You may already know that domain reputation determines how likely people are to visit your website, but did you know that it’s also one of the most crucial aspects that search engines use to rank websites?
Search engines use domain reputation as a measure of how credible and authoritative your website is perceived by other websites on the internet.
How do you check and improve your domain reputation to rank well and ensure your emails get to client inboxes? Read on to learn more about how you can check your domain reputation score and improve it!
Monitoring Your Domain Reputation
Domain reputation is vital for any organization that relies on email to communicate with customers or partners. A bad reputation can lead to deliverability problems, and a good reputation can help improve deliverability.
We’ve already talked about the steps to monitor domain reputation and maintain good scores, but here’s a quick recap:
- Use a domain reputation checker to determine your standing
- Keep an eye out for your sender score
- Keep your mailing lists clean
- Follow the bounce rate
- Keep good SEO practices
Domain reputation builds over time and needs constant monitoring. Now that you’re familiar with the process, let’s learn about how to improve domain reputation.
Steps to Domain Reputation Improvement
Domain reputation is one of the most important factors of email deliverability. It’s a measure of how likely an email from a certain domain is to be trustworthy and not spam. Below are a few steps you can take to improve your domain’s reputation and increase your chances of emails reaching the inbox:
Use Double Opt-In
Use double opt-in for your mailing lists. Asking your subscribers to verify their email addresses solves a few issues. First of all, once the person spends a few extra seconds to confirm their choice, they won’t be surprised to get emails from you. Hence, you’ll get fewer spam complaints. Another thing is that you’ll avoid ending up with an unengaged list.
Warm Up Your Domain
Whether your domain is new and has little engagement or had spam issues in the past, you need to warm up the domain and improve the IP reputation before a campaign. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) measure your usual number of sent emails and anything drastically different triggers an anomaly on their side.
Warming up your domain by gradually increasing the volume of emails sent will give ISPs time to get used to the flow and lessen the likelihood of them marking your messages as spam.
Avoid Spam Words
Did you know that some words trigger spam filters and hinder emails from reaching your recipients? We recommend that you study the word lists and avoid using them in your subject lines and content.
Let’s say, your email bypassed the spam filter and landed in the inbox. If the content quality is low and the email is stuffed with “salesy” words like “free”, “money,” or has spammy quality to it, overwhelmed users will also be quick to delete it without reading.
Maintain Your Mailing Lists
Organizing a cleanup in your mailing lists is one of the best practices that works on many levels. First of all, attend to bounced emails. Bounces can happen for various reasons, so you might need to investigate the topic.
The next step is cleaning up the unsubscribed and invalid addresses. You can use an email verifier to validate your list and get rid of invalid, fake and disposable email addresses from your database.
If you’re noticing old subscriptions, inactive emails, and passive engagement in your email list, send out an email asking the subscribers to confirm if they still want to receive your content. Doing this once a year will keep your audience current and interested.
Avoid Getting Blocklisted
Not following compliance best practices and being reported as spam might put your domain and IP in blocklists. Conduct a domain reputation check online to ensure you maintain good standing.
Be Consistent
Consistency should be a top priority if you want to improve domain reputation. Whether it’s sending frequency, time, volume, or content.
Start Your Email Authentication Journey
Start your email authentication journey. This involves setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for your domain. These are proof that the emails you send are actually from your company, and not spoofed by someone else.
Conclusion
Domain reputation is important for email deliverability. A bad domain reputation can land your emails in the spam folder, or even prevent them from being delivered at all. To improve your domain reputation, make sure to practice good email list hygiene and avoid spammy practices. With a little effort, you can improve IP reputation, domain trust, and sender score, ensuring that your emails always reach their intended recipient.
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