If you are an Australian business that is looking for an SEO company, one of the first things you absolutely must do is determine what type of SEO services they offer. Not just whether or not they have a package plan or a customized plan for your business (tip: custom plans are always better than “on size fits all” plans), you have to find out if they use techniques considered white hat, black hat, or grey hat.
What exactly are hats in SEO?
The vast majority of searches happen on Google. That is probably how you landed on this page today—with a simple Google search. Because Google has such a large market share in terms of finding information through a search engine, when most SEO services say they are optimizing for search engines, what they really mean is that they are optimizing your website to rank in Google. What you have to know, though, is that Google sets a wide number of rules and policies that affect how websites are allowed to rank.
That’s where the hats come in. Hats are simply a way to categorize search engine optimization providers based on how closely (or loosely, if at all) an SEO company follows the rules and policies laid down by Google. Here is a bit more information regarding each hat and why the team at DPS is able to provide quality SEO in Sydney by sticking to a very specific “hat”.
White Hat SEO
Remember the rules we mentioned earlier? White hat search engine marketers follow those exactly. There is no deviation from those rules at all so it is for all intents and purposes the “purest” form of search engine optimization. By never deviating from the rules, there is zero chance that a site can ever be penalized.
For that reason, if you are looking for SEO in Sydney, you should always choose a white hat SEO company. Not because there is a moral obligation to not break the rules of Google but because there is no risk of a penalty ever happening.
The reason that is so important is because in terms of SEO Sydney businesses want to stay on top of the search engines for as long as possible. Your company is not looking for a few quick sales; you need to remain as high as possible in the search engines for as long as possible without having to worry about Google updates such as Penguin, Panda, or Hummingbird.
Grey Hat
SEO services that use grey hat techniques try to skate around the rules. They do not necessarily break the rules on purpose, but they are not afraid to bend the rules if they believe that they can get away with it. The reason they do this is because sometimes grey hat techniques can cause sites to rank faster and never be caught by Google.
The problem is that there is a very real chance that an SEO company using grey hat techniques will be caught. If you are looking for SEO in Sydney it is very important that you avoid these type of businesses because it is you who will suffer the consequences in the end. If you hire an SEO company, you are going to pay them a monthly fee to have you rank. You may rank high fairly quickly, but after a few months you may be given a penalty and knocked down a few places.
If the company that is running the SEO campaign is eventually caught breaking a rule instead of bending one (something that is very common with grey hat SEO in Sydney) the results could be absolutely devastating, but they will largely affect you, the business owner, more than the SEO company themselves.
Are you willing to risk your entire company’s online presence just to have someone attempt to bend the rules so you might rank faster? Probably not.
Black Hat SEO
Completely opposite of white hat SEO sits black hat. If grey hat SEO in Sydney was about bending the rules slightly to try and fool the search engines, black hat is about breaking the rules entirely and simply throwing them out the window.
Google is not perfect with their algorithm (though they are constantly improving it) and there are exploits and loopholes that are sometimes found that can make manipulating the search engine a lot easier.
In the past one of the most popular black hat techniques was to send thousands of backlinks pointing toward a single domain with automated software. While it might result in a quick jump in traffic from SEO, Sydney business owners need to realize that the reward is never as high as the risk.
When a website gets caught using black hat SEO techniques, it is often penalized so heavily that it can never recover or it is simply removed from the search engines all together.
The most important thing to remember, though, is that black hat marketers are almost always caught which means eventually you could have your site completely de-indexed from Google, effectively resulting in a ban. The question that businesses in Sydney have to ask is simple: would you trust your company to someone who breaks the rules of Google on purpose?
Conclusion
Ultimately, in terms of long term value and return on investment, it is always better to go with a White hat marketing company such as Digital Presence Solutions. The reason is simple: black hat marketers are always going to be caught which means you put your business at risk. Grey hat marketers may not be caught, but there is a much greater chance that they do.
White hat strategies, on the other hand, are designed to ensure long term growth and sustainable results. If you are looking for SEO, Sydney companies should consider working with Digital PS. We only operate with white hat SEO to ensure that your business is never put at risk. For SEO in Sydney that you know you can count on, visit our site today and get in contact with us.