After hearing about all of the great benefits that go along with developing microsites for niche audiences, website owners often excitedly create several before sitting back and excitedly awaiting the promised results. Here's the thing, though: New microsites are typically way off of Google's radar. Although Google places a priority on indexing new sites quickly, being indexed doesn't make a site is easily discoverable. The main issue is that because of their newness, such sites lack something called domain authority, or DA. The faster you increase a microsite's DA, the faster its ranking should improve. Thankfully, you don't have to cross your fingers and hope for the best. By understanding how DA works and how backlinks affect it, you can more easily improve the visibility of even very new microsites.
What is Domain Authority, and Why is it Important?
Domain authority refers to the overall prominence of a particular domain, which reflects how likely it is to appear near the top of the search engine results pages, or SERPs. Moz has developed a 100-point DA scale, and you can easily check any given site's current DA by availing yourself of MozBar, a free SEO toolbar for Internet browsers, Open Site Explorer and several other apps. DA matters because the better it is, the easier and more likely it is for a microsite to produce high-ranking, page-one results on important search engines like Google.
The Problem with New Microsites
Creating new microsites is smart. That's especially true when they are carefully developed to provide specific information to targeted audiences through the use of relevant, informative, well-written content. The problem, however, is that new microsites are clean slates. They have no authority, for all intents and purposes, unless they have virtually no competition. Needless to say, this is practically unheard of in this day and age. This is why you have probably watched your otherwise well-designed microsites languish for months on end.
Strategies for Improving the DA of Microsites
Without question, the best way to boost a microsite's DA is by engaging in effective SEO, or search engine optimization. If you've done any online marketing work at all, you're probably well-acquainted with the concept. However, merely creating a well-optimized site with specific keywords and concepts isn't usually enough. More than anything, the microsite's link profile determines its overall authority. When a site is brand-new, its link profile, which is made up of backlinks from other sites, is non-existent. Therein lies the rub. Luckily, there's a lot that you can do to boost a microsite's link profile within a short period of time.
Top Link Building Strategies for Boosting the DA of a Microsite
After establishing a new microsite, use these strategies to quickly improve its link profile:
- The Broken Link Building Strategy - At any given moment, huge numbers of high-authority sites have high-ranking pages that no longer work. These sites typically display the dreaded "404 not found" error message when people visit them via search engine links. Talk about a wasted opportunity! By finding broken link pages that relate to your microsites, you can approach site owners with a handy solution: post a link to your content on the defunct page to appease Internet users. These pages are usually highly ranked, so they already have an "in" with Google. By adding links to your microsites via these broken links, you can quickly propel your sites to the top of the rankings.
By now, you're probably thinking that building new backlinks for your microsites will entail a lot of legwork, and you might even think that doing so is a waste of time. I can assure you that the above listed techniques are easier than they appear, and you don't have to expend a lot of time, energy or money to put them to use. Test it out on a few of your existing microsites. As new backlinks appear and their DA improves, you'll have relevant users streaming over to check them out in no time.