SEOcycle & White Hat SEO – What is It?

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White Hat SEO

Here at SEOcycle, we are committed to providing an unrivalled White Hat SEO service to our clients. With a focus on small businesses, medium-sized businesses, and sole traders, we deliver economical, affordable SEO and associated services (web development and design, website content writing and blogging, and social media management for SEO).

Unlike a lot of other SEO agencies, our approach to SEO is completely transparent and we work with utmost integrity. With a pay-month-to-month service for as long as you need us, we do not lock our clients into long, expensive contracts. We deliver weekly reports to every client so that you can see our work, and so we can tweak our approach to your SEO promptly if and when necessary. We work with you, as part of your team, taking a collaborative approach to create the customized SEO strategy that works for your business, your goals, and your budget.

We also comply 100% with White Hat SEO practices.


SEO is a large industry, and not all providers approach their services in the same way. One important distinction is that of White hat versus Black hat SEO.

White Hat SEO refers to “good” or ethical SEO practices. These are SEO tactics that comply with search engine terms of service to improve a website’s SERP rankings. Using white hat SEO is important for maintaining the visibility, rankings, and integrity of a website. At its core, white hat SEO is not manipulative.

White Hat SEO techniques include:

  • Content-relevant keywords
  • Keyword-rich and unique page meta titles, meta descriptions, and H1 tags
  • Quality, unique, relevant and dynamic text-based content
  • Relevant URLs
  • Keyword-focused landing pages
  • Relevant, high-quality inbound links and references
  • Fast page speed
  • Simple navigation
  • High page functionality
  • Mobile optimization for iOS and Android
  • Lean coding with compliant HTML

White hat SEO not only follows the guidelines set out by search engines but also focuses on a human audience rather than Google bots. This includes publishing relevant, high-quality content, maximizing the functionality of a website, and investing in content for long-term gains. White hat techniques are rewarded by Google.

Black Hat SEO refers to “bad” SEO practices and is the polar opposite of white hat SEO. It may initially achieve higher ranks for a website, but as it is unethical and in violation of search engine guidelines, a website using these practices will, sooner or later, be penalized for doing so.

Some Black Hat SEO techniques to avoid include:

  • Keyword stuffing in page content
  • Duplicate content
  • Automatically generated content
  • Loading pages with irrelevant keywords
  • Creating pages with little or no original textual content
  • Keyword stuffing in metas
  • Cloaked content/invisible text or hidden links
  • Doorway pages – redirecting users to another page or site
  • Link farming – providing links from sites with irrelevant content
  • Publishing bad content e.g., with malware, trojans, phishing, or viruses
  • Sending automated queries to Google

Black hat SEO violates Google’s guidelines and employs manipulative practices to influence the Google algorithm. It aims to deceive Google into believing a website provides value to its audience by exploiting loopholes in the algorithm and paying no heed to human users. The result may be temporary ranking improvements with little effort.

Some tactics are referred to as Grey Hat Techniques. These are less controversial but still risk potential consequences. They include building microsites and buying irrelevant links.

Why You Must Avoid Black Hat SEO

While black hat SEO practices may achieve quick wins, these are invariably short-lived. Google continuously updates and improves its algorithm, and black hat strategies will eventually be revealed – and the website rankings will be lost whenever there is an algorithm update.

Black hat practices may also incur manual penalties from Google – with human reviewers flagging a site for guideline violation and blocking it from appearing in search engine results pages altogether. This is the opposite outcome of the purpose of SEO in the first place.

Understand that White Hat SEO takes time, and requires effort, investment, and patience – but the rewards ultimately speak for themselves. Don’t risk a quick result with unethical practices – or a provider who uses Grey or Black Hat SEO practices – the consequences could destroy your business.

SEOcycle can help you win the SEO strategy puzzle! Contact us now for quality, ethical, affordable SEO for your business or other organization. We look forward to working with you to boost your visibility online.

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