Now that we have a basic understanding of what SEO is, let’s discuss some of the tactics behind the act. First, the difference between black hat and white hat SEO. Black hat tactics are highly disapproved of because they “game” the search engines. These tactics are highly frowned upon by Google and can get your site penalized. White hat SEO refers to honest tactics that drive traffic to your site and provide your readers with quality content. These tactics do not try to “game” the system.

Black hat tactics are the reason so many people frown when they hear SEO. In the early days of website optimization, these were the tactics used. SEO has evolved far beyond stuffing and spamming to establish itself as a prominent business tool. Here are just a few black hat tactics to avoid.

Keyword Stuffing – I’m sure you have visited those sites that are crammed with keyword links and I can guess that you immediately left. Keyword stuffing is not user friendly – in most cases you can’t even understand those sites. The white hat technique: Create original, creative, useful content that flows naturally using your keywords sparingly. It is okay to use keywords in your content (actually it is highly recommended) but don’t go overboard.

Hidden links and text – This is a huge black hat tactic that thankfully I don’t really see a lot. This involves adding links with keyword anchor text in the same color as the site background so a user can’t locate them. The upside to this is crawlers find hundreds of links to your site. The downside is that when found, you will feel the wrath of Google. The white hat technique: Use keywords with links where appropriate to the content and that enhance the user experience. Don’t cheat the system.

Cloaking – Cloaking involves providing information to the search engines that is different from what a user would actually see. If you are a creative, technical-savvy person I’m sure you will be able to figure out ways this can be achieved. In short, there are tons. The white hat technique: Don’t do it. Simple as that. Present the exact same information to your users and search engines.

Duplicate Content – Google highly frowns upon duplicate content and now has search engines that are smart enough to eliminate duplicate content from its SERPs. The white hat technique: Create unique, original content often to give crawlers a reason to keep visiting and indexing your site. Updated original content also entices your visitors to keep returning. It is a win-win situation.

Doorway Pages – Doorways pages act as nothing but a means of link juice. Pages are created that offer no real content but act as a way to target keywords and phrases. The white hat technique: Do not build them. Create a valid site that is easy for search engines to crawl and users to navigate. Use keywords in your content only as appropriate and avoid the possibility of being penalized.

These are just a few. I am sure there are old-school black hat SEO’s that can add to this list to make it grow by leaps and bounds.

The last thing I would like to note would be reporting. Individuals have the ability to notify Google of these tactics and Google has the right to penalize any pages by removing them from the SERPs. By using these tactics as a quick fix, you run the risk of losing all quality links you have garnered. Simply put, the risks do not outweigh the benefits.