If you want potential customers to find your website, it is essential to prioritize search engine optimization (SEO) . However, to prevent your site from being penalized or even banned from search results, you must adhere to what are known as white hat SEO practices. This post will explain white hat SEO and which tactics are considered good versus black hat tactics that are bad. Then, we will provide you with a list of the best white hat SEO techniques and discuss why they work and how to implement them. Let’s get inside!
Table of Contents hides
What is white hat SEO?
6 best white hat SEO techniques
- Familiarize yourself with webmaster guidelines
- Publish unique, relevant and quality content
- Use Keyword Tools and position strategically and organically
- Consider user intent
- Provide a positive user experience (UX)
- Optimize your links
Conclusion
What is White Hat SEO?
White Hat SEO encompasses approved best practices for increasing a website’s ranking in search engine results (SERPs). This term refers to sites that rank in organic results rather than through sponsored links and paid ads.
White Hat SEO techniques follow the terms set by major search engines such as Google , Bing and Yahoo . Contrast this with Black Hat SEO , which is based on deceptive and unethical methods. Some examples of black hat SEO include keyword stuffing , link cloaking and link buying.
While some black hat SEO techniques might actually improve search engine visibility, they usually have only temporary benefits. Eventually, Google will recognize these harmful practices and penalize sites that use them.
Therefore, following white hat SEO techniques is critical to maintaining your position in SERPs and preventing search engines from penalizing your website. If your site is penalized, it can negatively affect your traffic, reputation, and sales. And if your site gets blacklisted, well, that’s a tough problem to solve.
6 Best White Hat SEO Techniques
Now that we know more about white hat SEO and why it is important, let’s take a look at its use. Listed below are the six best white hat SEO techniques you can implement on your website.
- Familiarize yourself with webmaster guidelines.
To ensure that you adhere to white hat SEO tactics and do not enter the “gray” area of black hat SEO, we recommend that you read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines .
These guidelines detail how Google finds, indexes, and ranks your site. Knowing them can help you better understand what methods to use to optimize your site in a safe and approved manner. The guidelines also outline illegal practices that can lead to your website being blacklisted or permanently banned.
You might also consider conducting an SEO audit of your website . This process can help you better understand the effectiveness of your current SEO strategy and give you a baseline.
Google is not the only site that publishes these guidelines. Be sure to also check Bing’s list (which also applies to other engines such as Yandex and Ecosia) so that you can stay in the top ranks there as well.
- Publish unique, relevant and quality content
A staple of white hat SEO is the consistent production of high-quality content. However, it is essential that your articles be original and match the search intent . In contrast, Black Hatmsi SEO often focuses on duplicate, low-quality content that is only intended to draw attention to the page for ads (or even attempted malware installation).
When creating your content, the best thing you can do is to solve a problem for your users. What questions and concerns do they have and what content and services can you help them with? They are looking for something, so you need to be the one to provide them with the answers….
We also suggest that you consider your word count when writing a post. Although Google does not recommend a specific length, the search engine prefers long content over shorter posts. As a rule of thumb, it is best to aim for at least 1,000 words for blog posts.
Also, to simplify the optimization of your website content, consider installing plugins such as Yoast SEO or Rank Math.
These plugins provide suggestions to better adhere to Google’s SEO guidelines. For example, they evaluate keyword density, determine whether your content is readable, and provide tips for optimizing images and links.
In addition, they can identify when you are abusing your keyword. As such, it can help you avoid black hat SEO techniques such as keyword stuffing.
- Use Keyword Tools and position strategically and organically
Keywords are fundamental to SEO. However, it is essential to use these phrases strategically. Tools for doing keyword research such as Google’s Keyword Planning Tool can help you in this process:
Conducting keyword analysis can help you stay away from overly competitive keywords. Research can also identify both long-tail and short-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords tend to be more specific. This specificity can make it easier to match user intent (which we will discuss later in this post).
You can also brainstorm long-tail keywords using Google Suggest:
Start typing the words for which you want to place a post and note the phrases suggested by Google. These keywords tend to be less competitive. Also, because Google produces them, you know that users are actively searching for these phrases.
It is also important to use your keywords on your page organically. It is advisable to use them in page titles , meta descriptions and image alt text . Also, remember that you do not have to use the exact match keyword in your content .
If your long-tail keyword is “fruitless vegan dessert recipes,” you will find it difficult to have a natural and authentic phrase with that syntax. If your phrase reads something like “these are the best recipes for fruitless vegan desserts I’ve ever tried,” then Google and other search engines will recognize it.
To avoid black hat SEO tactics such as keyword stuffing, we advise you to avoid abusing your keywords. While adding these phrases in your titles, headings and metadata can help SEO, if you overdo it, it can also do worse. It is best to integrate them naturally and not force their placement. Again, the SEO plugins mentioned earlier can help you with appropriate keyword volume.
- Consider user intent
Conducting keyword research can help you create a list of phrases to optimize your site. However, it is important to choose keywords and create content that meets user intent.
User intent refers to the user’s goal when typing a specific word or phrase into a search engine. For example, if someone searches for “vegan fruitless desserts,” they are likely to expect to find a list of vegan recipes, not sets of tableware decorated with vegan desserts.
You can use a variety of strategies to meet the user’s intent. One is to make your page titles accurately reflect your content. SEO page titles can help Google index your site, understand its content and display it in relevant search results.
It also helps make your content scannable by breaking it down into smaller, more direct sections. You can, for example, format your articles using subtitles , white space, videos and images:
This approach can make your pages more engaging and easy to digest. It can increase the value of your content and, in turn, your SEO. If your content is easier for a person to read, it is also easier for a search engine crawler to navigate.
- Provide a positive user experience (UX).
The user experience of your website is one of Google’s ranking factors. Part of providing a positive UX is ensuring a fast site . Slow loading times can increase bounce rates and cause negative impressions of your site and your business.
You can evaluate the current page speed and performance of your WordPress site using a tool such as Google PageSpeed Insights .
After entering your URL, the tool will analyze your site and give it a score on a scale of 1 to 100. It will also provide a list of specific recommendations for improvement.
To really leverage speed and user experience for SEO, you will need to pay close attention to Google’s Core web Vitals, which are specific ranking factors provided by Google that affect SEO with regard to UX and usability.
Another aspect of a solid UX is making sure your site is easy to navigate. Visitors should be able to quickly and easily find what they are looking for and easily move around your website. Having simple top-level navigation menus can go a long way toward this, as can having sidebar widgets that show your most popular content.
- Optimize your links
Link building is another cfundamental aspect of white hat SEO. Generating high-quality backlinks , optimizing your permalinks and using keyword-rich anchor text can boost your rankings. Some link building services can help you create and manage URLs for your site. However, it is important to choose a reliable and credible service. You should avoid any platform that consists of selling links or link farms, which are black hat SEO tactics.
A link farm uses a collection of interconnected web pages to increase the ranking of each page. Although these farms may seem harmless, search engines that detect linking patterns will flag them, as well as any pages they link to.
In contrast, some recommended white hat SEO strategies can optimize your external URLs. For example, to help build backlinks , you might consider guest posting. This method can help you develop professional relationships and expand your audience while linking organically to your website. Google values relevant and contextual backlinks, which is why link farms and directories are considered low quality and even black hat SEO.
We also advise against leaving a link to your website in the comments sections of other blogs. The only exception to this rule is if your contribution is very relevant to the content of the post.
It is also a good idea to monitor your site regularly for broken links , as they can hurt UX and, in turn, SEO. To make things easier, you can use a plugin like Broken Link Checker.
Finally, to create backlinks we suggest you use the Skyscraper technique. In a nutshell, this method involves searching for link-worthy content and creating a more informative and in-depth post on the same topic. Then, you can contact other websites and ask them to link to your article.
Conclusion
SEO is essential for gaining search engine visibility and high rankings in SERPs. However, we advise you to utlize white hat SEO tactics to prevent your site from being blacklisted. Using approved optimization methods ensures the integrity of your website and can increase your ranking in organic search engine results.
As we dvised in this post, here are six white hat SEO techniques you can implement on your website:
1.Become familiar with Google’s Webmaster Instructions .
2.Consistently publish original, relevant, high-quality content.
3.Use keyword tools such as Google’s Keyword Planning Tool .
4.Consider user intent.
5.Provide a positive UX.
6.Optimize your links.