SEO FAQs – Black Hat vs White Hat

SEO – or Search Engine Optimisation – aims to promote websites in specific ways so that they appear high up in the results on search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Is It Cheating?

Not if you do it properly. There are various ways that you can influence SEO – some of which are more legitimate than others – so different approaches are commonly referred to as either ‘black hat’ or ‘white hat’ techniques.

Black Hat SEO

You could try to trick search engines into thinking your site is more authoritative than it really is, so that you rise up the ranks quickly. This is called black hat SEO because it is frowned up by search engines and when discovered your site could come under a penalty that sends it plummeting down the listings. Black hat SEO sometimes appears to offer a quick win, but in the long run it does not pay.

White Hat SEO

What search engines really want is for the most relevant and best quality sites to appear at the top of the list for any search terms. So another way of getting onto page one is simply to make sure that your site fits that bill. White hat SEO aims to make sure that your website is fresh and relevant to your customers so that Google, Bing and Yahoo can see the value of what you offer and prioritise you accordingly.

White hat SEO can take a little longer to build, but once the foundations are in place you can expect to sustain your rankings and achieve a much better conversion rate from page views into paying customers.

Here at Brighter Media we provide a full range of web design services and are experts in meeting the changing requirements of the biggest search engines in the world. We focus primarily on local businesses and deliver SEO in Watford, Hertfordshire and the surrounding areas.

To find out more about how we could help your business to tap into the incredible potential of the digital age, take a look around our website and contact us today.