white hat and black hat

White Hat SEO vs. Black Hat SEO: Which Hat Should You Wear?.

The 1920s was indeed a strange time. During that period, western films portrayed villains in black hats, whereas the heroes used to wear those fancy white hats on top of their heads.

This helped audiences understand the person they should root for and the one they should hate. And since then, the same terminology has been adopted across multiple industries for different purposes.

In the marketing industry, “White Hat SEO” is used for the ethical SEO tactics – the ones that follow the search engine guidelines, whereas the “Black Hat SEO” is a set of risky practices that go against the guidelines. With more than 50% of traffic coming from organic channels, choosing the right SEO is important.

This blog post clearly explains the difference between White Hat SEO & Black Hat SEO to help you understand what these concepts are all about and why White Hat SEO with redfox is the way to go.

Understanding White Hat & Black Hat SEO

White Hat SEO

First, let’s understand what White Hat SEO is. To begin with, these are the set of SEO tactics that follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

These guidelines clearly explain the ethical tactics businesses or marketers should adopt to boost their search engine rankings.

On top of this, these guidelines state that websites should offer a truly memorable experience and provide value-adding information to the website visitors. In short, these websites should be built for a human audience. Tactics like publishing top-tier content and increasing website loading speed will help businesses offer a great experience, which will, in turn, help them boost their search engine rankings.

The core tenants of a white-hat SEO are functionality, useability, and value.

These three core tenants of being white hat can be expanded in a variety of ways: easy to use navigation, speed improvements, expanding device and network usage so users on low performing devices can use your website, reducing redirects that could appear treacherous, security measures, responding to accessibility needs, providing high-quality content that your users are looking for, and so much more. White hat SEO is about creating a website that your users want to use and can use. Google recognizes high-quality websites and content and pushes that to users. Even something as simple as website speed reduces the usability of your website and has major consequences. Why not have a great website your users will enjoy?

Black Hat SEO

Whereas, Black Hat SEO violates the search engine guidelines and focuses on quick wins. This strategy relies on manipulative SEO tactics like content automation, sneaky redirects, hidden texts or links, doorway pages, link schemes, cloaking, and more. While some of these tactics deliver results, businesses should avoid implementing them.

If you get caught, Google may blacklist your website.

Black Hat SEO is solely focused on improving a website’s search engine rankings rather than delivering an outstanding customer experience. Practicing Black Hat SEO may result in a penalty and may hurt your website’s search engine rankings. Google rolls out frequent updates to its algorithms, mostly dedicated to closing the loopholes that some Black Hat marketers use. Upon the release of such updates, thousands of website owners using such practices witness a significant drop in their rankings. So, even if you implement Black Hat SEO tactics today and boost your website’s search engine rankings, your rankings will drop when Google rolls out an update dedicated to closing the loopholes you used to achieve the goal. Or Google may even flag your website for violating their guidelines, which is another reason you should avoid using the Black Hat SEO tactics. And unlike the algorithm updates, if your website is flagged, then it may be removed from the search results altogether.

White Hat SEO vs. Black Hat SEO: Which Hat Should You Wear?

While Black Hat strategies may really help you boost your search engine rankings quickly, you should avoid implementing them. White Hat SEO tactics may take time, but it’s a better approach and, when implemented right, will help you attract high-quality traffic to your website.

At redfox visual, our SEO team keeps itself updated with the latest trends and implements the most reliable and proven SEO tactics that follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. If you’re still unsure, give us a call at (208)391-2070. We are always here to help or answer any questions that you may have. Or check out Google’s own recommendations on how to hire an SEO team.

It’s time you allowed the #1 SEO agency in Boise does the heavy lifting for you.

Hire us today!

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