google Analytics: Check web stats and search insights.
• Google Search Console: Use for website analysis, alerts, and reports.
• Google PageSpeed Insights: Check how fast your pages load.
• Bing Webmaster Tools: Alternative to Google Search Console (the same but for Bing).
• Google Trends: Check trending topics.
• XML Sitemaps: Build XML sitemaps.
• Copyscape: Finding duplicate and plagiarised content.
• Grammarly: Check grammar and plagiarism

Over to you!

All in all, Moz Pro is definitely a very useful toolkit for website owners who want to organize their workflow and get access to various SEO tools. Domain Authority and Page Authority are both very important and need to be tracked constantly to ensure that your site is performing well. Go through this article again and start using the techniques in it.