The pros and cons of a black and white hat – the intermediate session
By Ashleigh Mcenaney
Welcome to our next session of Search Engine Optimization discussion. In our previous article, I told you what is black hat and white hat SEO, and had a brief conversation over their differences. Today we will dig deeper and will try to find which should the best SEO strategy for your particular purpose. On a different note, we, Bobs SEO in Las Vegas , are #1 SEO agency in Las Vegas and one of the leading agencies in the USA in terms of steady performance in last few years. So, if you’re a dentist, chiropractor, florist, car mechanic or running any other business in Las Vegas; we can work with you to build a solid web presence for your business. Now, let’s talk about SEO.
The pros and cons of black hat SEO: The main advantage of black hat SEO is its scalability. Once you master the technique and build a solid strategy with one site, you can quickly scale your success with more and more site. As it’s a churn and burn method, you don’t worry about the long-term ranking of the site, and you get in and get out with the profit. It sounds awesome, right? But hold on, till I tell you the cons. No matter what you heard from some so-called gurus, mastering black hat strategy is next to impossible, period. Google is changing its search algorithm every day, and Google is already implementing the AI (artificial intelligence) with its algorithm. So, it’s evident that the manipulating SERP would be increasingly harder with time. We have seen after every update, like the panda, penguin, hummingbird, etc.; how the so-called SEO experts were crying, right? That’s it. Black hat SEO was immensely profitable previously, it still is profitable somewhat, provided you know what you’re doing – but in very near future, it’s going to be non-existent. You won’t be able to earn a dime with black hat SEO very soon; you can mark my word.
The drawbacks of white hat SEO: Let’s discuss the cons first. I don’t know if you would call it a drawback, but I definitely would – it’s time-consuming. And I’m not talking about weeks or months, but many times, it can take even years! You need to have patience, a lot of patience really and a zeal to be consistent with your SEO strategy. And this is con #2. You need to be consistent. There won’t be any real vacation time for you if you want to build a serious online presence for your business. You will be doing on-page optimization, content writing, link building, etc. every day throughout the year; if you want to see a significant improvement in ranking. And here comes our 3rd con, it’s costly. Unless you’re an SEO expert, content writer, and social media manager altogether, white hat SEO can break your bank in no time. It’s hard to stay in the game in the first place, let alone competing with the rivals who have already established their rankings before you. And here comes the most crucial disadvantage of white hat SEO, competing with the “aged” rivals. If you’re in a business where the top rankings are occupied by the domains which are already few years aged, it will be a nightmare for you. “Domain age” is something you just can’t beat. If their domains are aged five years on average, and you just bought your domains last week and launched your site today – I can’t hope much for you except to say “good luck.” For example, if your site and your competitor’s site are equal in all terms like content, link building, etc.; but your site is just one week old while your competitor’s domain is aged for five years – you simply have no chance beating him. There’s only one way; your site needs to be way better in every other term to overtake the rival’s site.
We shall talk about more in this in our next article; please stay tuned.
