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White Hat SEO vs Black Hat SEO Techniques – A Thorough Discussion
In this article, we will talk about the two types of SEO techniques, White Hat and Black Hat SEO. Those of us pursuing online success have all heard of SEO (search engine optimization) and know that it is the most successful means of internet marketing that can be utilized. When using SEO techniques what you are trying to accomplish is more traffic being directed to your website(s) and to your products and services. By increasing your internet traffic, you can have more individuals seeing your goods and services, leading to more sales.
Marketing is inherently a numbers game. The more people you can get face-to-face with the goods or services you have to offer, the more likely you are to generate a sale. With this in mind, improving your website’s rank within the search engines will help you to see a large increase of organic traffic coming to your website. This presents a great opportunity to create value for your site.
The way you get a better rank does depend on the search engine somewhat. They all work on the same basic principle, which is to give the best pages the best rank, and therefore, the most traffic. However, the list of SEO techniques that you choose to use has a lot to do with how your website will rank, and ultimately the success that you achieve in the short term and long term.
White Hat SEO Techniques
The first list of SEO techniques we will talk about is called “White Hat SEO.” White Hat SEO refers to the techniques that are considered ethical to use. This means that the methods that fall under the White Hat SEO category have a much smaller chance of receiving penalization. Penalization can mean having your rank lowered and even having your website rank deleted permanently from the search engine algorithms. Therefore, you want to only use SEO techniques that do not carry the risk of negative consequences.
The first and most important White Hat SEO technique is to create unique and accurate content. This is how you can start to acquire authority with the internet and see more and more organic traffic coming in your direction. The larger amount of highly unique content that you produce, the better you serve your users. The search engines like to see this. The crawlers look for good and unique content that has accurate information and is engaging while being informative at the same time.
The next most useful White Hat SEO technique is creating very rich media for your websites and your posts. This is done by adding alternative text and other information to help both the user and the search engines know what the media you are using is about. By adding text, links, and other useful information to all media you use, you will begin to see that your ranking reflects the work you have put in.
Another important White Hat SEO method is to make sure your content loads quickly both on desktop and mobile devices. This creates a better user experience, which the search engines reward. The next way to better the structure of your websites is to improve the permalinks and URLs. This can be done by using good text that is directly related to what the page is about. This helps the user and the crawlers understand what the website and the content being shown are about.
Another White Hat SEO technique? Good keyword research. This means checking to see which keywords have lots of searches and little competition. This will ensure that you receive a good amount of traffic from those keywords and that there are not too many other pages you have to compete with for that same amount of traffic.
The last White Hat SEO method that we will share with you is building good links. You should place links within your text when they can be useful to the user. This can be a link to another post of yours or a different website altogether. We suggest linking to yourself and other websites in each post to help the user learn more whenever you can. For the best results, use about three back links to your other pages when they are appropriate as well as three links to other well-known websites with related information. Just ensure that you have enough text to add this many links to each post. We suggest creating about 1000 words for each article (if you can) when using this number of links.
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Black Hat SEO Techniques
When we mention “Black Hat SEO”, we are talking about those techniques that are unethical to use and are most likely to garner some kind of penalization. We do not suggest using this list of techniques at any time. We list them here so that you are aware and can avoid them. Black Hat SEO techniques help drive quick traffic spikes (that fade out just as quickly). When this list of techniques is used it always creates a negative user experience. Strict consequences from the search engines are also a risk.
The first Black Hat SEO technique we will talk about is referred to as “paid links.” This is when someone buys a placement on a well-ranking website and redirects some of the traffic from this website to their own. This will produce some quick traffic at first. However, when this is caught, the search engines will decrease your rank once they compare content.
Another Black Hat SEO technique we will mention in this article is referred to as “spam comments.” One good way to generate traffic to your sites is to engage in the community of blogs within your niche and leave comments to their articles. Some people manipulate this process by leaving comments on unrelated sites to generate a quick spike in traffic. These can be easily recognized by users because they are almost always marked as spam and contain a link that is completely unrelated to the page they are left on.
The next Black Hat SEO method that we see utilized a lot today is the use of duplicate content. Duplicate content is when someone ventures to a website and copies the work done by someone else, claiming it as their own. This is a copy-and-paste technique. It is highly unethical and leads to a lower rank, and in some cases, intervention from the law. Something else we see that is related to duplicating content is “article spinning.” Article spinning is the act of copying content and putting it into a program that will change around words to make the article seem unique.
Another frequently used unethical technique for getting a quick boost in SEO is “cloaking.” This refers to the act of redirecting the user to a completely different URL than the one the user thinks they are clicking on. Cloaking is a direct violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines. This is due to the very negative experience this creates for the user who follows the bad link. The user finds that they have been sent to a page that is completely unrelated to what they were trying to find, and in most cases, they do not return to the site in question.
The next Black Hat SEO method that is seen from time to time is the use of “doorway pages.” This technique works by jumping pages when a user makes a click to help them drive traffic from popular keywords to their unrelated pages.
Finally, the last Black Hat SEO technique we will talk about is called “keyword stuffing.” Keyword stuffing refers to the act of placing more keywords than is necessary to trick the search engine into ranking the page higher for a short amount of time. In most instances, the individual using this method will use keywords with no relation to the content on the website. For example, using “Donald Trump” on a cooking blog would be a good example of keyword stuffing, especially if the keyword was used over and over again. When keyword stuffing is utilized, we usually see hidden text on the same page, and this is because these methods go hand-in-hand. Hidden text is another way the person uses keywords to trick the search engine into giving them a rank that they do not deserve. The way people hide text is usually by making the text the same color as the background of the website.
In conclusion, for those who are in it for the long haul, we only suggest using White Hat SEO techniques. This will take some more time and effort, in the beginning, so be patient and work hard. With effort and hard work, the search engines will reward you for using ethical techniques that create a positive user experience. You will see people coming back to your website(s) again and again as well as a greater number of individuals sharing your content with other people. With this in mind, it is up to you to decide what type of SEO techniques are right for your internet marketing goals. Good luck!