Two Words: Forget SEO!

No matter if it is building relevant backlinks from reputed sites or creating high-quality content that targets certain keywords - we are ALL in a constant race to optimize for rankings organically.

Of course, optimization is important to get you top rankings on Google, but instead of continuing to be trap in this maze of constant optimization, why not try something else - an effective yet not so popular ranking technique that you can consider.

As to what it is, here’s a clue. Go and check results against your targeted keywords on Google. It can be anything - keywords your business is targeting or something random like how to clean a bicycle.

What do you see? I’ll bet you in most if not all cases - VIDEOS.

Video results always appear on the First Page and it’s no fluke.

Search engines like Google generally prefer to display appropriate video results if there are any and guess what - they rank even new videos that don't have any backlinks.

Most professional webmasters and SEOs don’t realize this, but YouTube takes up a huge amount of space in Google’s search engine result pages. And this is on top of YouTube's own search engine which you can aim for to bring traffic and conversions.

If there's anything you can do, now is the time to take advantage of this trend and start creating your own videos - but wait a moment, it's not just videos you have to create.

Good SEOs may already have discovered this amazing way to rank on Google. Anyways -

Freshness, dwell time, likes/dislikes - these are all important factors that can help boost your SEO, and they're all-natural qualities Google picks up in a video.

The method is simply so easy that you can forget all about SEO link-building at least temporarily.

There's not as much tweaking and optimizing, all you need are targeted keywords, their LSI and you're good to rank your videos and enjoy organic traffic from Google and YouTube.

This is no joke. Just take a look around.

The amazing part is you can hold your position at the top for long.

Really, with publishing amazing videos, ranking on the first page of Google and YouTube has never been easier.

But you also need to keep some points in your mind, like -

• You need to know how good SEOs are using Google to get targeted traffic to their landing pages and how to convert those as leads
• You need to have a blueprint to optimize your video content
• You need to do keyword analysis to find untapped long-tail keywords that you can rank for using within the video title and/or description

Just imagine, all these top and permanent rankings, traffic, conversions, etc. are for your taking again, so quick try out now!

How Sleep Can Solve Social Media Marketing Problems?

Hi!

Many of the social media evangelists in my country may disagree, but sleep and social media have a direct connection.

If you do a Google search, you definitely can see many write-ups on how does social media affect your sleep or social media use & sleep disorder, or is social media affecting your sleep, etc.

My today’s post is just the opposite of those thoughts.

Whatever you do in a social media marketing job, it’s impossible to avoid problems and challenges.

Getting stuck in follower growth on the way to satisfy customer queries and maintain a good engagement rate per impression, falling out with your client, are examples of challenges we face as a marketer.

You could probably expand this list with dozens of extra KPIs - all taken just from the last few social media marketing campaigns!

Knowing that we’ll always encounter difficulties is the first step in dealing with social media marketing. We can prepare ourselves intellectually, physically and emotionally, so that the low times only temporarily drag us down but won’t sink us.

The next step in dealing with marketing problems is to come up with solutions!

Let’s say you’ve maxed out your campaign budget, and you’re now struggling to even generate the quality leads. If you simply turn a blind eye to the problem, the frustration will increase, your boss will enforce extra hours of work, and you may even end up withdrawing from the project. Not a good situation at all.

However, to prevent the above from happening, you could begin to take charge of the situation by:

• Analyze your campaign settings so you can cut down the cost incurred by irrelevant clicks and/or impressions
• Contacting the client to explain your view/research on insufficient resource allocation, and asking them to stay flexible with the campaign budget and/or charges
• Consulting with your supervisor, who would be able to offer support in dealing with the situation

Whether you took one of the above actions or all of them, either way, this would be 10x better than doing nothing. You would feel more positive about your campaign goal, your worries would start to minimize, and you’d be able to put your focus on increasing your campaign ROI through data-driven optimization techniques, grow in your professional career, etc.

In the example above, I’ve stated some clear actions to take to help resolve the problem you are facing as a social media account in charge. But, what if the problem is so puzzling that you can’t think of a way to deal with it?

Well, in this case, you need to use the power of sleep.

Research has shown that thinking too much about a problem can often stop us from discovering a solution to it. This is because we try to solve the issue through our conscious mind, rather than giving the problem over to our subconscious mind and its vast storage of information.

This is where sleep can help.

Sleep & Social Media: Keep On Connected

If you’ve wrestled unsuccessfully with a social media optimization-related problem for hours, then it’s a sure sign that you won’t find a solution with your existing way of thinking. Instead, let go of trying to find a solution, and let your subconscious mind get to work on your behalf.

A sound sleep is a perfect state for your subconscious mind to work out answers to your questions. What could be better than waking up in the morning with clear and positive ways to solve your problems?

Not only does sleep rest and rejuvenate your physical body, but it also gives your conscious mind a break and provides your subconscious mind with the necessary space to tackle your problems with social media account management.

I’ve personally used this technique many times.

For example, a few years ago, when I was thinking of starting my first business, I struggled to see where I would get the initial investment from. Sure I had some decent savings, but not enough to fund an ambitious startup. Despite hours, days, and weeks of researching ways of attracting funding, I felt like I was going nowhere.

It was at this point that I almost gave up on my dream. I stopped thinking about the business and the funding, and put my focus elsewhere.

But, a strange thing happened.

After just a few months of giving no time or energy to my business idea, I woke up one morning with a startling revelation.

Namely, I didn’t need loads of money to start my venture. I could begin it right now with my small savings, and then as the business grew, I would attract additional investment as and when needed.

I had never thought of this idea before, but it was dead right. This has been the exact startup model I’ve used to grow my project from just an idea.

Let’s consider another instance.

As the serial crises of 2020 redefine customer engagement, social media marketers are transforming their operations, accelerating digital transformation, and overhauling their marketing strategies. It’s essential to focus on the priorities, challenges, and trajectories of your client’s business.

The pandemic has exposed social media marketing’s unavoidability, and entrepreneurs are taking decisive action.

Meanwhile, you can identify your main competitors and study their social media posts - then adjust your social media messaging as needed.

So, to counter the crisis, you can -

• Explore your closest competitors and divide them by ‘threat level’
• Reverse-engineer rivals’ success and find untapped opportunities on social media platforms
• Fine-tune your social media optimization game

But the desired level of success may still out of hand.

When you are passing through such hard times in your professional life, try the sleep remedy. Simply switch your conscious mind off from all the surrounded drama to take a deep sleep so that you can find solutions to your problem by using your unconscious mind. So -

Sleep can indeed be a powerful tool for success for social media marketers at many times.

Do not hesitate to try out sleep and giving problems over to your subconscious mind for finding out a solution. I bet, soon you experience, how sleeping on a difficult problem help you get the answer.

Many may laugh out after reading this out, but I am telling you, using sleep is to solve problems that may new to you, however not a brand new idea. I am trying to be a seasoned dreamer-resolver. Are you too?

Cheers!
Partha

SEO Is Always The Lowest Priority, Until It Is Not

In today’s post, I will talk about my 5 reasons why I believe SEO is not anymore a smart marketing investment.

I think SEO is neither compulsory for businesses, nor it is anymore one of the obligatory investments that a business owner can make.

On the contrary, many still think of SEO as a needed investment for their business - its stock that will increase value over time and remain in your account.

Unfortunately, those days are gone when by investing in SEO you build long-term value for your website that will continue to accumulate over time.

Here are 5 reasons why we should stop investing in SEO now.

1. SEO does not work.

This is a straightforward reason, but it is true. As of today, Google processes nearly 4 billion searches per day. With that number of search volume, there is no debating that, ranking in Google’s search results with PPC ads offers much better and realistic opportunities to get more targeted traffic for websites.

This is very important because more targeted traffic typically brings more leads and leads turn into sales that is ROI.

By investing in SEO if you want to raise your rankings in Google and expect more traffic to your website that can produce more leads and sales for your business is a myth now.

If not, then why almost everywhere I am seeing text/display ads now?

2. For mobile, SEO is becoming even more meaningless to all.

Yesterday, people had to wait until they got a computer to review something online. With mobile searches now surpassed desktop, today more people are comfortable doing research on the move. Tomorrow is even shiner for businesses because people will make a purchase through IoT devices.

With the growing usage of “near me” search queries, even the small local shop owners now see the opportunity to rank in their area. As a result, big businesses start showing their financial power by launching huge paid PR campaigns.

That means people not only can find more attractive ads online but also find any business info on their mobile screens in real-time.

Therefore, your noble thought about investing in Local SEO for your small business to grab the attention of people who are your ideal customers and are ready to make a purchasing decision quickly is vaporing even more quickly.

If not, then why paid ads are always above all?

3. Higher search engine rankings don’t prove your business credibility.

What do you do when you’re considering making a purchase online or offline? For most people, the answer is research - means checking all available buying options to get the best deal possible.

Most internet users - as high as 80% in some studies - look past paid ads and focus solely on organic search results. That means that when someone is doing web research for a product or service, they are much more likely to do business if you rank highly in Google’s organic search results. In order to rank higher, your website should have a high level of expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, which will help to drive sales once someone clicks through to your site.

However, having a high ranking doesn’t always mean that Google and other searchers have found your website to be relevant. A high rank on Google SERP also doesn’t signify trust and authority for your business always. If giving consumers a positive feeling towards your business before they even start searching around your site is important, then how most of the businesses are allowed to run paid ads (and they are making a profit too from it!) without at least considering Google’s search quality rater guidelines?

If not, then why the paid PR sites are rank higher in the news searches? Or sometimes, how they appear above the organic listings?

4. Rankings can change fast, and but your competitors don’t know it.

As per popular thesis, SEO is an ongoing process and the more you invest in it, the greater it will be. This is a good feeling at many levels.

If your website is already ranking moderately higher in search results that’s great - but it means you need to continue to invest in SEO in order to stay there - this is not true anymore.

With everyone competing for those top spots on SERP, your competitors are going to invest in paid ads and digital PR campaigns, and if they do and you don’t, they can start to outrank you - simple.

If you’re not currently ranking high in search result pages, you still have an opportunity to rise up. By investing in a sound paid digital advertising strategy including smart yet paid social media marketing tactics, you may be able to start outranking your competition and driving more traffic to your website.

Though that’s doesn’t guarantee the actual conversions from that traffic.

Ranking #1 is a constant race to the finish line, and whoever invests the most in paid ads and runs the diversified media buying campaigns will get there first.

If not, then why business owners are more and more investing in programmatic advertising?

5. SEO is an easily replaceable art.

Customers used to learn about products or services through advertisements on the radio, television, and print ads. People are still, also use to make buying decisions in stores and look for service providers in the phone books or local business directories.

While some people may still reluctant, many (and the numbers are increasing at a significant pace) are relying on social media for making purchasing decisions nowadays, and the tendency is it’s going to stay.

Online shopping and searching are not only here to stay, it’s going to keep growing and evolving and with that means optimization work for social media will continue to change as well. It’s important to start investing now on social media so you set your business up for success in the future and most importantly consumers are on social media.

If not, then why so many businesses are operating on social media without having a website at least?

Final thoughts

Traditional marketing is one-way i.e. brand to customer, which is not engaging. But marketing through SEO is multi-ways - brand to customer, customer to brand, customer to customer. SEO is the marketing practice that allows you to engage and interact with your consumers virtually.

So, SEO will remain here and will grow.

To make SEO work for you, do learn which sources are generating the most traffic, find your competitors' best conversion tactics, and view metrics, including conversion rates and top-selling products at first.

Need Help with SEO?

Click here to request a quote for SEO services.

How To Leverage & Scale Your Digital Marketing Expertise?

Hi Friends,

Knowledge is power.

Right?

Not really.

It's what you do with the knowledge that's matters.

Sadly, more and more digital marketers in India can't really do the jobs they trained/certified for. They lack the skills that clients/employers value and often have little to show for their digital marketing knowledge but a ton of debt.

The opportunities that higher education is supposed to create are rapidly disappearing all over the world.

But there is some good news:

The slow breakdown of traditional digital marketing training programs creates a massive opportunity for a lot of people especially if you consider yourself a lifelong learner or an expert in your field.

If you want to know more about this massive opportunity, the team Tenet developed a training program all about the disruption of digital marketing education and why it's a good thing for smart marketers.

The entire training program is available online, and you can register by sending an email request.

Some glimpse about digital marketing course -

• Let’s passionate about what you do.
• Become a part of the growing marketing community and set as is someone can trust. So, when you say something, the community listens.
• Be always on the cutting edge of what's really going on in the digital marketing industry, and how experts, entrepreneurs, and business owners can profit.

Here's the thing:

Digital marketing institutes as I know them will go extinct even IF they lowered the cost of tuition, changed their system, or updated their curriculum.

And the disruption is spreading beyond higher education.

People are demanding more learning options, and that means online courses on digital marketing offered by experts and professionals are going to become way more than a trend.

They're the future of education.

It's basic supply and demand.

This is the opportunity for anybody with less expertise to step up, start learning, impact the world, and build a hugely successful career in the field of digital marketing.

And in the course, team Tenet outlines what it takes to create the digital marketing campaigns people will like.

So if you're involved in digital marketing in any way, as a junior web marketing executive, business leader, SEO expert, PPC consultant, and especially as an owner of a small business, then you won't want to miss this digital marketing training program.

PS. You can subscribe to the blog for free updates on and around the evolving digital marketing world.

Best,
Partha

Which Social Media Tools Would Be Best?

Social media operation is quite counterintuitive work. It seems like anyone could do it: post something (anything!) on social media, chat with people, search for content ideas, and fill your company’s social media account with content without context. Sounds like a job for a child of today’s time.

However, if you seriously look for ROI to generate, this isn’t enough.

It may look straightforward, but it’s almost impossible to make social media campaigns effective without adequate resources - namely, money, planning, talented people, and the right tools for the work. This post will focus on social media tools.

These tools helped me a lot in various projects for many years. I’ve divided them into three categories according to the most important social media tasks.

A. Tools For Social Media Management

These social media management tools are the ones that help you manage the process that any social media campaign wants. They make the route easier, more organized, less bumpy, and, therefore, more effective. Here are a few from my list of favorites.

1. IFTTT

So you’ve prepared and scheduled posts as part of the content curation task. What’s next? To automate everything that comes before and after (and in between). That’s what IFTTT does for you. The name of this automation tool stands for If This, Then That. It connects all kinds of apps and services together to automate multi-step tasks in whatever way you want. For example, if you publish a blog, you can create an IFTTT “applets” that will see the new post and create a tweet as well as a Pinterest post about it.

If there’s a task in your workflow that you often overlook despite all the to-do notes, try IFTTT.

2. Buffer

Buffer is a trendy scheduling tool that allows digital marketers to schedule posts across a range of social media platforms. You can either customize each post to each platform or publish the same one ubiquitously.

You can use a Buffer Chrome extension to add any content you find on the Web to the Buffer queue. This adds a bit of flexibility and power to the whole process of content curation and sharing. Your posts will be circulated at the best possible times. You can also track shared links to see which content is most effective in terms of readers’ engagement.

3. Quuu

Already have Buffer? To make things easier for you, i.e., to reduce the task where you are the one in charge of finding valuable content to share, start using Quuu. This is a social media marketing tool that curates content on behalf of you: it captures constantly top-quality relevant content and adds it to the Buffer queue. This removes your burden of curating and sharing content that you always want to share (i.e., your own blog posts and promotional content).

B. Social Media Monitoring Tools

Organic social media marketing is divided into two processes. One is about the content that comes from you and your brand. It’s the content you create, the content you aggregate and share with your audience, and promotional content. SMM tools that automate and optimize this part of social media marketing are discussed above. The second aspect of social media marketing comes from the audience. It’s the mentions of your brand online, reviews, questions, compliments, and complaints directed towards you.

While posting may be more important for increasing brand awareness, keeping an eye on what people say about you and responding appropriately is important too. It’s pretty much impossible to manually find all mentions of a brand on social media, as even on social media platforms people don’t always tag the brand. That’s why social media monitoring tools exist: to make communication with an online audience comprehensive. Here are a few that stand out:

1. Awario

Awario is a social media listening tool made for solopreneurs and small businesses. It doesn’t require a large budget, yet it covers all major social media listening features: finds mentions of your brand or any other keyword on all major social media platforms, including influential forums like Reddit; breaks mentions down into positive, negative, and neutral ones; shows you a list of influencers; and offers reports with all the stats on the authors that mention your brand.

2. Mention

Mention offers real-time social media monitoring, and you can set up alerts for your brand, your competitors, and your industry. With this tool, you can view and respond to each like, tag, or mention (ah, see what they did there?) right in the app. You can also sort mentions by importance or significance, and even set up filters, including by source or by language.

Mention also offers two options tailored to the different who need social media monitoring: small businesses focused on their own branding and agencies working on behalf of their clients.

3. Brandwatch

If your budget is much larger, then Brandwatch may be the tool for you. Brandwatch’s analytics data is highly visual: perfect to illustrate the meaning of social media marketing to clients, if you’re an agency.

Another feature that makes Brandwatch stand out is Signals. You have an option to set up an alert whenever a keyword is mentioned by the authors you choose. Signals alert on significant changes in the data set, such as a sudden peak in the number of mentions or an increase in negative mentions.

4. Talkwalker

Talkwalker is another enterprise-level tool that’s undoubtedly one of the most powerful on the market. It offers a huge range of filters, sub-filters, and platform coverage. Not only does it cover social media, news sites, blogs, and forums, but also broadcast, TV, and print. The data available is almost endless. It combines information from Google Analytics and social media, sentiment analysis, and image recognition to show you the most accurate report on every aspect of the audience.

Talkwalker is aimed at teams of marketers and PR pros, and it makes working in teams easy. It allows you to manage a smooth workflow within a department and easily share data across departments.

C. Social Media Advertising Tools

Social media marketing is tricky. Sometimes it seems as if everything can be achieved organically and for free, as long as your efforts are creative and authentic. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, and it becomes less and less common to achieve social media marketing success without any advertising budget. This is especially the case with Facebook. However, as appealing as Facebook makes advertising look, it’s pretty hard to make it work if you don’t have the right tools. So here’re the chosen ones:

1. Facebook Ads Grader

Although Facebook offers some analytics on ads, it’s often hard to tell whether your ads are worth the money, and if not, what has to be improved so that they could be more effective. WordStream’s Facebook Ads Grader lets you know just that: it provides a completely free assessment of your Facebook Advertising performance.

The report-based tool generates a detailed summary of the areas in which you’re succeeding and falling behind. The analysis includes metrics that show you how much the Key Performance Indicators differ based on who you’re advertising to; how your best and worst-performing ads compare to your competitors; whether you’re paying too much; whether you’re targeting the right audience; etc. It also shows if your campaigns, ad sets, and ads adhere to the industry standards established by Facebook. Basically, the Facebook Ads Grader is the easiest way to see if you’re getting the most out of your budget and how you can improve.

2. Qwaya

Qwaya is a tool to help create and manage Facebook and Instagram ads. It makes sense to buy it before you’ve even started investing money in Facebook Ads. Qwaya lets you schedule ads, offers analytics integration and team collaboration. Most importantly, it lets you A/B test your ads.

Anyone in marketing knows that testing is key to find the right message for your audience. Social media advertising isn’t an exception. With Qwaya, you can test every variable you’d like to make sure you’re not wasting your money and getting the best possible outcome.

3. Perfect Audience

This is a retargeting tool that can be used for Facebook advertising. Once you get over the clearly outdated design (sorry) and try the tool out, you might find it to be very effective for your business.

Retargeting is a big part of any advertising strategy – or at least it should be. Perfect Audience simplifies the process and helps you set up campaigns and view results. It provides info on impressions served, clicks back, conversions, and cost. The tool can be used for the Web and mobile as well as Facebook.

How Does Voice Search Affect SEO?

We’ve come a long way from the days of rotary dial phones. With our smartphones, we can text and call anyone from anywhere, but even more revolutionary is the facility to search for real-time business information. You can find store hours, if a new book is in, and even order food with the press of a button. Now, we’re entering a new age of mobile-connected and search engine optimized world-wide-web thanks to voice search.

Small businesses especially everywhere are starting to integrate voice search optimization in local SEO practices to prepare themselves for the near future where 50 percent of all searches on Google will be voice-based.

People are using voice search functionality more every year as leading mobile devices increasingly develop exclusive voice assistants like Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant on Androids phones. The opportunity voice search optimization provides in overall SEO is incredible for driving traffic to brick-and-mortar stores. Now you know why Amazon is opening physical stores - from booksellers to grocery pickup locations to cashier-less convenience stores.

Voice search optimization is your best bet as a small business owner to take on giants like Amazon by leveraging mobile voice search feature to create the most convenient and intuitive local SEO strategy that drives traffic to your store.

Voice search optimization facts:

• According to a tech firm, there were more than 30 million voice-first devices in circulation
• Another report said that one-fifth of the queries on Google are voice searches
• Teenagers are savvy users of voice search, but a survey found that people in all age groups use mobile personal assistants
• The shipping trend of voice-first devices year-on-year is on rising
• “near me” searches have grown significantly YoY as per a study
• Recent data from the research shows that more than 15% of Americans now own a smart speaker
• More than 70 percent of smart speaker owners perform searches for local businesses on a weekly basis, and more than 50 percent say they perform these searches every day, according to data

What is voice search?

“Hey Google, what’s the best Bengali restaurant near me?”

Voice search lets you be conversational with your search engines and contextual with the information your small business has included on its Google My Business listing. Location, store details, and business hours are just some of the information Google will quickly crawl and index to provide the most relevant answer to a user’s search query. The algorithm will also take into account reputation in terms of Google reviews your business listing has received. This is done by analyzing star ratings and comments posts in order to provide credibility for voice search optimizations that include keywords like “best”.

Voice search utilizes the power of artificial intelligence (AI). Algorithms like Google’s RankBrain can decipher the nuances in your speech-based command in addition to the user’s search history and device location to find the most relevant answer. Since its AI, it also becomes smarter and intelligent with every conversation.

You might optimize your pages to rank for keywords like “hardware store Kolkata” or “cheap clothes for sale Pune” but with voice search, you need to optimize the content appropriately to sound conversational. That is the fundamental difference between typed searches and voice search - usually five words or more (a very long tail keyword), which plays a decisive role in user intent.

To create the optimal online presence, here is what the ideal local business should:

• Have good and growing review ratings
• Regularly get online mentions linking to their websites
• Get talked about on social media platforms
• Have listings in local directories

How to mix voice search optimization in local SEO?

Voice search optimization, in the beginning, was about including answers to frequently asked questions by users about your business. The effectiveness of your voice search depends on how easily Google and other reputed search engines can crawl and index your content so optimized rich snippets can appear in ”position zero” on SERP. That way, it’s come to providing the obvious answer for voice search both on mobile devices and on at-home devices like Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa.

1. Structured Data Markup

By applying the correct schema markup, search engines can better understand your site and its content. Use Schema.org to find and use the crucial markups for your site, because beyond keyword-optimized content, you need to provide search engines context too.

2. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Your FAQs section within the site can be used for more than a reference for people on your site. Use FAQs to drive voice and type-based organic search traffic by providing better solutions to solve users’ queries. Tools like answerthepublic.com are great for compiling exact keyword match questions that you can markup with the schema to answer for voice search queries. Be sure your answer to each question is precise and clear. You may also need to create several FAQs in order for Google search algorithms crawling for voice search queries to better pull information from your site.

3. Rich Snippets

In order to create a powerful impact like being cited in the answer for a voice search query or get featured in the “People also ask” section on Google SERPs, you must add structured data that put your page in position zero (also known as rich snippets or rich results) on SERP. Optimize for long tail queries to include keywords like “store hours”, “near me”, and “price” so that you can take advantage of a mobile user’s GPS to drive traffic in form of in-store visits.

Remember that, using structured data doesn’t guarantee appearance in and as a rich snippet on Google SERPs all the time.

Mobile Optimization

Most digital marketers aware that mobile searches have surpassed desktop searches which is why it’s more important than ever to be optimized for handheld devices. This means creating super-fast pages with fine user interface (UI) design that provide a seamless mobile user experience (UX). If a page is too slow to load, a user will bounce and adversely affect your keyword rankings and may lose your rich snippet in position zero.

You should also keep in mind Google’s E-A-T (stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) from search quality rater guidelines. Grossly, it means the credibility of your site is based both on the credentials of the content. Factors that influence your rankings include reviews and ratings, the accuracy of NAP (business name, address, and phone number) information, and a naturally growing backlink profile. All of which can influence your success in voice search in an SEO program.

If you would like to learn more about what cutting-edge SEO and CRO can do for your small business, then call Tenet today at +91 9748776969 or contact us here.

What Is A Black Hat SEO Technique?

It is well known to all SEOs that Google, the search engine has rules, and it demands that SEOs follow them. And, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’ll regret going against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

When it comes to SEO, it’s wise to avoid black hat tactics.

What is black hat SEO?

Black hat SEO is an umbrella term for all practices that can improve your performance in the organic search results in ways that search engines like Google condemn.

Engaging in black hat SEO schemes can get your site punished on the search engine results pages (SERPs) and, in some cases, banned from search engines completely. So, it’s best to stay with Google’s policies as much as possible.

A rule of thumb you can follow to determine if a tactic falls under the black hat SEO practice is to ask yourself: “Am I doing this to offer value to my site visitors, or am I doing this ONLY to do better in the search results?” If the answer is the latter one, it’s safe to stay away from or think twice whatever method you’re considering.

A brief history of black hat SEO

Long ago, in the early 2000s, to be successful on all the major search engines we now take for granted was fooling around in terms of -

• Stuff keywords
• Build a network of sites that existed for the sole purpose of linking to each other and pushing themselves up the rankings
• Cloaking your content so it shows one thing to search engines and something completely different to users

But, once the search engines are getting smarter, especially when Google has become the leader, it started cracking down on spamdexing. Update after update of the search algorithm sought to improve crawling and indexing by penalizing over-optimizers, keyword stuffers, and spam link builders.

Google over the past decade or so, messaged clearly to the worldwide SEO community: webmasters and content creators are to prioritize user experience (UX) over search engine optimization. Relevant, high-quality information from fast-loading, easily browsing websites became (and remains) the number one priority.

Which tactics are considered black hat SEO?

Now, let’s talk about some risky black hat SEO techniques.

• Gateway (doorway) pages: web pages aimed to rank highly for particular search queries and that exist solely to direct visitors to another page on the same site.
• Content automation: using a tool or program to automatically generate and publish content.
• Hidden text and links: making certain text or links invisible to visitors with the intent of augmenting purely for search engines.
• Keyword stuffing: excessively adjusting a piece of content for a given keyword by overusing it in the content body and headings, image names and ALT, Meta tags, and so on.
• Link farming: forming a network of sites for no reason other than to link to each other and get higher rankings.
• Buying links: paying other websites to link to yours in order to manage Domain Authority.
• Cloaking: presenting one piece of content to search engine bots and another piece of content to visitors.
• Spam comments: building links to your site in the comment sections of other websites in order to achieve Domain Authority.
• Footer spam: packing footers with links for the only purpose of ranking.
• Article spinning: using software to mechanically regenerate existing content in a rephrased way.
• Using irrelevant keywords: including irrelevant keywords into an old piece of content for the only purpose of ranking for those keywords.
• Click baiting: building links to a high-quality piece of content, only to replace that content with something more profit-making or money-making.
• Scraping: stealing another site’s content and using it to drive traffic to your site.
• Low-quality guest posting: writing a guest post on another site only for the sake of linking to your own.
• Tradeoff products for links: offer free product in exchange for receiving reviews of it and linking to your site.
• Negative SEO: do a negative SEO campaign for a competitor website in hopes that their fall will boost your rankings.
• False headlines: baiting clicks with an enticing yet false headline and directing visitors to an unrelated page or piece of content.

This list is not at all exhaustive - there are many other tactics that can get you a penalty. Since; organic search is in constant flux, so this list may also evolve in the future. But, for the time being, these 17s should give you a pretty good idea of what are black hat techniques.

What is the difference between white hat and black hat SEO?

White hat SEO refers to - the set of Google-recommended webmaster guidelines that will improve your organic search rankings.

Undoubtedly, the best thing you can do to rank higher is created informative, high-quality, easy-to-understand content that answers visitors’ questions and solves their problems. This requires a strong understanding of search intent and a willingness to do robust keyword research. You can’t develop useful content unless you know what your visitors are seeking and how you want to present it so they find it helpful.

Generally, good content earns links from reputed sites. Although there’s nothing wrong with guest blogging and outreach (I encourage these things in fact), getting an authoritative inbound link without asking for it is always desirable.

On top of that, your website needs to be fast, secure, and easy to browse.

As of now, Google is officially penalizing sites that take too long to load, particularly on mobile devices. Not to mention the fact that users with 4G and 5G networks simply aren’t going to tolerate slowness.

Making the switch from HTTP to HTTPS is a no-brainer considering the importance of keeping web security intact to its fullest, and as it’s been a ranking factor for nearly half a decade.

Ease of use is significant for a couple reasons. One: making it easy for users to navigate around and find what they need to find is a surefire way to decrease bounce rate. Two: making it easy for crawlers to consume content ensures that more of your pages will be indexed properly and featured on the SERPs. Keep your internal links organized and make sure it takes no more than two clicks to get to important sections of the site.

On-page SEO is all about making your page as contextually relevant to the search query as possible.

For a given page, the title tag is the hyperlinked text that search engine users are typically going to see on the SERP.

Including your primary keyword in the title tag makes the page more relevant to the search query and increases the likelihood that searchers will click through. Make sure the title’s length is optimized enough to avoid truncation and to keep users engaged by presenting it logically.

The Meta description is the snippet of text that appears below the title tag on the SERP.

It’s your opportunity to 1) further demonstrate the relevance of the page by including the semantic variations of the primary keyword and 2) tell the users what the page’s content is about. Keeping the Meta description succinct ensures that it will appear meaningfully on both mobile devices and desktops.

Make sure to include your targeted keyword and its close variants thoughtfully throughout the page, too: in your heading tags (H1, H2, etc.), throughout the body copy, and in the URL. This shows visitors (and search engines too) that the content is tightly relevant and that they should remain engaged. Further, using the keyword in your image names and in the images’ ALT texts will give web spiders an even better indication of what the page is about.

The middle hat: Grey hat SEO

Certainly, the heading of this section is slightly ambiguous.

It’s not entirely incorrect to think of grey hat SEO as the "no man's land" between black hat and white hat SEO practices. However, it’s more precise to consider it as a practice that is neither straightforward black hat nor white hat.

Google hasn’t passed the verdict on all credible SEO tactics till now. Though Google has shared its stance on some things so far. So, if it’s unclear whether Google’s evolving search algorithm has issues with a particular practice - and if SEOs can have arguments both for and against the issue - then it’s likely that you have a grey hat situation on your hands.

Why is it essential to be aware that a new idea of yours is the grey hat? Because experimenting with any untested idea is basically to take a risk with the hope of gaining something positive from it. This is absolutely true especially in the field of SEO where a lot of principles are yet to be well-defined. Sure, it could boost your ranking and help grow your business. Or, it could go all wrong. All you can do is educate yourself as much as possible and do some cost-benefit analysis.

Is the prospect of a new idea worth the risk of lost conversion?

Final thoughts

SEOs will debate about best and worst practices forever. What we know is, we don’t know which factors are behind Google’s algorithm or how these factors are weighted. Plus, the rules are changing many times in a single year. This all sums up to a lot of room for speculation and disagreement.

What’s not unclear is that doing shady stuff gets you in the danger. When your organic traffic volume stagnant or drops, it is tempting to become reckless. That’s pretty much common as it is impacting ROI. But forget not that, there’s always something (or a bunch of things) that can be tweaked, improved, repaired, or removed. It’s just a matter of staying on top of it - means that you are fully in control of the situation and can react rationally if something changes.