Sharing Experiences with Others

Climbing a Mountain

Every business wants to be first to show up on a Google search. To reach that status takes time and money. No one likes to wait. We wait on phone calls on hold, stand in line at a concession stand, wait to be called for the next register and so on. We are impatient and want what we want now, today! There are ways to get there quicker and reap the rewards however; the penalties and negative publicity aren’t worth the risk.

There are many ways a company can go wrong with their SEO/SEM tactics. If they are doing the work in-house, leaders need to be aware of exactly what the employee is doing to enhance the site.

If a company decides to hire an outside company to conduct their SEO/SEM work, they must be in tune with how the company will provide their services. If the company isn’t transparent and if your business is involved in the process, many things could go wrong. Here are some examples:

• Keyword stuffing is when keywords are “stuffed” onto pages in an effort to be found quickly and easily by using words that have no value on your site.
• Cloaking will send unsuspecting visitors to a different URL page than they intended to go land on (Sevilla, 2019).
• Invisible text is another way companies try to circumvent the system. In this way, they use an unseen font that is not viewed by visitors but can be seen by the bots searching the sites (Perstneva, 2016).

In an example of another black hat tactic was used by Expedia. They used what was called a “spammy” technique. In this particular example, Expedia was paying other sites to link to Expedia. When someone clicked on that link, it took them to Expedia and Expedia gets credit for that visitor. This is not allowed because it inflates the rankings unfairly. They can have links set up on other sites however; it has to be categorized as a “no follow” link so that it doesn’t count in the metrics. Google found out that Expedia was participating in this process and took action against them. During the reduction in visibility to the Expedia site for one week, Expedia’s shares tumbled about 4% (Barr, 2014).

White Hat Tactics

Businesses need to stay professional. They can accomplish what they want in the long term if they are patient.

Ever heard the adage “slow and steady wins the race?” This is what SEO is all about. It takes time for the white hat, ethical, tactics to take root and grow.

Following the rules by setting up professional websites, including researched keywords but not stuffing them on the pages, having clean, clear and neat pages for visitors to follow along with relevant content will build the business.

Think about the baseball team that is filming the opposing teams play calls taking advantage to win. This is cheating and ultimately that is what black hat tactics are. In the end it will be found and the damage to the business can be hard to turn around along with the potential loss in revenue due to fines and missed customer opportunities.

Say Goodbye

Throw that black hat thought away and stay with the purest form of the white hat tactics. You and your business will reap the rewards of the organic gains of the SEO and SEM campaign and never be under the threat of Google. Follow the rules that are in place to help your company grow.

Everything is at your fingertips and right in front of you waiting to be transformed into relevant content. Your customers are waiting to be found.

References:

Barr, A., (2014). Expedia hit by big drop in Google search traffic. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/01/21/expedia-google-search-traffic/4719917/

Perstneva, L., (2016). The scariest SEO stories #semrushchat. SEMrush blog. https://www.semrush.com/blog/the-scariest-seo-stories-semrushchat/

Sevilla, G., (2019). The promises and pitfalls of black hat SEO practices. PC. https://www.pcmag.com/news/the-promises-and-pitfalls-of-black-hat-seo-practices