White-Hat vs. Black-Hat SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to the efforts made by a website owner or administrator to make his or her website more prominent and discoverable in the search engines. These days, with out there at any given time, there's always bound to be competition for your website, no matter what industry you find yourself in. Still, when people search for terms relevant to the goods or services your website provides, you want potential users to be able to find your website and see it among the first page of search engine results. This is easier said than done, especially if you're in a competitive market. Enter SEO and all the techniques and strategies that you can use to boost your site's search engine rankings.

However, today's search engine algorithms are smarter and stricter than they were in the past. Search engines punish sites that use unethical (black-hat) strategies to boost their search rankings and reward those that use legitimate (white-hat) methods. So, what's the difference between each? We've got the answers!

Black-Hat SEO

Black-hat SEO methods may have worked in the past, but they're frowned upon today. In some cases, utilizing these methods could even get your site de-indexed altogether.

Keyword Stuffing

It's no secret that the strategic use and placement of relevant keywords can help your site's search engine rankings, but you don't want to overdo it. Stuffing your website or blog content with relevant keywords is a big no-no. Not only does it make your content seem spammy and difficult-to-read, but it's likely to hurt your credibility as well.

Link Farms

You used to be able to increase your search engine rankings by submitting your website to indexed link farms, which would hyperlink back to your site and thus create the illusion of a legitimate backlink. Today's search engine algorithms, however, are smart enough to recognize links from these farms and will punish your site as a result.

Spammy Comments

Surely you've come across a blog or article with comments that didn't seem to make any sense. More than likely, they contained some generic content like, 'this is a great blog!" and then linked back to some random website with the hope of the included backlink helping out the site's SEO. Again, this is not a legitimate SEO method these days and should be avoided at all costs.

Article Spinning

When SEO wasn't so much about producing quality content as it was about producing steady content, many website owners would simply copy content from competitors' blogs and run them through an article-spinning program. These programs would re-phrase the articles, so that they contained the same overall message, but using different words. The end result was a choppy, poorly written blog that nobody would want to read. Don't spin articles for your site; pay a professional writer to write new content for you or write it yourself.

White-Hat SEO

There are unethical, black-hat SEO strategies, and there are completely legitimate ways to increase your website's search engine rankings. These are known as white-hat strategies, and you should use them on your website.

Guest Blogging

This refers to writing content for another website's blog (preferably somebody in the same industry as you) under your authorship. You'll get to boost your credibility on the subject at-hand while also getting to post a legitimate backlink to your site. It's a win-win!

Relevant, Unique Content

Above all else, writing relevant and unique content is the best thing you can do for your site's SEO. Creating content that's share-worthy on social media will get more visitors to your site while boosting your credibility. Consider using "clickbait" titles (think Buzzfeed) to entice more readers to share and click.

By engaging in white-hat SEO techniques, you can boost your site's search engine rankings the legitimate way and without risk of getting your site de-indexed by the powers that be.

This post was written by Melody Gee, Content Director of http://www.onlinefaxes.com/.  A company that takes care of its customers, provides reliable service and saves its customers hundreds of dollars per year.