White Hat SEO

What is White Hat SEO?

White hat SEO involves using practical, search engine-approved, and transparent practices that can help a website scale its ranking on SERPs. The practice extensively focuses on creating high-quality content pieces that align with search intent and optimizing the website for the best user experience.

Valuable and genuine content pieces help a website attract backlinks from renowned and trusted sources (which search engines consider a vote of confidence).

Some simple yet impactful ways to use white hat SEO to your advantage include:

• Publishing only the highest quality of content that establishes your expertise and authority in the industry.
• Make the website mobile responsive and implement user-friendly elements that enhance the website experience.
• Use keyword-rich meta tags crafted to yield meaning to crawlers and humans.
• Make your website easy to navigate with intuitive navigation and well-planned website structure.

It is the polar opposite of black hat SEO, which refers to strategies and practices that aim to fool search engine algorithms into believing that a website has value to offer while, in reality, the website has thin, keyword-stuffed content and improperly placed technical SEO parameters.

White hat SEO techniques are easy to implement and maintain. Plus, when search engines upgrade their algorithms, updating your website and ranking on SERP will become easier.

White Hat vs. Black Hat SEO: What’s the Difference?

Most business owners want their website to rank higher on SERP. However, considering how careful and strict search engines are when it comes to evaluating content and the value it provides to readers online,

Here are some key differences between white and black hat SEO:

• White hat SEO focuses on producing high-quality content that caters to human search intent. As a result, the content aligns with the search inquiry and gives the website visitors the exact information they seek. Black hat SEO techniques focus more on creating thin content pieces in bulk, have duplicate content from top-ranking websites, and dubious techniques like cloaking mislead the search engine crawler into believing the website has high-quality content and can cater to visitors’ needs.
• White hat SEO involves using well-labeled images on the website and adding alt text to make it easier for search engines to understand the context of the image. This is crucial as search engines cannot analyze images, and alt text helps them determine if the visual content is valuable for the reader. On the other hand, black hat SEO is concerned with keyword stuffing and using hidden text. The alt text is often stuffed with keywords, making it challenging for the crawler to understand clearly the intention of the visual content.
• White hat SEO is a framework that is carefully created by conducting thorough keyword research and competitor analysis. This ensures that all attempts to rank the website higher on SERP yield fruitful results. Black hat SEO, meanwhile, focuses on overusing a target keyword throughout the content strategy as well as in technical SEO in the hopes of gaining leverage from search engine crawls. It is also worth noting that black hat SEO techniques may also unnaturally use anchor keywords in an attempt to manipulate search engines. While black hat SEO techniques will initially drive monumental results, once search engines realize the notorious practices you are engaging in, your website can potentially get blacklisted or, in the worst cases, penalized.
• The content created using the white hat SEO framework usually complies with Webmaster guidelines that are issued by various search engines. As a result, these content pieces (and technical SEO practices) optimize the website to become more search engine friendly. Black hat SEO is more focused on confusing the search engine by engaging in practices like buying backlinks from link farms or getting link equity from sources that are backed with malicious links.

Black hat SEO exploits general search engine optimization practices and is extensively focused on creating content pieces meant to satisfy search engines rather than readers. Most search engine algorithms are designed to understand when a website is misleading and when it is not. Black hat SEO practices are heavily frowned upon by these algorithms, and it is crucial to avoid them.

Why Is White Hat SEO Important?

White hat SEO ensures your efforts are being directed in the right direction and that you are constantly taking actions that help your website grow. These techniques eliminate the chaos that often comes with creating content that has the potential to rank higher on search engines.

Here are all the reasons that make white hat SEO so important:

1. It gives your content marketing and SEO strategy more shape and depth, making it easier to achieve campaign goals.
2. It keeps your brand in the loop of changing customer demands by consistently evaluating current trends and how it can align itself to create content that matches the search intent and stands out.
3. These techniques ensure that your business creates customer-centric content, which increases brand resonance and preference. Your business becomes a dependable source of information, making it easier for your customers to trust and choose you over others when making a purchase.
4. The results obtained from white hat SEO are long-term, as content and website optimization are the core areas that are worked on. Search engines are designed to differentiate between websites, offering an impeccable user experience through website design and content creation. These strategies leave a lasting positive impact on brand perception for search engine algorithms, ensuring that your website consistently ranks high on SERPs.
5. Search engines are constantly updating their algorithms to make it easier for users to find the information they are looking for. White hat SEO techniques work closely with the guidelines and practices that these engines encourage. As a result, a business ends up creating content that is rich in information and value on an easy-to-navigate website. Since the technical aspects are taken care of during the process of white hat SEO implementation, it becomes a cakewalk for search engine crawlers and bots to understand what your business has to say accurately.

5 Essential White Hat SEO Techniques

There’s no doubt that white hat SEO is a game changer when you want to rank your website higher on SERP. Yet, finding your way around the techniques and methods can become challenging if you are unsure where to start. Here are the key white hat strategies and techniques that will help you win over search engines and rank higher on SERP:

Create Helpful, Reliable, People-First Content

Search engines like Google are always on the lookout for people-first, helpful, and correct information pieces. Due to this, it becomes crucial to create content that helps people and not merely ranks on search engines.

4 ways to evaluate current content pieces:

Here are some potential site-wide issues that should be identified and addressed promptly:

1. Presence of duplicate content:It is common for large websites to have duplicate content. These occurrences are usually accidental since most businesses end up using the same content asset to create a wide variety of pages. While it may seem harmless (and an easy way to do more in less time), search engines may find it confusing to determine which page holds more value over the others. This is especially true if snippets of content from the same source are evenly used on the website.Quick solution: Instead of creating new pages in haste using available content assets, focus on curating fresh pieces of content. It gives room to include more information and newer keywords.
2. Check for keyword cannibalization:Keyword cannibalization occurs when different pages on a website target the same set of keywords or phrases. While it may seem like your website is creating different content pieces for the same keyword, it becomes tough for search engines to understand the importance of individual pages. There’s always a chance that the incorrect page (the one you are not trying to rank) may end up ranking for the specific keyword.Quick solution: Conduct a thorough content audit to understand which keywords are targeting and their frequency. Revisiting your keyword strategy and conducting keyword research for broader terms can help.
3. Pages with low/dropping organic click-through rate:The organic growth click-through rate indicates the percentage of searches that click on search engine results. It is normal for these numbers to drop when the relevance of the target keyword drops. This happens when audience interest changes or other content pieces on the website attract more organic visitors.Quick solution: Update the existing content with relevant and trending information or keywords if it fits.
4. Take care of decaying content:Decaying content refers to content pieces that are lowering the organic traffic they are able to attract. It often happens when the content is getting outdated or has duplicate content issues. This can also occur with legacy content pieces.Quick solution: Consider reformatting such content pieces into multiple assets that can be posted as blogs, guest posts, infographics, and social media content. Adding fresh and relevant keywords can be helpful to attract traffic to the website.

4 ways to create people-first content pieces:

1. Spend time assessing your content:Analyzing your own content can be incredibly helpful in understanding if your content strategy is producing value-oriented, useful, and relevant content pieces. Assessing your content to determine how it is helpful can be the key to turning your business into a reliable source of information.Some questions you can consider asking yourself when assessing the content include:
   • How authentic is the information prescribed in the content piece(s)?
   • Is the content piece providing information that is beyond the oblivious?
   • Is the content piece merely a rewriting of content from the original source, or has it been enhanced with any additional value?
   • Does the content offer a considerable amount of information when compared to other content pieces showing up on SERP?
   • Are the headings providing a descriptive summary of the content? Or are the headings click baits and stuffed with keywords?
   • Is the content free from any factual errors?
2. Make the page experience unforgettable:Search engine’s core ranking systems value websites that can deliver a smooth and hassle-free page experience. A poorly designed and maintained website is often frowned upon by these engines as they make it challenging for their crawlers and bots to go through the website in an organized manner.Here are some factors that you must check on your website right away:
   • Are Core Web Vitals in place for all your web pages?
   • Is your website mobile-friendly?
   • Are there too many ads on your website, making navigating from one page to another challenging for your customers?
   • Is your website free from any Intrusive dialogs and interstitials?
   • Are there adequate distinctions between the spotlight content and other content pieces on the website?
   • Does your website have too many elements, making it difficult for your visitors to find what they are looking for?
   • Are there enough security features on your website?
3. Familiarize yourself with E-E-A-T and the quality rater guidelines:E-E-A-T is a highly recognized framework for writing content. Here’s what it stands for:Experience: Whatever your business does, it is crucial to show experience to win over your potential customers and algorithm.

   This can include:

   • Genuine insights
   • Factually backed opinions
   • Tried and tested advice

   Creating high-quality content and conducting surveys/polls can be the key to becoming a reliable reservoir of information for your customers. Sharing such content establishes resonance and understanding.

   Expertise:

   Show the knowledge, skills, and credentials that your business has when it comes to your target niche. It is crucial that you create content that aligns with the page’s topic and purpose.

   Authoritativeness:

   Once you establish yourself by sharing your experience and expertise, your content will likely be seen as a reliable source. Consequently, people will turn to you first when they need information or feel stuck.

   To show authority, consider investing time and effort into creating a backlinking strategy that helps acquire backlinks from websites that already have high regard in the eyes of search engines. These links act as a vote of confidence in your content pieces and, eventually, your business.

   Trustworthiness:

   When your business starts producing content that is backed with experience and expertise, it is guaranteed to win over your target audience and make them believe more in what your brand has to offer. Aside from delighting your potential customers with substantial value, it is crucial that you safeguard their browsing experience with adequate safety measures. It can include:

   • Ensuring your website is safe and secure.
   • The content pieces are well-researched and have data from credible sources.
   • Website visitors are able to find what they are looking for easily.
   • Your website has relevant and latest safety certifications and credentials.
   • If you have an e-commerce website, it is pivotal that it has SSL certificates, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) and adequate payment method setup. In times when cyber attacks like cross-site scripting (XSS) are often used to compromise the integrity of the website, regular maintenance and appropriate security measures will be the key to winning customer trust.
4. Be tactical with the content you are creating: Offering value, unique perspectives, and factual opinions when creating content is essential to ensuring your business stands out. It also communicates your commitment to serving your customers.Being strategic and carefully curating plans can be the secret sauce to creating content that helps while increasing the desirability of your brand.Avoid falling for trends and instead focus on creating sustainable, evergreen content pieces that showcase your brand’s authority and expertise in the industry.

Satisfying Search Intent

Search engines thrive on helping users find valuable, unique content pieces that clearly answer a query. By satisfying the search intent, your website can rank highly on SERPs. In fact, it is often seen that with every algorithm update that search engines like Google make, the emphasis on satisfying the search intent is heavily stressed.

To hit the sweet spot:

1. Understand the type of search intent you will cater to:

   Yes, there are different types of search intents, and uncovering them will enable you to create content that reaches and interacts with an already interested audience.

   • Informational: The potential customer is trying to learn about the topic/business.
   • Navigational: When the potential customer compares what you are offering with your competitors.
   • Transactional: When the potential customer has made up their mind and is looking to make a purchase.
   • Commercial: The final stage is when they are ready to make the purchase.

2. Research the keyword well:

   Understanding the search intent of individual keyword(s) is pivotal to creating content that aligns with search queries and ends up being seen by an already interested pool of potential customers.

3. Understand the gaps you can fill:

   Adding unique and substantial information to your content pieces will make search algorithms see it as worthy content that can help solve a search query. Analyze the web pages that rank on the first page of SERP, the aspects of the keywords being covered, and missing pieces that your expertise and experience can fill.

Provide A Good User Experience

A good website user experience is a highly regarded ranking factor used by search engines. It puts the website visitor at the center and aims to create a website structure that is easy to navigate and access.

Here are some effective ways to improve user experience:

• Carefully use white space to bring attention to the main pieces of information.
• Optimize your website’s loading speed to reduce bounce rates and prevent loss of interest.
• Use attractive and rewarding call-to-action buttons.
• Add visual cues to the links you use on your website to make it easier for your visitors to understand where to head next when looking for more information.
• Use bullet points when highlighting essential pieces of information.
• Add multimedia content wisely to break up bulky content pieces.
• Include headings that are self-explanatory and enticing.
• Audit the website regularly to check for errors (such as 3xx, 4xx and 5xx). Address them promptly.
• Optimize the website for mobile devices.

Pay Attention To On-Page Seo

On-page SEO focuses on optimizing the web pages and SEO factors to make browsing through the website effortless for search engines and visitors. Excellent management of on-page SEO signals will result in higher rankings on SERP.

Here are the key parameters that will make your on-page SEO efforts shine:

• Adding only high-quality content pieces to your website. Using different formats like listicles and infographics can be helpful in creating variety.
• Placing targeted keywords strategically across your website.
• Include keyword-rich title tags on all your web pages.
• Strategically including internal and external links to your content.
• Add and optimize multimedia content on your website with alt text.
• Use appropriate subheadings and headings to add more structure to your web pages.
• Create enticing meta descriptions that are enriched with target keywords.

Build High-Quality Links

Search engines highly regard backlinks as they signal search engines that your website is highly regarded in the eyes of websites that already have a solid authority and credible reputation. A strong backlinking strategy will boost organic search rankings, increase website traffic, and make your business more discoverable by your target audience.

Here are some key factors that you should consider when creating your backlinking strategy:

• Publishing original content backed by surveys and data will help you become a dependable and genuine source of information for reporters and bloggers.
• Find a well-performing piece of content. Proceeded to dissect it thoroughly to understand why it is ranking and how you can come up with content that can outperform.
• Find websites that have recently changed their brand name, moved to a new URL, or stopped updating a resource. Proceed to find places where they have backlinks for their content, and reach out to these websites with an offer to swap outdated links with fresh and relevant ones from your brand.
• Create more “Why” and “What” posts, infographics, and videos to acquire backlinks. Publishing ultimate guides can also help attract traffic to your website.

Strictly avoid these:

• Focusing more on quantity than quality.
• Including over-optimized anchors in your strategy.
• Relying on link exchanges or opting to get backlinks from link farms for quick results.
• Not paying attention to broken links.

The Bottomline

White hat SEO has the potential to empower your business website to become more discoverable, dependable and authoritative. As the practices involve creating high-quality content pieces, performing recommended on-page and off-page SEO practices, and evolving with updating algorithms, your website will remain a top preference for your customers.