What on earth does “white hat” even mean and how does it relate to SEO?
So, you’ve tried most forms of advertising, in matter of fact you’ve tried all? Yet, there’s one you’ve held back from, one that you do not fully understand, one that your worried if you invest, you don’t know what you’re getting in return- that is your apprehensive about investing in “search engine optimisation”- and we would say your right to be apprehensive!
Now you may have just spat your coffee all over your screen, and you have a rather confused look on your face-you’re an SEO agency in the city of Cardiff, in Wales, and you’re saying its good to be apprehensive about investing in SEO!
Yes, that’s exactly what we are saying, and with very good reason, there are so many agencies that will promise the world, yet then deliver nothing, there so many agencies with good sales teams, that are smooth talking, yet cannot walk the walk when it comes to delivering, there are so many companies that use marketing buzz-words to alienate the business that is investing from the process- so do you get our drift?
So, we think a bit of knowledge can go a very long way, and what do we mean by this? Well, quite simply put, you need quality SEO, and that’s often called white hat, so we’ve sat down with our talented SEO team, and we’ve detailed what we think makes SEO quality, but a word to the wise, whichever SEO company you do hire, do not rush into it head-first, do not pick a company because you like the sound of the sales person, you must invest in quality, you must find an agency here in the fine city of Cardiff that offers white hat work, which follows “Google’s Webmaster Guidelines”- which has super-talented SEO consultants that can explain in plain English what Google’s RankBrain is, what content marketing is for, and why your business needs loads of high-quality, do-follow and no-follow backlinks, but why every single backlink must be white hat, it must follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
Now you may well be getting back to drinking your coffee? And your thinking, well, why is this agency over emphasising that we need a white hat company, what’s the worst that can happen if we don’t find the right company?
Well, picture this, your business get’s removed from Google, it doesn’t just drop down the ranks, nope, Google has deemed that your SEO companies, or your SEO agencies have been offering spammy, rubbish, low-quality work, and have removed you from Google altogether! Yes, this can happen! It’s called getting a Google algorithmic or a Google manual penalty, and many businesses here in Cardiff Wales, have got such a penalty, so when the inbox suddenly doesn’t get any new e-mails, or when the phone starts to gather dust, rather than ring off the hook, that could possibly be because the business has hired the wrong digital marketing agency, and now the business has a penalty, so its now not on Google, and therefore you could possibly be now losing business?
So, now you see why its so crucial that you hire the right company?
This is why so many businesses here in the capital city of Cardiff, from the Cardiff Bay area through to the side of Roath Park hire us at Adore, that’s because we love what we do, we offer quality by the bucket load, we make sure that we follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
In this article we will cover:
– What is Search Engine Optimisation?
– What is Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test?
– What is Google Search Console?
– What are Keyword(s)?
– What are Backlinks?
– What is Content Marketing?
– What is a title tag?
– Why it’s important to make sure your website loads quickly
– The different jobs an SEO team, SEO Specialist, SEO Manager, Outreach Strategist, Social Media Manager
Quite simply put, no SEO company knows exactly how Google’s algorithm works, that’s to say you only company that knows exactly how Google’s algorithm works is Google.
However, with that said, Google has published Google’s WebMaster Guidelines, so, this gives our agency a good understanding of how to implement high-quality SEO.
And this is the thing, whichever company you choose, or whether you employ staff in-house to improve your businesses SEO, you must make sure that the work is top-quality and also that the SEO work is white hat.
If the work is not top-quality and it is not white hat then the business could incur an algorithmic penalty or a manual penalty and this could mean that the business is removed from Google.
So, in a nutshell whichever company you hire which employees work on improving your businesses SEO the work must be white hat and top-quality. The last thing a business wants to incur is an algorithmic or a manual penalty as this can mean that the businesses totally removed from Google.
What Is Search Engine Optimisation?
Well, let’s say that you run a business and your business sells electrical items such as kettles, fridge freezers and washing machines online.
Now you have paid a web designer to build your website and you might have invested a lot into having your company website built.
For example an e-commerce website that sells hundreds of products such as electrical items like coffee machines, fridge freezers, electric cookers, and also kettles, well that’s going to take a huge amount of time to build such a website.
However, even though you have invested a lot into having your new website built, this doesn’t mean that any work has taken place to improve your businesses Search Engine Optimisation.
But what is Search Engine Optimisation?
Well, quite simply put, it is the process of improving where your company ranks on Google.
So let’s give you an example, let’s say that you sell fridge freezers, obviously if you sell fridge freezers you don’t want your company to appear on page 12 of Google.
Obviously as the business owners, you are going to want to get your company onto the first page of Google
Google Analytics
We word highly recommend setting up what is called a “Google Analytics account”, it’s really easy to set up a Google Analytics account, it doesn’t take very long at all.
If you do not know how to do this, then somebody at your SEO company will know how to do this for you, however, it’s really important that right at the start of the process of improving your businesses organic S.E.O, that they set up a Google Analytics account.
This will allow you to monitor your businesses “organic SEO traffic”, as obviously it will be the task of the agency or the company which you employ to improve your businesses SEO, to improve your businesses organic traffic.
Google Analytics allows you to see easily if the organic traffic is improving each month, obviously you want to see the organic traffic increasing.
You can also use your Google Analytics to look at other important SEO statistics, such as your businesses “bounce rate”, for example, you may notice that the homepage has a very high bounce rate, and you might aim to lower the bounce rate.
Also let’s say that your business publishes a piece of content marketing, you can then use your businesses Google Analytics account to see how many organic visits that the piece of content marketing is receiving.
For example, let’s say that your business sells electric bikes, and you review the “10 bestselling electric bikes”, you might want to see how many organic visitors that this article is getting, that’s because the article is over 10,000 words, and you have invested a lot of time into writing it.
If the article has a high “bounce rate”, and it looks like readers are not reading the article for a very long period of time, because you are getting this information from your businesses Google Analytics account, then you may wish to improve the on-site SEO.
Now, how does a business do this?
Well often they will hire an agency, an agency will employ normally a content writer, a link builder, somebody who specialises in social media posts such as posting on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and also there might be an SEO manager to make sure that they manage all of the staff.
Yes, SEO is not a generic product, that’s the say it’s not like purchasing a fridge freezer.
It’s not generic in the sense that one agency might deliver top-quality SEO, yet you might have another agency, which offers a low-quality SEO, and this means that the business incurs an algorithmic or manual penalty.
So what point are we trying to make?
Well quite simply put you have to hire an agency which offers top quality work.
Now SEO is not something that is implemented and then that’s it , your business will instantly rise to the top of Google, it doesn’t work like this.
No, with SEO it’s very different, you normally have to work with a company, such as an SEO agency and you normally have to work with them on a continuous basis that’s why when you ask for a quote they will normally quote a monthly fee.
Therefore with SEO, if you were to stop investing, then it’s entirely possible that other businesses will then start to overtake your business, so this is why so many companies invest every single month.
However, as we mentioned earlier, one agency might be really good at what they do, that’s to say they are really good at communicating to you how well your organic SEO is doing , and they are really good at implementing SEO as well, obviously this is the company that you need to work with.
However, on the other hand there are SEO agencies which will implement low-quality SEO and this could result in an algorithmic or a manual penalty.
So, whichever freelancer, digital marketing agency or whether you employ staff in-house they must offer top-quality white hat SEO.
Common SEO Terms
Okay, so when you go and visit your agency, you might meet many different staff, for example you might meet a link builder, you might meet the content writer you might also meet the SCO manager, and when you meet these people they may start to talk about SEO terms that you have not heard before.
So to help you understand what some of these SEO terms mean, we are going to look at the more common terms now.
Ranking
What is really important to remember when you invest in SEO is that it can take a long time to see results.
You need to invest in high-quality white hat SEO, yet even if you invest in the best quality SCO it can still take a long time to generate results.
Now we say that you need to invest in high-quality SEO because if a business does not invest in top quality SEO and instead it invest in SEO which is not good quality if the SEO is not good quality then the business could incur an algorithmic or a manual penalty.
However, with that said even if you invest in really top quality work it will take a long time to generate results.
So, one of the questions that our agency gets asked a lot is why does SEO take so long?
Well, the simple answer to that question is this, there are likely to be many other businesses which have been investing for a loft longer.
So for example let’s say that your business sells high value cars, that’s the say you sell classic cars, sports cars and also other prestige cars.
Now, obviously you will want your business to appear on the first page of Google.
However, with that said it will take a long time to get your business there if you are starting your business or you are just starting to invest in SEO, we say that because there might be say 100 other businesses which have been investing in SEO for a lot longer.
So, these businesses are likely to have stronger backlinks and they might have better on-site SEO as well, so for example there might be another business which sells sports cars, and they might have been investing in white hat SEO for say the last eight years, so obviously their organic SCO is going to be a lot stronger, that’s because they have been paying an agency to improve their SEO in a “white hat way” for a very long period of time.
So that business might have hundreds of good quality backlinks for example, so it’s going to take a business that is just starting to invest in SEO, a long time to catch up with a company like this, that is why with SEO, it often takes such a long period of time for a business to generate results.
Internal Links
Your business should use internal links, that’s because if you hire an agency, they will often write many blog posts for your business.
So, for example let’s say that you run a business that sells classic cars and you offer services such as to repair classic cars and also classic car restoration.
Now you might be writing blog posts about classic car restoration once a week, therefore when you are writing these articles some of the articles may overlap, for example you might write one article about how to remove scratches from the bodywork of a car, the following meet you might be writing an article about the best car waxes to use for classic cars, so therefore you know that somebody who is leading an article about how to remove a scratch from a classic car might want to read an article about different car waxes to use on classic cars, so you might use an internal links and you might use the anchor text.
Therefore when you hire a marketing agency, they might use internal links, and they might use anchor text, to link different articles that they have written.
Backlinks
Well, you may hear your SEO company talk about back links quite a lot, that’s because a lot of marketing agencies including ours think that back links are still one of the most important ranking factors.
So, what does this mean?
Well quite simply put, if you were to have a lot of high-quality back links, which have been built in a white hat way which are do follow and no follow and they are quality back links then these can help to improve your businesses SEO.
However, we must stress the point that the back links must be quality.
Bounce rate
When you go and meet the staff at your SEO company, they might mention about your businesses “bounce rate”.
For example, they may mention that the bounce rate on the homepage on your company website is very high.
Now, if the bounce rate on your website is high then the company should work to reduce your businesses bounce rate.
Content marketing
You may hear your agency talk about adding content marketing, sometimes this means adding written text to the blog section of your company website.
What are “keywords”?
You may hear your agency talk about keywords, these are simply words and phrases that they are optimising your website for.
So, for example if you run a demolition company, they might be optimising your website for demolition contractor plus the name of the city which you are based.
Organic SEO
Now when most of us think about “organic”, often a lot of us will think about organic food, as often the word organic is often used in combination to describe how some food is grown.
However, when you hear about “organic SEO”, this simply means that the agency is trying to improve your businesses organic SEO, this is so that you can rank higher in the organic results.
What is a landing page and why is it so important that the homepage is optimised?
So, you may hear your company talk about landing pages and also about your homepage, quite Simply put the homepage is the main page of your businesses website, that’s the say the front page where the main menu is located.
For most businesses that is whether you run a plumbing business or whether you run a very large car insurance business often the homepage is the page which gets the most views from customers.
So, for example, let’s say that you sell car insurance, your homepage might have 10,000 visitors per month and then the page which sells insurance for motorhomes might only get 1000 visitors per month.
This is why it’s so important that the homepage is correctly optimised.
So, the homepage should have a good meta title, a good Meta description, alt text, internal links, anchor text and it should be optimised in a white hat way.
Also, your business might work with a web design company and an SCO business in order to make sure that your company has landing pages.
So, for example when somebody is looking for car insurance, they might want a different type of insurance, for example they might insurance for classic car they might want insurance for sports car they might want insurance for a high value Hyper car.
So, your SEO company should help your business to design landing pages for each different service, for example one for car insurance, one for classic car insurance and one for hyper car insurance, this should always be done in a white hat way.
Create Quality Content
It’s really important whichever business that you run, that’s to say whether you run a large construction business or you run a solicitor’s practice, it’s really important that your marketing company adds quality content.
For example, let’s say that you run a construction business, let’s say that your business specialises in loft conversions, you might want to write many articles about loft conversions, however they should be written in a white hat way.
Content Writer
Often writing the content marketing for your business can sometimes take a lot of time, for example you might need to write a 10,000 word article, and this might take some businesses a number of days to write.
Therefore to help save you time, a lot of businesses hire an company, however the businesses content marketing must be written in a “white hat way”.
And also, often the text needs to be written on a regular basis, say once a week.
This is why a lot of SEO agencies employ content writers, which will write the content and because they have many staff sometimes writing this work, they can help your business to publish say an article once a week
However, it’s really important to remember that the written text must be top-quality and must be white hat.
Where one agency might offer contents marketing which is really good quality and it could help to improve your businesses organic SEO, another agency might offer low quality work, for example duplicated text and this could mean that your business even incurs an algorithmic or a manual penalty.
SEO managers
You may well be appointed an SEO manager, often if you hire a large agency they will have SCO managers and often the SEO manager will be your main point of contact when you want to ask a question about your businesses SEO.
When you employ a large agency you might have sometimes a link builder, a content writer somebody managing your businesses social media such as Facebook Twitter into the ground and you may have somebody that is improving your businesses local SCO, so often there will be a manager who is managing all of the staff.
Therefore when you hire an agency you might want to meet the SEO manager 1st to make sure that you as the business owner want to work with that SEO manager as often you will be working with that person sometimes very very long period of time.
For example with organic SEO, often a lot of businesses don’t just invest for a short period of time and they invest for a very long period of time, some businesses might invest in organic SCO for say over 10 years, so it’s important that you are able to work with the SCO manager.
Equally the SEO manager should understand your business, and the products and services that you sell.
Link Builder
When you hire an agency, often they will employ “link builders”, it’s really important that the links are built in a “white hat way”.
However, it doesn’t matter which business that you run, that’s to say whether you run a plumbing business, or let’s say that you run a solicitors practice, a lot of businesses need links in order to improve their organic SEO, so therefore you might want to hire an agency which employs link builders, which can build the links in a white hat way.
SEO Strategist
When you meet the staff at your agency which will be working to improve your businesses organic SEO, you may need an SEO strategist, the strategist should write a marketing plan so that they can improve your businesses organic SEO.
Backlinks
It doesn’t matter which business you run, that’s the say whether you run a business which sells mountain bikes or you run a business which is a solicitors practice which employs over 1000 different solicitors, most businesses will need high quality back links.
That’s the say the businesses which are on the first page of Google, will normally have a lot of good quality back links.
These back links need to be do follow and no follow but they need to be high quality, it is only high quality back links which will improve your businesses organic SEO.
Therefore, it doesn’t matter which business you run, if your business has low quality back links, which are sometimes referred to as black hat links, then these can adversely affect your businesses SEO, that’s the say a business which has low quality links could incur an algorithmic or indeed the business could incur a manual penalty.
Yes, whichever business that you run to get on the first page of Google, you will need high quality links, and it is hard to obtain high quality links, this is why a lot of businesses hire an agency, and within the agency will be link builders, a link builder should be building the links in a white hat way.
Once the back links have been built in a white hat way, they can send what is called link equity through to a page or the homepage of website, it is therefore high-quality, relevant back links that are built in a white hat way which can improve a business’s organic SEO.
So, whichever freelancer or digital marketing agency which you hire, you must make sure that they are building the back links correctly.
The backlinks must be built in a white hat way.
White hat SEO
When you have been reading through this seo article, you may have noticed that the we mention “white hat” a number of times, white hat SEO simply means that the work is done in the correct way.
However, what you have to be wary of as a business owner, is some agencies, and other seo businesses, say they, are using “white hat SEO methods”, when in matter of fact, they might not be.
It all boils down to this, if the company that you employ, or the employees that you hire to improve your organic SEO, do not use “white hat” methods, that’s to say that they use low-quality methods instead, then it’s entirely possible that the business will incur an “algorithmic” or a “manual” penalty
Organic traffic
With organic SEO, it is the task of the agency to increase the number of organic visitors that the business gets.
So, for example let’s say that your business sells mountain bikes, let’s say that you are getting 100 organic visitors every single month, obviously when you are paying an agency to improve your businesses SEO, you are going to want to see the organic visitor numbers increase.
So, therefore SEO agencies often build high-quality back links and also add content marketing and this should be done in a “white hat way”, if this is done in the right way, then it can help to improve your businesses organic SEO.
Now, obviously the aim of the agency is to improve where the business ranks.
So, for example you might sell a certain brand of mountain bike, you may want to rank higher in Google, for that brand of mountain bike.
So, as your businesses organic SEO improves, that’s to say if the agency is building good quality backlinks and improving your businesses on site SEO then you may see where your business ranks improve.
So for example when you start with an agency you might be on page 8 of Google.
That’s to say you might be on page 8 of Google for that brand of mountain bike, yet when the agency starts to build good quality backlinks and starts to improve the on-site SEO such as improving the meta titles, anchor text, meta descriptions, alt text and also improving the product descriptions as well, you might start to see your business improve where is ranks.
Now, when you see your business improving in terms of where it ranks on Google, then you may start get an increase in organic visitors.
So, for example, the marketing agency might get your business onto page 1, when it does, you might see organic visitor numbers increase.
So, therefore it is the marketing agency’s job to try and get your business onto the first page, for as many terms as possible.
