Description Of Ethical And Unethical S E O Techniques And Practices Used By New Businesses

Search Engine marketing or SEO relates to how a target audience searches for information, goods and services on the net. Every search is sectioned into keywords. Sufficiently used keywords promote rankings. If a site uses keywords and phrases that match an online user’s search, a business has an increased chance of better targeting their audience.

There are a lot of methods of Online Marketing to accomplish this, they are ‘honest’ (ethical) or ‘dishonest’ (unethical). The key difference between the two is quite straightforward: one follows normally accepted methods and the other does not.

Ethical SEO is usually referred to as ‘white hat’ and is generally used to explain the use of accepted search engine optimisation techniques or code of conduct. Ethical SEO techniques are generally classed as those that can be obviously visible to a website visitor. Any hidden tricks are usually indicative of a unseen or unethical approach.

In contrast, unethical SEO is often referred to as ‘black hat’ or ‘spam’. Unethical SEO is not necessarily an illegal activity, but is regarded as trying to deceive the searches and the search engines. These techniques and practices are viewed as scheming and devious. Unethical SEO is about cutting corners and cheating the accepted code of conduct for webmasters. Unethical SEO has one fundamental goal, to achieve immediate or short-term Search Engine Placement or high page listing. A good way for an online user to almost instantly recognise unethical SEO processes is to determine the number of links a website uses, as well as their quality.

Unethical SEO practices and online marketing are not typically noticeable to a visitor. A Search Engine Optimization Company who adopts unethical techniques in order to achieve high search engine placement by ‘tricking’ the market can be barred or black listed from all major search engines.

The following SEO practices and techniques are considered ethical:

• Alternative links for separate site pages can be created
• Keywords and content that are used is information that is relevant to the site searcher
• Inbound links (links within a site) can be built in. These can be useful if Online Marketing is used through a social media site.
• Websites can be updated often with relevant information. These can take the form of press releases, articles and blogs.
• Keeping up to date with the types of keywords a target audience is consistently using. This way, keywords within content are built to cater for a customer or client, getting better rankings, as well as giving a site more standing. Using keywords properly and sufficiently encourages a target audience to regard and remember a site as being trustworthy for the information that they seek, and using an established SEO Company ensures these keywords are up to date.
• Links are not exchanged with other site of a low quality or containing information that is not relevant to a targeted audience.
• Adding a sitemap to a site that can be easily found by search engine spiders and helps to better index the total site.

The following SEO methods and techniques are considered unethical:

• Text is unseen – eg. white text is ‘hidden’ on a white background, text can be ‘hidden’ behind images or a size zero font can be used.
• Links are unseen or made to appear less obvious to a site visitor – eg. links can be made into the same typeface colour as the main content.
• Making use of automated queries without the consent from search engines.
• Too many keywords and hidden text are used on a site. This is known as keyword stuffing. Online users are typically not aware of this.
• Javascript re-directs can be used whereby search engines are pointed to a web page that is different from the one that is expected.
• Using duplicated content.
• Trading links – many websites have a tendancy to trading links. This can be very misleading and disruptive to an online user.
• Creating false doorway passages to direct users to other websites that may contain inappropriate content or a collection of more links.

Filed under: Best Internet Affiliates

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