If you own a business, odds are you understand how important it is that you establish yourself online. Because we live in a world where nearly all information is sought on the Internet, your company’s website must be optimized using search engine optimization (SEO) tactics; if a potential customer searches for your product or service in a search engine like Google, your business will pop up in the top results. Considering the fact that the top five URLs of those results get 75% of user clicks, the benefits are obvious.
Unfortunately, not everyone likes to play by the rules. SEO techniques can be twisted to take advantage of Google’s ranking factors without actually creating meaningful or relevant content; this is called black hat SEO. Here are three black hat SEO tactics you should never use.
- Keyword Stuffing: Keyword research is an important part of SEO as it indicates to Google — and Google’s users — that your site contains what they’re looking for. However, if you simply cram a dozen keywords inorganically into your content, visitors to your site will end up feeling frustrated and will most likely leave pretty quickly. Instead, use your keywords where they fit naturally, and don’t force anything.
- Invisible/Hidden Text: This refers to text that search engines can view, but readers can’t. With black hat SEO, hidden text is used to incorporate extra or irrelevant keywords to boost the page’s ranking. Since this doesn’t provide anything of use to Google’s users, the tactic is not recommended.
- Link Buying or Exchange: Links from reputable sites that point to your website are used as a way to determine the value of your own site. However, you need to come by these relationships organically; if Google sees that you’ve got several inbound links that have nothing to do with your site because you purchased them, it can negatively impact your SEO.
If you fail to abide by the rules and standards that Google has set in place, the punishment can be severe. Google may ban your website from appearing at all in the search results, which can hurt a business.
You can avoid the risk and worry entirely by trusting your website to a digital marketing company; due to their in-depth understanding of what Google wants and expects SEO to look like, a marketing company worth their salt will know what produces the best results — and what isn’t worth the risk.
If you’re ready to trust your site to a quality marketing company, contact Bleevit at 703-988-3082 today.
WRITTEN BY
Rick Hogan, CEO & Co-Founder – Bleevit Interactive Rick possesses over 20 years of digital marketing experience and started Bleevit Interactive with the primary mission of helping local businesses succeed online. When he is not working he can often be found hiking Great Falls, Virginia with his Labradoodle Lily, or sailing the Chesapeake Bay. If you have any comments or suggestions on how we can improve this post or otherwise want to give us a shout, send an email to hello@bleevit.com.
