Every business wants to see their website at the top of the search engine ranking, and for that, SEO is a must. 

 

SEO experts utilize different SEO techniques to improve the ranking of your website or webpage. 

 

There are various SEO techniques, but white hat SEO and black hat SEO are the primary ones. As the name suggests, they are poles apart from each other.

 

Let’s understand both these terms in the simplest way possible. 

 

Difference Between White Hat SEO And Black Hat SEO

 

 

Do you watch movies? Silly me! Of course, you do!  

 

 

Every movie has two things in general, a hero and a villain. 

 

The hero always chooses the path that goes by the fair practices. On the contrary, the villain always does the opposite. A villain always looks for shortcuts and violates the laws. 

 

But, what’s the point of mentioning heroes and villains here? 

 

It is simple, white hat SEO is the hero, and black hat SEO is the villain. 

 

At the start, the villain seems to be winning the battle, but in the end, he losses. 

 

The same is the case with both these SEO tactics. 

 

Black hat SEO techniques give you quick results for the short term. However, it will not last for long. Once the search engine catches you practicing black hat SEO tactics, your site will be penalized. 

 

On the other hand, white hat SEO may take time, but the result will be long-lasting and legal. 

 

White Hat SEO Tactics

 

White Hat SEO is a set of legal practices followed by people to improve search engine ranking. The goal of white hat techniques is to improve the quality of a website. It gives green signals to search engines like Google that the website is ethically correct. Here are the white hat SEO techniques that you can apply. 

 

Keep User First

 

Who reads your content – users or search engines? Of course, users! So, why are you writing it for search engines? Yes, keywords are vital, but a reader is a person and not the search engine. 

 

Use keywords but in a way that does not mess up your post. The reader wants knowledge, so give it to them. The search engine will automatically rank your website when users start liking it. Even Google wants you to focus on the user and not search engine. 

 

Besides, make sure that your website has easy navigation and a quick loading time. No one likes to wait for the website to keep loading. Easy navigation helps the user to check the information they are looking for on your website. 

 

One last thing! Your website should be mobile optimized as most people visit sites via their mobile phones. 

 

Build Quality Content

 

Writing relatable content is not enough. You also have to check the boxes of all the parameters set by Google. Length, topic, links, and keyword distribution all need to be at the right place. 

 

A well-researched long and relevant content with appropriate links has the best chance to rank higher. The content must be captivating so the reader won’t skip the page after opening it. 

 

Give attention to small details like spellings and grammar. Once your content becomes popular and earns credibility, you may draw links from other websites as well.       

 

Quality Link Building

 

 

What’s one thing common in every top-ranked website? The higher number of backlinks. It won’t be an exaggeration to say that link building is the number 1 factor in search engine ranking. Backlinks, also known as inbound links, are the links that direct back to your website. 

 

Search engines regard websites with a large number of backlinks more favorably. So, the more the backlinks, the better the rank of your website. 

 

If other websites link to you, it shows your content is of high quality, and your website will rank better as a result.

 

However, the backlinks should be relevant. Backlinks can be spammy too. It doesn’t make sense if a furniture website links back to an astrology website. Getting backlinks from high-authority sites will always be beneficial to you. 

 

Link building demands patience and hence a time-taking process. Buying links is an option, but it is a black hat SEO tactic that could be penalized. 

 

Schema Markup

 

Schema markup is a kind of lean code or microdata. When schema markup applies to a webpage, it generates an enriched description, known as rich snippets, that show in search results. It assists search engines in determining the quality of a search result by interpreting the context of a query. 

 

Websites that employ schema markup rank higher in SERPs in comparison to those that don’t. You will be one step ahead of your competitor by using this white hat SEO technique. 

 

Black Hat SEO Tactics

 

Black hat SEO is the set of unethical practices to rank the website on top quickly. This technique is effective for quick results, but your website may end up penalized. Here are the things that fall under black hat SEO techniques so you can avoid them.

 

Keyword Stuffing

Without a doubt, the first thing you need to avoid is the stuffing of the keyword. Keyword stuffing means using the keywords excessively in your blog post so the search engine will rank your website. It is a blunder if you think like this. 

 

Gone are the days when Google rank the website on a keyword basis. With time the Google gets smart and expects you to be the same. Search engines will downgrade your post if found with keyword stuffing. 

 

Plagiarized Content

 

 

Copying and stealing content is the worst thing you can do to your website. Why would anyone read your content if it is already available on another website? How are you helping your customers with duplicate content? 

 

Duplicate content can land you in deep trouble as the website from where you have copied content can sue you for your act. Also, Google can ban your website for guideline violations. 

 

Doorway Pages

 

Doorway pages are low-quality pages that include highly targeted, relevant keywords. These pages serve as a portal between users and a website’s poor content, and they provide no value to the user.

 

Such pages are easily accessible by users when they search for a specific word, and they frequently lead people to stuff they did not intend to see.

 

With this, users often end up on several similar sites and end up at the same place every time they click on the search engine’s recommendations. They become an eyesore for search engines and a cause of annoyance for visitors.

 

Google considers this as spam, and if they catch on, they will penalize you. Search engines don’t want their users to end up on the same page every time they click on one of the first few search results.

 

Cloaking

 

Cloaking is a technique where the content provided to users is different from the content presented to search engines. People use clocking to trick search engine crawlers into believing that the content on the page is different from what, in reality, it is. 

 

The best example of cloaking is displaying keywords in the content only when search engine crawlers request the page and not when a human visitor visits the page. 

 

Cloaking is an effort to manipulate search engine rankings by building cloaked material. It is a prohibited activity and falls under the Black hat SEO tactics. 

 

Search engines like Google are strict to it and have permanently barred websites using cloaking. In 2006, Google banned the giant car manufacturer company BMW under this violation. 

 

So, you can understand the result of applying this black hat SEO technique. 

Conclusion

 

Ranking at the top of the search engine is time-taking but not impossible. Hard work and patience is the key to success in SEO. If you want to rank quickly, double up your work speed but never fall for malicious tricks. The black hat SEO technique can destroy all the hard work you have done till now. Stick to the white hat SEO and win the search engine ranking by fair means. In short, be a hero, not a villain!