Is Your SEO Provider Naughty or Nice?

The search engines are a lot like Santa, show them that you have been Nice, and they will reward you; if you have been Naughty then you’re likely to get a lump of coal instead of better rankings.

When it comes to ethics and Organic Search Engine Optimization, you’ve got three different routes you can go. You can follow the rules laid out by the search engines (”White Hat SEO”), you can try to deceive the engines to get better rankings (”Black Hat SEO”), or you can creatively interpret the guidelines to stretch their intended "holiday" spirit (”Gray Hat SEO”).If the goals of your SEO strategy are long term then avoid ALL Gray and Black Hat SEO techniques. If you don’t, and a search engine catches you, it won’t hesitate to peanilize, leaving you with a website that is worth as much as a lump of coal. These penalties are assessed without warning and can last for life.

White Hat SEO shouldn’t just be considered playing by the rules. Good White Hat SEO techniques prioritize people over machines. As Google says in its guidelines, “Make pages primarily for users, not just for search engines.”

If you want to implement White Hat SEO, start by writing your web content with your users in mind. Once you’ve accomplished that, you can start to consider how the search engines will view your site. The trick is to make your content easy to find on the page and relevant to a user’s search query. It’s this kind of activity that gives your site value and relevancy in the eyes of the search engines. If the users like and trust your site, then the search engines will to.

Which is why, when it comes to choosing an SEO provider make sure that they have been nice and not naughtly!