SEO, aka search engine optimisation, is one of those terms you may hear of but are never entirely sure of how it works.
So what is SEO? It is the process of improving a website so that it ranks higher on search engines like Google and Bing. This usually revolves around using keywords in content that match with what potential customers would likely type and search online – in order to find the service you offer.
The better and more relevant the SEO strategy, the more likely your business will come up in the first few results. Hence, customers will find you and use your service.
So as you can imagine, SEO is very important, and one of the top services that you can get from a digital marketing agency when getting help with your online business.
To help you understand more about how SEO is used in both good and bad ways, here is a guide to the main types of SEO, referred to as “hats”.
Black Hat SEO
In the last couple of decades, SEO has changed, this is due to search engines such as Google setting up rules to prevent SEO being abused.
Black hat refers to techniques that go against these rules. It involves exploiting how search engines work to boost your ranking.
It is done because it gets fast results without too much work, however, these results do not last as search engines can detect these techniques and will then punish you by blacklisting your site from appearing in search results at all.
Techniques used include:
- Spamming links
- Making text or links invisible on the site but detectable as SEO
- Using keywords that are popular but irrelevant
- Using too many keywords
Black hat SEO is essentially a shortcut or cheat that will backfire, so avoid anyone who uses these techniques.
White Hat SEO
White hat SEO is the opposite to black hat, and instead uses safe techniques to boost SEO for a business. This is the proper way to do SEO and is the kind that a good digital marketing agency will offer.
White hat techniques can involve all aspects of digital marketing. For example, creating high quality content is one of the best things you can do for SEO and will bring (as well as keep) an audience.
SEO experts will work with copywriters to create written content that includes keywords, and graphic designers who will create visual content. It is also good to create video content and anything else that is industry relevant.
Your business’s website should also be well designed, easy to navigate, engaging, and user friendly. Sharing on social media will also help, as more engagement with your website will help boost your search engine ranking.
White hat is slower and takes time to gradually produce results, but these results will be lasting and continue to grow. It is the best way to do SEO.
Grey Hat SEO
Grey hat, as you might be able to guess, is a middle ground or a “grey area” set of techniques that aren’t as good as white hat techniques but aren’t as bad as black hat methods either. It could still be deemed risky or questionable though.
Techniques involved include things like:
- Clickbait articles, using titles that are perhaps misleading or worded to attract an audience to click on a particular website page
- Paying for positive reviews
- Spun content, this means using AI software to rewrite an existing article enough to trick Google into thinking it’s a different article, this “new” article can then be submitted to different websites in order to improve your SEO
- Link exchanges, which involves two brands linking to each other.
Whilst companies who offer grey hats may do so at a cheaper rate due to the grey area these techniques exist in, these aren’t the best techniques to use and could even lead to negative effects.
Negative SEO
Negative SEO isn’t a hat itself, but it is what happens when another business uses grey and black hat techniques to decrease a competitor’s search engine rank, and gain SEO improvements themselves. It is a method of sabotage and an unethical practice.
Techniques used include things such as posting fake, negative reviews and creating unnatural links to the competitor’s website, they may even go so far as to hack websites to change content.
As negative SEO isn’t something you do yourself, it can be hard to control. SEO experts will constantly keep an eye out for any unusual drops in activity, this could be a sign of a negative SEO “attack”.
4 Types of SEO
These are the 4 main types of SEO strategies, so if you’re getting a digital marketing agency to help with your business, make sure you ask them about these “hats”.
