A Guide to White Hat SEO Techniques

In this brave new world of content and post-Google algorithm changes such as Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird, white hat SEO is the only way to go if you want your site to get ahead and become a valuable part of the internet. Carrying out white hat practices also means that search giants like Google and Bing will find your website credible and position it accordingly on SERP to get more organic traffic.

But what exactly is white hat SEO, and how will it help your business website rank higher? Here’s everything you should know:

What is White Hat SEO?

In simple terms, it’s using various SEO techniques that ensure that your site performs well in the SERPs without resorting to what essentially many people now refer to as black hat tactics. These nefarious tactics involve numerous spamming techniques, keyword stuffing, and more that can hurt your business website’s authority and value for search engine crawlers.

White hat SEO, on the other hand, uses organic techniques and enforces quality on a site in order to ensure it attracts website traffic and is found to be valuable by visitors.

Why Are White Hat SEO Techniques Important?

Not engaging in white hat SEO techniques can have serious consequences for your website on search engines. Getting blacklisted is one of them, where not only your website loses its ranking but credibility as well in the eyes of search engines. Due to this, even if your website is overflowing with content and the right keywords, it won’t rank anywhere on search engines.

With billions of searches being made every day, there’s always a high chance that people will find you. However, a poor-performing website will limit your online discoverability, limiting your potential severely. White hat SEO techniques ensure you are using search engine-approved methods and practices to make your website more user-friendly, worthy of providing a solution, and value-oriented.

These techniques are often a combination of keeping the website healthy and functional while adhering to practice outlines such as Google-approved SEO techniques at Webmaster Guidelines. They are likely to help your website break the previous records and hit new highs.

Should You Implement White Hat SEO Methods?

White hat SEO is a long-term process that guarantees results. In contrast, black hat SEO, where a website engages in malicious practices like cloaking, excessively using keywords throughout your content, or getting backlinks from a link farm, can severely impact their ranking potential while also attracting the possibility of getting blacklisted on search engines.

These tactics may seem promising and will drive massive initial results, but as search engine algorithms are designed to identify keyword stuffing, hidden text, duplicate content, and parasite SEO practices, it is highly unlikely that these practices will go unnoticed.

While white hat SEO methods may seem slow-moving, the advances they make are comparatively more sustainable and result-oriented. Due to this, these methods are worth implementing and maintaining. Aside from these, white hat SEO concerns the overall website; focusing on factors such as page load speed and making your website easy to navigate will further increase your website’s ranking potential.

7 Best White Hat SEO Techniques

White hat SEO is expansive, and there is a lot that you can do to make your website a role model for others. That said, it is possible that you may end up feeling overwhelmed with all that can be done and the corresponding results you can unlock.

To avoid the mayhem of trying everything under the sun, here’s a list of seven techniques that are sure to bring considerable success to your website:

Familiarize Yourself With Webmaster Guidelines

Including Google-approved SEO techniques listed in the Webmaster Guidelines in your current strategy is an effective way to stay consistent with quality without stepping into risky waters. The guidelines are a framework that will help you understand how Google understands your content, the ways your website is analyzed, and the best practices to include as part of your strategy.

The framework also highlights the illicit practices that you should never venture into, no matter how tempting they may seem. Besides Google, search engines like Bing and Yahoo also have their own webmaster guidelines that will help you better understand what they are looking for. Usually, whenever an algorithm update is released, these guidelines get updated as well, allowing website owners to catch hold of the wind early on and implement the required changes.

Prioritise Quality Content

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘content is king’? This has evolved significantly by now; today, content is everything (well, pretty much). It’s no longer enough to stick a poorly written blog up once a month – or worse, use text spinners to rejig old content.

Content must be:

• Original and not infringe on the intellectual property rights of others.
• Highly relevant and useful to your industry and audience.
• Very well-written, with good grammar and spelling.
• The image and videos should include an optimized title, a detailed ALT tag, and descriptions with one primary keyword (at least) and, if appropriate, give credit to the original artist to avoid later inconveniences (if using Creative Commons licensed images, for example).
• Point to the source of research and quotes where applicable. It supports your argument while making your content seem more believable and well-researched.

Giving value to your audience

The best way to perform well in search is to give value to your audience and, preferably, your industry, too. White hat SEO practices encourage this heavily, making it easier to include them in your plan of action.

This includes:

• Having a site that is well built, performs well, and is capable of being used across various devices (desktop, tablet, and mobile).
• Producing content that is actionable and contains fresh ideas.
• Having a good mix of multimedia content, not just written text.
• Utilizing social media so that your brand is recognizable across all platforms and the content can be distributed. This is becoming more important now than ever; social signals (Facebook likes, G +1s, Retweets, etc.) indicate that your content is valuable, as people are reading/watching and, ideally, sharing and commenting.

Excellent Keyword Research

Keywords play a critical role in getting your website ranked on search engines and being seen by your target audience. Due to this, it is important to find relevant keywords often used by your potential customers to make a search inquiry so they can find you.

Some practical ways to look for your target keywords can be:

• Understanding the keyword intent clearly before using it in your content and SEO strategy.
• Looking for keywords that have a moderate monthly search volume (MSV) and are easy to use in your content pieces. Keywords with higher MSV will have tighter and denser competition that will be difficult to crack into.
• Focusing on finding keywords to establish topical authority for your brand. Showing expertise and knowledge is an instant way to scale SERP rankings.
• Using keyword tools to find keywords that matter and align with your business objectives.

A note on keywords

Keyword stuffing was a widespread practice and a black hat SEO method intended to ensure that the word associated with a company was picked up. We’ve all seen those barely legible articles because every other word is a keyword.

However, keywords still have their place for use with site content, including blogs, images, videos, and PPC/adword campaigns. These days, it’s better practice to use similar words throughout a piece of writing and the main keyword. Key phrases are also good practice and should be used. It’s also essential that these are used in titles and sub-headers and throughout the text.

For example: Keyword = SEO software

This should be used a couple of times in the text, in the headline, and in a similar phrase in a subheader. Throughout the piece, related words and phrases can be used for context, such as:

• SEO analysis software
• SEO tools
• Search engine optimization
• Search tools

And so on. An excellent tool for this is Google’s Keyword Planner, which has recently replaced the Adwords tool.

As you can see from the image, I’ve searched using the keywords mentioned above and narrowed down the audience to the countries I would like to target and the industry niche the site is in. This gives ideas for Ad Groups (for PPC) and suggested keywords that perform the best.

Satisfy The User Intent

When analyzing your keywords, paying close attention to user intent will help you find content opportunities that are either untapped or have a lower quantity of information available. Unless your page matches the search intent, the chances of it showing up whenever a relevant search is made go down significantly.

Types of user search intent:

• Informational: When your target audience is looking to learn more about something they have an interest in.

• Navigational: When the user is looking for an opportunity to navigate their way to a location (online and physical).

• Local: When the user is looking for information in their vicinity. This is beneficial for small businesses.

• Transactional: When the user is looking for a source to purchase from.

Determining search intent:

• Paying close attention to SERP can give insights into what your target audience is looking for and the type of content they are being provided.
• Using Google Ads to identify the transactional intent and the solutions your competitors are offering for a problem.
• Paying close attention to your analytics is another effective way to identify why your customers visit your website.

Focus On User Experience (UX)

User experience is a ranking factor that search engines like Google take seriously. When you are working to refine website parameters like loading speed, easy navigation, and appropriate interlinking, you are also refining the experience a user will have on your website.

A poorly functioning website with complex navigation is a nightmare for your visitors, and they are less likely to spend more than a minute trying to find what they are looking for.

Poor user experience also increases bounce rates, making it challenging for your website to communicate the unique values or offers it can offer.

Practical fixes include:

• Keep the website clutter-free and only add elements that contribute to improving the user experience.
• Use the same font, size, colors, and design throughout the website to create a seamless transition between pages.
• Focus on making the website responsive on various devices to cater to diverse preferences.
• Intuitive designs are stealing the show everywhere as they break down the ‘how to’ barrier that comes with using technology.
• Use white space smartly to increase readability.

Pay Attention To On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization often refers to making planned changes within the website to improve its ranking on search engines. While there’s no universal workflow for on-page optimization, it is still essential to start by addressing the website methodically to prevent any later-stage mixes.

Common Components of On-Page SEO:

• • Technical components: These include server speed IP addresses and source code.
  • Content: It includes the text and multimedia content present, structural text elements, and meta tags.
  • Structure: This component includes crawl depth, internal linking, URL structure, and canonization.

• Design: CTAs, mobile optimization, and file size. 

Optimize your links

Link building can be the key to promoting your website across different platforms and gaining the attention of a wider audience. Focus on acquiring backlinks for websites with high domain authority and optimizing your permalinks.

At the same time, avoidlinkfarms, as they are notorious for creating dubious links that can harm your website’s credibility. Backlink acquisition can be a time-consuming process, and being strategic can significantly help.

Things to do:

• Create high-quality content that addresses a topic in the utmost detail and naturally draws attention. The more in-depth your content, the higher its value will become.
• Use the skyscraper technique to analyze how others have produced their content and the extent of coverage in their articles. Combining all the information with your research will produce informative content. You can then reach out to sources that have shared the original content in exchange for a backlink.
• Register at Help a Reporter Out (HARO), and if the content is used as a resource, you can get a backlink.

Things to strictly avoid:

• Not focusing on quality instead of quantity. High-quality backlinks are more valuable than low-quality ones.
• Using the same target keyword as the anchor text for all your content pieces.
• Not focusing on broken link building.

The Bottom Line

White hat SEO practices can be your blueprint for successfully ranking high on SERPs and becoming a customer preference. As search engines encourage these practices, you only have to work towards producing roof-shattering and value-oriented content pieces while keeping your website in good health with technical SEO practices.