White hats are worn by the goodie-two-shoe cowboys, right? It’s the Faw King beggeez -did you decode the Al Pacino, Scarface impression? That wear the black hats, right? Well in SEO town, it’s the same deal. Search Engine Optimization techniques that the bad guys use are called “black hat.” We will list what those techniques are; but not so you can put on your ten-gallon black hat like the outlaw cowboys wear and go galloping into the World Wide Web reeking spammy havoc.
We will also list the white hat methods. That’s what we want to be; white hat wearing cowboys. After all, it didn’t work out too well for Jesse James or Scarface. Maybe in the beginning, the quick satisfaction the suddenly acquired loot from the trains and banks you’ve plundered makes it seem like this is the way to go. Then the feeling of looking over your shoulder starts to erode those feelings of satisfaction for pulling off the job. Finally you are out numbered and out gunned by the guys with badges and you’re shut down. Shot down?
So goes the story with black hat SEO techniques. The quick gains just don’t last, not anywhere near as long as your bad reputation will. The achievement that gives you longer lasting, higher over all returns for your efforts will be gained by white hat skills in search engine optimization. Let’s list both of these tactics -bullet point style:
Black Hat Techniques
(1) Hidden Content
(2) Meta Keyword Stuffing
(3) Meta Keywords
(4) Doorway or Gateway Pages
(5) Link Farming
White Hat Techniques
(1) Quality Content
(2) Use Structural (Semantic) Mark Up and Separate Content from Presentation
(3) Titles and Meta Data
(4) Keyword Research and Effective Keyword Use
(5) Quality Inbound Links
So if you’re sitting in front of your computer, wringing your hands while wearing a sinister smirk under that handle bar mustache, and you are seriously considering using black hat SEO methods…Give everything you’ve got to learning, understanding and implementing these white hat techniques first. If you start out with the black hat and find out the hard way that it is not worth while, it is difficult to change hats later and expect to have much credibility.
Hoping that we don’t lose credibility with our readers, Sunil and I will definitely explain each of these ten tactics in greater detail in up and coming Factoidz, so be sure to come back to read them. We first wanted to stress the importance of playing nice with the other kids in the SEO sandbox. Throwing spam in a playmates face will only get you a time out or a spanking. That’s no fun! Don’t be a brat. Wear a white hat.
