We all know how important marketing is for a business to grow. Nowadays, digital marketing is the leading form of marketing. While marketing a product digitally, many factors are taken into consideration. One of the most important tools of this form of marketing is SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization.  SEO is a topic that can be put up to a broad discussion. A website has to follow many policies while indulging in SEO and has to take care that it doesn’t violate any of these policies. Let us clearly understand what SEO is, how does it work, and what are black hat techniques and how to stay away from them. So, what exactly are risky black hat techniques in SEO today?

Understanding SEO:

Let us first understand what SEO actually is and how exactly it works. In simple words, SEO is the basic tool that is used by business websites while using techniques of digital marketing. It is anything that is done by a website to increase traffic to their page when searched about it. It is the attempt to make your website appear high in the list of search results in browsers like Google, Bing or Yahoo.  It is the tool that helps to increase visibility of your webpage thus helping it reach millions of prospective customers.

There are both on-page and off-page SEO programs.  Search Engines use more than 200 factors to generate results therefore SEO also uses many factors. But it mostly relies on key words and key phrases to get best results. Every website that you have ever visited has got you there through the techniques of Search Engine Optimization. Now, there are many policies and rules set by these search engines in order to protect their users and prevent them from spreading misinformation. It is a must for websites to comply with these rules. Violation of these policies can cause serious penalties to the marketer. Such violations and such techniques which condemn the rules of SEO are called black hat techniques. Let us understand clearly what these techniques are and how they breach the set regulations.

Risky Black Hat Techniques In SEO Today:

Black Hat Techniques are the methods that popularize a website and increase its rank in search engines and also grow the traffic to the web page. But all this is done through means that infringe the policies set by the search engines. It is unethical and is a practice that is largely disapproved and frowned upon. A website can even be banned if they are found using these techniques. Let us now take a look at these risky black hat techniques in SEO today and how to avoid them.

• Keyword Stuffing: As the name suggests, it is simply the overuse of keywords and focus words. Using them twice or thrice is acceptable but adding these words to every paragraph to maximize traffic to a webpage is not user-friendly. This technique only aims to rank higher in the search results but does not aim to be easily comprehendible by the user. An article written with stuffed keywords does not look natural and readable.  There are some website optimization graders available online which can scan your content and detect keyword stuffing. There are many ways to write findable content without using keyword stuffing. It is always better to stay away from these risky techniques.

• Invisible Text: It is a practice that uses white text to write a list of key words so that they do not appear. These keywords will be invisible to the reader but can be detected by the search engine. Thus, it makes the webpage appear higher in the list of search results. Although it increases traffic to a webpage, it is still a black hat technique and needs to be avoided.

• Content Duplication: It refers to the process of using “copy and paste” for content creation. It is considered as one of the worst black hat techniques. The same content is found across different domains and these domains appear high in the search listings. It becomes extremely frustrating to the visitor and is far from being user friendly. This technique should be completely avoided at all costs.

• Spam Comments: You must have surely come across some comments on your website which show an anonymous link and some absolute utter nonsense. Well, these are the spam comments.  They usually are backlinks but sometimes, clicking on these links redirects you to a webpage or a blog and thus you unknowingly become part of the traffic to their webpage. Other times these comments are used by the web pages to increase their ‘creator-consumer interaction’ thus increasing their visibility. Whatever the reason might be, this is nowadays the most popular black hat technique. But if caught, there might be serious consequences to the extent where the web page can even be banned.

• Doorway Pages: These are the jump pages for some specific target keywords. They take the user to a completely different unrelated destination. They help the web page rank high only for some particular queries. The landing pages trick the search engines only, but have little to no value to the user. Thus it is of no usage to the end consumer.

• Automation of Content: It is a method that requires no human involvement in the process of content creation. There are many tools to facilitate this process.  These tools can be used anywhere in the cycle of content creation be it in the first stage of planning, or the last stage of proofreading. This method is mostly used to create promotional blogs and articles that use digital marketing strategies. At the end of the day, although it relieves human from the stress of his labor, it is still an unethical and a risky method. It is sometimes used when one is not rightly proficient in the field of writing or in the field of digital marketing. In order to become an efficient digital marketer one needs to attend a good digital marketing school.

• Cloaking: The cheekiest of all the black hat techniques is the technique of cloaking. In this method, the content which is presented to the user is different from the content that is presented to the search engine. This way, the creator can rank high in the search listings and also not …well, provide the user with the perfect content. This is a technique that is largely frowned upon and the business can be severely penalized if caught using this method.

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Digital marketing is an absolute necessity in today’s marketing world. It is also extremely important to implement the right practices and techniques. We the right teachings, there will be no need to fret about these strategies. It is an area which needs a lot of creative thinking and each one of us has the ability to come with something mind boggling. Therefore, explore your area of expertise and do your best!