In SEO and SEM lingo, white hats are SEO companies that use legal, ethical practices to help their clients move up the search engine ladder of rankings. The major search engines, especially Google, have implemented a variety of new tools to help them find and punish web sites that are not obeying the rules. This is a good thing, and anyone who has ever landed on a spam page that is nothing but one keyword followed by another, or read page content that made no sense whatsoever, or been forcibly redirected to who-knows-where will know that this is a good thing too.

While there may be some online businesses who complain about Google’s Hummingbird or Panda algorithms, most online businesses understand why these tools had to be put into place. They make the Internet a better place for all who use it. And this is where working with white hat SEO companies comes into play.

White Hat SEO: What is It?

SEO companies that use white hat techniques are those that are meeting the current standards for ethical online advertising and marketing. These techniques will help online companies move up in search engine rankings, help more people find the company, and share accurate information with those who visit a website. All good things.

Black hat SEO, on the other hand, is akin to cheating and lying. Some of the nasty tactics used include keyword stuffing content and pages, spamming, and many other less than honorable tactics. The good news is search engines are now able to spot these frauds and can take fast action to shut them down.

White Hat Tactics That Work

An SEO company that uses white hat tactics will turn to prove methods that help websites. This might include providing high-quality written content, using quality media sources, providing valid meta details, researching and using the most appropriate keywords, setting up the site architecture, and keeping the site updated with fresh, relevant material.

White hat companies understand that giving your visitors (and customers) value when they arrive at your site is not only good for your bottom line but also good for getting positive results from the search engines. It is unfortunate that many online business still have not yet grasped this crucial aspect to online marketing.

White hat companies understand that effective SEO is a process; it not a one-time deal where one or two SEO elements will bring about overnight success. Building a successful online presence is much like building a brick-and-mortar store. You have to lay each brick carefully, knowing that each successive brick will have a firm foundation to rest on. This is how a site becomes a powerful presence: one brick at a time.

Black hats will tell you otherwise; they will make promises that no one can keep, and they will get your business into trouble with the search engines if you fall for their false (and SEO-illegal) tactics.

Don’t destroy your business with these dangerous misfits; grow it, instead, with ethical and honest SEO provided by the white hats!