The majority of people struggle to understand SEO fully but to make matters even more confusing there are actually three types of SEO. White, black and grey hat SEO, are all different approaches to search engine marketing and there is a major difference between them and the consequences associated with each practice
White Hat SEO
White hat SEO is a technique which is used to raise a web site’s search engine results page (SERP). First of all, it is essential to understand how search engines work. Search engines work by categorizing web pages by keywords, for example if a web page was selling “toys” and was targeting that word it would be categorized as “toys”, so it would not show up for something like “furniture” as it would be irrelevant.
The four main elements of white hat SEO are: providing relevant keywords, regular content updating, analysing search results using Google Analytics and interlinking with other sites.
Relevant Keywords
Providing relevant keywords applies to the whole of your website. It is important to have your keywords in your title and headings. Bear in mind that your title and headings don’t have to contain keywords exclusively; you can put other words in to make it more useable and reader-friendly.
Also something a lot of websites forget to do is include keywords in the Meta description. The Meta description is the ‘snippet’ of information that shows below the URL on search engines. Not only does using this correctly help your SERP but it also influences your users and can sway people towards entering your site.
As for any form of multimedia it is important to put keywords into the description and the name. Remember that crawlers can only read HTML code so it is essential that you give the crawlers enough relevant information.
Regular Content Updating
It is crucial to keep your content fresh; you need to update your content for many reasons, possibly the most important is that it massively helps your SERP, as Google loves fresh, unique, keyword rich and relevant content. Also it’s recommended to keep it updated because Google’s algorithms may change and you may need to accommodate for that, plus you may change your mind regarding the keywords you want to target. Getting into the good habit of updating your content will make it much, much easier should your strategy change in the future.
Analysing Your Site
You should analyse your site regularly, and to do so I suggest setting up Google Analytics. Analysing your site means you can fully understand the events of your site, then you will be able to take appropriate action accordingly. Checking regularly means you can see something potentially damaging happening to your site, but you can stop it before it is too late and, in such concerning cases, save your business.
Interlinking With Other Sites
Having other pages linking to your site massively affects the position of your site and will affect your page ranking. It also raises awareness of your site but more importantly, Google’s crawlers see these links and interpret them as a recommendation. And it’s clear that the more recommendations your site gets the better, right?
Black Hat SEO
Black hat SEO uses techniques that go against the search engines’ guidelines. The method involved does give quick results; however you will be caught out at some point and will be banned from the search engine. The famous example of BMW may be of interest; they used black hat techniques and were banned by Google as a result. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4685750.stm .
The burning question is, is an appearance on page one worth being blacklisted for? I personally think it isn’t and I would strongly urge anyone to avoid black hat SEO at all costs.
Here are the main techniques involved in black hat SEO: keyword stuffing, doorway pages, cloaked pages, link farming and hidden text.
It is crucial for everyone to have an understanding of black hat techniques, because if your site is being optimized than you can decide whether the correct work is being done and if it isn’t then you have the knowledge to do something about it.
I will stress one more time that black hat SEO is against the guidelines, that’s the whole idea of it, but the search engine will eventually find out and you will be banned, there is no doubt about that. If a company as huge as BMW where banned then it can happen to anyone.
Grey Hat SEO
Grey hats SEO uses techniques from both black and white hat SEO, but remember that using any quantity of black hat techniques can get you banned eventually.
In conclusion, white hat SEO is highly recommended, it may take a bit longer, but you run no risk of being banned and the quality of your site will be very high. At SEO Positive we use only white hat techniques for our clients and we have seen great returns from this method.
