What is White Hat SEO?
White Hat SEO refers to a set of website optimization methods that comply with search engines rules like Google and do not seek to circumvent the search engine. In white hat SEO, attempts are made to improve a website’s ranking in Google search engine by maintaining techniques defined by Google. This is the exact opposite of what happens in black hat SEO.
In general, SEO can be divided into white hat SEO, gray hat SEO, and black hat SEO in which white hat SEO is considered the safest optimization method and therefore keeps the website away from Google penalties and fines. The only challenge with white hat SEO is that it takes more time to achieve the desired results.
Of course, it is also important to note, white hat SEO, while time-consuming, provides better results to the audience, because while using its methods, you have followed Google’s rules and kept your website away from risk of being penalized. For example, when you are driving and want to reach your destination quickly, if you enter a street where entry is prohibited in order to reach your destination faster, Police will stop your car and issue a fine. In this case, you will never reach your destination. That is why you prefer to follow the traffic rules on the road so that you can eventually reach your destination.
The importance of white hat SEO
Using white hat SEO can bring many benefits to websites. The most important advantage of using this method is that, Google will not penalize it. The existence of rules keeps search engines from becoming chaotic, because without these rules, websites would use any method, especially older methods to achieve top Google rankings and causing a lot of chaos on the Internet.
As a result, users have to view many unrelated websites to finally find the right one with useful and practical content. White hat SEO is important because it benefits all users. Google uses its algorithms to rank only great content and get users to their goal in the shortest possible time. This way, users can easily find what they are looking for through organic search. White hat SEO also benefits website administrators because they can improve their rankings without using illegal means. Another benefit of using White Hat SEO techniques is achieving a good ranking and a suitable position in Google’s search list on a sustainable basis.
White Hat vs Black Hat SEO
As it is mentioned earlier, white hat SEO is the opposite of black hat SEO. Below you will learn the most important differences between these two methods:
Right time to get result
Typically, black hat SEO is used by people who are looking to achieve top Google rankings in short time, and for this reason, they use methods that are against Google’s rules. But in white hat SEO, webmasters take slow, steady steps to achieve top Google rankings. With white hat SEO, it takes between 6 months and 1 year to reach top rankings in Google. In general, people with long-term goals use white hat SEO methods, and people who are looking for short-term goals use black hat methods.
Link Building
One of the methods used in SEO is external link building. Using this method, websites can achieve good rankings, but there are also risks from Google. Websites that use black hat SEO buy links from related or unrelated sites. In white hat SEO techniques, website relies only on natural links and will not seek to buy links from other websites. Natural links will be obtained by creating useful and practical content.
Focus on Google algorithms
In black hat SEO, Google algorithms are more important than the audience. In this method, the actions taken are not aimed to satisfy the human audience, and the main focus is only on algorithms mechanism. This is the opposite in white hat SEO, where audience satisfaction is more important.
White Hat SEO vs Gray Hat SEO
Gray hat SEO can be considered something between white hat SEO and black hat SEO. The techniques used in this method are neither black nor white, but a combination of the two, that is why they are called gray. Below, you will learn about some of the most important differences between black hat, white hat, and gray hat SEO.
Link building
Gray hat SEO also uses some methods to get links from related websites. Of course, link building in this method is not like black hat SEO and will pose fewer risks to the website. Unlike gray hat SEO, in white hat SEO, link building is done completely naturally and only gaining audience satisfaction.
Risk of website being penalized
Although, gray hat SEO is not the same as black hat SEO and only uses some of its methods, but it will still pose risks to the website because it bypasses Google. However, in white hat SEO, there is no particular risk from Google to website.
Coding
Gray hat SEO uses certain coding methods to satisfy Google’s algorithms, while white hat SEO only uses standard coding methods.
White Hat SEO Methods and Techniques
Creating valuable and high-quality content
The most important factor in white hat SEO is creating high quality content. When there is content that is relevant to users on a website, users will be satisfied. Google also notices user satisfaction and improves the website’s ranking in its search listings. To have good content, you first need to find good keywords. Then, based on the keywords, write unique, non-copyrighted content and used appropriate images for the content when publishing. Keywords researching and user intent will lead to create useful content and increasing audience satisfaction because in this way you can understand what users are looking for, then create and publish content related to their needs.
Content Optimization
Content optimization is one of the methods that helps a lot in improving a website ranking .To optimize content, you can work on titles, images, text structure, etc. For example, you should try to write attractive titles for your content to encourage the visitors to read whole content. Another thing that helps optimize content is keyword density.
Underuse or overuse of a keyword can cause problems for content SEO. In black hat SEO, keywords are used in an unusual way. Webmasters use this way to bypass Google crawlers, While in white hat SEO there is no excessive keywords use (keyword stuffing) and these words are used as much and naturally as possible in the text, meta tags, and content headings. Excessive use of keywords affects user experience and makes the audience tired of reading the content. Google has various guidelines for providing useful and functional content. In optimizing content, it is necessary to use small and compressed images so that the page loading speed does not decrease.
Updating old website contents
Another white hat SEO technique is updating old content. Old content may be scientifically or non-scientifically invalidated or completely violated. Therefore, it is necessary to review it after a while and update the content if necessary. It should be noted that if the content concept has not changed but you need to update it to improve SEO, you can add one or more new images, such as infographics, or use multimedia content.
Multimedia Content Creation
One of the best ways to improve SEO is to produce multimedia content and publish it on your website. By using video and audio content, you can gain the search engines trust and achieve a good position in the search results. Using multimedia content also attracts user’s attention and improves their user experience. In this regard, the better user experience, the more special Google look at your website.
Technical Website Optimization
Paying attention to important points while designing and coding a website can please Google’s algorithms. Websites with optimized structure and code will keep Google’s crawlers happy and provide a good user experience for users. For technical optimization of a website, improve the factors such as loading speed, correct page rendering, use of sitemaps, canonical tags, og meta tags, robots.txt files, etc.
Website optimization for all devices
Being responsive means; a website displays well on all devices, including laptops, tablets, mobile phones, etc. If a website is optimized for all devices, user can view images and texts well on any devices they access to the website and have no problems working with the website. Since many people today use mobile phones to browse the web, Google also pays close attention to mobile version of websites and will not give a good ranking to a website if it is not optimized. It is even possible that Google will penalize your website if it is not mobile friendly and give it a negative rating. As a result, no matter how many different white hat SEO methods you use, you still will not achieve good rankings.
URLs Optimization
Google’s search engine pays special attention to the page address. As a result, it is necessary for this address to be short, readable, and relevant or contain the content keyword.
Link Building
Link building involves linking to internal pages and relevant external resources, both of which are considered white hat SEO techniques. To build internal links, you need to link different parts of your content to related pages and products on your website. For external linking, you also need to link to other websites that are similar to your content topic.
Overall, it is a good idea to get into the habit of doing this and regularly update your content links because this technique is one of the most effective white hat SEO techniques. If link building is done systematically, the content will be considered valuable and dynamic. One way to build a principled link is to choose relevant and appropriate anchor text.
The anchor text you choose should have a conceptual connection to the target page in order to have an impact on SEO. There is a concept in link building called broken links. This means when a user clicks on a page and then encounters a 404 page instead of the page content. These links can waste crawl budget and affect website’s SEO. As a result, all broken links on the website must be identified and removed. Internal links to redirected pages can also result in wasted crawl budget, just like broken links, but the difference here is that the redirecting internal links must be redirected to new address.
Registering your business on Google Maps
Google has an algorithm called Pigeon that ranks businesses based on their local location in search results. For example, when you search for “Toronto pharmacies,” only pharmacies located in the city of Toronto will appear in the results. In addition, if your GPS is on and you are in Toronto, if you search for just the term “pharmacy”, Toronto pharmacies will still be listed in the search results. As a result, to use this Google feature, you need to use the Google Map service and register your business address on Google Maps.
Use a valid content management system (CMS)
Valid content management systems (CMS) like WordPress are evaluated daily by experts, which greatly helps to increase security and SEO. For this reason, using a valid content management system that has proper coding and sufficient security will have a significant impact on the website’s SEO. Also, content management systems like WordPress have many plugins to help people follow white hat SEO, which allows even website owners who do not have sufficient knowledge in SEO field to be somewhat on the right path.
Website Loading Speed
Nowadays, users only wait a few seconds for your website to load. If website loading speed is slow, many users will leave the website, and this will greatly affect the website’s SEO. So, it is necessary to increase the loading speed of your website as much as possible. You can use the popular GTmetrix tool to analyze website speed and use its tips to increase your website speed.
Using schemas or data structures
Typically, websites that rank high in Google use structured data. Structured data changes the way a website page is displayed in Google’s SERP, so that it can be used to provide users with more and more specialized information about the website, making the links more prominent and bringing more clicks to the website. On the other hand, this method also helps Google understand your page better, and it will help to improve the website’s SEO.
Conclution
Optimizing websites to rank in search engines is done using various methods. White hat SEO, because it is ethical and legal, promotes your website well and shows good results in long term. This has many techniques, each of them can greatly improve a website’s ranking in Google’s search listings.
