White Hat SEO
White Hat SEO generally focuses on pleasing the target audience in the hope that the search engines will also be pleased. It focuses on creating quality content first and then doing SEO. Even though it may use automation and technology, the main goal is to accomplish completely different goals. White Hat SEO mainly relies on good content and promotion and marketing to achieve best rankings, and not any automated programs.
Still on point, White Hat SEO understands that SE rankings takes time and will not rush to achieve top rankings. Since they believe that ‘content is king’, they are always able to get more inbound links. Using White Hat SEO techniques means you have obeyed all rules and regulations of the search engines, hence are safe from getting banned by the search engines. Chances of visitors converting are quite high when White Hat SEO practices are used.
Gray Hat SEO
Most of today’s SEO falls in the Gray Hat Category, bearing in mind that gray has very many shades. Some techniques in this category will use dubious techniques and take greater risks as it is always about taking risk versus the rewards. Even though Gray Hat SEO tactics may be frowned by the Search engines, they aren’t really against the rules. Other tactics though are a bit risky hence should be used only after thoughtful consideration.
Black Hat SEO
Otherwise known as SE spamming, it is the complete opposite of White Hat SEO as this is where a website is created with no value as the main aim is to trick the search engines into giving the site irrelevant search results. This technique highly uses automation and technology to create numerous poor quality websites, and to obtain inbound links from other sites -- known as link spamming. When a visitor visits the site, there will always be some form of redirect or cloaking that will take the visitor to some sales landing page of products or services -- which is the main goal of Black Hat SEO techniques.
Simply put, these techniques are more concerned of getting fast results and will settle at nothing to get the websites at the top of the SE rankings very fast. However, once they are discovered, the site will either crash or get banned altogether. Black Hat SEO is highly discouraged as it a very risky affair.
Your ultimate goals and objectives will determine the ‘SEO Hat’ that you finally decide to wear. As mentioned, Black Hat SEO strategies should only be used by affiliates who don’t see a future in internet marketing as the strategies are short-lived and once banned it will be the end of business. You should always strive to put on a white hat and focus on creating quality, informative and grammatically correct content and to strive to add your link to link directories. At times though, you can put on a Gray Hat to gain a competitive advantage but first of all you have to calculate the risk involved against the rewards. |
