There are many tactics used today to influence a website’s SEO ranking. Some of these - “white hat” tactics - are commonly accepted and yield positive results from the search engines. On the other end of the spectrum, the “black hat” methods are considered unethical and can actually get your site banned from the engines, yet some people persist in using them because they can slip under the radar and achieve results sometimes. Here we’ll take a look at both, as well as those “grey hat” approaches that walk the line.
When someone talks about “white-hat” SEO tactics, they’re referring to any method that enhances - or at the very least - does not degrade, the integrity of your website. These tactics are straightforward and low risk, showing the same content to all users. These include the following:
- Website Optimization which is the process of creating, or in some cases, reprogramming and redesigning your existing website to maximize its speed and search engine efficiency.
- Original Content Creation which is authentic, true, useful to the user and helps to boost rankings through use of keywords. While the creation of original, keyword-rich content can be labor intensive, the payoff is that it will draw targeted traffic to your site and boost sales.
- Internal Linking are self-referential links within a website.
- External / Reciprocal Linking are just what they sound like. The thing to remember here is that in order for these to have the greatest value possible, be sure and link only to those sites that will be of use to your visitors - they will, for example, share similar keywords and themes in content.
On the other hand, “black-hat” tactics in SEO ranking are unethical and high risk. Black-hat methods destroy a website’s credibility. Some of these include:
- Cloaking, in which different content is revealed to different users;
- Doorway Pages which contain little useful information but are created to enhance keyword ranking and traffic generation;
- Interlinking which is accomplished by building and linking several sites to boost the link popularity of each;
- Link Bait, or pages of false content created for the sole purpose of getting others to link to your website;
- Redirecting which is often used in conjunction with doorway pages (which often lack content); redirects transfer visitors to pages that contain content;
- Widget Bait which is comprised of many things, such as hidden links, keywords stuffed into the link back, links to irrelevant sites, and so on;
- Duplicate Sites that act as alter-egos to original sites created by the same author; which are launched to surpass the original and cash in on the sales.
Finally, there is a third class of tactics known as “grey-hat” moves. Some of these include paid links, duplicated content and cloaking. The instances where these are acceptable can be tricky to decipher, so if you have a doubt - don’t.
It can be interesting to think about the ethics behind SEO ranking. But more importantly, be sure you know which are working for - or against - your website.
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