White Hat SEO: Best Practices To Rank Higher

upqode | Jun 15th, 2021

As a marketer, you would probably know that there are several different types of marketing practices. Search engine optimization being one of the most effective ways to increase the website’s ranking on the search engine results page (SERP) in content marketing. 

This eventually means that it is essential to have a strong SEO strategy to ensure the success of your page. 

When we talk about SEO strategy, there are various practices related to SEO but these two are the most common ones: white hat and black hat. 

White hat SEO is the right approach to increasing a page’s ranking, it refers to the practices that include following the rules mentioned by Google or any other search engine. The opposite is the Black Hat SEO approach that refers to exploiting the loopholes in the algorithms. 

While White hat SEO is a safe approach, Black Hat SEO is a risky approach as you can earn a Google penalty. 

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To help you understand White Hat SEO practices better, we have created this short guide. It talks about how White Hat SEO practices are the best approach to increasing the page’s ranking while following Google’s guidelines. 

What is White Hat SEO?

A very famous SEO strategy includes White Hat SEO. It helps increase the rankings of a website while following the rules and guidelines set by the search engines. The SEO experts apply techniques without playing tricks and breaking any rules or regulations set by the search engine’s algorithms. 

White Hat SEO includes writing and sharing relevant and very high-quality content that caters to the readers’ interests while simultaneously optimizing the user experience. 

Similarly, it avoids the use of incorrect methods, such as duplicate content or any other practice that could cause problems and result in a Google penalty. This can lead to the removal of the website or a significant downgrade of the website.

The decrease in the website’s ranking can prove to be very damaging, especially for e-commerce websites, which can cost them traffic, possible sales, and the revenue that they could have generated. 

Importance of Using White Hat SEO

White Hat SEO is essential because it provides you with valuable and meaningful practices that you can use without the fear of getting penalized. With all the rules and regulations present, website owners have proper methods to rank their websites on search engines. This provides equal competition to getting ranked on the result page. 

Largely used search engines as Google have continuously updated their algorithms to rank the best content to capture the users’ attention. Furthermore, it also benefits the ranking by penalizing the ones that opt for dishonest tactics. Moreover, users also benefit from this by finding what they are initially looking for through the use of search engines. 

There are several other reasons as well to promote the White Hat SEO practices amongst all the website owners. 

It Promotes Organic Visibility

The use of honest and straightforward White hat SEO practices means that the results are slow. You can see improved ranking and traffic only over time. But the end results are worth it and are long-lasting than the ones that might have been achieved by following Black SEO practices. The increase in organic visibility will stay longer if you keep putting in the same amount of effort.

Attracts more Website Visitors and Readers

A noticeable increase in website visitors and readers is observed when you follow the White Hat SEO practices.

This means that the content is not keyword-stuffed, a method avoided in SEO. The content you then share on your website is more readable and exciting. It automatically increases the readers’ interests and making your content worth sharing. It’s another passive practice by the users helping you with your website’s ranking and building authority.

Search Engine’s Notice your Content

When you follow all the best practices mentioned by the search engines, your website will automatically be noticed by them. 

The best practices being high-quality content, use of keywords, excellent website design, better user experience on the mobile, faster-loading website, and many smaller meaningful practices like these show the search engines that you are indeed interested in improving the human experience. All these things help your website become more visible on the search engine’s results page (SERP).

Following the Rules Help to Stay on Top of the Game

Yes, the search engines keep on updating their algorithms, but following White Hat SEO practices means that you follow the rules set down by these search engines, so even if they evolve their algorithms, the basic rules remain the same. 

You might have to do something more as an add-on to the practices you are following. But surely put in less effort than following other practices that are not allowed and face significant penalties.

White Hat SEO Techniques

The search engines keep updating their algorithms, which affects how the websites are ranked on the search engine’s page. Avoiding any practice can result in a penalty and cost you your website’s rank on the search result page. 

white hat seo techniques

In any case, search engines, especially Google, expect you to follow the white hat SEO techniques. Avoid black hat SEO techniques that are aimed at breaking the guidelines set by the search engine’s especially Google.

There are different White Hat SEO techniques listed below. They can be used to stay on the top in terms of rankings on the search engine’s results page. 

Choose high ranking keywords

The first step in building a solid SEO strategy: you choose some keywords related to your business. These keywords that you choose should not have a very keyword difficulty and high search volume. Because then it becomes challenging to rank against the websites that are already ranking against them. 

google trends

For those who are not aware of how keyword research works, the primary action includes figuring out a keyword search tool. That will helps generate a list of possible keywords after analyzing one’s business and their competitors’ business. After that, you choose the most relevant keywords and start to plan your content around them. You can use different White Hat SEO tools for this purpose. 

Among various White Hat SEO tips, an intelligent strategy is choosing medium-range keywords with a keyword difficulty with a score within the 50-70 range from a 100 point scale. Moreover, there are majorly two kinds of keywords opted for, short-tailed and long-tailed. 

Short-tailed keywords have a very high keyword difficulty. The long-tailed keywords do not have a very high keyword difficulty and are more customer-focused. This means that the people you will target with long-tailed keywords are more likely to buy the products and services that you are offering from your website. 

It can help you significantly increase your traffic, sales, and the revenue that you might be generating before adopting the long-tailed keywords into your strategy. 

Opt for Mobile-First Approach

Various researchers have proved that the number of mobile users has significantly increased compared to laptop users. In 2020, mobile internet users increased to approximately 6.055 million from 3.668 billion in 2016, indicating a noticeable increase in mobile users.  

Therefore now, search engines like Google are now more focused on the mobile-first indexing system. Hence, you should focus all your SEO strategies by keeping the mobile-first approach in mind. 

This means that whenever you hire the services of a web design team, always ensure that your website will be easily accessible on mobile devices as well. The pictures, text, and relevant content will quickly load on various mobile devices and cause no problem. If you have a problem, chances are you’ll quickly lose your ranking on a known search results page (SERP).

google test site

Try White Hat SEO Link-Building

You definitely must have heard about SEO link building or even backlinking if you are into SEO strategies and provide White Hat SEO services. White Hat SEO link building or backlinking is the best practice that can help to increase your website rank. It is one of the most constant factors in the search engine’s algorithms. 

This means that there should be a large number of websites directed to your website through hyperlinks. The greater the number of links or link juice, the more authority your website will have. That will increase the authenticity of your website, making it perform better than all the other websites. 

Remember to avoid the Black Hat SEO practice at all costs, as mentioned above, or you will get a Google penalty. That can cost you your website’s ranking. Try getting all the backlinks organically and use high-quality references to generate a strength of the content you upload. Similarly, avoid link spam from commercial third parties and pay to have guest posts written and published. 

It is vital to building an SEO strategy based on White Hat SEO tips. Otherwise, it will be considered a Black Hat SEO practice, getting you a major penalty and costing. 

Optimizing According to the User’s Need

You have created an eCommerce website selling products and services that will benefit your customers and cater to their needs. Similarly, it will help you generate traffic on your website and increase your revenue. 

This means that the main focus of your website and business are the potential customers that you aim to target and sell your products and services. But what if you are not aligning your SEO strategy according to that? This is where the problem begins. 

Helpful White Hat SEO tips include creating an SEO strategy to build around valuable keywords. Similarly, a valuable method of finding user intent keywords include typing the first two or three matching keywords into the search box. Before you can hit the search button, you will get a possible list of suggested search queries. They can be very useful and very frequently used. As mentioned above, these are some of the long-tailed keywords that suit the search intent of your target demographic.

google ads

Updating the SEO Strategies

The number of internet users and digital presence is increasing every day. According to this, there is a change observed in the SEO strategies. The search engines have improved their algorithms in terms of ranking pages in their search results. So old practices are not entertained.

Before the improvement in the algorithms, sponsored guest posts, spam advertising, and paid backlinks were all considered a quick and easy way to improve the ranking of a website. Now they are called Black Hat SEO strategies. 

google ads

SEO companies know the best practices to follow. These practices are time-consuming but do not pose a risk of losing your website ranking.

Moreover, using the best White Hat SEO tools can help you get the list of keywords that can boost your SEO strategy.

Try to Optimizing Rich Snippets

While you use various White Hat SEO tools to improve your website’s search engine optimization, you can also use Google Schema, a rich snippet enhancement tool. The rich snippets include the added data that is pulled from a website’s HTML. It helps to increase the organic CTR (click-through rate).

google structured data testing tool

Although these rich snippets are not ranking signals, as confirmed by Google’s top webmaster, using these rich snippets with Google’s Schema tool can help increase the organic click-through rate by a significant percentage, boosting the performance of your SEO strategy. 

google search console

Final Verdict

To improve the content marketing strategy and enhance your website’s ranking, it is essential that you adopt effective White Hat SEO tips. White Hat SEO techniques are an effective way to do so without the fear of getting penalized.   

Although it can be time-consuming and require a lot of time to show the desired results, you can still build an authoritative and noticeable web presence. Use more effective and valuable White Hat SEO services. Analyze the health of your website and then work through multiple ways to improve the SEO rankings through meaningful efforts.

Filed under: Marketing WordPress SEO

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