White Hat or Black Hat: Which Will Your Business Wear?
Search engine optimization consists of a number of techniques used by website developers and business owners to drive up their rankings on Google and therefore reach a larger audience. The specific techniques used are up to the person implementing SEO into their marketing strategy. “White hat” and “black hat” refer to a division between the methods: which ones violate the rules (black hat) and which ones are aligned with the rules of Google (white hat).
Black hat SEO is ill-advised methodology because it relies on rule-breaking techniques to get ahead of your competition online. This type of SEO is dishonest, both to Google and to consumers in general, and can actually violate the search engine’s rules so strongly that the website just won’t rank at all.
Examples of Black Hat SEO
Using unrelated keywords that have no relation to the content you’re producing is a surprisingly common and staggeringly ineffective SEO technique. For example, using a celebrity’s name in a blog post about gas-fired water heaters looks unnatural – and that’s because it is. But someone who dabbles in black hat SEO and unrelated keywords may try to sandwich in a sentence that makes no sense just to stuff in a commonly-searched keyword (like a celebrity’s name, as we mentioned).
Automated content is another ineffective but commonly implemented way to incorporate SEO techniques into a website. You can spot a bot-generated comment or segment of text when you see it. If you can, Google will definitely be able to identify this type of automation.
If you use invisible links or text, you are also using black hat SEO. There are several ways to do this, including:
- Making a link or text zero in font size.
- Using text colors that perfectly match the background.
- Inserting links into small text characters, such as punctuation marks.
Examples of White Hat SEO
The production of consistently high-quality content is an essential white hat SEO practice for any business. Google happily ranks websites that are routinely updated with informative information that the public wants. Your content should be something that people will want to comment on and share. Keep it informative and entertaining without stuffing in a nonsensical number of keywords.
The effective use of keywords and conducting keyword research are important for a website to rank on Google. You can research keywords by inputting them on Google and seeing what comes up. You should have a set of keywords that people can use to search for your website. Sometimes, keywords aren’t single words but rather phrases. These are called long-tail keywords and they can be far more effective than certain short keywords, especially if many other websites seem to be using it.