5 White Hat SEO Strategies That Will Improve Your Rank
You have likely heard of SEO (search engine optimization) and are probably using SEO tactics when it comes to your business’s website and digital marketing. But do you know the difference between white hat and black hat SEO?
White hat SEO is a term used to describe SEO strategies that follow the terms and conditions of major search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Black hat SEO is the opposite. It’s when tactics are used to increase the search engine rank that do not follow—and even potentially violate—the terms and conditions of major search engines. This tends to be used by virus creators, computer hackers, and anyone who uses computers and the internet unethically.
For the best results, you want to stay away from black hat SEO when you are looking to legitimately build your brand. This means that your business should be following white hat SEO strategies. Not sure where to start? Here are five white hat SEO strategies to help you improve your business’s rank in search engine results.
1. Make Sure You Know the Webmaster Guidelines
The first thing you need to do to ensure you are utilizing white hat SEO is to make sure you know the terms and conditions of major search engines so you can guarantee that you are following them.
Take time to read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. They provide details about how Google finds, indexes, and then ranks your page. By having this knowledge, you can better understand how to give your site the upper hand when it comes to ranking, in a safe and approved way. Plus, the guidelines tell you what not to do—the things that could lead your website to potentially be blacklisted or banned. Bing also has a guidelines list.
A little bit of research can help you keep your website where customers and potential customers can easily find it.
2. Publish Relevant and Quality Content
One of the foundations of white hat SEO is consistently producing high-quality content because your website shouldn’t ever be stagnant. It’s also important that the articles and content you are posting are original and match the search intent of your target audience.
When you’re creating content for your website, ask yourself what questions clients and potential clients have that you can answer through your website content. People often use search engines to find the information they need, so provide them with quality content that gives them the answers they seek.
3. Make Sure You’re Using Keywords
SEO would be nothing without keywords—that is, the terms internet users type into search engines to find what they’re looking for. Keywords are how you are found and ranked. Because of this, it’s important that you not only place keywords on your web pages but that you also use them strategically. There are keyword tools that can help you with this, such as Google keyword planner.
The best practice when it comes to keywords is to use them organically on your page. Include them in page headings, blog titles, meta descriptions, and image alt text. Use them relevantly. It’s important not to place them randomly just to use them as many times as possible. This is keyword stuffing and is actually a black hat SEO tactic. Incorporate the keywords naturally, rather than trying to force them onto your page.
4. Think About Your Audience
When customers and potential customers search for topics relevant to your business, you want to make sure you are one of the first links on the search engine results. This starts by knowing your audience and what they’ll be searching for. A great way to think about this is to put yourself in their shoes. If you were looking for a product or service that your business offers, what would you be typing into the search bar?
This is why it’s important to choose keywords and draft content that satisfies user intent. To further this, make sure that the page titles fully reflect the content that’s found on that particular page.
Additionally, be conscious to break your content up into sections that are shorter and more straightforward. This will make your content more scannable. Plus, it makes your pages easier to digest and more engaging. Most site visitors are in a hurry these days, so easy-to-read content is more likely to hold their attention.
5. Optimize Your Links
It can be easy to forget about the links on your website when you’re focused on content, but optimizing the use of links is one of the great white hat SEO strategies. There are a couple of ways you can do this.
First, optimize your permalinks. A permalink is the URL for a page. Permalinks should be readable by both humans and search engines and clearly identify what a page is about.
Next, include links to other pages to emphasize the flow of information on your website. You can link from one page to another when discussing products or services or link to pages from blog articles. These links should connect to pages with relevant information.
Finally, it’s important to generate high-quality backlinks to different pages on your website. Backlinks are links on other websites that come back to yours. Google looks for relevant and contextual backlinks, and this will improve your website’s authority. Plus, it can help you develop professional relationships with others in your niche and increase your visibility.
Knowing the difference between black hat and white hat SEO tactics strategies is important for attracting the right traffic to your website. Hiring a marketing company like InnoVision Marketing Group to manage your SEO can help you get your business on the right track.
We speak digital marketing and advertising and know the ins and outs when it comes to SEO. We know how to use white hat SEO strategies to help clients reach their goals. We understand keywords and know user intent. We want to get your website as high in the search engine rankings as possible, so let us give you a hand. We build our solutions for our clients by using extensive analytics reporting and real-time optimization. We encourage you to reach out to InnoVision today with more information on your website and how we can help you.
