For a business to drive organic site traffic, they need to optimize their most important pages by adhering to Google’s search guidelines which aim to provide users with the most relevant search results for the keyword phrase they entered. By observing the best practices of SEO, there is a greater chance that their pages will rank for their target keyword.
However, as a business owner, you need to be aware of the different SEO tactics that can make or break your business. On the one hand, there’s the right way of doing SEO, which is through white hat tactics. On the other, there are black hat SEO tactics that you need to avoid like a plague.
What is Black Hat SEO?
Black hat tactics are employed by marketers for the purpose of getting their sites on top of search engines by any means necessary. It doesn’t matter if the tactics are shady and frowned upon – as long as they produce the Black Hat Tacticsdesired results.
Examples of common black hat SEO tactics are as follows:
- Guest posting for link building
- Article spinning
- Link buying
You can read more examples of black hat tactics by reading this Forbes post.
Why you shouldn’t go “black”
To its credit, black hat SEO does help with raising the ranking of web pages on search results, which is why people still perform them.
However, these quick fixes will only produce havoc and destruction to your site in the long run.
Google has been working hard on cracking down on black hat tactics. It started in 2011 when Google penalized article directory sites for publishing thin content. Since then, Google has continuously updated their search algorithm for the purpose of providing users with pages containing the most relevant information about their search query.
At the same time, it put black hat SEOs to their place by blacklisting their sites from appearing in search results.
Getting caught by Google for implementing black hat tactics on your site will take away one of the best and most cost-effective digital advertising ways to drive traffic to your site and be found by your audience. If you want to enjoy organic traffic for a long period, then you need to stay away from black hat tactics as far as possible!
What should you do?
On the other side of the spectrum, white hat tactics will provide your business with the long-term success. While it will take time for you to see the results of these tactics, the product is more sustainable and will help you generate a consistent amount of organic traffic over time.
Below are some of the best white hat SEO practices that you should implement on your site.
- Feature your target keyword prominently in the page
- Increase your page’s loading speed
- Write incredible content
For actionable tips on how to boost your search rankings, read this post at Search Engine Journal.
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