As keywords are so fundamental to search engine optimisation there are many online businesses that invest heavily in finding keywords that will support their marketing efforts. However once these keywords have been identified often they are used in the wrong way. Rather than using them in a way that is appropriate for the content they are publishing on the site they cram keywords into every line and paragraph.

A Black Hat Method – Keyword Stuffing

This is not an uncommon practice and many create blog posts, articles and press releases that are stuffed with keywords. For many, this is done out of ignorance rather than unethical thinking but it will not help an online business succeed.

This approach is known as keyword stuffing and is deemed as an unethical approach to search engine optimisation. Reputable online businesses are aware of the damage it can do both in relation to search engines and their target audience so avoid it. This black hat SEO method is a form of manipulation and is used by some in an attempt to deceive search engines into giving a site a better ranking. Often these sites are of a poor quality. Search engines will penalise sites that use this practice as they have a responsibility to the searchers to ensure that they provide high quality results. Those that try to get an unfair advantage this way risk being blacklisted.

What are the Consequences?

The consequences of keyword stuffing are significant. Search engines are equipped to locate those sites that use keyword stuffing and can dish out penalties. Your rankings could become affected and some sites have been banned from the search results.

In addition to this, you will alienate your target audience as the quality of content produced when using this technique is inadequate. Readers will struggle to understand the message you wish to communicate and the information within the content will be unreadable and ineffective.

Online businesses must build trust and respect in order to succeed in the online market. Keyword stuffing will damage your online reputation as this behaviour is seen as unethical by both readers and search engines. You also need to build high quality links to have effective SEO but this is impossible as other site owners will not want to be linked with you.

If you have used keyword stuffing inadvertently then it’s time to get it right. At searchengineoptimisation.com, we are a search engine optimisation company offering expert strategies for keyword development.

Modern, reputable and professional SEO services only advise on ethical ‘white hat’ methods of optimising sites, but it’s still possible to find short-sighted individuals who’ll advocate the opposite.

These days the search engines play a big part in our user experience by endeavouring to make the Internet useful and safe. They have developed ways of reacting to unethical practices, and protocols to deal with offenders. Anyone ruining the search experience for users can expect swift retribution, as Google and others seek to improve their service to customers in a competitive and growing market.

It’s sensible to wonder why anyone would still opt for unethical, or ‘black hat’ methods of SEO.

It tends to be publishers who aren’t willing to put the time and effort into bringing users to their pages legitimately. Creating a site that’s relevant and user-friendly is the basis of good SEO, but for those publishers unwilling to put some effort into that, there have been alternatives.

Unethical practises in SEO are not always as obvious as you might think. Modern, reputable and professional SEO services only advise on ethical ‘white hat’ methods of optimising sites, but it’s still possible to find short-sighted individuals who’ll advocate the opposite. It pays to know what some black hat practises are so that you know what to avoid. After all, if you’re unlucky enough to come across an unscrupulous SEO agency, you’ll need to recognise them for what they are before your reputation’s in tatters.

Keep our five tips in mind on what black hat practises to avoid.

1. Redirects and cookies. Directing a user away from his or her intended destination is underhand and disrespectful. Beware of any SEO methods that involve any form of this kind of practise. Similarly, advertising using cookies can be damaging to user’s computers and is an extremely serious infringement of modern accepted rules and guidelines.

2. Don’t go overboard with keywords. While the importance of keywords for optimisation cannot be understated, they can be overused. Featuring keywords at such a volume that it detracts from content is a black hat optimisation method. Overfilling pages with keywords used to be common, and they weren’t always keywords that reflected the content of a site. These days having too many keywords on pages will set alarm bells ringing for the search engines, and sites featuring an unreasonable amount can expect to be penalised. Remember that through being over enthusiastic when it comes to keywords you could push your site away from results pages, rather than getting it listed near the top.

3. Disguising text. It used to be fairly easy to disguise text on web pages. Simply make it the same colour as background and it could send signals about your site to search engines without being visible to human visitors to your site. In terms of search engine optimization tools, this is a very bad idea. Not only can text be made visible to users through the click of a mouse button, but search engines are wise to the practise. And if a publisher’s thinking of disguising keywords on a page, we’ve already told you that having too many can now be a bad thing.

4. Avoid cloaking. Cloaking involves the presentation of one set of pages to software sent by search engines, and another to users. In a similar way to redirects, this allows sites to be listed for what they are not and thus brings unwitting visitors. This practise should be avoided like the plague.

5. Stealing content. In a very general way there are a whole host of black hat methods that might seem harmless at first. While it may be easy to recognise the more obvious unethical methods, some can seem appealing to the overstretched publisher. Beware of ‘borrowing’ any form of content without permission, or of featuring any substandard items.

In conclusion, where SEO is concerned, it’s always the good guy that wins these days. Professional SEO services will inform you that penalties simply make black hat methods untenable for long-term gains. Market well, design well and employ a good SEO agency in order to prosper.

Thankfully, search engines are extremely powerful these days, and with good reason they have set out to reward those who practise white hat methods and punish those who employ black hat ways of getting undeservedly high ranking on their results pages.

The finer points of how they determine which sites are using black hat methods may be under wraps, but it’s no secret that most unethical methods are easily recognisable to search engines and human users alike.

As a publisher with a reputation to maintain and a site to promote, you’d probably do well to consult professional SEO services that’ll advise on what white hat methods can be used to enhance your site. If you’ve employed reputable and professional SEO services, they ought to give advice on any areas in which you might be going wrong, too, and to discourage any unethical means of bringing traffic to your pages that you might be using without realising the seriousness of what you’re doing.

To think of your site yourself, how do you go about wearing the white hat? It’s really not that difficult, and we’ve provided a few points to help guide you.

Recognise White Hat Methods

How can you set white hat methods apart from black hat ones? Think about the results pages you’re trying to get listed on. Maintaining the integrity of these listings should be a priority if you want to be an ethical contributor on the Internet. While it may seem like the processes by which sites are ranked highly are not always your friend, it’s very unwise to start a war against them. Ultimately, it’s only through sound marketing and good quality service that you’ll get the ranking you deserve. Search engines have ways of knowing how deserving you are, and if you try to get listed using unethical means, you’ll be penalised. Recognise white hat methods as those that stem from a motivation to maintain the integrity of search results and get listed through hard work and relevance of content.

Use the White Hat Methods You Know about

If you’ve decided to contribute ethically to the web, start by optimising your site yourself with some white hat techniques you already know about. A good way to start would be to look at the way you link internally. Make sure links back to your home page are plentiful, and get a site map if you haven’t already. Check official advice from search engines like Google about ways to improve your ranking, and ultimately consult experts at an SEO agency.

Get a Good Content Management System

A content management system makes it much easier to wear the white hat for optimisation. Using the right search engine optimisation CMS will help you to organise the flow of content on your site. When things are ordered there is far less temptation or opportunity to stray from the path. SEO content management systems offer you, the publisher, with tremendous scope for improvement when it comes to introducing fresh new material and generally getting ahead through sound strategies. A good SEO agency can give advice about the best SEO CMS for you.

Remember That Good Marketing Is Good SEO

If SEO confuses you, don’t worry. If you employ good marketing strategies and you make your site user friendly, it’s very likely that you’re already on the way to having a well-optimised site.

By using only ethical means to improve your ranking, you’ll be doing your bit to make the Internet a more useful tool for everyone. Gone are the 1990s, when spammers were able to get away with a lot of bad practise. These days, search engines like Google need to keep results pages accurate and relevant for users. It’s worth remembering that users have a choice of search engines, and can easily go elsewhere if they feel the results they’re being given aren’t up to scratch.

The bottom line when it comes to wearing the white hat for search engine optimisation is to have respect. Respect the search engines that have the authority to choose who gets onto results and respect the process by which they determine your page ranking.

Find the Right Tools

Part of the process when you are building a website and creating your marketing is to find the right SEO tools to use. You can find tools to use online that can help you and, when you are going to start using SEO, you need to understand how to use it so it can be beneficial to your website. If you have yet to create a lot of content on your website, you will find that using SEO write the content for you will allow you to create links for it and submit it online.

Use SEO and Keywords

When you are starting to create the articles and content that are going to be on the website, you need to first select a set of keywords to use. These keywords are important because they will help you to become indexed in the search engines and you can use them to create links for people to see your website. When you are selecting keywords to use, you need to find the best ones searched for online and that are related to your business. If you do not choose the right keywords, you will find it difficult to become indexed in the search engines. You also need to learn how to use the keywords correctly.

Some people use keywords too often in the content or they try certain strategies that are considered unethical and can result in a website being banned from the result pages. If you want to make sure you are using them correctly, you need to learn more about SEO tools and find out how to use them ethically in your website. You do not want to simply stuff the keywords anywhere on your website and you want to make sure you are using them in the links that you create.

Market with SEO

Marketing the website is a lot easier to do when you are using SEO. It is much easier to create links and to find the best places to post your links when you have good content to use. Your content should contain keywords that you can use when you are marketing. There are a lot of ways that SEO can help your marketing and, unlike other types of online marketing, it is not a pay-per-click service. This means you can find ways to market your website that are free or very affordable.

Use SEO in the Links

As with all the other types of ways you can use SEO tools, they can also help you create the links that you need. You can use the keywords and articles on the website to create good links online. You can find the best places to post these links and be able to have more people see them. Once you have created the links you also need to make sure you have the right SEO tools to track them.

Track How Your Website is Doing Online

It is important to track the website and all of the links, because when you use SEO tools to track your links online, you are able to see which ones are working the best for you and which ones you may need to change. It can also help you see what keywords are working effectively for your website and you can then use that information to help improve your content and your posted links. There are a number of free tools available online that can help you track the links.