White Hat SEO: The first dumbest term in Search Engine Optimization.
White Hat SEO is even more of a misnomer than Black Hat SEO.
White Hat SEO is colloquially to refer to as safe, legit, or sustainable SEO practices, that you probably “should concentrate on”.
That’s really it!
“Good SEO”.
White Hat SEO is: The Light Side of The Force
It has a good connotation because “White Hat SEO” practices are typically more sustainable and less short lived than black hat seo.
If you have read our article about black hat seo then you know my feelings about labeling something Black vs. White hat in the SEO game because they are both the same.
At least with Black hat SEO the practices are a bit MORE shady. But with “White Hat SEO” this is totally a wrong definition because White Hat SEOs are 100% trying to influence/manipulate their search engine rankings. And that is definitely against Google’s TOS.
A better name for it would be “Hypocrite SEO”
#shotsfired
Guys, I know we joke alot about bad vs. good in these Black Hat & White Hat debates, but the bottom line is this:
If you run a business that you want to spend time, money, effort & energy building for the long term – then it is probably best you try and stick to the least risky things possible.
I hope thats obvious.
Be safe out there, for the internet is dark and full of terrors (and GIFs, apparently).
So for the rest of the article, we will leave this philosophical debate and focus on giving you some actionable tips about White hat SEO.
White Hat SEO is: Safety First.
What Google wants you to do instead is “prepare” your content in a way that helps THEM organize it better.
Really, what they have done, is create this $80 billion dollar industry of people who are working for Google without Google actually paying them.
Google publishes their list of guidelines of what they WANT you to do (notice I didn’t say “a list of guidelines of what will make your site rank better”, although there is some overlap) so that you will spend your time preparing (optimizing) your website so it’s easier for their web-crawler, Googlebot, to understand your site better and make their life easier.
Here are some of Google resources for what you should do as an SEO (this would be the closest thing to White Hat SEO):
Okay so thats like 200+ pages of super boring dry reading.
I know you’re not here for that. #TLDR (Too Long, Didn’t Read)
The key takeaway here is that Google is not going to give out its secret formula to ranking on its search engine.
That would be stupid.
Instead, it’s going to publish a bunch of information (and much misinformation) that is actually geared towards making the algorithm’s job much easier. So it can take information of all of our websites (me and you included) and display it to it’s users on the SERP (search engine results page).
My prediction, is that one day Google SERP clicks are going to go so low, because all the information a searcher needs will be displayed ON the SERP, and there will not even be a need to click through to the actual website.
For example: no need to go to NFL.com anymore for the scores
So that is why “White Hat SEO” is a misnomer, just like black hat seo.
We SEOs use it to say “what kind of SEO tactics and tricks can we do that Google “approves”. But really, Google just wants you organizing your site, not building “good links” and “guest posting”, etc. More on this later.
White Hat SEO is: slower, but safer
White Hat SEO is the term we (not Google) give to label certain search engine optimization tactics/strategies as ‘safe’ or ‘sustainable’ for your website. Whereas Black hat seo would signify the search engine optimization tactics/strategies that are ‘risky’ for your website.
So now that you understand what White Hat SEO is, let’s talk about some of the generally accepted white hat seo techniques, tactics, tricks & strategies that you can use in your business and feel generally safe about (there is always a risk of doing something wrong, or Google changing their mind about what they like, but you can’t live your entire life on what-ifs. Get out there and SEO a little).
Pro tip: One easy distinction to understand if what you are about to do is white hat seo vs. black hat seo, is look at how much automating & mass producing you are doing. If you are using bots, scrapers, spinners, and producing and/or sending out non-personalized information, it’s probably closer to black hat.
White Hat SEO Techniques, By Category:
The foundations of establishing your business as an actual business (and not just a website) in Google’s eyes is to make sure your business is claimed & listed everywhere that Google expects a real business to be.
Next, you want to make sure that your business information is listed consistently & accurately across all these online directories, so Google will trust the information is up-to-date and reliable.
The idea of putting everything about White Hat SEO into ONE article is insanity, so we didn’t even try.
This article was meant to be an introduction to what white hat SEO is, and some of the techniques & strategies that you can use to help improve your website visibility without too much risk.
If you want more information, actionable strategies, or even the exact processes we use to actually implement all of these things, be sure to join our SERP University community here.