White Hat: what is it and how to use this strategy?

When discussing Digital Marketing, the conversation will undoubtedly mention the acronym SEO eventually. At its core, SEO is simply the best method to optimize a site for search engines such as Google.

More precisely, it covers a set of strategies and techniques for search engines to determine the best position of results for each search made.

There are practices considered good and bad within the SEO universe, commonly referred to as White Hat and Black Hat.

The difference between them lies in how Google tolerates specific practices outlined in its terms and conditions. 

If an SEO technique is regarded poorly by Google, it will likely be subject to severe punishment.

It’s worth noting that these restricted actions are not at all helpful in achieving your goals. As a matter of fact, there’s no shortage of success stories achieved through honest means.

This article will prove that your site can be sufficiently competent to compete in the same space as big brands. We will present some of the best known and most efficient SEO techniques free from any sort of penalization.

Below you will find the topics:

• How to do White Hat?
• What are the White Hat SEO techniques?
• White Hat vs. Black Hat: what are the differences?

How to do White Hat?

First of all, you need to clarify to yourself that the number-one focus will always be your audience. Generating traffic can never be given more value than it.

If your site has good content, optimizations will only help attract qualified visitors, meaning those truly interested in your content, not just arriving by accident.

The second step is to identify where your site has gaps. Does it make use of friendly URLs? Are the most suitable keywords used? How many clicks does it take a user to get to what matters?

These are just a few examples of what may be missing from providing engaging content. 

To make this clearer, we’ve listed some SEO techniques that can help reverse this trend.

What are the White Hat SEO techniques?

Here, we’ll show some of the main White Hat SEO techniques essential to your site’s survival.

Creativity is the key ingredient, allowing your site or blog to stand out amidst the strong competition. So let’s get down to business!

Keyword search and optimization

“Optimization” is one of the most common SEO terms, as you may have already noticed by its use throughout this article.

Searching for ideal keywords is a great example of how optimization should be applied — keeping in mind that an optimized website is one that suits both users and search engines.

A good tip for defining the best keywords is to employ tools such as Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush. They make it possible to search for and compare the relevance of each keyword across search engines.

Even when the numbers are not exact, their usefulness becomes undeniable when you visualize how often people search for specific terms.

However, the most interesting point to observe is that infrequent words can often generate great results.

Suppose someone wants to find recipes for Mexican food. A keyword planner may indicate that the term “Mexican food recipes” is the most widely used, but that term is also what most of your competitors are using.

So adding terms like “Mexican cuisine”, “spicy recipes”, or “Mexican dishes” would make a difference, reaching users who search for terms that deviate from the standard.

On the other hand, using the same example, imagine you have a website that doesn’t include recipes but offers international menus suggestions.

The content is less interesting to anyone, specifically looking for recipes. In fact, nothing is worse in the world of search than hoping to find something and don’t find it when you access the page.

To prevent your page from creating this kind of issue, negative keywords are strongly recommended.

This means adding terms that should be disregarded by search engines, leading to fewer frustrated visitors expecting Mexican recipes on your site.

On the one hand, it’s a challenge to grow, even if you do good work. But on the other hand, it’s a slippery slope when the job is poorly done.

Title tag

One of the most determining factors for search engines when positioning sites is the title.

Make sure you can catch the reader’s eye when looking through the SERP. A good tip is to always put the keyword as far to the left as possible. 

Doing this, you’ll guarantee that the keyword is the first thing your reader will see, giving him the trust that your page will answer their question. 

Link building

The more links pointing to your site, the higher your ranking will be, especially when the links are high-quality.

This means that links from highly recognized sites, which cover topics aligned with your page, will greatly impact your ranking.

On the other hand, a geek-chic blog that links to your site covering the English rugby championship will carry a far lower weight.

In short, the relevance and credibility your website generates make a huge difference for search engines.

As a result, if incoming links come from relevant sites, this can lead to a better position in search engine results.

For these and other reasons, link building’s effort may be greater than it seems at first. But everything depends on the quality of the content on the page, so don’t despair and proceed as normal.

To sum up, look for favorable opportunities instead of partnering with dozens of blogs to direct their links to your website, especially when they have no relation to your content.

Note: the more irrelevant links that point to a page, the lower the value of each link. So it’s always a good idea to consider which partnerships will strengthen your link building.

Meta description

This is nothing more than a brief description of the content on your page.

This may seem of little importance in comparison with the points presented above. 

However, meta descriptions that use keywords relevant to your page content will impact your site’s quality.

After all, you offer the user a summary of what to expect on the other end of the link, leading to a higher ranking.

White Hat vs. Black Hat: what are the differences? 

These were just a few White Hat SEO strategies to get you started. Above all, remember that your website needs to be useful and accessible to users.

In fact, it’s useless for a site to be well-positioned in search results, but not meet users’ expectations!

So never forget that the focus is not on a good ranking for its own sake, but on quality, valuable content for those who arrive.

Your page will ultimately succeed with a combination of these two factors, generating traffic through quality.

But also pay attention to what you cannot use. White Hat only exists in contrast to Black Hat, discouraging practices that search engines consider harmful.

They result in punishments, such as a sharp drop in ranking, difficulty to position new content, and even bans.

Moreover, Black Hat practices don’t bring quality traffic, merely attracting any user, even those with zero interest in your content. As soon as they reach your site, they’re likely just to close the page or even report it.

We hope that this article was useful and convinced you to wear the White Hat and keep it on your head!

Do you want to learn more about optimization for search engines? So check out our complete guide on on-page SEO!