Black HAT SEO
Black hat SEO is the practice of going against search engine guidelines to manipulate SERPs (search engine results page) for higher rankings. Marketers found to be using black hat SEO methods can be issued Google penalties, be wiped from search engines or see metrics completely drop.
Techniques:
Low-quality content
Before the Google Panda update in 2011, search engines struggled to recognise duplicate or bad content. Now, it’s much better at this.
Low-quality content could be an existing article that is paraphrased by a writer or computer. These pieces of content tend to be written quickly and used as part of outreach or link building campaigns. This type of content doesn’t offer any value to the reader and is used solely for link building something we will talk about later.
Keyword stuffing
Keyword stuffing is exactly how it sounds stuffing your content with keywords. We all know the importance of keywords for rankings and traffic which is why black hat SEOs will cram as many as they can into a piece of content. It is thought the more keywords, the better the chance of the content ranking well. According to Google, keyword stuffing is:
- Listing of phone numbers without any added value.
- Blocks of text listing cities and locations a web page is trying to rank for.
- Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural.
Paying for links
The importance of backlinks in an SEO strategy is unavoidable. The more backlinks (external sites that link to your own) a site has, the more Google considers it to be trustworthy and authoritative.
It can be tricky getting links to a site that’s fairly new. After all, why would anyone link to a site that itself doesn’t have any traffic or authority? That’s why many SEOs pay for links. Countless sites and blogs will charge SEO marketers money for placing content and links on their site.
White HAT SEO
White hat SEO is the body of approved search engine optimization tactics designed to increase a website’s position on a search engine results page (SERP).
Search engine results that appear as a result of approved methods, rather than payment or trickery, are referred to as organic search results. Because paid ads and sponsored links are prominently placed on search results pages, the portion of visible search results dedicated to organic results is limited, so top placement is very desirable.
Examples:
- Offering quality content and services
- Fast site loading times and mobile-friendliness
- Using descriptive, keyword-rich meta tags
- Making your site easy to navigate
Methods:
Use Descriptive, Keyword-Rich Meta Tags
Follow best practices when creating meta descriptions for each page on your website to help search engines and users discover your content.
Offer Quality Content and Services
Create high-quality content that meets your visitors needs and helps solve their problems. Use SEO keyword research tools to discover the most relevant keywords that your site content should be optimized for.
Make Your Site Easy to Navigate
Be mindful when organizing your site’s Information Architecture. Sites that are easy for users to get around tend to perform better in organic search results too.