SEO is an ever-changing beast! Gone are the days when you can launch your website and expect to rank high in search engines. It seems like every day, someone launches a new site or changes their existing site’s content or design, and they fail to perform due to poor optimization.
That’s why it is so difficult to achieve success with SEO – it is always changing. On one hand, having it change makes life as an entrepreneur more challenging, but on the other hand, it gives you the opportunity to try different strategies and see what works and doesn’t work for your business.
There are many types of white hat SEO that do not involve using paid advertisements or manipulating key parts of the web architecture. Instead, these tactics are designed to improve the ranking of your site naturally by optimizing and enhancing the quality of your content. Your readers will find your content useful, which will create positive feedback that will boost your online reputation and popularity.
In this article, we will discuss some important points about what is considered to be ethical SEO practices.
Definition of white hat SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website or web page content to make it more relevant for users to find you online.
It’s most commonly referred to as “white hat SEO,” because practicioners are careful about how they promote products and services – making sure their strategies aren’t shady or fraudulent.
There are some things, however, that are considered ethical SEO practices. Creating ample content to provide valuable information to your audience is a good way to get top rankings. Writing well and linking from reputable sources will also help boost your search presence.
But beyond that, anything goes! As long as you don’t break any rules. And yes, even spamming the internet with meaningless advertising is technically breaking a rule. 😉
We would like to add here that using unnatural link schemes such as paid links or backlinks from low quality sites will definitely hurt your reputation in the eyes of Google and other major search engines. You want to be natural so everyone can perceive your site as trustworthy.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is just like any other form of marketing, except it is not aimed at buying a product or service. Instead, its goal is to create value for a company or business, via online advertisements or articles written about their products or services.
Content marketers write an article or advertisement that aims to educate or entertain readers, while promoting the brand’s products or services. It may even influence people to buy something!
The difference between white hat SEO and content marketing is simply whether or not your strategies are ethical, moral, and non-monetary. With the availability of free tools that can perform some of these functions, most things today have become neutral and even incentivized.
That means you get rewarded for doing good work.
What are the different types of content?
Writing is one of the most universal forms of media. You can write about anything! There are many ways to use writing as a tool to achieve your online marketing goals.
Content comes in all shapes and sizes, from blogs to eBooks, YouTube videos to persuasive articles. No matter what type of content you’re creating, it should always help promote or enhance the reader/viewer’s knowledge or state of mind.
Good content makes readers feel smart or at least gives them the sense that they’ve learned something new.
Create content strategies
A white hat SEO is just like any other type of marketing — they strive to create content that appeals to your audience, adheres to good writing practices, and is relevant to your business or website.
SEOs use different strategies to achieve their goal which is to get your site to show up higher in search results for important keywords. These strategies include things like creating helpful content, optimizing your web pages using certain tags and attributes, linking to appropriate resources, and updating your social media profiles.
White hats will never directly link to another site unless it is an in-house link or part of an affiliate program. They will, however, refer you to someone else who can help you reach your goals.
It is very difficult to tell if someone is practicing ethical SEO tactics until you do some research. Check out websites, read reviews, and talk to people about them. You might also find what types of products and services they are offering interesting.
Distinguish between website and app
A few years ago, if you wanted to do some SEO (search engine optimization), you needed to know how to edit your HTML code and use keywords in your content and headers.
You also needed to find ways to improve your site’s speed/load time by optimizing images and other media.
And finally, you needed to figure out which tools and resources were trustworthy and effective for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) — otherwise, you could end up wasting your hard-earned money or even making things worse for your company!
These days, SEO is much more nuanced than it was back then. There are many different strategies and approaches that can be used to reap the benefits of search engines like Google and Bing.
Some are white hat, meaning they are considered ethical practices, while others are not. It is very important to identify what types of marketing are permissible before diving into anything too deep.
This article will talk about one such strategy: competitive analysis or research.
Test your website
There is no one definitive way to identify white hat SEOs. However, some general guidelines are able to tell you if an approach is safe or not.
First, determine whether the person using the strategy has their own set of rules as to what content is allowed to be posted and how they edit their work. If so, then these rules must be real and clearly defined.
Next, check to see if the person in question uses natural linking styles. Linking out to relevant resources and highlighting them with strong keywords are both good practices that contribute to engaging content.
Third, look at the types of sites the individual creates links from. General websites with little unique content probably aren’t worth our time.
Finally, search for reviews and talk about the individual. Does someone else use their services and praise them? An authentic link builder will know how to deal with criticism.
Link your website
One of the most important things to do when doing SEO is linking. How you link to other sites and how many links you have are key parts in achieving success for your online presence.
It seems like every site has their own link style or strategy, so it can be hard to know what’s right and wrong. That’s why there are some general guidelines that will apply to almost any situation.
These days, people tend to use keywords in their links instead of making them very literal. For example, if your target audience is more business minded then using “Business Tips” as a link would be better than just having a plain old “business tips.”
This is because people want to find helpful information about business, not just basic tips. If someone wanted only basic business tips they could simply search Google for them!
By adding additional content or examples, you increase the chances others will visit the page and take action.
