SEO avails businesses to their target audience and increases the potential of making sales. But if not well conducted, it can break your business.
To succeed, you should apply white hat SEO techniques, which entails creating content that benefits the audience. That`s how you can easily convince them to make purchases. However, this takes hard work, and it`s time-consuming.
That`s why people go for unethical alternatives that enable websites to rank quickly, which are black hat SEO techniques. These are SEO practices that trick search engines into making content rank even when it provides no value to readers.
This involves
- Creating thin content
- Cloaking content
- Stuffing keywords
- Using link farms
- Using sneaky redirects
Instead of increasing traffic, such practices make content disgust readers and increase bounce rates. It also makes search engines lower websites` rankings or remove them from the indexes completely.
To build a successful online business, you should avoid these practices, and that`s only if you understand what they are.
This article covers the black hat SEO techniques and how to avoid them.
Stuffing Keywords
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This refers to filling content with many keywords to rank on related search queries.
According to Google, keyword stuffing is described as:
- Listing phone numbers unreasonably
- Including bulky texts of cities and states that you are trying to rank for
- Repeating words and phrases many times that sound awful and unnatural
An example of keyword stuffing is:
SEO writing is helpful to online businesses. You need to apply SEO to your business because SEO will display your business to your potential clients.
We are the best SEO Company; if you need SEO services, look no further. We have the SEO expertise to help you get organic SEO results.
This example is created to rank for the keyword SEO. That`s why it is repeated many times, making it sound unnatural, which annoys readers and makes them avoid your content.
Apart from giving your readers a bad user experience, keyword stuffing makes search engines lower your content rank, which reduces visitors to your website.
Incorporating keywords in your content enables search engines to align your content with the relevant searches. However, they should flow logically with the context of the content.
Using the main keyword once every two hundred words is enough, but If you add more, be sure they are logically aligned with your content`s context.
A perfect example would be:
SEO writing is helpful to online businesses. It helps businesses to be displayed to potential clients. However, without the appropriate skills, it won`t profit you.
That`s why we are here—to help you increase quality traffic that converts.
We are an SEO Company with the expertise to help you rank your website.
That sounds natural because it uses keywords appropriately, which enables the audience and search engines to understand it.
Cloaking Content
This is the practice of displaying one piece of content to the search engines and showing different content to the human user.
Examples of content cloaking are:
- Presenting HTML text page to the search engine while displaying images to people
- Putting a block of keyword texts and making them the same color as the page
Cloaking makes websites rank for irrelevant keywords and mislead users to follow pages in which they can`t get the information they want.
When people don`t get what they want, they will ignore your site, and its rank will drop. This also causes sites to be unindexed because they deliver a bad user experience.
Instead of cloaking, create and follow the accepted SEO practices.
That`s how you can build a trustworthy business and draw traffic.
Using Sneaky Redirects
People use this tactic to send users to different resources from the one they clicked.
Sneak redirects are mostly used in highly authoritative sites to redirect users to irrelevant websites to drive traffic.
An example is sending an SEO audience to a sports news website.
Sports news provides no value to an SEO audience; therefore, it reduces visitors` trust and, as a result, you`ll lose traffic.
Redirect your audience only to relevant sites where they will get valuable information on the targeted topic.
This enables building authority in your niche, making people rely on you for information, which increases traffic and raises the website`s rank.
Creating Poor-Quality Content
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Also called thin content, poor-quality content doesn`t answer the readers` queries, and if it does, it gives a shallow answer. That proves the writer lacks expertise in the relevant topic, which lowers readers' trust in such sites.
Effective content answers the targeted topic clearly and in-depth. Your content should not let the audience want to go somewhere else for more information.
If, for instance, you write content about how to be a blogger, you should cover what qualifications one needs for such a career, and that includes
- Knowing language grammar
- Choosing a niche
- Knowing how to develop websites
- Learning how to write online articles
- Learning how to market content on social media
If instead of that, you talk about who a blogger is or the history of blogging, you will be out of topic and people will ignore your content.
Ensure to answer your readers` intent.
Content that is copied from other sites is also regarded as poor content. Copying other people`s content is called plagiarism. This practice is illegal and can make you be sued and your content be removed from search engine indexes.
Another poor content creation practice is using clickbait words.
It involves using exaggerated words to persuade people to click on content that might not deliver what the title promises.
An example is creating content on the title:
“Mind Blowing Content Writing Tactics to Skyrocket Your Online Business in 6 Hours”
When you create such a title, ensure that the content delivers that promise, otherwise, people will be disgusted with your content and bounce.
Creating original content increases websites` reliability and enhances search engines crawling and indexing. It`s the only way to build a lasting business that will give you profits for years.
Using Paid BackLinks
Backlinks increase websites` awareness and signal search engines that you are creating valuable content. It also enables search engines to understand the relevant queries for which to rank your site.
However, to benefit from this practice, use ethical practices to acquire backlinks. Paying for them can result in getting linked to irrelevant sites that aren`t helpful to your audience.
If you get linked to a poetry website, for instance, that audience will expect to see poetry content when they click the links. When they get directed to a fashion site instead, they will bounce, and your website`s authority and trustworthiness will reduce.
If you are discovered or reported and confirmed that you buy or sell backlinks, your website will be removed from the search engines or its rank will be lowered.
To be safe, use the moral methods of acquiring backlinks, which include:
- Creating Guest posts
- Earning natural backlinks by creating valuable content
- Reaching out to relevant websites
In case you acquired irrelevant backlinks, use Google`s Disavow Links tool to signal search engines to ignore them when crawling your sites.
Manipulating Structured Data
Using structured data involves categorizing the sections of your website so search engines can understand the context for which to rank your content.
That helps search engines display targeted content that answers a specific search query.
You can apply structured data to web pages that involve specific product reviews, recipes, lists, guides, podcasts, etc.
In black hat SEO, data structure markups are filled with misleading information. For example, someone may review themselves as the best SEO providers to appear unique in the search results when they are not.
Search engines like Google encourage users to report such sites, and whenever you are confirmed to apply this tactic, you will be penalized.
Only provide original and truthful information that helps your audience to solve their problems and you`ll increase the chances to make sales.
According to Google`s structured data guidelines, you should
- Ensure to provide relevant up-to-date information that`s helpful to users
- Use images relevant to your content
- Let your data be targeted to your focus topic. Don`t provide different structured data from your content
Applying Comment Spamming
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This involves adding links in blog comment sections to direct readers to different sites. If links are irrelevant to the blog topic, readers will be misled, giving a bad user experience.
Comment spamming destroys websites` trustworthiness and makes readers avoid them.
It can also lead to search engines completely removing websites from the indexes.
To block people and bots from spamming your web pages, use tools like the free anti-spam tools:
To use these tools, you need to create an account and integrate your website.
Anybody who wants to comment will be required to key in characters to prove they are not robots. Moreover, the tools detect and block any spammy activity such as putting irrelevant links.
Utilizing Link Farms
This refers to creating websites solely for directing backlinks to one another to increase their rank.
Such websites often have weak content and can be detected by the number of links pointing to the website intended to be ranked.
If search engines recognize that you use link farms, you will deranked or removed from the indexes.
You should acquire links from high-quality sites relevant to yours. Not only will you increase awareness and build authority and trust doing so, but your website rank will rise as well.
Link farms don`t get much traffic and will not help you get any conversions.
Using Private Blog Networks
This implies having many websites linking to one site. Such sites usually have too many links pointing to the website intended to rank. Sometimes irrelevant websites are used so long as they help raise the intended site`s rank.
This is a black hat SEO technique that search engines can easily detect.
Instead of using private blog networks, dedicate yourself to creating and attracting people who have the potential to buy your goods or services.
Avoiding Black Hat SEO Techniques Increases Sites` Authority and Sales
The purpose of SEO is to attract targeted clients that can convert. It`s not just so you can rank high.
Black hat SEO techniques reduce your readers` trust and lower your site rank, which results in business failure.
To succeed, avoid dirty shortcuts, and apply white hat SEO methods, which appeal to both humans and search engines.
Don`t forget to share this content and let others learn how to avoid the black hat SEO method and build successful businesses.
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