The search engines can seem flaky at times and it can get frustrating when you’re trying to rank but having trouble. It can be tempting to resort to black hat seo tactics. Rest assured, if you do things the right way, you’ll be much better off in the long run.
Tricking SE’s
Doing things like spamming and putting up invisible text might fool a search engine temporarily but won’t last for long. Soon, you’ll get banned and it won’t have an easy time getting off the black list. Instead, do your best to do your on page SEO and off page SEO consistently and honestly and you’ll eventually reap the results.
Tricking Visitors
Should you resort to trickery with your customers? Never! If you optimise for words that really are irrelevant on your site, they won’t stay; they’ll just click elsewhere. Just like the search engines will eventually figure you out, so will they. Bad press travels way faster than good press so it’s wise to be honest and up front and do business with integrity at all times. Become a trusted adviser to your customers and they’ll believe in you.
This might all seem really obvious but in a world where not everyone online is being up front and honest, it doesn’t hurt to have some affirmations on a regular basis about honesty and integrity. By being trustworthy and honest, people will buy what you sell and believe what you say and they’ll say nice things about you online which will will get you noticed and bring you more sales.
About Sean Rasmussen
Hi Sean,
I have no interest in any black hat SEO strategies. It’s just not my style. I’m very happy to learn to do SEO the right way.
I think black hat SEO sucks. It treats the visitor not like a welcome guest but like someone I don’t care about.
My goal is to be seen as an expert with good knowledge in my niche, not as a cheat.
Hi Sean
I like to play by the rules and always be in integrity. Every day I aim to make a positive difference and do the right thing.
People who want to cheat the system are never satisfied. They always want more of everything even if it means being ruthless and hurting others along the way.
I like to be honest.
There you go, bad mouthing black hats again.
Joking aside, there are still too many out there that seem not to be willing to learn and utilise ethical SEO. I think in the long run it is just as easy to utilize honest and ethical techniques instead of wasting time resorting to trickery which will likely eventually come back to bite you.
Tricking your customers will never, ever get you anywhere. Well, actually, it might get you somewhere once but when it comes back to bite it will bite hard. Like many, I do not like to be duped into buying or doing anything. It leaves the sour taste you want to get rid of quickly and you do that by telling people.
I guess the same will apply to SEO. Quite some time ago a techinical web type person was telling me about some keywords (one I have already made mention to on another blog) that were used to attract people to sites. They were words totally unrelated. When the world wide web was new, using certain words became a wide spread practice and the general public has probably cottoned on to it.
No doubt it probably still happens but their success will not be long term.
Black hat? When all else fails, try honesty?
Black hat and misleading statements etc are just the antithesis of the principles of what we are on about here with Sean.
The road of internet marketing is strewn with the victims of scams and false leads – so we don’t need to add to it or even want to. It’s a shame if people can’t run a business firmly grounded on a developed sense of integrity, paying it forward and just plain old honesty
Well then the world probably wouldn’t go round!
It will just come back and bite you on the backside – whether it be in a couple of days, weeks or months. My thoughts to your title was – don’t be stupid!
For the effort which you put in to create your site and content – why would you throw it all away at the last minute for a cheap gain?