Ethical Search Engine Optimization

Every business that wants to succeed online needs social media marketing and search engine optimization techniques in place to be able to effectively compete. Knowing ethical search engine optimization and social media marketing techniques assures that your business is using strategies that will not only be successful, but will keep your business website and social media sites from being blacklisted by the search engines. When search engines determine unethical practices are being used for search engine optimization, they will penalize your website by lowering your business website ranking, or refusing to rank your business website at all. This means that potential customers will not find you when they search for your products and services and could lead to damaging repercussions for your website and social media sites marketing efforts.

Terminology used for ethical and unethical search engine optimization efforts are coined as White Hat SEO for ethical techniques and Black Hat SEO for unethical techniques. You want to avoid Black Hat SEO techniques at all costs. These techniques use gimmicks to trick search engines to rank them and people to click on their links. Tools such as keyword cramming and cloaking are used at the risk of getting blacklisted in the search engines. Keyword cramming is when one article is loaded with keywords to the point it comes across as low quality spam to the average reader, but is designed to catch the attention of the search engines. Cloaking is using false keywords. An example of this would be if you searched for “How to make your own natural bug repellant products” and you clicked on a link that came up in the search for that and is nothing but a page selling a brand name bug repellant, not at all what you were looking for.

In contrast, White Hat SEO techniques are ethical ways to rank highly in the search engines and appeal to potential customers. These techniques include writing relevant and compelling content that is considered a high value to search engines and those looking for that particular information. They use the proper amount of keywords to be appealing to search engines, but also appealing to people who will read the content, typically under 4% of your total content should be keywords. It also includes using keywords that are directly relevant to what users will find when they search for that keyword.

Contact a professional search engine optimization or social media marketing expert to learn more about Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO techniques. They will be able to consult with you so you know what the best techniques are. You will find your business becomes far more successful when it uses ethical search engine optimization strategies.