Black Hat SEO Techniques Every Marketer Needs to Avoid
5 minutes | Word Count: 810Search engines, Google for instance, have streamlined algorithms for website ranking. While these guidelines can be molded as per your needs, it would disserve to entirely change the core foundation of the algorithms.
Credibility and visibility on the internet aren’t achieved overnight. Website owners unwaveringly coming up with unique content and marketing strategies shouldn’t have their efforts go waste if certain individuals resort to using unfair means to gain search engine visibility.
These unfair means are encompassed by a single category known as Black Hat SEO. Highly discouraged by Google and at times resulting in permanent bans, Black Hat SEO does generate results but not long-lasting ones.
It is vital you understand Black Hat SEO essentially cripples your domain authority and your ranking on SERPs. If you ever consider opting for Black Hat SEO techniques for any number of reasons, here are some you should not even think about a second time:
1. Don’t stuff keywords
While you might think the more keywords you add, the more visible your content is on the internet, it does quite the opposite. The technique of keyword stuffing has been classified as Black Hat SEO and is disapproved by professional marketers and SEO experts.
Why’s that so? It’s because Google gives privilege to content that’s not only unique but also doesn’t sound intentionally promotional.
Be natural and neutral while using the relevant keywords and don’t make it sound too obvious i.e. don’t make it look like you have only bloated the content with keywords, without any clear purpose besides greater online visibility.
Remember, the keywords are meant to optimize your content so they must fit in smoothly to say the least.
2. Don’t use content spinbots
Content marketers and SEO professionals might be all too familiar with online content spinbots. No credible piece of content is ever spun using a bot. replacing certain words with their corresponding synonyms and paraphrasing content, eliminates originality from content and makes it lose its original essence.
This is a commonly used Black Hat SEO technique solely aimed at gaining as many backlinks as one can. Yet it should be avoided. The only way to earn credibility on the search engines is to come up with original content as websites that rank the highest always use unique concepts for content.
3. Don’t settle on poor content quality
Google ranking algorithms keep changing. Change is inevitable so if you are someone who doesn’t want to keep up with these changing trends then Google algorithm rankings will never reward your wish to rank higher on SERPs. Website links and metrics still play a huge role in determining website rankings but content quality is a new inclusion to the criteria.
You don’t have to invest anything, all that’s required is valuable content. If you think checking page by page for content issues is difficult, tools such as Screaming Frog are available which help you analyze your content in one-go thereby eliminating the time needed for content inspection.
4. Don’t exchange backlinks
Backlinks should be exchanged and incorporated using credible methods, not through software programs that vouch for the same. You might think using these software programs is going to lessen the time consumed and help you acquire a stable and higher domain authority but that’s wrong. It does not work that way. It does sound easy but it’s not a strategy that sustains in the long run.
Google indexing is necessary for better online visibility but if you use tools for it, you are letting other websites gain access to your data. Just resort to time-consuming yet effective methods such as publishing timely content on social media platforms, paying heed to content quality and networking with online influencers for advertising.
5. Don’t encourage spam comments
Trying to gain the attention from popular bloggers and influencers with millions of followers, by leaving comments promoting your own brand, might seem like it’ll work but it doesn’t. Spam comments don’t yield visibility instead do quite the opposite such as getting you banned and ruining your online reputation.
The same can be applied to your blog. Using bots and fake accounts to generate spam and automatic comments is not the solution. Incorporate add-in programs such as Disqus that help you remove spam comments automatically and in turn, only unique comments remain.
Wrapping Paragraph!!!
The next time you search for content ideas and extract keywords for cat food suppliers or analyze the results of your keyword search for internet service providers working in affiliation with buytvinternetphone, remind yourself of all the reasons why Black Hat SEO isn’t the approach to pay heed to before moving forward with your endeavor. If you ever feel off the track, give a quick read to the aforementioned tips and start over once again.