Black Hat SEO Techniques: The good and the bad
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of getting traffic from the organic, free, natural or editorial search results on search engines. There are two sides to getting this process done. You can either get it done using ‘white hat’ techniques (the good way) while the bad ways are known as ‘black hat’ techniques(the bad way). Black hat techniques make use of unethical ways to obtain higher search rankings. With black hat, search engine rules and regulations are not obeyed, there is no good user experience to be expected and content is unethically presented in a number of visual or non-visual ways to search engine spiders and users. Such techniques are normally utilized by people who are interested in quick financial gains and not those who seek to have investments for the long haul on their website.
Some of the techniques used include keyword stuffing, invisible text, low quality link building and spam indexing. These techniques are used in order to attract a number of potential customers for the products and services on offer on a particular site. The end result could be a financial gain for the site, but it could also mean that the site runs the risk of being disqualified from a search engine.
There are good and bad things attached to making use of black hat techniques such as:
The Good:
- Fast returns are achieved on SEO campaigns
- There is no need to keep updating the site with fresh content because keyword stuffing takes on the much easier route.
- It is cheaper to use these techniques as compared to white hat techniques.
- Since no advanced features such as expensive banner advertising are needed, such sites can be kept relatively simple with hidden text in div tags.
- With the existence of black hat techniques, search engine providers are kept on their toes in terms of always having to change or enhance their search engines frequently.
The Bad:
- The company’s reputation inclusive of its products and services does tend to go down the drain as a result of penalties and consequences imposed by search engine providers on such sites.
- Useless spam and needless information become commonplace on the internet.
- There is a risk of facing legal action, most especially if they make use of recycled content from another site or source.
- The site can face a permanent ban from search engine providers. Alternatively, such sites can be de-indexed and given low rankings hence making them a waste of time and money.
Website SEO Analysis and free SEO analysis tools
With website SEO analysis, pages on a website are analyzed much like search engines would. With it, you can check for your site’s performance in addition to improving your site’s visibility on search engines. A free website analysis not only keeps the money in your pocket, but it enables you analyze and measure the ranking potential of your web pages.
There are a number of free tools on the market, some of which include:
- Google’s Webmaster Tools that not only come with resources that explain the fundamentals of Google search but also work well with mobile sites. Some basic parameters that are involved in Google’s search algorithms are explained with it, you are also able to see the exact keywords that Google sees when it crawls your website with a glimpse of how many search queries and click-through are received from the keywords. There is also a diagnostics section that breaks down the errors and enable you keep track of your site for crawl errors and malware, which are both important for conquering the SERPS. Last but not least, with this tool, there is a Fetch as Google tool that enables you see a particular URL as seen by Google. This is especially important in times of troubleshooting poor SEO performance. With the information that you get, you are able to make the necessary change to the page for better optimization.
- Content Tools such as the Anchor Text Over Optimization tool, the Convert Word documents to clean HTML tool and copyscape. Such tools enable you ensure that you have high quality content on your site, an essential for search engine rankings with the Panda upgrade.
- Technical tools such as Robots.txt Generator, Xenu’s Link Sleuth, Robots.txt Checker, URI Valet , Fiddler, Microsoft Free SEO Toolkit and Image SEO tool among others.
SERP Plan, Checker and keyword ranking tool
The SERP (Search engine results page) is basically a list of web pages. These are pages that are returned by search engines as a result of their search. Typically, three kinds of listings are displayed on major search engines; listings that have been indexed into the search engine’s directory by a human, listings that are paid to be listed by the search engine and listings that have been indexed by the search engine’s spider. Listings that are indexed by humans are a user’s search or query that are typed into the search engine, those that are indexed by the spider make use of a series of metrics to ensure that organic or natural listings are listed first in the search results, while paid to be listed listings are basically advertisements or sponsored links.
A SERP ranking will make or break your web page or website, which is why having the right SERP plan goes a long way in ensuring that you are on the right track. When you are listed on the first page, more so in earlier results, then you are assured of much higher traffic to your site, as such, SERP is of great importance to a site owner.
Sometimes you may not know why your page or site is lagging behind, which is where a SERP checker comes into pay. With this checker, you are in position to learn of which keywords to use and their rankings on search engines. Because SERP does play an important role in your search engine rankings, making use of a keyword ranking tool will enable you figure out the best keywords to use in your website pr page.
At the end of the day, in case you wish to have the best SERP results, then you need to research keywords to use if you wish to drive target traffic onto your site. You need to manage your SEO workflow in order to determine your area of focus and which area doesn’t need as much of your time and money. You also need to observe the results that you get and make adjustments where necessary.
Some very good tools to help you monitor your SERP rankings are Traffic Travis, or SerpBook. Traffic Travis is free, however, it generally has issues showing your website’s positions when they are a few pages behind. SerpBook is definately better in that aspect since it shows your websites positions even if it is listed in the 100+ position.
Local SEO Tools and Free SEO Tools
As a small business owner or marketer, you will find that Local SEO can play huge role in the success of your business. By letting search engines know where you are located and what you bring to the table, you get a chance to get a place in search engine results and get in the presence of a relevant audience for your business. Local SEO is basically the process of optimizing your website so that you can gain higher local search rankings. Businesses that stand to gain from this process are majorly those that get some if not all their customers locally. Examples could include local restaurants, retail outlets, a lawyer, dentist or doctor among others. In essence, in case you have a physical address and expect people to go there, then you need to consider local SEO for that location.
In order to obtain the best search results, you need to properly optimize you website, build domain authority and claim local listings. You can make use of Local SEO tools to help you achieve the best of your local business. There are a number of free SEO tools available that can enable you get the very best out of your business.
SEO Site Audit and SEO Reporting Tools
Just because you have a site up and running doesn’t mean that you don’t have to monitor it to ensure that it is working to its best potential. The audit is a critical first step taken in case you wish to have a better understanding of the site’s SEO. You can either take a few minutes or hours off to go through the top level diagnosis or you could take a few days to perform an exhaustive audit of the site. With the exhaustive audit, things such as on-Page SEO, link and technical site are looked into.
You may be wondering why you need SEO reporting tools. Below is a look at some of the reasons:
- Your site is kept up-to-date with the constantly changing SEO trends
- You keep informed of any Unnatural Link warnings, this way suspicious linking patterns on your site are caught before they cause major havoc.
- You get to easily keep track of changes such as traffic drops on your site or possible ranking of the same.
- You are able to identify broken links or site errors which would otherwise result into poor usability or issues with site crawling by search engines, hence affecting your site’s SEO.
- You are provided with an opportunity to keep your content up-to-date
A number of factors are taken into account for an SEO analysis, some of which include:
- On-Page factor such as the Meta Title, Meta Description, site content, images, videos, internal links, site architecture, mobile compatibility with proper redirects and page speed among others.
- Off-page factors such as links with branded anchor text, relevant links, links with authority, links that are followed, permanent links, and editorial links among others
An SEO audit tool can be utilized to help in auditing the site. Such a tool enables you find SEO errors that may be working against the site’s rankings on search engines.