It’s 2021, everyone is online 24/7 to find some content. We all want our websites to rank first in organic search. Ranking on search engines can be difficult. Quality content and the right keywords are enough to rank your website on search engines in the past. It might take several months to achieve the desired results if you follow Google guidelines. Grey hat SEO techniques, and this article, can be used to boost traffic and rank that white hat SEO may lack. There is also less risk of being spotted by Google search algorithms.
You are on the right page and have found 7 Grey Hat SEO methods to improve your website’s ranking.
According to Bright Edge’s 2019 report, 68% of online experiences start with search engines. 53% of website visitors come from organic searches alone. This makes SEO (Search Engine Optimization), critical for businesses.
You’ve probably heard of white hat, black hat, and grey hat SEO if you’re an SEO enthusiast. There are many types of SEO. While white hat is the best, black hat is the worst and grey hat is the most ugly.
Grey hat search engine optimization is a blurred line between black hat and white hat. To improve your website’s ranking, you need to first understand the differences between grey and black hat SEO.
White, black, and grey hat SEO
Implementing the right practices is key to successful SEO. Google has very clear webmaster guidelines. If you don’t follow them, it could lead to your page being banned. Google has a lot of power in your business. You cannot afford to mess with the algorithm.
White hat SEO is the practice of following search engine policies and rules. Sites want to link to it because the content is high quality. There’s no keyword stuffing and no hidden text. White hat rich SEO websites have the following key features:
- Optimized content of high quality.
- Meta tags should be used in the right way
- Meta tags and descriptive keywords.
- Page loading speed and responsiveness
It’s hard to be noticed in a competitive market if you only use white-hat SEO techniques. Although it can guarantee long-term organic traffic growth and linkbacks, it is not immediately noticeable.
Black hat SEO is the deliberate use of tactics and practices that are against the terms and conditions of search engines in order to manipulate search engine results and rank higher. This could result in search engines removing the site from their results pages or their affiliate websites.
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Black Hat SEO tactics:
- Spammy links
- Keyword stuffing.
- Clothes
- Pages with duplicate content, domains, and subdomains
- Redirecting
Although these practices may give you faster results, they are not organic and can only be used for a short time. These are temporary solutions. Google will be able to find them and penalize you websites. The worst case scenario is manual penalties. These apply to the domain and can lead to permanent removal of your website from search engines.
Grey hat SEO is, as its name implies, somewhere in between white hat or black hat because their techniques are ambiguous (as well as black hat). Terms and services that they use do not comply with search engine terms and conditions. Although grey hat SEO techniques do not conform to Google’s guidelines they can still be accepted.
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What is Grey Hat SEO?
Companies require immediate results. They don’t have the time or patience to wait for organic traffic and ranking. This is why SEO professionals use tactics that aren’t in line with Google’s algorithm, nor violate webmaster guidelines.
Grey hat SEO can have negative consequences on your website’s ranking. It can also cost you thousands of dollars. You should be updated about the most recent categorizations as grey hat SEO is constantly changing. What’s grey today could become white or black tomorrow.
Grey Hat SEO:
- Review payments
- Spun content.
- Clickbait is content that has the sole purpose of attracting visitors to your site and encouraging them to click on the links. It does not deliver any value.
- Exchanges of useful links.
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Let’s get started and let us show you 7 Grey Hat SEO Strategies to Increase Your Website Ranking.
1) Domain Grabbing / Buying an Extinct Domain
This is one of most popular grey hat SEO strategies to improve your website’s ranking. Domain grabbing is the act of buying an expired domain. This will increase your website’s SEO. It will increase your website rank if you purchase an expired domain that has good authority and can be linked back to your blog or site.
It’s not a good idea to purchase a lot of expired domains in order to improve your website SEO. However, buying a high-quality backlink profile domain every now and again for search engines such as Google will help boost your website. This is the best grey-hat SEO technique to improve your website’s ranking.
Important Points to Remember When Buying an Expired Domain
- Domain Authority DA: DA is a search engine ranking that Moz developed. It predicts the likelihood of a website being ranked in search engine result pages. A website’s DA score can range from 1 to 100. Anything above 30 is considered good.
- Look for domains at least three years old: Domains older than this will have a greater impact than domains recently purchased and expired.
- Avoid toxic link-built domains
- Clean Backlink Profile: An expired domain may have a poor or unrelated backlink profile. Don’t waste your time buying domains that are already expired. They won’t be able to provide the context you require. Use tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, etc.
- 301 Redirect: After you have purchased expired domains, it is time to redirect them to your primary website. A 301 redirect is where a page moves permanently to a new location, such as a website.
It allows search engines such as Google to direct users to new page location pages and passes 90% of the link juice. This is great for purchasing expired domains that can be used to improve your website’s SEO.
2) Careful Keyword Stuffing:
Keyword stuffing is bad SEO and should be avoided. However, keyword stuffing with high keyword density can give the best results and increase traffic to your site. This is one of the best grey hat SEO techniques for improving your website’s ranking.
What is the perfect keyword density? Keyword density refers to the percentage of time that a keyword should appear on a webpage. A good keyword density is 1%. This means that your keyword should appear 10x in a 1000 word article. To be safe, 0.5% keyword density is better and doesn’t alarm search engines.
What Keywords Should We Use to Optimize SEO?
For the best organic ranking, it is important to position your primary keyword in the right place. These are the places you should place your keyword:
- Title tags
- H2 and H3 tags
- Image alt tags
- URLs
- Content beginning and ending
3) Increase the length of your content:
Try writing 2000 words articles if you’re in a niche that is competitive. It works great with search engines because it is longer and more valuable than short articles.
The Advantages of Long-Form Content:
- Attract more backlinks
- Bloggers reach out for content promotion
- Increased social share for longer articles
- Noticeable growth in search engine traffic.
First, choose a niche that will attract loyal readers to increase the length of your content. You can increase your average content length by focusing on the top 10 posts that attract traffic.
Google Analytics will help you find the top post, and then work on lengthening it. Update that post with keywords, images, and other information to increase traffic.
Long-form content requires a lot research and a good outline. To expand your article, use many subheadings H2 tags and H3 tags. These are essential grey-hat SEO techniques that will help you improve your website’s ranking. Content is the most important thing.
4) Web 2.0 to Build Links
Web 1.0 was static pages. Users could not modify or take control of pages. Web 2.0 is a grey hat SEO technique to improve your website. Users can edit, tweak and create content through web 2.0 forums, directories, and submission websites.
Web 2.0 can be used on dynamic pages where users have the ability to modify the content. For Example, Wikipedia comes under web 2.0. You can correct any errors or omissions on a page. Web 2.0 is user-generated content. It has the following advantages.
Quality traffic: Users generate qualified visitors through platforms that are user-generated. This helps increase website traffic and conversion rates. Spend quality time on sites where there are more users, such as Quora.
Link benefits: Web 2.0 can be used to build links. Web 2.0 does not generate do-follow links. However, it is useful for building backlinks. Diverse links are required to create a profile. A do-follow link alone is not enough. A few web 2.0 sites and blog directories offer do-follow links, which is great for website SEO and ranking.
Web 2.0 is more effective when you focus on user engagement and not just website traffic. Keep active on social media sites like Quora and Medium.
5) Social Bookmarking Sites
Signing up to social bookmarking sites is another great grey-hat SEO technique that can boost your website rank. However, you should limit your submissions to one or two of your website links from the latest or oldest post.
If you only submit one post to all social bookmarking sites, it won’t affect your website ranking but it will increase your website traffic. You can submit your blog post to most social bookmarking websites.
These are the major social bookmarking sites:
- Digg
- Inbound
- Folkd
- Scoop.it
Promoting content on social bookmarking websites is a common mistake. They often use the same meta description and heading.
It is not a good idea to use the same meta description and headings as Google may penalize you. While promoting on social bookmarking websites, create a unique heading.
6) Link Exchange
Link exchange is often thought to fall under the black-hat SEO category. However, this is not true. While automatic link exchange is black hat SEO, manually exchanging links falls under grey hat.
What is Link Exchange?
Link exchange is the act of exchanging links with blogs or websites. Google will not penalize people who do not follow proper SEO practices. Link exchanges can be used to create backlinks from different sources if done correctly.
How to exchange links without being noticed by Google
- Connect with a few bloggers in your niche to share their content. You can even create a Facebook group and start liking, commenting and liking the content of others who are relevant to your audience.
- Link to other websites in your content. You can also reach out via email or social media. Tell them that you are linking them and ask for a retweet. If they find your content valuable, they will reach out to you and create a link back.
7) Multiple Social Media accounts:
We spend a lot of time on social media. We find many articles and images depending on our interests. Their algorithm uses our search history.
Why not leverage social media sites for your benefit? Social signals can have an impact on your website’s SEO, according to search metrics. It’s beneficial to use grey-hat SEO techniques to improve your website’s ranking, as social media is widely used. How can you take advantage of social signals?
To increase your Facebook shares and likes, tweet retweets, and other social media engagements, you will need multiple dummy accounts. It falls under grey hat search engine optimization. White hat SEO applies to content that is getting shares and likes automatically. However, grey hat SEO applies to content that you intentionally use to increase social share, such as buying Facebook likes or multiple accounts.
If you don’t want to be an expert in your field then you should not use this method. People will soon find out that you’re faking your social media presence.
One question that you might be asking yourself is, “Should I use grey hat SEO techniques to improve my website’s ranking?” It doesn’t matter if you are grey, black or white hat, there is always risk.
You run the risk that white hat tactics will not work for your website traffic and ranking. Black-hat techniques can be subject to manual action. Search engines may remove a website or a portion of it from search engine indexes if they are caught violating these guidelines.
Grey hats aren’t illegal. You should weigh the risks and rewards. The internet is not a place where everyone follows the rules. Black hat tactics might be used by your competitor. To outrank them and gain valuable traffic, you need to have a few tricks in your sleeve.
You lose little by being on Google’s side. With Google’s algorithm becoming more difficult each day, white hat SEO is the best way to ensure your business’ safety. Play safe.
Most Frequently Asked Questions
1) Is black hat SEO still effective?
Although black hat SEO is still a viable option, it only works for a limited time. You might get traffic. Google might scan it and you could lose all your hard work, time, credibility, and website. It’s just not worth it.
2) What are white-hat backlinks?
White hat linking is a method of driving organic traffic to your site through SEO techniques like linking to other sites and writing quality content.
3) Can grey hat SEO help in digital marketing?
It can be a great way to increase brand awareness if you are able to successfully use the grey hat techniques in your digital marketing campaigns.
Conclusion
I hope you found these SEO techniques useful. What do you think of this article? Are there grey-hat SEO techniques that can boost your website’s ranking? Comment below if you have any additional tips.