Alt-text: Two pieces of paper with words “good” and “bad” resembling the difference between good and bad SEO.
People outside of the marketing industry usually don’t bother to understand SEO concepts besides the basics. However, every potential business owner should extend its knowledge, because, sooner or later, they are going to need it. Even though SEO is, up to a certain point, pretty much clear, there are parts that can be exceptionally confusing and hard to master. Especially if we take SEO’s somewhat erratic nature into consideration. Which we owe the thanks mostly to continuous search engine algorithm changes and updates. In order to apply the best practices or find appropriate experts, it’s necessary to know how to tell the difference between good and bad SEO. It’s the only way to have a proper and completely justified investment for your business marketing.
The common difference between good and bad SEO
It’s a well-known fact that search engines carefully hide the way their algorithms work. This can lead you to the belief that there is no guarantee that SEO will work in the first place. However, SEO professionals have enough experience and knowledge to know how to direct SEO efforts and make considerable results.
The only problem is that not everyone is truthful about their level of expertise. Often they offer wonders, and top results in a short amount of time, for cheap. As a result, their clients are left in the dark to search for other suitable options to correct the SEO issues. On the other side, some with in-house marketing teams tend to reach out to non-conventional methods, hoping to achieve better results. This, in return, can potentially ruin all the SEO efforts and even leads to penalties.
To help you avoid these situations and better understand the difference between good and bad SEO, here are some of the most important aspects to consider:
- Long term goals vs short term options
- White Hat vs Black Hat SEO techniques
- Building links with quality vs quantity in mind
- Relevant and quality content vs thin and low-quality fillers
- Seemingly low-cost SEO vs worthy SEO investment
Long term goals vs short term options
Despite some allegations, SEO will always be a long-term strategy. This is not something you do and get instant results, at least not in a legitimate way. It requires careful planning, takes time, and often depends on the industry. Some companies specialize in certain sectors and their clients are usually from a specific niche. For example, if you are in the moving industry, you will most likely search for someone like Movers Development, who has years of experience in this type of SEO. Companies like this have already developed a plethora of long-term strategies to help the particular sector.
On the other side, it’s possible to run into unrealistically cheap SEO offers, which can be quite tempting. However, these instant solutions are usually focusing on bad practices. They may provide some quick results but will soon start to degrade once search engines completely evaluate their efforts. Investing in this type of SEO will definitely be a resource-wasting investment that doesn’t pay off. These methods can make your marketing position even worse, once search engines detect them. The thing to remember here is that SEO is a long-term goal and quality always comes at a price.
Caption: Good long-term goals are always worth investing in.
Alt-text: A tall pile of coins in front of a clock.
White Hat vs Black Hat SEO techniques
SEO, when done right, can significantly boost the marketing aspect of your business. But, if you turn to bad practices, it will always do you more harm. This is why there are two terms to describe and help you differentiate the good from the bad:
- White Hat SEO
- Black Hat SEO
White Hat SEO encompasses all the good SEO practices that follow industry standards. They don’t break any set of SEO rules and closely follow search engines’ guidelines. Most reputable SEO companies are always using White Hat strategies and methods. They are the only way to plan and implement your position into the market with long-term success in mind. For example, if you are a successful local company that wants to expand and turn your local success into a global one, only White Hat SEO methodology will help you improve your brand visibility and online presence internationally, without any potential repercussions.
On the other side, you have bad SEO practices which are called Black Hat SEO. They violate search engine guidelines, industry standards, and rules, and eventually can cause you trouble. For example, keyword stuffing was once a popular black hat method which caused many business websites to drastically drop in rankings.
Caption: Even though they may seem attractive, Black Hat methods are usually just a temporary illusion.
Alt-text: A black magician’s hat with a magic wand above.
Building links with quality vs quantity in mind
As one of the major ranking factors, links are a perfect example to compare good SEO with bad. While both quality and quantity of links matter, quality comes first. If your SEO focuses on building quality and relevant links, the results will always come. Only when the quality condition is met, you can focus on quantity. On the other side, you can tell an SEO is bad if there are a plethora of low authority links because none of them are bringing any value to your website. This often happens when your SEO efforts include numerous links from irrelevant and often suspicious places. To make this clear, one quality link is more valuable than dozens, and even hundreds, of low-quality links.
Relevant and quality content vs thin and low-quality fillers
Another way to tell a difference between a good and bad SEO is to look at the content. In a time where search engines focus on providing more value to the users, you need plenty of relevant and quality content. If the content is thin, it practically contributes neither to users neither to your own website. This is the reason why many SEO experts place so much effort into creating unique and relevant content. But, of course, like everything else in SEO, it requires time. In general, if you are looking at an offer from an SEO company that sounds too good to be the truth, it’s often because it isn’t good at all.
Seemingly low-cost SEO vs worthy SEO investment
Considering the fact that SEO is a long and lasting process, you can expect that this will reflect on the price. It includes extensive research of competitors and audience, campaign planning, setting up goals, methods to use, and many more. And this is all before it’s even properly executed, before all the audit and maintenance. That’s why it will be unrealistic to expect it to be cheap. Especially if you think about all the ways it can benefit your business operations. Of course, there are overpricing examples, like everywhere on the market, but in general, it’s always a worthy investment. Saving money on SEO by taking some low-cost service can only lead to ineffective results, and can even make things worse.
Caption: Regularly audit your SEO efforts to check their effectiveness.
Alt-text: Analytical graph on a tablet and a pile of papers with results.
While there will always be two sides, the ability to tell the difference between good and bad SEO means a great deal for your business. Whether you are trying to win the local market or lunching your business internationally, it only changes the scale. But the quality should always remain in the first place. If your in-house teams or SEO company are not providing the right results, are not investing enough time, have unrealistically high expectations, and all of that at low costs, perhaps it’s time to make some changes because there is definitely some bad SEO happening.
