What Is an Ethical SEO Strategy?

An ethical SEO strategy is an SEO strategy that uses practices and tactics aimed at improving a website’s organic search performance while respecting the guidelines provided by search engine companies like Google and Bing. An ethical SEO strategy is also known as a “white hat” SEO strategy.

It is good to adhere to ethical SEO principles to avoid receiving penalties or bans from search engines like Google. Penalties and bans can be devastating to or destroy your SEO performance. The main objective of an ethical SEO strategy is to provide searchers with real value rather than using manipulative tactics to trick search engines into ranking your site well.

An ethical SEO strategy is often part of a broader commitment to ethical marketing practices and ethical business practices. Adhering to such practices helps you to achieve a sustainable business in the long term and is often the key to running a successful and profitable business.

Ethical Vs. Unethical SEO Strategies

The difference between an ethical vs. unethical SEO strategy is vast. The north star of ethical SEO strategies is to provide genuine value to searchers while structuring your site in such a way that it is easy for search engines to crawl and understand. On the other hand, the north star of an unethical SEO strategy is to try and trick search engines into providing content that is shoddy, not designed with users in mind, and created in order to trick algorithms.

An ethical SEO strategy is almost obsessively focused on providing value for our users. The idea is to create great content that directly responds to what they are searching for. Such content adheres to the guidelines that search engines like Google and Bing provide to webmasters and SEOs in order to help them create great websites with quality, helpful content. 

I wouldn’t trust this shady SEO consultant.

A major difference between ethical and unethical SEO strategies is that white hat strategies focus on the long-term. You are not trying to create a fly-by-night website that takes advantage of users for short-term gains. Rather, you realize that the true value of SEO is unlocked when you invest in consistently providing the highest quality web experience for searchers. Over this longer time horizon, your SEO success will compound and provide you with maximum SEO benefits, resulting in exponentially increased traffic, leads, and sales.

On the other hand, unethical SEO practices are focused on manipulating search engines in order to rank higher quickly. They are short-term strategies meant to be used as shortcuts. Black hat SEO thinking is: you don’t have to spend time investing in the creation of a well-designed website with quality content if you can simply manage to trick search engines into thinking you have one. 

But over time, the vast majority of low-quality, unethical SEO strategies are going to be discovered by Google to be inadequate. While such websites may temporarily receive a boost in SEO performance, over the long term, websites that adhere to best SEO practices are going to outperform strategies that are based on black hat SEO techniques. 

What Is White Hat SEO Content Like?

Ethical or white hat SEO content prioritizes your audience, provides genuine value, and strictly adheres to search engine guidelines. First and foremost, the content should be high-quality and original. It should be well-researched, and informative, and should not plagiarize or simply rehash other content on the web.

Relevance to your audience is also essential to white hat content. Ethical content aligns with the interests and needs of your target audience, answers their questions, solves their problems, or at the very least entertains them. It should be well-structured, and easy to follow, making use of clear headings, subheadings, and logical paragraphs.

Keywords are crucial if you want your SEO content to rank well. But keywords should be placed in your content naturally. They should not be forced or stuffed into your content. You can almost always tell if a keyword sounds natural rather than forced by reading back your content and looking out for anything that sounds off or artificial to a reader.

Great content needs to be accurate, complete, and updated regularly. Cite your sources. Back up your statements with expert opinions, evidence, peer-reviewed research, or other authoritative and trustworthy sources. Fact-check everything on the page to be sure it is reliable and true.

Finally, be transparent and honest and avoid deceptive tactics. Also avoid misleading titles, clickbait descriptions, or hidden information. Give your readers the information you say you will. Your content should be sincere and open. If there's a promotion or sponsorship, clearly disclose it, as well as any other conflicts of interest.

How to Ethically Build Backlinks

While building backlinks is essential for your SEO success, it is also often one of the shadiest and most black-hat areas of SEO. Ethical link-building practices prioritize naturally getting other websites to backlink to yours, rather than buying or begging others for links. There are a number of ways to do this.

All ethical backlink building starts with building a high-quality website with great content. When people come across great content, they naturally want to link to it on their own websites and in their own content. Examples of great content may include:

• informative articles or blog posts

• original research or scientific studies

• detailed infographics

• engaging videos

• high-quality images

• informative podcast episodes

• other quality multimedia presented on your site

Creating great content, however, is not enough. If you build it, they won’t just come. But if you build it and you tell them about it, they very well may. That means you need to be out there on the internet spreading the word about your great content and site. There are a variety of ways to do this without being black hat, SPAMMY, or just plain annoying.

Strong links here.

One way to do this is to build relationships with other people in your industry. Get out there and meet people - network! If you build genuine relationships with others, they are going to want to tell other people in their networks about what you are doing. You can also join in and engage in relevant communities across the web. This can include social media communities on networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Reddit. But it can also include Q&A sites like Quora, niche discussion forums, and more.

Another great way to generate backlinks is to create news. Reporters are hungry for news, and you should be hungry to give it to them. Break genuine news, whether it’s news about your company, your industry, or new research or informational surveys you are providing. Then spread the word to reporters to get them to link back to your site as the source. Writing and releasing press releases is a great way to grab some attention when you break news. 

Start Building Your Ethical SEO Strategy Today

There’s no better time than now to start building an ethical SEO strategy for your business. But you don’t have to do it alone. One of the best ways to get started building a strategy is to work with an SEO consultant who can help you.

An SEO consultant is an independent marketing professional who specializes in understanding search engine algorithms, user behavior, and online trends to optimize your websites for better organic search results. Hiring a great SEO consultant is one of the best ways to build an SEO strategy you can be sure adheres to Google’s guidelines while exponentially helping you increase your traffic, leads, and sales.

Brian M. Reiser | Strategic SEO Consultant offers organic search strategy development that adheres to Google’s ethical guidelines and is custom-tailored to your business’s unique needs. If you’re interested in growing your business now, get in touch with me today.