What are white hat search engine optimisation techniques?

Top Position’s digital marketing and search engine optimisation service advocates the use of white hat SEO. We never stray into black hat territory and advise anyone carrying out SEO work to stick to a similar ethical approach to improving web site rankings. Even if your SEO is currently outsourced or you’re considering commissioning and agency to work on your web site, it pays to have a basic understanding of white hat SEO techniques so that you can stay involved.

1.      1.  Unique content

Your web site must have lots of unique content in order to rank well. To be ranked for relevant terms, it should be keyword rich, of interest and use to the end user and updated regularly. White hat content is written for the human visitor not the search engine spider so careful thought should be given to keyword use and placement.

Techniques such as keyword stuffing, hiding keywords on the page and excessive use of short and long tail keywords are black hay methods and should be avoided at all costs.

2.       2. Linking

There are two types of links; internal links on your site and external links from other sites back to your site. Both of these types of links play an important role in SEO but are open to abuse. Unethical optimisation tactics will include paid links and overuse of internal linking. Although effective link building is time consuming, it is much more beneficial in the long run. Good quality links will be ones not from sites that are relevant to your end user and talk about similar topics. This approach is better not just in view of your overall web rankings but will also ensure that traffic arriving at your site is qualified and interested in your particular service offering.

3.       3. Unique, Relevant Titles

As an SEO agency, we’ll often provide site audits and written web site reports for clients and potential clients. As part of this, we’ll always look at the title tags and meta tags on each page of the site. More often than not, the title tag will be stuffed with keywords or, will repeat the phrases the web site owner wants to appear on the search engine results for over and over again, regardless of the actual content of the page.

We will also frequently see meta tags been stuffed full of keywords and veering towards a black hat approach. Just like the title tag, the meta tags should be unique and relevant to the content of that particular page. Including as many keywords as possible and repeating main keywords in each section just for the sake of it is a well-known black hat technique and should be avoided.