With all the talk lately online regarding the latest updates by Google called Panda and Penguin, you surely must have heard the phrase “white hat SEO” and “black hat SEO” before. These terms are two different digital marketing methods on performing search engine optimization (SEO). While white hat SEO is exactly as the name implies – white hat. Black hat SEO on the other hand is the dark, under the table way of fooling the search engines to obtain high rankings.
Black hat SEO has been a thorn in Google’s side for some time now, and with latest updates from the search engine giant they are trying to remove all the spammy websites involved with black hat SEO. The latest algorithm update from Google have been released specifically to counter and remove the underhanded under they table SEO strategies.
White hat SEO vs black hat SEO
White hat SEO is seen as the legal and good way to get your website ranked highly for specific keywords on the search engines. It uses the basic rules as they are set out on Google’s webmasters guidelines to basically improve your ranking on Google and to provide their users with relevant and quality information. Link building has been hugely affected by the latest update by Google, but it was really for the greater good. Going the white hat SEO route is by far the most cost-effective method you can use in your digital marketing campaign to improve your search engine rankings and drive targeted traffic to your website.
The only problem with white hat SEO is that it can take quite a lot of time in a competitive market before you are going to see any positive results. The best benefit with white hat SEO is that the results are usually long-lasting. It is really not a quick push a button and be done with it strategy. Good SEO is a science and it can send a steady stream of organic targeted traffic to your website. White hat SEO methods will ensure that you get a good and legitimate ranking on Google and will keep you from getting blacklisted and thrown in the sandbox.
Inbound Linking
Let’s look at this from a logical point; if you hire a digital marketing agency to build some inbound links for you, cheap, and quickly, the links built could end up being low quality and black hat. Google is really smart – if there is a restaurant linking back to your t-shirt printing website, Google will definitely be suspicious. This is why white hat SEO digital marketers are working really hard to build authoritive quality links only from relevant sites. Being relevant is key with any digital marketing campaign.
If you are looking to start a SEO campaign and looking for agencies you can work with, be aware of the wrong and right ways to carry out SEO, and who will be able to provide you with a relevant strategy including good link building.
