TYPES OF SEO
SEO professionals use special terminology to describe various search optimization practices for boosting website rankings in popular search engines like Google and Bing. The three most common terms used are:
· White Hat
· Black Hat
· Grey Hat
WHY ITS IMPORTANT TO KNOW
A layperson will see these terms for the first time and become immediately confused because they don’t describe anything SEO-related. However, if you want to improve your SEO knowledge and skills, you must become familiar with the hidden meanings of these three terms.
That way, you will understand the best SEO practices to use at various times to improve your website’s ranking. Let’s examine the advantages and disadvantages of each type of SEO practice and why businesses would implement each one:
WHITE HAT SEO
White Hat represents “ethical SEO practices.” It is an SEO category involving the use of traditional and long-term SEO strategies to naturally increase the organic traffic to your website from search engines. White Hat SEO strategies don’t involve taking any risks because they fully comply with search engine algorithms.
EXAMPLE OF WHITE HAT SEO
Some examples of White Hat SEO include the following:
KEYWORD OPTIMIZATION
Conducting keyword research to find relevant search words and phrases for your website’s content. Your targeted audience has a better chance of discovering your website listing at the top of their search engine results pages if your website’s content contains relevant the same search terms that people are entering into Google.
META DATA
Adding critical meta information between the HTML tags of your website’s coding, such as a title, relevant keywords, and a description of your website. Search engines use this information when indexing your website on their results pages.
HIGH-QUALITY CONTENT
Writing and creating high-quality content for your website. It must be original, relevant, engaging, and informative content unlike any other detected from your competitors.
RESPONSIVE DESIGN
Using a responsive design for your website. A responsive website is one that loads quickly and is easily accessible on all platforms, such as mobile devices and computers.
BACKLINKS
Adding backlinks onto high-authority, relevant websites. It means posting links to your website on other websites that have the same theme as yours. These other websites must be reputable and popular to achieve the best results.
ADVANTAGES
Here are the advantages of using White Hat SEO strategies:
· There is no risk of your website getting banned or deindexed on search engines
· Organic traffic becomes sustainable once it arrives
· Establishes your website’s reputation online
· Builds trust with users
DISADVANTAGES
Here are the disadvantages of using White Hat SEO strategies:
· You will have to wait longer for results
· You must continuously manage and work on the SEO to sustain the results
WHY BUSINESS WOULD IMPLEMENT IT
Implementing White SEO strategies is critical for businesses because they are more sustainable than other types of SEO strategies. White SEO strategies allow businesses to build credibility, trust, and traffic without the risk of getting banned on search engines.
BLACK HAT SEO
Black Hat is the opposite of White Hat because it involves unethical SEO practices rather than ethical ones. Businesses might use Black Hat SEO strategies to manipulate search engines to artificially increase their website’s ranking more quickly.
EXAMPLES OF BLACK HAT SEO
Here are some examples of Black Hat SEO practices:
KEYWORD STUFFING
Putting too many targeted or relevant keywords into your website’s content can have the opposite effect on your website’s search engine ranking.
BUYING BACKLINKS
Purchasing backlink promotional services where other marketers create backlinks for your website on hundreds or even thousands of different web pages.
HIDDEN TEXTS AND LINKS
Adding hidden content, keywords, links, and content to your website by making it the same color as your background. That way, search engines can still detect it while the people visiting your website cannot see it.
CLOAKING
Redirecting search engine crawlers to a more optimized webpage than the actual webpage that ordinary people would see.
ADVANTAGES
Here are the advantages of using Black Hat SEO strategies:
· Generate leads and impressions to your website more quickly
· Less investment and commitment
· Potential to attract large amounts of organic traffic
DISADVANTAGES
Here are the disadvantages of using Black Hat SEO strategies:
· Unsustainable results
· There is a higher risk of your website getting banned or deindexed by search engines
· Hurts your business or website’s reputation
WHY BUSINESSES WOULD IMPLEMENT IT
Businesses should only use Black Hat SEO strategies if they can confidently exploit any noticeable loopholes in a search engine’s current algorithms to create a short-term traffic boost. Afterward, businesses should stop using these strategies after noticing results.
GREY HAT SEO
Grey Hat is a combination of White Hat and Black Hat SEO practices. A business using Grey Hat SEO strategies may attempt to slightly exceed ethical boundaries to boost its website’s search engine ranking without going too far over those boundaries. In other words, Grey Hat is 50/50 when it comes to using ethical and unethical SEO practices because it is a middle ground between both.
EXAMPLES OF GREY HAT SEO
Here are some examples of Grey Hat SEO practices:
BACKLINKS
Putting multiple blog posts with multiple backlinks
PRIVATE BLOG NETWORKS
Post backlinks on private blog networks.
DOMAIN NAMES
Invest in expired domain names with keywords relevant to your business
MINOR KEYWORD STUFFING
Adding several keywords to your content without overstuffing them
ADVANTAGES
Here are the advantages of using Grey Hat SEO strategies:
· Faster results and less risk than White Hat SEO
· Experienced users can create a flexible SEO strategy
· Gain slightly better results in search engines than your competition
· There is less risk of your website getting banned than if you used Black Hat SEO
DISADVANTAGES
Here are the disadvantages of using Grey Hat SEO strategies:
· There is a marginal risk of your website getting banned and deindexed
· Search engine algorithm updates could convert Grey Hat strategies into Black Hat strategies
· Still no consistency or sustainability
WHY BUSINESSES WOULD IMPLEMENT IT
Grey Hat SEO strategies can give businesses a competitive advantage in search engines. On the other hand, businesses should only implement Grey Hat SEO strategies if they track all search engine algorithm updates. Once the updates are noticeable, businesses must quickly modify their SEO strategies to avoid getting banned.
CONCLUSION
In the end, businesses and website
owners should prioritize White Hat SEO strategies above all else. However, some
newer businesses might want to temporarily experiment with Black Hat or Grey
Hat SEO strategies to get their websites off the ground faster. Then, all SEO
efforts should be devoted to White Hat SEO.