Relevant White Hat SEO Techniques

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Do you remember the days when all you had to do was stuff your website content with relevant keywords in order to get a high rank on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)? Well, they no longer work because of Google penalties.

It is becoming increasingly harder to fool search engines. You are better off following the rules set if you want to increase your visibility online. That is why becoming familiar with white hat SEO techniques, which are permissible, is important. Your site’s survival may depend on it.

What are the relevant white hat SEO techniques today? How can you keep your site moving in the right direction without being affected by penalties?

Proper Keyword Usage

While stuffing your content with unnecessary keywords is no longer a good thing, it is still very important for you to use keywords. However, the emphasis now is on proper keyword research and usage.

Proper keyword research involves the use of keyword research tools to identify the best keywords and phrases related to your niche that you should use. These will make it easier for your target audience to find your site. Both short-tail and long-tail keywords are necessary.

Once you have identified the important keywords and phrases, you need to incorporate them properly on your site and offsite as well. Your webpage titles, headers, Meta description, URLs, and main content should all contain the selected keywords. The important thing here is to ensure that you incorporate the keywords in a way that makes sense. Otherwise, keyword stuffing could do more harm than good.

Natural and Relevant Linking

How you incorporate links to and from your site matters a lot. Search engines want to see good links. These links should go back to additional relevant content. The links should also be generated as naturally as possible. Linking to multiple sites that do nothing for the user is a big no-no that can even lower your rankings significantly.

You need to ensure that the links to your site are from reputable authority sites, so you should consider removing those that do not fit the bill. Also, take time to share your content on social media. When more people link to your site's pages simply because they appreciate the information that it offers, search engines will raise your rankings.

Inbound links, which are links between the pages within your own site, are also important. They should be made between webpages with related and relevant information. They help create a natural progression of information that the Internet users may want to see.

Content is King

No matter how good your keyword research and linking strategies are, if your content is irrelevant to your target audience, forget about good rankings.

Content is king, there is no doubt about that. The content that you create should therefore be valuable, unique, informative, and entertaining. That will keep visitors to your site coming back.

Always use images and videos as much as possible. They are more popular with both search engines and Internet users. Their popularity lies in the fact that human beings are visual creatures by nature. Your site is therefore more likely to rank higher on SERPs if you use images and videos.

Do make sure that you use the right Meta tags to describe video-based, image-based, or text-based content.

Site Usability

Create a site map to allow for easy navigation by both the users and search engines. Your site architecture should also be user-friendly to your visitors while still being optimized for search engines.

 

By using the relevant white hat techniques to optimize your site, you will be able to provide value to a wider number of Internet users while remaining visible to search engines.

 

Posted 15 May, 2015

Ellie

Content Marketing Writer

I have been a freelance writer since 2011 and writing is my passion. I take pride in creating informative yet clear content that readers will appreciate and learn from. My work always speaks for itself. I have written SEO and general content articles by the hundreds. Some of the articles that I have written about revolve around topics such as budgeting, saving, investments, freelancing, SEO, aff...

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