White Hat Vs. Black Hat SEO

Understanding Good vs. Bad in SEO

​If you are familiar with search engine optimization strategies and have done some research on best practices, you likely have seen the phrase “black hat” used frequently. The opposite strategy is “white hat,” which denotes the better choices for boosting your rankings. Here is a closer look at the differences between the two approaches.

White Hat Strategies

Basically, white hat SEO methods are those that follow the letter of search engine guidelines. White hat strategies are the tried-and-true methods for boosting your rankings, and they work just fine if applied correctly. These are the most popular white hat SEO tactics:

• Fresh, high-quality website content that’s optimized with an appropriate number of keywords
• Social media integration with all platforms
• Meta descriptions and title tags that contain keywords
• Internal and external links 
• Mobile responsiveness
• Solid site navigation that allows visitors to click on multiple pages

Black Hat Tactics

For the website owners who just can’t wait for organic upward moves in search listings, it is tempting to go with black hat methods. These are frowned upon and can lead to significant penalties from Google and other search engines. Ultimately, using these tactics can result in the opposite effect than what site owners were seeking.

• Keyword stuffing – phrases used repeatedly in nonsensical ways
• Link farms – paid services that create huge networks of “users”
• Methods that violate engines’ term of service
• Spam comments on blog postings
• Cloaking – deceiving search engine spiders with alternate information
• Article spinning -- banking slightly altered content for future use as “fresh”
• Invisible text – content that users can’t see but usually just repeats keywords over and over

At Fitz Designz, we can make a difference in your website traffic using reputable SEO tactics. To learn more about our company, visit our website or give us a call at (707) 241-3489. We also are active on LinkedIn and Facebook, so please check out our pages today!