Chapter 4: The Difference Between Black, Grey and White Hat Link Building Techniques
Marketers use various techniques for SEO purposes and these can be categorized into one of three techniques: white hat SEO, black hat SEO and gray hat SEO. What this really means is some of those techniques are accepted by search engines, and some, not so much. White hat SEO is what everyone considers ethical and black hat is what everyone considers unethical. Gray hat walks the line between the two.
White hat SEO
Techniques in this category are accepted by search engines and the techniques are beneficial to both the search engine and site visitors as well. The goal of any white hat SEO plan is to improve a site’s result position by using methods that won’t cause any blowback from the search engines in the form of penalties. White hat methods tend to take longer before results can be observed, and therefore it’s an ongoing process, unlike black hat methods which promise quick results.
Examples of white hat SEO
- This involves researching all relevant keywords, long tail and short tail
- Inclusion of relevant keywords in headings, page titles, anchor text, etc.
- Fine-tuning of content and close examination of analytic reports to optimize site for targeted keywords
- Regular addition of new content
Coding
- Use of proper HTML markup in an effort to simplify search engines’ task of identifying headings and other content
- Taking care to ensure that the code is valid
- Linking every page to search engine bots and creating site maps
- Separating content from markup by using CSS as a way to boost keyword density
Linking
- Creation of good relevant content that people find useful and link up to
- Seeking links from popular directories and other websites
- Ensuring pages are properly optimized for social media in order to pull in more social links
- Exchanging links with other relevant website
Black hat SEO
Now that you know what white hat SEO is, you can probably guess what black hat is. This is the use of SEO methodologies that are meant to manipulate search engines into ranking websites higher than they ought to be. The goal here is simple; get to the top of the rankings whichever way possible.
Of course there’s always the risk of the search engine picking up on your tricks and penalizing you, but many people still use this tricks to get ahead. Black hat tricks are used for these reasons:
- They actually work- for a while until the search engine catches up with you and tosses you to the back of the line
- A large number of people haven’t yet identified which tricks are black hat so they end up outsourcing SEO to firms that utilize such methods, and the site gets penalized for it.
Keep in mind that even if the search engine doesn’t immediately pick up on your tricks, your competitors will and they will not hesitate to report you. Here are some examples of black hat SEO:
Content
- Keyword stuffing: lots of websites overuse their keywords, meta tags and alt tags
- Using keywords in hidden text- usually done by manipulating colors, where the font color is made the same as the background color
- Using too many keywords in visible text, which makes it overly repetitive to the average reader
Deceptive content
- Good examples include doorways or gateways which get stuffed with keywords visible only to search engines but which redirect people to the page with actual content
- Cloaking or display of varying content to search engines while displaying different content to people
Linking
- A link farm is a page that gets loaded with completely unrelated links for the purpose of creating dozens of links for different pages
- Spam can be used on blogs, forums, and social media sites through links, which the search engine might choose to ignore but is considered unethical
Gray hat SEO
These techniques usually take some risk but they’re not likely to cause any serious penalty from the search engines. They are what you’d call questionable link building but they don’t fall under black hat techniques.
Examples include:
Links
- Persistent link building without consideration of relevance
- Strategized three-way linking
- Use of unpaid links
Content
- Use of stuffed keywords but not at the level of black hat
- Publication of duplicate content on different sites How many links do you have on your page?
The value assigned to a link can get diluted if the page happens to be crammed with other links. Therefore, it would be ideal to get linked to a page with fewer links on it. The degree to which this varies to a search engine is unknown, but testing shows that it matters, just not overwhelmingly so. It’s definitely something to think about when building links.
Earn potential referral traffic
The only way to do this is to not focus entirely on search engines. You will over time figure out that the types of links that send out good direct click-through traffic are better in the long run because in addition to giving your site improved value for rankings, they also give you targeted valuable visitors to your site, which should be the goal.
You can learn more by observing the number of page views/visits as showed by site analytics. In case you can’t access these services, then tools such as Google Trends for Websites would prove most useful. Although not always accurate, it can give more information on domain-wide traffic.
Pointers
When you engage in activities for the sake of building links, remember that the formula you use will largely depend on the type of website you own. For example small sites can do with manual link building, which may include link requests, directories and possibly link exchanges as a part of the SEO strategy. When working with larger sites, these types of strategies are ineffective and usually fall flat. Effective strategies call for more scalable measures in order for the effort to be fruitful.
Internal link building
Do you know how you’d go about creating great internal links? It’s not difficult; you can easily set up a system where your pages get interlinked. Here’s how:
- Keyword research: when used for link building, a keyword research tool can offer numerous suggestions for relevant keywords
- Assign the keywords: the next step is to group the keywords in a logical and strategic system, which will result in a search friendly avenue for information
- Use targeted anchor text to link pages: the last step is to utilize the keywords by interlinking them, which happens when you link to content using the new keywords
That last step is quite crucial. You need to make sure you are using the anchor text right and linking to the right pages. A couple of tips to help you interlink:
Use your site search
You can do this for different purposes. Start by finding pages on your website that contain relevant information and which can be linked to other pages on the website. You can also create an internal link building wire frame and all you need to do this is to map the keywords you’re targeting into logical pages and assign each keyword to a specific page.