SEO Techniques

Various techniques are used for search engine optimization, or SEO. One way to group these techniques is with hat terminology: white hat SEO, black hat SEO, and gray hat SEO. White hat SEO is considered ethical SEO, while black hat SEO is considered unethical SEO. Gray hat SEO walks the line between the white and black hats of search engine optimization.

White hat SEO


White hat SEO is ethical SEO. It's SEO techniques that search engines accept. White hat SEO techniques are beneficial for site visitors as well as for search engines. The goal of white hat SEO is to improve search engine result positions via methods that won't cause search engines to penalize the site.

Successful white hat SEO is slower than black hat SEO and is an ongoing process.

Researching relevant keywords, both short ail and long tail keywords
Including keywords naturally in page titles, headings, link anchor text, other page content, and alt tags
Studying analytics reports and fine-tuning the content to further optimize it for targeted keywords and to help direct traffic to relevant pages
Adding fresh content regularly
Using correct HTML markup (for example, heading tags) so that search engines can identify headings and other types of content correctly
Making sure that all the code is valid (or at least won't stop search engine bots)
Creating site maps so that every page is linked to and search engine bots can crawl every page
Using CSS to separate content from markup and thus increase keyword density by having less markup to crawl
Creating quality content that other people will want to link to
Asking to have directories and other relevant websites link to the site
Optimizing pages for social media in the hopes of attracting social media links
Arranging for link exchanges with relevant sites (considered by some to be gray hat SEO)

White hat SEO


White hat SEO is ethical SEO. It's SEO techniques that search engines accept. White hat SEO techniques are beneficial for site visitors as well as for search engines. The goal of white hat SEO is to improve search engine result positions via methods that won't cause search engines to penalize the site.

Successful white hat SEO is slower than black hat SEO and is an ongoing process.

Black hat SEO is the use of techniques that are unacceptable to search engines to boost a page's position in search results. These techniques are intended to trick search engines into giving pages higher positions in search results, and they have no benefit to site visitors. The goal is to improve search engine result positions no matter what it takes to do it.

Black hat SEO techniques are used for two reasons:

They work — until search engines find out about them and they don't work.
Some people don't understand that black hat SEO techniques can get their sites penalized by or banned from search engines.

Even if search engines can't detect the black hat SEO techniques, competitors of sites that employ black hat SEO techniques can spot them and do report them to search engines.

Examples of black hat SEO techniques

Keyword stuffing

Overusing keywords in comment tags, alt tags, and meta tags
Placing keywords in hidden text (hidden from people, that is) by making their font color the same color as the page background
Overusing keywords in visible text, to the point where their repetition is apparent to readers
Doorway or gateway pages: pages that are stuffed with keywords but that only search engines see because people are redirected to the page with the real content
Cloaking: displaying different content to search engines than to people by identifying visitors via IP or via other methods

Gray hat SEO


Gray hat SEO is SEO techniques that take more risks than white hat SEO techniques but aren't likely to get your site banned from search engines (although a search engine penality could result). They're questionable SEO techniques but not in the same category as black hat SEO techniques. However, what's considered gray hat SEO today might be black hat SEO next year.

Having a keyword density that's high enough to sound unnatural but not at the level of black hat keyword stuffing
Publishing duplicate content at different sites
Link building where relevance is less important
Planned three-way linking
Using paid links

Researching relevant keywords, both short ail and long tail keywords
Including keywords naturally in page titles, headings, link anchor text, other page content, and alt tags
Studying analytics reports and fine-tuning the content to further optimize it for targeted keywords and to help direct traffic to relevant pages
Adding fresh content regularly
Using correct HTML markup (for example, heading tags) so that search engines can identify headings and other types of content correctly
Making sure that all the code is valid (or at least won't stop search engine bots)
Creating site maps so that every page is linked to and search engine bots can crawl every page
Using CSS to separate content from markup and thus increase keyword density by having less markup to crawl
Creating quality content that other people will want to link to
Asking to have directories and other relevant websites link to the site
Optimizing pages for social media in the hopes of attracting social media links
Arranging for link exchanges with relevant sites (considered by some to be gray hat SEO)


Black hat SEO


Black hat SEO is the use of techniques that are unacceptable to search engines to boost a page's position in search results. These techniques are intended to trick search engines into giving pages higher positions in search results, and they have no benefit to site visitors. The goal is to improve search engine result positions no matter what it takes to do it.

Black hat SEO techniques are used for two reasons:

They work — until search engines find out about them and they don't work.
Some people don't understand that black hat SEO techniques can get their sites penalized by or banned from search engines.

Even if search engines can't detect the black hat SEO techniques, competitors of sites that employ black hat SEO techniques can spot them and do report them to search engines.

Examples of black hat SEO techniques

Keyword stuffing

Overusing keywords in comment tags, alt tags, and meta tags
Placing keywords in hidden text (hidden from people, that is) by making their font color the same color as the page background
Overusing keywords in visible text, to the point where their repetition is apparent to readers
Doorway or gateway pages: pages that are stuffed with keywords but that only search engines see because people are redirected to the page with the real content
Cloaking: displaying different content to search engines than to people by identifying visitors via IP or via other methods

Gray hat SEO

Gray hat SEO is SEO techniques that take more risks than white hat SEO techniques but aren't likely to get your site banned from search engines (although a search engine penality could result). They're questionable SEO techniques but not in the same category as black hat SEO techniques. However, what's considered gray hat SEO today might be black hat SEO next year.

Having a keyword density that's high enough to sound unnatural but not at the level of black hat keyword stuffing
Publishing duplicate content at different sites
Link building where relevance is less important
Planned three-way linking
Using paid links

No comments:

Post a Comment