Considering that 67% of digital marketers state that search engine optimization (SEO) is the most efficient content marketing tactic out there, having an effective SEO strategy is crucial for your overall digital marketing plan.1 There are two common types of SEO: black hat SEO and white hat SEO. While the former is associated with searching for and exploiting loopholes within Google’s algorithm, white hat SEO focuses on practices that increase a website’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) without testing the boundaries of Google’s guidelines.
Keep reading to learn more about the various common white hat SEO services and techniques used by professionals like our Fort Lauderdale digital marketing agency.
What Is White Hat SEO?
White hat SEO refers to SEO tactics that align with the terms and conditions of major search engines like Google. White hat SEO is the opposite of black hat SEO, which aims to manipulate SERPs for gain rather than work with their rules. Generally, white hat SEO strategies refer to practices that improve a website’s search engine rankings while maintaining the integrity of their site and staying within the search engine’s guidelines or restrictions.
Common white hat SEO techniques and examples include:
- Providing users with quality content and services
- Maintaining a website with fast site loading times and mobile-friendliness
- Using descriptive, keyword-rich meta tags
- Making your site easy to navigate for users
- Utilizing keyword research to create relevant and informative content
- Developing a strong internal linking strategy
- Networking with high domain authority websites to obtain backlinks
- Engaging on social media
Ultimately, white hat SEO focuses on providing readers with high-quality and relevant content that answers their questions and optimizes their online experience. This is a better path to take than using spammy techniques, such as duplicate content, to manipulate rankings.
As a South Florida marketing agency centered on offering clients the most effective digital marketing strategies possible, we ensure that our team of SEO specialists stays up-to-date with guidelines for all major search engines. We also utilize white hat SEO tactics to maintain the integrity of both our clients’ websites and our business.
White Hat vs. Black Hat SEO
Whether they engage in white or black-hat SEO strategies, all content marketers have the same goal: to boost their rankings so they can be at the top of Google. SEO strategists fight tooth and nail to make Google’s algorithm happy because 86% of internet users worldwide are on Google.2
With that said, while both have a common goal, the main difference between white hat and black hat SEO is that black hat SEO uses unethical and bad SEO practices to gain rankings on SERPs.
Common black hat SEO examples include:
- Automated queries to Google
- Creating pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing, viruses, trojans, and other malware
- Creating pages, subdomains, or domains with duplicate content
- Implementing hidden text or links to rank for keywords and phrases
- Keyword stuffing
- Link farms, link wheels, or link networks
- Link manipulation (including buying links)
- Link schemes
- Rich snippet markup spam
- Sneaky redirects
- Using article spinning to create new content from existing content
- Using cloaking to present different content to search engines than to users
- Using doorway pages, which insert results for a particular page while sending users to a different page, or manipulating indexing on search engines
- Using guest posting networks for link building
- Utilizing content automation to create content that isn’t user-friendly or focused
While it may seem like you’re getting quick and effective results through the use of black hat SEO, these tactics can have a website removed from search engines completely. Especially if you’re a business that relies heavily on your online presence, this can be detrimental to your profit. Instead, it’s recommended that websites looking to boost their rankings on SERPs utilize white-hat SEO services.
Get Started With Our White Hat SEO Company
If you want to apply white hat SEO strategies to your website but don’t know how, Tandem Buzz can help. We offer ethical and professional SEO services applied by specialists trained in white hat tactics. You can rest easy knowing that your website is safe in the efforts of our Florida digital marketing agency.
For more information about our SEO, PPC, or social media services and how we can help your website perform at its best, give Tandem a buzz today!
Sources:
- SEMrush – The State of Content Marketing Report 2019 by SEMrush
- Statista – Worldwide desktop market share of leading search engines from January 2015 to December 2022
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