If SEO seems to require a bit of a magic potion to many tech marketers, boosting Domain Authority requires a larger dose of that potion. Plagued by shady solicitations and a bombardment of guest post “guarantees,” how can marketers create a backlink strategy that truly earns the trust of search engines and helps to improve rankings?
While technical and on-site SEO are directly in marketers’ control, off-site SEO is decidedly less so, requiring marketers to rely on third parties to create quality content that drives back to their brand. Domain Authority is one measure of the success of this off-site SEO strategy. While a tech company’s Domain Authority score doesn’t directly impact how search engines rank your site, it’s a good indicator of the quality of backlinks you have, and therefore how trustworthy your brand is in the eyes of search engines.
Based on a scale of 1-100, making it easier to digest than the sheer volume of links to your site, a “good” Domain Authority score is relative to your competitors. 90+ scores are reserved for the most trusted, content-heavy sites out there (for example, nytimes.com has a score of 95). Your own Domain Authority is likely more modest, and your goal should be to achieve - and maintain - a solid lead on your competitors vs. reaching for 100.
Download our playbook: How to Integrate PR Into Every Department within Your Tech Company
Where brands often go wrong with Domain Authority is relegating it to the SEO team. In fact, the key to improving Domain Authority doesn’t lie within your inbound marketing team solely - or even mostly. It’s other teams that are actually best poised to increase your score. Here’s a look at four…
Public Relations
Ultimately, Domain Authority is a measure of your website’s relationships with other sites. And who better to manage relationships than your public relations team? From media to awards to speaking engagements to analysts, it’s your PR team or agency that typically owns several valuable third-party relationships. Involving PR in your SEO objectives can help you secure backlinks from trusted third-party sites, ultimately boosting Domain Authority.
Pro Tip: If Domain Authority is a top priority, charge your PR team with focusing on publications that provide backlinks, like we recently did for Alloy healthcare technology client RxBenefits.
Industry and Community Relations
Perhaps led by your PR agency, perhaps by demand gen, or perhaps by its own separate team, events and sponsorships are other great avenues to build backlinks. When committing to an event - be it a large trade show or a local business association - be sure to request a link to your website as part of the value your tech brand is receiving for its dollars spent.
Pro Tip: Evaluate your list of current community sponsorships and industry memberships as the lowest-hanging fruit for backlink building.
Partnerships
Channel partners and resellers are other great avenues for backlink building, making your partner marketing team a key part of your SEO strategy. Having channel partners provide a backlink to your site not only benefits your Domain Authority but also can help to validate their relationship with you in the eyes of end customers.
Pro Tip: Create a partner resource guide that includes key content on your site - like blog posts - that would provide value to your partner’s customers. Having ready-to-use materials makes it easier on your partners to share your website.
Customer Success
Next to links from top-tier media coverage, customer links may be the holy grail of Domain Authority. Not necessarily because of their intrinsic SEO value, but because they show such a strong relationship with your customer and can be a valuable referral source.
In some industries, customer backlinks may make more sense than in others. For example, retailers are more likely to share who their FinTech vendors are than enterprises are to share their cybersecurity stack, for obvious reasons.
But where it does make sense, providing customers with valuable content that links back to your website for more information can benefit you both.
Pro Tip: Asking customers for backlinks can be sensitive. For that reason, don’t just ask for a link to your home page. Create high-value content that marries the type of content your customers are producing to provide a natural way for them to link to your site. For example, a hospital might be more likely to link to a HealthIT company’s video on the latest advancements in screening than a general home page.
The key to all of these recommendations, and what fuels Alloy’s Methodology as a whole, is getting multiple teams on the same page to make your tech brand more easily found by prospects. For more tips on marketing integration, download our playbook, How to Integrate PR into Every Department within Your Tech Company.