These days, many companies in Denver and other states specialize in providing search engine optimization (SEO) services to businesses who want to strengthen their online presence.
Such SEO campaigns have spelled the difference between lost revenues and revenues gained from being on top of Google’s search engine results page (SERP). But not all SEO service providers offer the same techniques in implementing their clients’ online marketing strategies and plans.
Here are three of the popular SEO techniques and how they could affect your online marketing campaign:
Black Hat SEO
This search engine optimization technique is, essentially, duping Google into believing that the site should be ranked high in the SERP. If you dream of seeing your site taken down by Google, then this is the best way to do it.
But how does Google know that a site is doing nasty black hat SEO techniques? Here are some indicators:
- Stolen content. This is simply when a website copied in parts or in full the original content of another website and published as one’s original content. You may also call it plagiarism, by the way. This was never right and will never be right, in any way and in any discipline. No matter how high your website would rank by doing this, you shouldn’t do it. Period.
- Spun articles. There were those times when SEO practitioners who didn’t want to steal content from other websites but want to have high-quality content resorted to article spinning. This is basically programming words within the original content from other websites in such a way that the words would be synonymous. The programmed content would then be run on an article spinning program to produce “new” and “original” content.
- ‘Farmed’ links. Simply put, this is having unrelated or irrelevant websites create a link chain to make Google think that the websites’ contents are valuable.
- Purchased links. It’s basically trading a certain amount of money, product, or service in exchange for a promotional material that contains links to another person’s website.
Gray Hat SEO
Gray hat SEO is the gray area between black and white hat SEO techniques. As such, it’s actually somehow difficult to categorize specific SEO techniques as gray hat since it largely depends on one’s appreciation of the techniques.
For example, doing guest blog posts can be considered gray hat if you would ask Matt Cutts from Google. Article spinning is also considered gray hat, and so is link building.
White Hat SEO
This technique is considered the “ethical” or the “right way” of running SEO campaigns. Remember that Google penalizes sites that do not conform to its established rules and using white hat techniques is considered as a failproof method of search engine optimization.
If you want to ensure that your website won’t be penalized in any way by Google, this is how you should conduct your SEO.
Basically, white hat SEO is doing things according to Google’s playbook, which can be tedious but highly rewarding in the long run. Among others, this technique involves:
- Creating original, high-quality content
- Using the right keywords through keyword analysis
- Supplying proper meta titles and meta description
- Having high-quality inbound links
- Establishing a well-organized website
If you’re unsure about which techniques you’re using right now or which one you should use in the future, consult with a professional SEO company. This way, you’ll be properly guided on the appropriate SEO technique to get the results you need.