White Hat SEO vs Black Hat SEO
In internet marketing at the moment, the main strategy for most businesses seems to be to focus on search engine optimisation. Ensuring that your site appears high on the organic search rankings is vital in terms of generating traffic to your site and increasing sales as well as showing your company as a market leader. If you’re at the top of Google then your company must be an authority on the search term they have used.
There are many different SEO agencies that will offer you great search engine rankings for a price but it can be difficult to know who to trust. White Hat SEO techniques that are implemented well can bring worthwhile search engine results for a sustained period of time. Black Hat SEO on the other hand do not stick to the rules and over time, may even have the site black listed due to their use of unfair techniques. If an SEO agency offers these services that it can severely harm your site. Here is a breakdown of what constitutes White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO so you are aware of what is good and what is bad in terms of search engine optimisation.
White Hat SEO
Creating Quality Content
Copy on the site is extremely important as well written, relevant and unique copy shows the search engines that you know what you’re talking about and gives them a clear view of what you can offer to their users. Over time, this relevant and useful content can help generate a higher Google Page Rank, which will also show your site as an authority in the industry.
Keyword Research
Initial keyword research takes time at the beginning of an SEO campaign but is extremely important when it comes to the rest of the campaign. The keywords will be used in all aspects of the SEO strategy including the page titles and the meta description. Keywords must also be included in any articles or online press releases that may be created.
Titles and Meta Data
Titles and meta data also brings relevancy to each page by using SEO keywords that help determine what is on the page. The page title and meta description will also appear on the search engine results, which means it will be the first part to be seen by users.
Black Hat SEO
Hidden Content
Any content that is deemed to trying to be hidden from view (i.e. not visible to users on the site) will be harshly punished with bad search results or even being black listed. This technique is normally used so keywords can be stuffed into the content without having to make sense and is also a way of not letting the copy affect the design of the site. This method to rarely works as the search engines have become more sophisticated and more aware of this Black Hat SEO technique.
Meta Keyword Stuffing
Stuffing your meta tags with keywords is a really bad idea as the meta tags are used to describe the content on the page. If this meta description is incorrect or does not make sense through keyword stuffing then the site will be penalised as it is a spam technique implemented in an attempt to improve page rank.
Doorway or Gateway Pages
Doorway or Gateway pages are fake pages that are used to stuff lots of content in and are highly optimised on a small amount of keywords. These keywords are then linked to the landing page which is designed for search engines in mind so the end users are automatically redirected to the target page.
At SEO Junkies we pride ourselves on only using White Hat SEO techniques to ensure that your website has the best possible chance of achieving worthwhile search ranking results. Our proven track record for achieving very impressive results means that we know what we are doing and know what can work best for your website. To find out more about our full range of SEO services and speak to our SEO specialists about your internet marketing, please get in touch through our contact details.