White hat versus black hat seo
There are two different types of hats SEO experts can wear. One of those hats is a stylish one that everyone loves. It is the color white and is presteigne. The other hat is a black fedora. No one has owned or worn a fedora since 2012, but there is always one person who wears it.
As a leading Denver SEO company, we are here to tell you not to go with the “experts” wearing the fedora. This means bad news.
White hat SEO
White Hat SEO strategies are ones that follow Google’s WebMaster Guidelines set in place for the search engine. A Denver SEO company that follows White Hat SEO strategies is one that is Google certified and their SEO experts understand the importance of proper strategies set in place for the longevity and success of that client and their business.
Often times, White Hat SEO follows proper SERP requirements while maintaining and improving upon other strategies for that website.
Let’s use an example of one of our clients!
A client of ours is a digital marketing and SEO client. This means our digital marketers and SEO experts work together to help this client. Our SEO experts deal with SERP strategies and backlinking for the website.
Then our digital marketers write custom, quality content for the different website pages and blogs.
Our SEO experts make sure the digital marketers are using the best keywords for that industry and that meta-tags are added after the blog and content has been written!
From there, our experts are constantly maintaining and updating keywords for blogs while disavowing any bad links that were set in place before our Denver SEO company took over the website!
Black hat SEO
Black Hat SEO is often defined as “disapproved practices that nevertheless could increase a page’s ranking in a search engine result page. These practices are against the search engine’s terms of service and can result in the site being banned from the search engine and affiliate sites.”
Our Denver SEO Company constantly stresses to our clients about the dangers of wanting to immediately rank in search engines. While it can be done, our SEO experts would never condone or practice Black Hat SEO strategies.
There is too much risk involved, and if an “expert” is using Black Hat SEO, then this person is more than likely not an expert.
How can a company recognize black hat SEO strategies?
Keyword stuffing
Keyword stuffing was once an acceptable SEO strategy circa 2010 and earlier. This was the way to get websites to outrank one another; however, that was nine years or later ago and Google does not condone this.
Keyword stuffing is creating content based around keywords. Great, content marketing 101! But, “experts” take the keywords and shove them into content where it does not fit naturally and is overused.
As a Denver SEO company, we can spot keywords and when they have been overstuffed.
If a business owner comes across keyword stuffing you will notice because one word will be repeated over and over again and sound unnatural.
Cloaking
While it might be awesome to wear a cloak around Halloween, when SEO “experts” are using this strategy it can be a bad sign. This involves writing two different pieces of content- one for human consumption and one for computer consumption.
The computer consumption is stuffed with keywords and backlinks, while the website is made for human consumption!
It is acceptable to tailor content for two different audiences out there. The problem starts when content is hidden from search engines and not visible to the public. Over time Google starts to realize this.
Spammy backlinks
Google states that any page who is buying links to manipulate page ranking or a site’s ranking in Google will not go unnoticed by the search engine itself.
A spammy backlink can link back to a bad website who follows Black Hat SEO strategies or putting up a free advertisement on your website in exchange for backlinks.
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With all of this being stated above, it is imperative for a business to find the best Denver SEO Company in the market. At Denver Media Group, these are all of the practices we follow on a daily-basis while being a Google certified business!
(There are too many to list out, so there is the link!)
At the end of the day, it is imperative for a business to understand when hiring a company to handle your SEO strategies, do research and find the ones using the right strategies.
If they are not using the right ones, it can mean more trouble for your business down the road.