Search engine optimization (SEO) can effectively give your website excellent rankings in search, great online presence, priceless brand awareness, and increased conversions and revenues from web surfers. There are two general ways to go about achieving these results: the proper and ethical way, which is referred to as “white hat” SEO, and then there is implementation of illegal techniques that will get you in trouble with the search engines. If you choose the latter, and we hope that you don’t, you will be found by the tight fist of the google gods. The punishment? Banishment from the web.
There is an enormous amount of competition online, which leads many ethically-challenged business owners to try short-cuts to get to the top. Some companies are misled by these short-cuts and believe they are a legal way to get a quick fix. Some companies who are relatively new the web, are unaware that illegal shortcuts exist. We are here to help those less fortunate souls who want to do good, but were either unaware or misinformed of the practices that incur penalties, landing you on a permanent blacklist from the web.
Black Hat Techniques: Black hat SEO is the term used to describe all of the various unethical short-cuts, as described by the search engines and SEO community. These black hat techniques are usually very cheap and work very quickly, if not temporarily. They are the “steroids” of online marketing, and Google is quicker to punish than the big leagues ever were. This is a temporary solution to a permanent problem, and an illegal one. In the long run, black hat SEO will hurt your rankings and may cause you to fall out of the web.
Keyword Stuffing: As you optimize your on-page content with keywords, you may be tempted to use them more than is necessary. Remember that real people read your site, the spiders read your code. If you cram as many keywords as you can into your content, it will help your ranking, until the spiders find out. Visitors also know what keyword stuffing reads like, and will be immediately deterred from your site. Getting people to your website is only half the battle, if you drive them away with keyword drivel from content, you lose your visitor.
Cloaking: Cloaking is a ‘bait and switch’ technique to trick search engine spiders. A site’s server will feed keyword-rich content to the search engines, which may only contain keywords, and then switch site content once the visitor clicks onto the link.
Hidden Text: Some people will keyword-cram their site with invisible text. This involves making the copy the same color as the background, so the visitor doesn’t see it, only the spiders. They will find out, and you will be punished.
Search engine spiders are always on the hunt for new prey, and if your website wears a black hat, you will be caught. Once you are caught, you will pay the price by permanent banishment. This will be costly, for you will have to build a whole new site and lose all those sales opportunities that your illegal site was generating and the branding efforts that may have been built. Search engine optimization is a long-term implementation. If you have the patience, it will pay off in time. If you cut corners, you will find the short-term problem will become a long-term prison sentence for your business.
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