SEO Types Exposed

Search Engine Optimizers (SEO) can wear many different “hats”. The color of the single hat is determined by the SEO philosophy and the methods, that is used to optimize websites. We usually speak of:

• Black Hat SEO
• White Hat SEO
• Gray Hat SEO

As an affiliate it is important to understand the difference and the risks between the single SEO Hats.

Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO is also known as SEO spamming, and is when someone creates websites that have little or no value, that are intended to trick the search engines into offering irrelevant or low-quality search results.

Black Hat SEO will heavily leverage technology and automation in order to create tons of poor quality sites, and gain inbound links from other websites (link spam). Once the visitor has arrived to the website, the owner of the website will often use some kind of cloaking or redirect to show the visitor a sales page of the products, that is the really goal of the Black Hat SEO technique.

Black Hat SEO are all about getting fast results. The method they use to optimize their websites will often get the website to the top of the search engines very rapidly, but when the search engines catch-on, the website will very often crash or get banned.

I do not condone Black Hat SEO for affiliates, because it is very risky SEO business, and it can especially damaging, when it is used on a website, that you have invested heavily resources in.

White Hat SEO

White Hat SEO focus on building quality content first and SEO second. White Hat SEO may use technology and automation to build their websites too, but they use it to accomplish different goals. They write content for people, not search engines. White Hat SEO tend to rely more on their content and marketing skills to achieve a top ranking, rather than automated programs.

White Hat SEO understand that good search engine rankings takes time and don’t try to rush results. White Hat SEO are able to get more inbound links from other websites, because their content is considered valuable. They go by the philosophy CONTENT IS KING.

When you use White Hat SEO tactics you run absolutely no risk of being banned by the search engines and visitors who come to your website will also be more likely to convert.

Gray Hat SEO

A lot of SEO fall into the Gray Hat category, and there are many shades of gray. Some Gray Hat SEO tend to use more questionable tactics and take greater risks. Gray Hat SEO is all about risk versus reward. Some Gray Hat techniques may be frowned by the search engines, but are not necessarily against their rules, while other techniques may be more risky and should be used only after careful consideration.

What SEO hat should you wear ?

The hat that you decide to wear should be determined by your goals and objectives. I would never recommend anybody to use any black hat SEO strategies, because these strategies are short-lived and will almost always get you banned in the search engines.

Everybody should strive to be a white hat SEO and focus on writing quality content. However it may make sense for you in some instances to use Gray Hat SEO tactics to gain a competitive advantage. But when using Gray Hat SEO tactics it is very important, that you measure the risk and reward of each strategy, and determine for yourself, if some of these Gray Hat SEO strategies makes sense for your websites.

But it is important that you never take too big a risk with your most valuable websites, and here it is much more valuable, that you make a more safe and long term SEO strategy for these websites.

Impact of White Hat SEO

All websites are created with single aim to get higher search engine ranking and earn greater profits. Thus struggle for top SEO ranking is everlasting making it an on-going procedure for websites as search engines change their criteria and preferences for keywords.

SEO experts that are reliable and genuine always opt for 'white hat SEO techniques' that create long-term online results. In white hat SEO, all rules and regulations laid by search engines are followed by site optimizers. Indexing of the content is done in exact way that can be viewed by the users. Created Website content aims at the customers instead of the SEO algorithms.

White hat SEO is the legal way to optimize a website in order to make it generate satisfactory web traffic. Chances of website getting penalized also reduce due to absence of wrong SEO techniques. The strongest point is good quality content and truthfulness. Keep your website structure simple and ensure that the programming and software part is simple and easy to understand especially for search engines. This would lead to better ranking of your site because of well optimized keywords/phrases.

Primary goal of white hat SEO is to offer website that has helpful information and is build properly. If you put quality content on your website than naturally the chances of getting links from other sites increases. Websites may take some time to get noticed, but it has a long-term effect on the success of your website.

Websites using this technique consists of appealing design and have better navigation links. For better promotion you can post meaningful text on other websites of your preference. The text or comments you put up on another website should be meaningful.

Widely used white hat SEO techniques are as follows:

1) Directory submission

2) RSS feed

3) Site feedback

4) Quality content formation

5) Creation of site maps

6) Article submission

7) Allotting back links

White hat SEO increases the attraction quotient of a website as it presents original content simple to understand and delivers right kind of information. Sometimes white hat techniques take much time to show up the results which could make you feel that it is not the right option! But the wait here is always worthwhile without any risk of your website getting blacklisted by the search engines. SEO experts of good repute and knowledge understand this fact and abide by the guidelines laid by the search engines.

Black Hat SEO Vs. White Hat SEO

People often use the terms 'white hat' and 'black hat' in the online work community. What do these terms actually mean though? It's simple really, white hat refers to a practice used in your business practices involving SEO in which you are following the rules and doing nothing sneaky to try to get ahead of your competition. Black hat is, well...the exact opposite. People use black hat techniques to trick customers, search engines, and their competitors. These techniques often get them in some sort of trouble and they are definitely not recommended.

The following is a list of some of the basic white hat and black hat techniques/practices that you want to use or avoid in online work:

White hat techniques-

1) Internal linking - Creating clear and legitimate internal links within sites is very important. Avoid using pictures or logos for internal linking as they cannot be identified by search engine bots, thus not counting as an actual link as far as search engines are concerned. Use text links at the bottom of your homepage, along with a sitemap of your whole site.

2) Content creation - Everyone who has done significant research on SEO knows the importance of good content for a website. Websites rich in unique content are easily crawled by the search engine bots. Content creation should be to the point, unique, have relevant keywords to your niche, and be informative to the reader. Choosing the proper keyword phrase is a must. One must choose specific and relevant keywords and optimize the homepage as well as sub-pages using those keywords.

3) Site optimization - Effective site optimization leads to better website appearance and has a better chance of being found by your potential customers. It covers all important aspects like Meta tags, titles, content, links, etc.

Black hat techniques-

1) Hidden text - Some websites try to fool readers by making text the same font color as your website's background. These websites are easily caught by their competitors and often search bots will recognize this as well, and the site will get blacklisted. Not a smart tactic since it is easily found by someone who knows what to look for.

2) Stuffing keywords into your content - This is the most common and most used black hat SEO technique. In this case the website owner will insert a large amounts of keywords or phrases repeatedly without having any relevant meaning. This will result in sentences that make very little sense, and again can be caught very easily.

3) Doorway pages - It is very dangerous to insert a doorway page, simply to target specific keywords or phrases. This has little or no value to the user and thus only hurts you.

4) Duplicate sites - Some webmasters create duplicate sites of their original site for website promotion purposes. They think that their new site can outrank their old one. This is simply not the case and it is a very banned practice.

5) Cloaking - This method refers to the use of many black hat SEO techniques simultaneously for submitting varied information to search engines, which are invisible to the visitors. They sometimes go undetectable but can be identified by the competitors, and will result in the banning of the website by most, if not all search engines.

6) Interlinking - These are multiple websites that are interlinked to each other for link popularity. This is a rather difficult technique to be detected, but it is definitely not recommended.

In the end all reliable and genuine online work companies practice white hat SEO techniques that have long-term positive outcomes. Black hat SEO can get your some quick traffic to begin with, but in the end it will only end up hurting you.

Effects Of White Hat SEO Techniques

Struggling for a top SEO ranking has always been the prime concern of the web masters. The more they are able to deal with the intricacies of a website the more they are able to carve a path for themselves in the web world. In order to attract a number of visitors as well as the spiders it is important for one to know the best SEO techniques. So what is best - White Hat or Black Hat?

This piece of writing will help you to have a clear idea of what is best.

In the world of internet marketing the webmasters try to employ the white hat techniques that produce a long term result and few try to take the short cuts involving the black hat techniques. An SEO technique can be considered as white hat if it follows the search engine guidelines and engages no trickery. It is all about ensuring that the content on the search engine indexes is just the same that will be viewed by the users. The content of the page targets the readers and not the algorithms of the search engines and so the web pages are beneficial to the internet, search engines and webmasters.

Black hat techniques always involve the risk of a site being banned or permanently removed from the database. This technique uses hidden texts not visible to the viewers but visible to the spiders of the search engines. It attempts to improve the rankings of the website but in the long run harms the web pages as the methods used are not approved by Google or any other search engines.

The Most Popular White Hat Techniques

• Original and relevant content creation
• Article submission
• Director submission
• Request site feedback
• Create Back links
• Prepare business blogs
• Create site mappings
• RSS feed
• Forum contribution

The above white hat techniques increases the stickiness of a website by presenting unique content that is easy to understand and at the same time informative. It helps to build the links naturally and it sincerely provides the contents for the viewers and not for the search engines. With white hat techniques a website may take a long time to demonstrate its results and at times even after so much of hard work it may not be a success. While it is quite easy for a black hat webmaster to find all the vulnerable means of placing the content on the page so as to get a higher ranking in the SERPS. You might think it to be a lucrative option of getting a higher ranking but it is not so. Why? The black hat practitioners always carry with them the risk of being banned by the search engines and this not only hampers the clients of the SEO farm but also damages the credibility of the company immensely.