With the continuous global popularity of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques comes the emergence of various SEO marketing platforms competing with one another in providing services to clients, especially those small or start-up businesses. Aiming to improve their clients’ website visibility, SEO experts constantly come up with every possible means just to reach the much-coveted number one ranking on the search results.
Unfortunately, due to the stiff competition on the World Wide Web along with Google’s ever-changing standards on how search results are ranked, some SEO specialists apply unacceptable tactics to get instant results.
To help businesses, especially self-storage providers not to fall prey to these unfavorable schemes, SEO marketers came up with a method for us to distinguish the different search engine optimization strategies through hats and colors.
Whenever search traffic is driven to a website through unethical means, this is considered as black hat SEO.
Black hat SEO are fraudulent tactics devised by hackers to manipulate the search engine’s system to earn higher rankings fast. This technique goes against search engine rules. Sadly, a lot of SEO experts not only fall for these tactics but also devised their own deceptive techniques as well.
Here are 15 Black Hat tactics that you should watch out for:
- Keyword Stuffing
- Hidden texts and links
- Irrelevant keywords and poor quality content
- Duplicate content
- Article Spinning
- Cloaking
- Fake click bait
- Comment spamming
- Social Media network spam
- Page swapping
- Domain Squatting
- Link Exchanges
- Buying or Selling links
- Private Blog networks
- Hacking
It is really tough for businesses nowadays, especially those small or start-up businesses to compete with more established brands. Having said that, it is not surprising why some companies would choose Black hat techniques as this provides the instant boost on a website’s listing.
While Black hat SEO tactics can give instantaneous results, honestly it will get you nowhere. Once caught, Google can penalize your website or worst your website gets banned from the search engines for good. Google continuously devices its own techniques to be able to immediately expose black hat practices.
On the other hand, White hat SEO utilizes ethical techniques and follows the search engine guidelines. This is also the best method as it ensures that a site can move to the first page of the search results. However, White hat SEO demands a huge amount of money, time and effort to adapt to the continual tweaking on the search engine algorithms. Compared to Black hat SEO, White hat results may seem steady and gradual but offers lasting growth in ranking.
With Black hat practices being rampant nowadays, SEO experts, not to mention the business owners can easily be enticed to opt for the easier route. So having an unshakeable work ethic requires courage and must be practiced at all times.
There are some SEO companies that use techniques which does not qualify as Black hat but is neither considered as White hat. This is called the Gray hat SEO and is recognizable by its affordable price.
The challenge that most SEO marketers face is not in the content or the right keywords to use but in gaining plenty of links that come from multiple high quality anchor texts.
This is the reason why a great number of self-storage businesses seek the help of established web agencies and platforms like online industry directories.
Actually, subscribing to an industry directory is an excellent move for self-storage owners as this offers a high probability for their facility to land the top spot on the search ranking. These directories give small-scale self-storage facilities the edge to contend with the more established industry players by putting together these facilities gain Google’s attention.
Now the next thing that you seriously need to think and choose who among these directories will deliver long term visibility to your self-storage business. Ultimately, landing on the first page listing of the search platforms is more beneficial and at the same time cost efficient than that of an ad. The pressure is high for marketers as well as directories and self-storage owners, that some would even resort to cheating just to reach the top.
Buying, selling or exchanging links to artificially boost a website’s inbound link is a Black hat scheme that Google’s algorithm instantly detects. Cheating your way up can bring drastic results not only to your website but also to your business.
It is imperative to include SEO when creating a business as this is a long-term investment along with web visibility.
Bottom line, self-storage owners have the freedom to choose which of the platforms to work with and what SEO techniques to apply. When it comes to SEO, there are no instant results. They just have to keep in mind that success isn’t built overnight.
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