White hat SEO and black hat SEO are two types of strategies chosen by experts to improve the visibility of their websites in search engines. So, what is the difference between black hat and white hat? What are the risks of using black hat?
In its simplest form, white hat follows Google’s rules in particular in terms of content quality. Black hat makes a 180 turn, opting for a more aggressive approach that is not afraid to circumvent the rules.
What is Black Hat SEO?
Let’s start with the most unpleasant of the two. Marketing specialists who practice Black Hat SEO are the Outcast of the Internet because they rely on violating the rules to earn a higher ranking. Some Black Hat are the following:
- Unrelated Keyword Insertion: adding keywords that have no connection to your content is an alarm signal for search engines due to their unnatural appearance. Suppose you are working on a site dedicated to chimneys. Adding a phrase like “Belmondo would use our home on his trip back to Canada” sounds good, but it has nothing to do with how your product could benefit your target audience. Instead, it uses an independent celebrity to bait search engines.
- Content Automation (in the body of the text or in the comments section): we can all recognize a bot comment instantly, and although this text contains one or two keywords that will help the URL to rank higher, it is generated randomly and it has absolutely no value for the reader or the search engines.
- Content Spinning: it is the generation of random text according to certain rules).
Why is White Hat SEO the Best Option?
Sites with better rankings opt for white hat techniques because they make them more visible thanks to the quality content and the creation of organic links. Here are some ways to provide value to your business with white hat SEO:
- Quality content: the creation of valuable content for your target audience is generally worthy of being shared and worthy of links, two key elements for generating traffic. Its content must also be original, very relevant to its niche and must not contain spelling or grammar errors.
- Effective use of keywords: although keyword stuffing is not correct, keywords retain their value when used properly. Your site should focus on a set of relevant keywords, and you can identify the most effective ones by searching for keywords or phrases that you think people could use to find your site. Keywords that are long-tail can be much more specific to your product or service and, therefore, be more effective for better ranking.
- Get relevant backlinks: Google likes to detect links from other sites that lead to yours. If other sites are linked to you, it means that you have quality content and you will be rewarded with a much higher visibility. However, keep in mind that there are good and bad (toxic) links, so you need to make sure that all offsite links are relevant and offer similar quality content.
