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January 20, 2013 at 12:14 pm #1128896Up::0
Wow, this really did spark a great debate. Loving some of the answers coming out of this.
John W – I completely agree about the term, black hat and white hat has somehow got tagged on to SEO when essentially it was used with hackers.
After taking a step back from this post to see what others views were, I have come to my own conclusion which relates to many comments here, that white hat is actually just natural online marketing where links may be pointed to your website from hard PR work.
White hat is not purposely finding links which is exactly what the SEO business has now become. Many SEO professionals purposely look for a way to game Google (strong word that is not meant in a derogative fashion) but in a more clever way, trying our hardest to stay within Google’s so called guidelines which are forever changing.
So are SEO professionals technically all Black Hatters? OR are they Online Marketers which are also providing SEO value?
My opinion is that there are many black hatters out there but there are also many real online marketers that work at promoting their clients websites using REAL different online PR methods that naturally over time build traffic from the source as well as gaining that important SEO value.
Comments Welcome!!
Cheers Guys
January 20, 2013 at 12:21 pm #1128897Up::0Dear all, I think I mentioned these things elsewhere, but SEO by definition means getting a site to the top of search (read Google) for the given search term.
It is that simple.
White hat, has various definitions, but in SEO land it means “allowed by Google”. Black hat means “not allowed”.
SEO people will as a rule, do what it takes to get their clients site at the top of search and that is what they are being paid to do.
Black hat emerges when they get caught, doing what is not allowed. Until then, they are all OK.
A bit like our friend Lance Armstrong. When no one knew he was doing drugs, he was the champion. Now he’s been caught, his ranking has been punished.All the best
January 20, 2013 at 12:43 pm #1128898Up::0White hat SEO = ethical content syndication
Black hat SEO = intentional search engine manipulation
The best thing any online business owner can do is focus on creating original, engaging, high quality content, and forgetting about trying to “satisfy” a search engine algorithm
SEO is short term.
Building your audience and brand is long term.
January 20, 2013 at 10:07 pm #1128899Up::0John Romaine, post: 148112 wrote:The best thing any online business owner can do is focus on creating original, engaging, high quality content, and forgetting about trying to “satisfy” a search engine algorithmSEO is short term.
Building your audience and brand is long term.
Hi John,
With respect, SEO is long term if implemented correctly.IMHO, content is one key issue but if there is no plan to distribute it online, people will likely be wasting a lot of time writing and publishing it.
When it comes to online distribution nothing beats search engines. (With rare exceptions.)
Building a brand is important in marketing but brand searches account for less than 5% of how people find products or services online.
Regs,
JohnWJanuary 21, 2013 at 2:03 am #1128900Up::0JohnW, post: 148131 wrote:With respect, SEO is long term if implemented correctly.You’re right. I should’ve been clearer. My apologies John.
What I mean was, a large majority of business owners are obsessing over Google and “getting rankings”. They’re not investing much time towards creating content or engaging with their audience. I see it all the time ..”We want to be number one in Google”, and yet they have a 5 page brochure site.
Its like trying to push a Datsun Sunny down the quarter mile in 9 seconds. Its not going to happen.
Sure, onsite SEO is long term, because well, that makes sense. It has to be in place to get found. But business owners simply investing in nothing but SEO to get rankings is total wank factor. It means nothing. A lot of SEO firms understand that most business owners have no idea – and they’re taking advantage of that. Everyone in the industry knows this. Link building, and offpage optimization are all well and good, (and it sounds nice) but they’re only ever going to be short term, unless they are sustained (ongoing which is costly) OR, the business owner invests time towards actually DOING something with their website – after years of experience, most business owners are too lazy. They start out with great intention, “Sure, we’ll shoot videos, sure we’ll write articles” – it never happens.
Getting on first page of Google today means nothing tomorrow. Its a short term strategy, and its flawed thinking. Being Google dependant is dangerous. I’m sure a lot of business owners are at their wits end being first page one day, gone the next, and then having to deal with webmaster penalty notifications and expensive PPC bills. (but of course PPC is separate – I just thought Id throw that in there to add a bit of drama)
In any case, SEO is only one small piece of the traffic pie, and this is where business owners need help.
JohnW, post: 148131 wrote:IMHO, content is one key issue but if there is no plan to distribute it online, people will likely be wasting a lot of time writing and publishing it.Agree, absolutely. And this is where business owners need help. Content syndication is critical, but more importantly – tracking what works.
JohnW, post: 148131 wrote:When it comes to online distribution nothing beats search engines. (With rare exceptions.)Email marketing kills search engines. As does VIDEO.
JohnW, post: 148131 wrote:Building a brand is important in marketing but brand searches account for less than 5% of how people find products or services online.Thats because established brands dont need search engine traffic. People go directly to the source.
January 21, 2013 at 12:22 pm #1128901Up::0John Romaine, post: 148176 wrote:Getting on first page of Google today means nothing tomorrow. Its a short term strategy, and its flawed thinking. Being Google dependant is dangerous. I’m sure a lot of business owners are at their wits end being first page one day, gone the next,
Hi John,
There is much on which we agree.Particularly:
- a purposeless fixation on SE ranking
- blowing the promo budget on SEs at the exclusion of other media (offline and online).
- the incidence of poor quality SEOs taking advantage of business owners
Then we run into areas that I think are driven by our different interpretations of SEO and/or experiences of results.
When I read of people complaining about sites where SE traffic is here today, gone tomorrow, I believe they are most likely the ones that employed the sorts of tactics that all SEs have been warning against, FOREVER.
I’ve seen it time and again since before there was a Google. I go back to an era when Altavista, Excite, Infoseek, Hotbot, etc. ruled the SE landscape. Back then, SEs warned about spamming the keyword meta tag. Eventually they all cut this factor from their ranking algorithm and Google never used it. We are only talking about 13 years of my 19 years SEO ago…
(Please forgive my longevity boast. I’m trying to establish credibility here.)
I don’t deny there are countless businesses that have lost heavily, even gone out of business and countless jobs that have been cut as a result of SE changes. But in reality these losers chose to gamble with the basic SE tenets of, “don’t try to manipulate links or SE results”.
There is a crucial difference between manipulating SE results and designing, structuring, writing and publishing web pages so that it helps a SE understand and evaluate important content. It stems from an understanding of what does a potential client want to know about your product/service. Get this right and you are well placed to implement effective SEO.
One of the biggest SEO myths is the importance of ranking top of the most frequently used “keywords”. I suggest, even if your site ranked top of the 10 most frequently used keywords in any search market that this is likely to only account for around 25% of potential SE referrals. The other 75% will likely be generated by a thousand or more other keywords. Link building SEO very quickly gets cost-prohibitive if you are targeting hundreds or thousands of keywords.
You can attract SE referrals with thousands of keywords to a website as small as 5 pages. This tactic is critical to cost-effective SEO as it is also the method whereby you can protect your site from “here today, gone tomorrow” ranking fluctuations.
As it happens, I’ve never focussed on the link building area of SEO services. I prefer to advise clients on the most effective strategies they can pursue in this area.
John Romaine, post: 148176 wrote:Email marketing kills search enginesEmail marketing is good for encouraging existing clients and people who know you to spend more money. It is a very poor and expensive (almost useless?) new business growth tool. IMHO.
John Romaine, post: 148176 wrote:As does VIDEO.How do people find your video? Effective SEO is most likely to attract new customers to your video.
John Romaine, post: 148176 wrote:That’s because established brands don’t need search engine traffic. People go directly to the source.All the research I’ve seen suggests that company or brand name searches only account for somewhere around 10% or less of searches. This includes multi-nationals with budgets in the $billions to establish International brand name recognition.
But now bring this back to the resources and optimal tactics for small businesses. One SEO advantage they potentially have over a large company is information targeting.
This is a choice between the huge investment needed to establish a brand name and the relatively inexpensive cost of having your site appear when someone looks for your type of product/service or the solutions it provides, the problems it solves, or a bunch of other questions for which you have a solution that a large competitor may not even address on its website.
People’s online distribution methods needs to consider:
- Do you want to provide info to existing clients or to attract new ones?
- Are you trying to increase awareness of brand, product or service?
- Where is the potential client in the purchasing cycle?
- Do you need to demonstrate your product/service?
- When do you want to communicate?
- Where is the intended customer when you communicate?
- What will the customer use to receive your info?
And many more…
All of the above notwithstanding, when it comes to the most cost-effective method of delivering information to new potential clients, SEO done well cannot be topped, IMHO.
I 100% agree that business owners need help with all areas of the online marketing pie. Regs,
JohnWJanuary 21, 2013 at 12:54 pm #1128902Up::0Dear all, there is a lot of cross purpose talking when it comes to SEO.
I hear the mantra, “establish a brand name” and you won’t need SEO.
Establish a good reputation and you won’t need SEO either.
Unfortunately that is not always true.
I use the analogy of someone buying a car for $100K. In that case a good brand name WILL make a difference and people WILL shop around before spending.
However if you want a can of drink on a hot day, you will look for the nearest shop.
In that case you will not be looking for the best shop, but rather the closest one!
Now in terms of the drink itself. If the best brand isn’t there and you are dying of thirst, you’ll almost certainly buy whatever is there and regardless of cost.
The same goes for smaller purchases everywhere and including on the web.
Fast food companies know this and therefore place their “restaurants” on the sides of motorways rather than down back streets of country towns. People know they sell crap food, but they are at the best time and place and so get the business and yes, lots of it! The five star food joints in the country towns don’t get a look in from the passing highway trade.
My own business sits somewhere in between.
As most people here know, we do live reptile shows and kids reptile parties in Melbourne and Victoria. It is a mid range purchase as in not a mega expensive purchase with most shows costing less than $500. And also we are in a business that’s not in the news daily and so while within our domain we have a reputation for being the best at what we do, the fact is outside the industry itself, a sizeable chunk of the market have either never heard of us, or wouldn’t remember us, even if they’ve seen us before.
So when a given person who knows little about the subject wants a reptile show, they simple go to Google. After all, it’s what people do these days! Many people view all reptile shows as being the same … after all they all have snakes … and obviously every company and their website will give themselves a good rap, so everyone in our business presents to outsiders much the same.
End point, company at top of Google gets the gig – and especially as most people rarely go past the first site if it matches what they want and the cost is not terribly much!
Now yes, we keep our existing clients, but in terms of new ones and the limited effect of word of mouth, SEO is a most useful way to get new business.
Fact is, being at top of Google in our business can at times exceed all other sources of new business! And in our particular business the sad fact is that those with good SEO do get the lions share of the new clients regardless of all other factors.
I am sure my kind of business is not alone!January 21, 2013 at 1:27 pm #1128903Up::0Wait!…
Hold up…
Stop…
Wait some more…
Just a little bit more?
White Hat SEO? Is that really even a thing?
wait…
almost…
nearly there…
here we go.
Avoid the frustration of SEO and go Flash baby!
Happy 2013 Ya’ll!
January 21, 2013 at 3:36 pm #1128904Up::0John, you make some great points mate. Thats a pretty long response, so I’ll reply tomorrow.
In the meantime, we should do a podcast one time
Talk about the good old days of blending keywords with the background, scrolling marquees and infoseek
January 21, 2013 at 11:55 pm #1128905Up::0John Romaine, post: 148295 wrote:In the meantime, we should do a podcast one time
Hi John,
That sounds like fun.I have an Internet Marketing presentation that explores the changes in the online media from 1997 to today.
It was originally presented to a meeting of company directors. I.e. It avoids technicalities and focuses on marketing, management, resourcing and accountability issues that are relevant to them.
It may provide a useful framework for a podcast.
Regs,
JohnWFebruary 9, 2013 at 1:16 pm #1128906Up::0Shout Out Digital, post: 146213 wrote:Hi All,
I been on this forum now for only a couple a months, so I am probably the kid of the flyingsolo family but from many forum posts I am seeing, there is a mixture of comments related to SEO and seeing as no one fully knows G’s algorithm, it makes for a very interesting debate. Obviously we all know there is Black Hat and White Hat SEO as well as that sketchy area in between which is known as Grey Hat but one thing I would like to debate on today is 100% White Hat SEO.I am sure many people on this forum have the same issue, you do 100% white hat SEO and it takes time, you do black hat – you rank in the short term, get kicked in the face by G in the long term then Grey Hat where you sit nervously waiting for your rankings to get hit by G.
So with Google’s updates all in mind and many of us in the past 2 years moving towards white hat to protect our businesses, what really are white hat SEO techniques? My ideas are:
> Social Media (ensuring that I am interacting consistently)
> Creating a quality blog, with quality related content which gets visitors, links and in turn links back to your money website
> Guest blogging on other blogs with a link back to your money website
> Quality Forum Posts on a related topic (signature links in the footer)
> Listing on quality directories relevant to your business (not spammy directories)Now recently I have been told that most of these wont work and wont get results (I disagree because I do them but it takes a VERY long time) but are these comments in the light that the person is saying I need to use Black Hat and Gray Hat for quick results or are there other white hat techniques out there that I am missing?
The Forum Signature one, I was also sent this which in fact I didn’t realise G see this as unnatural linking and surprises me that they do – http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356
Love to hear your comments and sorry for the long post
Rather than go over all the reasons why black hat (and you mean marketing) is a bad idea – just read Google Webmaster guidelines, consider Google’s track record and core business. That should summarise why white hat is your best option. But maybe the people you listen to are smarter than Google?
Some people just refuse to grasp the most obvious point that Google make over and over. Any recommendation of your site made by, or commissioned by you is not worthy of their recognition – and they will continually try and make you learn that lesson.
If black hat was truly a viable option for you wouldn’t be asking for advice you’d know your career. Clearly you’re not suited to a black hat career but don’t take my word for it. I’ll briefly list the necessary qualities to be successful at black hat.
- Always hide your identity and tracks. Never forget a lot of people hate you – they only smile because you’re disposable. Even those that hire you knowing what you do is gaming the system and that it will bite them in the fundamental. Greed breeds gratitude like pulling the tail off lizards develops trust. And people like, um, SWIM will smell money every time you make a big score – revenge is a powerful motivator and the people you rippoff can pay well to find you. That means potentially anyone wanting to track you down can score twice – extracting protection from you, and selling you out.
- Trust no one. You won’t be born with the knowledge of how to game the system, hide your tracks and keep the score – especially the later. So you’ll need to work with others who are also on the lookout for a quick buck. Honour among thieves is oxymoronic, and believed only by whitling fools. See rule 1.
- The more you score the more you need to spend to stay hidden. Standover men don’t really have a sixth sense, they just know hotel staff, prostitutes, drug dealers, car salesmen, real estate agents and a range of other people quick to spot someone with money who can’t run to the police for help. They also know police, lawyers, bank staff, prepaid credit card sellers and travel agents. Visit sunny Gold Coast, Bali, parts of Spain, or Thailand to see how the people with ill gotten gains relax and unwind. Doesn’t matter which destination you choose you’ll find the behind high walls with expensive security and making regular payments to bent cops See rule 1.
- Learn to love yourself because the best you can expect from others is the admiration you’ll get by incriminating yourself to people whose admiration turns to hatred the minute the odour of winner changes to the stench of loser – or the party stops, or they just get spiders in their head from partying too much for too long, or they get jealous because you party, or they start losing, or they want all your pie. Forget about respect. True respect lives in the light, not large on Facebook but hidden behind virtual office cutouts in real life.
- Forget success. The people who are long term successful at blackhat are, and can be, successful at whitehat. If you can’t make it at the latter, you won’t make it at the former.
There is only one instance where black hat is justified for your business, and that is when you are an affiliate marketer working for a client who doesn’t care about dirty traffic. But don’t be surprised when they keep the conversion proceeds and suspend your account on the last day of the month. You didn’t expect someone whose business model is to gain a financial advantage by deceit would rip you off. See rule 1.
Can’t reconcile that with all the success “stories” you hear from Paul “Four Names” and the other sockpuppet masters on Worriers Forum, Pointless and Firebugs? Well – that’s the whole point of a con. And did you really think that doofus makes $500 million dollars a years? Seriously? How come the SEO services using those “proven money making capability” sell on Fivers? Reality check. See rule 1.
If you spent a lot of money on Special Offers and Coaching maybe SWIM will give you their real names and surprisingly modest home addresses (for a reasonable fee). That’s legal. What they do is not. Guess which rule applies
Hope that helps.
February 11, 2013 at 12:08 am #1128907Up::0Blackhat can be an excellent way if getting SEO burst and burning domains is your business model. People make good money with that.
But 99.9999% if the businesses have another business model, like sellings actual products, providing a service etc. Their companies rely on durable results and creating a brand. You can’t do blackhat with that. That would be online search engine suicide.
February 12, 2013 at 5:33 am #1128908Up::0Am I the only one seeing that SEO has become one boring recycling garbage bin? Same subjects, same threads, same questions and answers, “Man” what a waste of forum space.
I deal with service providers, trades people and individuals from all walks of life everyday, and guess what? They are all happily living their lives just by doing the following without the Internet and the over-rated Google.
I’ve said it many times before:
“It would be great if people in general realised, they don’t require a website, don’t require SEO and foremost don’t require Google to have a successful business.
Put your head down and get some well thought-out marketing material together, place it in your suit case, get a list of potential clients, go and present yourself to them, your services and products and see what wonders that produces.
Stop wasting time on the Internet and social marketing and place your valuable time to better use. Way more productive to be out there in the real world seeing real people.”
Unless you have a business that is solely Internet based, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And we know who those individual are.
February 12, 2013 at 6:47 am #1128909Up::0Online is not obligatory (for most businesses), but it can be a great additional online revenue/lead generating stream. And Google is one of the leading channels to generate traffic to become leads/revenue (although you can leverage any site with traffic).
Saying businesses should stop using online is, like saying you shouldn’t use a car. There are some farmers in China who do well with just a horse or a donkey. Stop using electricity, don’t use bricks and lets get back to the stone-age. Creating fire without a lighter. run around in organic clothing and have our own cattle for food.
I find it unbelievable how Australia is still having the debate if ‘the internet’ has to be adopted. That’s a discussion many technology driven countries have had 10 years ago (no exaggeration!).
Time to evolve Caesar, the Roman empire has done so!
February 12, 2013 at 8:00 am #1128910Up::0I’d agree whole heartedly than many businesses manage fine without the internet as a marketing tool, I work for some of them, some even have websites that offer no ROI … but will this continue to be the case in the future?
You’ve got a generation coming on that don’t watch TV, don’t read newspapers (or anything for that matter), don’t use phone books and never have a mobile device out of their hand … how do you market to them?
Add to this all the services, B2B, Government, whatever, that now distribute all their information online. Most of my business is deciphering this mess for relics like me. They lack the IT literacy you now need to be competitive in modern business.
I’m finding now that even small businesses are starting to need an online presence for credibility if not to actually source business … bit like a business card, doesn’t need to be a major production, just a searchable presence with a few contact details … this can (or should) be able to be done cheaply.
SEO is a whole other ballgame that I wont buy into … and I’m yet to be convinced of any real benefit to a lot small operators from social media, seems like a massive time input for little benefit.
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