Black Hat SEO Strategies That Can Bring Down Your Blog’s Page Rank

Emma Julie Fox works as a writer for Pitstop Media. A Vancouver based SEO company that has been helping businesses across North America successfully increase their search visibility.

The Internet industry is just like any other. Blog and website owners are expected to adhere to a set of ethics that will even out the playing field for everybody. Search engines serve as the policing body that sanctions websites that are found to have crossed the line from acceptable search engine optimization practices to the prohibited.

Google by far is the strongest and most feared ethics police on the Web right now. For most blog and website owners, there’s no bigger punishment than getting penalized by Google and getting dropped from the SERPs, demoted in page rank, and removed from the search engine’s index.

Defining Black Hat SEO

Black hat SEO always incites the ire of Google and other search engines. Image source

Black hat SEO is a term coined for practices that are underhanded and manipulative in nature. Underhanded because it is practically like cheating, and manipulative because they manipulate the search engine ranking algorithms into making a website rank even if it doesn’t really deserve to land a lofty spot at the SERPs. 

This is what Google, Yahoo, Bing, and every other search engine wants to avoid. They therefore identified the following practices as black hat and deserving of heavy penalties.

1.       Link Buying

Links are considered valuable ranking signals because ideally, they are like votes of approval from other webmasters. The theory is that a webmaster will provide links to webpages that it considers valuable for their visitors. This is why there was a time when people thought getting inbound-links from just any source will give them valuable link juice and went on to purchase links or got into arranged link networks with other sites.

Today, paid links and link networks are considered black hat because the motive behind them is always to rank higher in the SERPs.

2.       Associating with Link Mines or Becoming One

One telltale sign of link buying is when a page is embedded with so many external links. Red flags flare all the more if many of those links are leading towards or coming in from completely irrelevant sites.

There can only be two reasons for this. First, if the website entered into a link buying or networking arrangement. Second, if the webmaster foolishly and naively included links that are irrelevant to his website or to an article’s topic.

3.       Copying or Scraping Content

Duplicated content is a huge offense in the SEO world today. Search engines want to give websites their due. If a site produced a very good article, then the credit should go to it instead of the thousands of others that copied the contents of its article.

Besides, duplicating or copying content violates copyright laws. Even with content that’s not patented, the offended party can still file for a complaint for plagiarism.

Duplicating content is tantamount to stealing, and that’s a punishable offense that everyone should be able to understand.

4.       Keyword stuffing

Keywords are important signals that search engines use as basis for coming up with results for search queries. Most of the time SEOs can figure out what keywords their target audience is likely to use in search engines. There’s also Google AdWords to rely on for keyword research.

The problem arises when the keyword density in an article or page is too high. It borders on search algorithm manipulation, which is again what Google and other search engines try to purge.

Keyword stuffing also tends to compromise the quality of the content. There’s only so many times you can mention a keyword in a paragraph without making the sentences sound odd, grammatically incorrect, and downright spammy.

Bear in mind that content quality is very important for Google and other search engines today.

5.       Creating doorway pages and concealing links

Doorway pages are created to rank and capture the attention of both Internet users and search engines. These are very deceitful because they generally contain mediocre content and redundant information.

But because they rank well for several different keywords, users may still end up opening these pages—only to be directed to another website that wants to sell some product or service.

Concealed links are the same. They hidden within the text or made to blend with the webpage’s background so that readers may accidentally click on them and boost incoming traffic for another low-quality site.

These two strategies are manipulative of search engines and deceive users. They are also considered as webspam. Even if there is very good content attached to these pages, these offenses can still pull down a website.

6.       Cloaking

There are those really clever webmasters that design two kinds of websites: one that appeals to search engine bots, and another that’s designed to please users. They make search engines see one thing while presenting different content to human users.

This is a heavy violation because users end up not getting what they are expecting to see based on the meta information displayed on the SERPs.

Most of these black hat practices could propel a website/blog into the first SERPs in a short time. Other than the fact that it’s unethical, why is it important then to avoid black hat SEO practices?

The results of black hat SEO may be instant, but they are only temporary. Image source.

First of all, search engines are no longer tolerant of websites that pay too much attention to technical SEO without caring about the quality of their content. It’s not just about keeping the playing field even for all Internet entrepreneurs, but also about user satisfaction.

Google for example is making user satisfaction a priority. It would not please users if their queries always generate mediocre or completely unrelated websites that nevertheless end up there because of black hat SEO. That’s why updates like Google Panda and Penguin are implemented.

Anyone even slightly familiar with SEO understands how bad the repercussions can be if a website is penalized based on these updates.

Second, even a small mistake can bring down a website that took years to build up. That happened to many websites when Panda and Penguin first rolled out and most of those who were affected dabbled in black hat practices.

Third, positive results borne out of black hat strategies are only temporary. Considering Google is very watchful of websites today, offending websites are quickly found and penalized. If your goal is long-term online success, you need to really work hard for it instead of depending on black hat strategies.

Nothing worthwhile can be accomplished in the online industry without diligence, passion, and hard work. Everyday there will have new competitors coming in, having the same hopes and goals as you. If you want to achieve true success, do it without compromising your ethics.

Web Development Includes Rich Snippets: Make Your Site Stand Out

This post is courtesy of Cameron Madill, CEO of Synotac.com. Located in Portland, Oregon, Synotac is a website marketing and design firm. 

In ongoing quest for better web development, there’s a new player in town: the rich snippet. A rich snippet is a box of content that appears when your mouse cursor hovers over a link on a search engine results page (SERP). The snippet helps improve the display of the search results and makes it simpler for people to find the content they want, providing faster access to information. Any web development company will tell you that rich snippets are a must if you want to make your site stand out from the rest.   

Anatomy of Rich Snippets

In essence, a rich snippet is a short blurb about a site’s content. When a web development company designs one, the structured data in the snippet helps search engines understand the main point of a website. Rich snippets come in a few basic markup formats, including schema.org, microdata and RDFa. Many web developers use microdata. After choosing a markup format, you (or a web developer) will need to mark up your content with HTML tags. This will tell search engines about the content on your site, such as the name of your product, cost, reviews, recipes and so on. When you finish writing the markup, you’ll need to test it to make sure search engines can read and extract the data. As soon as a search engine finds markups on your site, it will read the tags and display the site’s rich snippet.

Benefits of Rich Snippets

• SEO: Rich snippets give your site an extra layer of search engine optimization.
• Increase click-through rates and web traffic: Because snippets have higher visibility in search results, web users are more likely to click on pages that have them. In turn, your site will receive higher quality visitors.
• Quick information: People can see information about your company, products, prices and more before they click on a SERP link.
• Stand out from the competition: Rich snippets give your search engine link pizzazz, especially when you take advantage of the features offered.  

Using Rich Snippets on Your Site

The best type of rich snippet to use for your site depends on the site’s purpose. Following is a look at the types of snippets a web development company may use for different sites.

• Restaurants: Information about price range, average customer rating and the number of stars.
• Site promoting a video: Image of the video featured.
• Personal website: A photo of the individual, contact information and links to additional information.
• Company website: Address, contact information and customer testimonials.
• Site promoting a music album: A picture of the album, links to songs and links to lyrics.
• Recipes: Pictures of food, recipe ratings and the amount of time it takes to prepare a dish.
• E-commerce: Picture of the company’s logo, price range and customer ratings.
• Site promoting an event: Information about the event’s date, time and location.

If SERPs don’t display rich snippets for your site, you could be missing out on valuable traffic. Talk to a web development company about adding this important SEO tool to your site. 

3 Steps to Helping Your Business’s Online Visibility

By Gary Hennerberg

In a separate blog post, I shared results of a survey that explained how over 40% of small businesses are crying for help to get more traction online.

The most common complaint is that their business doesn’t come up on Google, Bing, Yahoo or other search engines (SE’s) when they attempt to find themselves. That problem can be overcome with just three initiatives. But first, I recommend that you take these first two steps.

First, go to http://www.semrush.com/ and put your URL in their search bar (it’s free). If nothing is found, then yes, you have a problem to fix. On the other hand, if your website is found, you’ll be given a lot of great statistics including a list of the keywords that bring up your website.

Second, go to www.adwords.google.com to search for keywords. If you don’t have an account, set one up. It’s free. After you get your account established, then look for “Tools and Analysis” and drop the menu down to “Keyword Tool.” Type in a word or phrase and in seconds you’ll get a report from Google telling you how many searches are conducted monthly on that word or phrase. They’ll also give you keyword ideas you may not have considered. I suggest you use phrases, and be sure to include your city and other detailed phrases. One search should lead to another as you begin to imagine how people are searching for businesses like yours.

Armed with this information, you can begin these three steps to enhance your odds of being found online.

1. Make sure your website Page Title is working for you. The Page Title is 70 characters that appear at the top of your website that most people never see. They must be “just right” so Google, Bing, Yahoo and other SE’s find you. Use the keywords you found at Google Adwords. Most likely, you won’t need to put your business name in these keywords. The SE’s will find your business name in your text on your home page (make sure it’s there!). And for goodness sakes, make sure the title bar doesn’t say “Home” as so many websites do.

2. Register your website with Google Places, Bing Local, Yahoo Local Listings and other SE’s. It’s easy to set up an account, but be ready to fill in information about your business and verify your account. The investment of time can pay off big for a business.

3. Add a video on your home page. The attention span of consumers is getting shorter all the time. Your prospective customers want to watch a short video about your organization. A minute or two will do. A video on a website is proven to increase your ranking by the SE’s. You don’t have to spend a fortune on the video, but make sure it is of good enough quality that prospective customers will take you seriously and credibly. Make sure you load your video to YouTube and embed it from YouTube to your website. With the right optimization using those keywords, you can be found on YouTube as well.

Implement these three steps and you’ll be on the way toward people finding your business online.

What are your challenges with your business being found online? Please share your challenges, and your successes, in the comment section below.
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Gary Hennerberg has helped to turnaround marketing performance of businesses of all sizes for over 20 years. After a foundation of working in direct response marketing, he has broadened his reach and navigates between traditional direct mail marketing, email marketing, video marketing, SEO, and other online marketing initiatives.

Social Media, SEO and Bees

Social Media SEO is "honey" to the search engine bees!

Each time I meet with a prospective coaching client, I ask them to bring along their keyword research and SEO plan. 95% of the time they respond, "But why? I want to learn about Social Media, not SEO. I'm a business owner, not a website developer."

I simply cringe when I hear those words coming from the mouth of a seasoned entrepreneur. Understanding good SEO practices and keeping an up-to-date list of the keywords relevant to your business or industry are the cornerstones to having a good Social Media presence.

Each and every profile or page you set up on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, etc. is an opportunity to attract search engine traffic, but you can't do that without the right combination of words and phrases. In short, yes Virginia, you ARE using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) when you use Social Media Tools.

Need proof? 
Do a Google search of a competitor or the name of an industry professional you trust and take a look at the web links that are returned. I'd venture to guess their Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profiles will come up.

Why?
Search engines companies are concerned with user experience. They want you to use their product repeatedly so that other businesses and individuals will pay to advertise on their sites. In order to keep you coming back, they want to make sure they provide the most relevant answer your search query. Status posts, tweets, recent uploads and blogs are like honey to the search engine robot bees. If a company is optimizing their frequent posts and profiles (aka- using the right keyword combinations), they are more likely to be the recipient of a visitors search engine query because the "bees" see it as new information.. a new and nectar filled information flower growing within the internet meadow.

What Now?
Examine your current Social Media profiles and evaluate if there may be opportunities to optimize. One of our favorite free tools is Live Keyword Analysis. Once you understand the connection between SEO and Social Media, a brand new marketing world will open up for you. Implement this simple marketing tactic and you may find yourself to be the next rose growing amongst the thorns of your competition and a swarm of search engine bees vying for your information elixir.

How to Turn Your Website into Money with Good SEO

A Guest Blog Post from
Bare Knuckle Marketing

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of implementing a digital marketing strategy that helps you rank better in the search engines and drives quality traffic to your site. It makes sense that many businesses focus their energy on how well they rank in Google. On average, most websites will receive the majority of their site traffic from Google. And Google is by far the world’s most popular search engine. Google is a verb. Everyone uses Google. That’s why when people ask what Bare Knuckle Marketing does, I tell them “I get you ranked in Google”. But what I really do is turn your website into money, and I’ll share with you some tips on how to do that.

First and foremost, you may need to shift your expectations. Here are a few tips:

• SEO isn’t a one time, quick fix. It’s digital marketing, and marketing is cyclical.
• Don’t chase rankings. Due to personalized results and user settings, Google serves different results to different users. Focus on metrics. Where is your traffic coming from, and is it turning into money once it arrives at your site?
• Diversify your digital strategy. You’ll spend more time trying to gain visibility for one phrase or in one ad network than you will if you take a holistic approach. You’ll also reach more of your market and build brand recognition with a diverse digital strategy. And, the search engines will see you as an authority.
• Success doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s not easy. Hard work pays off, and to gain visibility online, you have to be active online.
• Don’t believe everything you read online. Do your homework, research, and research some more.

It takes money to make money. Not everyone has the luxury of a bottomless pit of working capital, so we have to be budget conscious. But know that investing in your digital strategy could pay off in the long run, just as you would invest in a brick and mortar shop location, or invest in education or employing competent staff. Depending on your budget, here are some wise investments you can make that will help you turn your SEO strategy into money:

• Invest in a good SEO. A good SEO will focus on ROI (return on investment). They will know what you’re selling and how to sell more of it. Good SEOs usually aren’t cheap either, so if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and you will pay for it in the long run. A good SEO will focus on bringing the right kind of traffic to your site that converts to leads and sales.
• Invest in a website that is search engine friendly from the start. All too often, SEOs are an afterthought... and aren’t contacted until after thousands of dollars have been invested in a website that they discover has to be redesigned because it won’t rank well in search engines. Everyone says they “do SEO” but find someone who has experience, as well as a list of references. And when you call, ask them “did they turn your website into money?”
• Invest in some advertising. Whether it’s Google AdWords, Facebook ads, or targeted banner ads on related websites, properly placed ads can generate additional traffic. Online advertising is measurable and you can learn a lot about your demographics, and can track the campaigns and measure ROI. At the end of the day your goal is to make more than you spend, and turn those ads into money!
• Invest in a blog, and host it on your own website. A blog has the potential for doubling your traffic, and can attract an audience at a higher conversion rate. If you double your traffic, and it’s traffic that is actually more qualified and more likely to buy your products or services, how will that affect your bottom line? You can do the math, but it sounds like you might be able to turn this one into money!

Armed with the right attitude, being ready to work, and ready to meet your market with the quality content they are looking for will help you focus your efforts in the right place so you can turn your website into money.

Have you had an experience where you received a positive ROI on a digital marketing strategy? Share with us how you were able to turn your site into money. Your story may just inspire others or give them an idea that they haven’t yet considered in their strategy.

Bare Knuckle Marketing is a Digital Marketing Agency in Cincinnati Ohio. Find us online at http://www.bareknucklestrategy.com or email us at info@bareknucklestrategy.com.

The Small Business Guide to Online Findability

A guest blog post from Scott Gingsberg www.hellomynameisscott.com

Marketing is simple:

Create a product that customers can stumble upon, obsess over, fall in love with, become addicted to and tell their friends about.

There. I just saved you $80,000 in business school tuition.

You’re welcome.

OK, so, maybe marketing isn’t THAT simple.

HERE’S THE REAL SECRET: If you want customers to stumble upon you, you need to become more findable.

Here are ten strategies to boost your findability:

1.      Definition. Peter Morville is the father of findability. He first defined the term in 2005 in his book Ambient Findability, as “The ability of users to identify an appropriate website and navigate the pages of the site to discover and retrieve relevant information resources.”

Ease and comfort. That’s the secret. And, being findable isn’t just limited to online. When I emailed Peter for a more recent quotation on the topic, his answer blew me away:

“For every company that's been flushing money down the toilet – by sending radio messages to people on iPods, sending TV messages to people zapping by TiVo, placing ads in death-spiral newspapers, running ads in Yellow Pages that nobody under 70 uses  – it's about time to reconsider the budgets for outbound messages versus making yourself findable by real people in the real world.”

Relevancy and realness. There’s your next secret. And that’s only the beginning.

FIND OUT: Are you winking in the dark?

2.      Purpose. “The fundamental goal of findability is to persistently connect your audience with the stuff you write, design, and build,” explained author and blogger Aaron Walter from A List Apart Magazine. By persistent he means constantly showing up on people’s radars. By connect he means making your company the conduit. And by audience he means customers, readers, viewers or whomever comprises your constituency.

Walter also wrote, “When you create relevant and valuable content, presented in a machine readable format, and provide tools that facilitate content exchange and portability, you’ll help ensure that the folks you’re trying to reach get your message.”

There’s that word again: Relevancy. I hope you’re noticing a trend.

FIND OUT: What content do you want to become known for?

3.      Survey yourself. Speaking of solving problem: How did YOU “find” the last five websites, stores, restaurants, products or businesspeople that you absolutely fell in love with? What were the exact steps that took you to those sites? And how did those businesses solve your problem? I challenge you to make a list, extract the commonalities of findability and then emulate those attributes in your own business.

You might be shocked at how findable (or not findable) you already are.

FIND OUT: How do YOU usually find things?

4.      Take every interview. As a small business owner myself, the biggest contributing factor to my findability (aside from writing) are the 500+ interviews I’ve done since 2002. From major media appearances on The Today Show, CNN and 20/20, to expert opinion pieces published in WSJ, COSMO, FastCompany and Investor’s Business Daily, to more casual interviews with niche bloggers and podcasters, the point is: Interviews are highly findable. Period. What’s more, interviews position you in a thought leadership role. That way, when people DO find you – you’re perceived as the expert.

My suggestion: Take every single one of them. It doesn’t matter if it’s USA Today, some blogger in Taiwan or a local high school journalism class. If somebody wants to interview you, your answer is, “What time is good for you?”

Interviews lead to more interviews. Interviews get traffic. Interviews are great practice talking about your product. Interviews make you findable. The media is your customer.

FIND OUT: How many interviews have you turned down because the publication didn’t have the words, “New York Times” in the title?

5.      Divorce your ego. Heather Lutze, author of The Findability Formula, says the key reason why businesspeople fail at findability is that they do not take ownership of how they want to be found, nor do they understand what buying customers are typing into the search engines when looking for that company’s product or service.

“Business owners often hold tight to a concept I call ego keywords. These are the broad search terms owners get a physical rush over when thinking about seeing their name listed on the first page of that search results page, such as ‘television,’ ‘stationary,’ florist, etc.”  These terms get searched hundreds of thousands of times each month, and they get dizzy thinking about all that fantastic exposure.”

Lesson learned: You aren’t your customer. It doesn’t matter what YOU love; it matters what THEY’RE searching for. After all, you can't spell "google" without "ego."

FIND OUT: What’s standing in the way of YOUR findability?

6.      Research. Speaking of keywords, meet Adam Kreitman. He’s a colleague of mine and the owner of the Internet marketing consultancy, Words That Click. Building off of Heather’s comment, Adam suggests we ask three questions to boost findability:

·         Which search terms are the people you want to discover you typing into Google?

·         How many people are typing them in each day?

·         How many competitors would you be competing with if you targeted those keywords?

Sure, answering these questions will take some thought and some research, Adam says, but taking the time to do so is essential to making yourself more findable.

FIND OUT: What keywords are the tickets to overflowing with Google juice?

7.      Nichify yourself. “If you're a financial planner, it's going to be tough to get people to discover your generic financial planning blog in the sea of generic financial planning blogs,” Adam warned.

“But, if you blog about small cap international stocks in limerick form, then you're sure to stand alone.” He’s not suggesting becoming a poet. Rather, to think about whatever everyone who does what you do is already doing – then do the opposite. Remember: The more rules you are the exception to, the more findable you become.

FIND OUT: Are you a “same-old-lame-old” business?

8.      Demonstrate to people that you're worth being discovered. When Adam first offered me this suggestion, I nearly peed myself. What a concept! Be worthy of being discovered. Wow.

“The best strategy for accomplishing this is to push out a steady stream of original, quality, remarkable content. Make it worthwhile for people to overcome their ‘click inertia,’ visit your website, watch your video (and then, more importantly) come back for more.”

FIND OUT: Do you have something worth finding?

REMEMBER: Create a product that customers can stumble upon, obsess over, fall in love with, become addicted to and tell their friends about.

Make yourself more findable than a smile at a nudist colony.

Scott Ginsberg is the World Record Holder of Wearing Nametags. He's the author of thirteen books, an award-winning blogger, professional speaker and creator of NametagTV.com. He specializes in approachability, identity and execution, and for more info about books, speaking engagements, strategic planning crusades or to rent Scott's brain for a one-on-one session, email scott@hellomynameisscott.com.

SEO on a Shoe String

Starting AddressTwo from scratch four years ago on a shoestring budget meant that I didn't have a lot to spend on Pay-Per-Click and high-dollar SEO consultants, yet I still needed to be found on Google in order to survive.  Within the first year, we outranked HighRise for the term 'Simple CRM' and today we rank page 1 for several top terms.  All in all, I've spent no money to speak of achieving these results.  It wasn't trickery or secret sauce that accomplished it, just some tried and true methods.  Here's some tips you can actually use today:

1) Title Tags.  Most of the money people spend on SEO tactics have historically included link-building, which is very labor intensive and therefore costly.  But, the #1 most important factor in your site's ranking is right under your nose: page titles.  The title is what shows up on the tab in your browser for your page.  Be sure to use your keywords in those title tags.

2) Authority.  The problem facing many start-ups is that your domain name has only been registered for a matter of months.  When Google looks at your domain, they see a potentially fly-by-night company and they will be slow to give your content any ranking for a long time.  You can build their confidence in your domain, however, with a few tactics:
  -  Register for 3 or 5 years, not just 1.  When registering your domain, many people go with the cheapest option (a 12-month registration) but registering for 5 years tells Google, "we are here to stay."
  -  Get a few inbound links from other domains with higher authority.  It doesn't take many, one or two will help.  Ask a friend who has had a website established for many years to link to yours.  This will give instant credibility to your domain name.

3) Get people talking.  Viral campaigns, social campaigns, user-generated video campaigns, and the like all get people talking about your product, and when they talk, they link.  It's that simple.  The same old principals of word-of-mouth and good PR that have garnered success for decades still work in the online world. 

Why give these three tips first?  Why am I not talking about inbound links, content, keyword density, etc?  Because until you get these three things right, all other efforts will be null.  I built links for two years trying to gain ranking for the term Small Business CRM.  Having the phrase "Small Business" made it a highly competitive term.  But when I heard the tid-bit about extending my domain registration to 5 years, I shot onto page 1 in just a week after extending my registration.  Amazing!  Don't neglect the basics!