When it comes to web development, you must have heard different pieces of technical jargons such as HTML, PHP, Hosting and VPS etc. SEO is one important aspect of web development that you will hear a lot. As a matter of fact, the whole web-designing industry revolves around it!
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and that pretty much sum it up. At its most basic, SEO means optimizing the web page in such a manner that search engines can understand the page more efficiently. Optimizing the page helps you rank your website higher on the search engine results.
That sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? But, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are many different factors that an SEO expert has to deal with. For instance, focusing on social media campaigns, Pay Per Clicks (PPC) ad campaigns and link building techniques.
Moreover, the Search Engines keeps changing their algorithm consistently. This not only means that the advertising campaigns need to be reframed, but also that the conventional methods need to be invalidated for optimizing a website. These sorts of changes have lead to terms such as “White Hat” and “Black Hat” in SEO.
Significance of White Hat SEO Techniques
The term hat in SEO has been derived from the old Western concept, where the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys had a black hat on. White hat pretty much involves playing by the rule and not trying to game the search engine crawlers. On the other hand, Black Hat SEO is about inciting short term gains.
If you’re looking for quality SEO services, you should look for reputed organizations that abide by White Hat SEO techniques. Of course Black Hat may give your campaign an initial traffic boost, but as soon as Google or any other search engine finds that you’re employing dubious tactics, your rankings may be reversed and in the worst case your site may be de-indexed completely.
If you are approached by an SEO firm that claims to get you on the first page of Google search results in a week, it is advisable keep continuing with your search. Remember, SEO is an exhaustive process that takes a lot of time. It is not a one person process that can be set and forget. It can take months or even years to build your reputation, that depends on the gravity of your targeted keyword.