White hat SEO (search engine optimization) is the perfect choice for you if you DO NOT want to risk potentially fatal blows or doing things unethical, and could even get your site banned from Google. In fact, for most companies and businesses it is the only method of search engine optimization you should ever use.
I personally, have never gotten any of my sites banned from Google, but I could imagine the amount of distress you would go through. Furthermore never outsource to SEO companies that use blackhat methods.
But, hey this article is about white hat SEO. In this article I want to cover some convention, l and maybe some unconventional methods you could use in order to boost your sites rank in the search engines. For starters you are probably going to want to use a good CMS (content management system), such as WordPress to make adding, and removing changes that much easier for you. (see 5 Must for SEO with WordPress).
WordPress requires minimal technical know-how and is pretty simple to use. Along with WordPress, more and more webmasters are opting to use Joomla (see Joomla for CMS)
So you have got your CMS and everything installed, now it is time to get real traffic to your site. I don’t mean spending $5 on eBay for some robot traffic, tricking people into clicking on your site, or any methods of fake traffic generation. You are going to need to apply real white hat seo techniques if you are seeking “real” visitors.
Article Marketing. Unless you have been living in a cave the first thing people learn about white hat seo is article marketing. You are going to create an article with your keywords in your title, description, and have a decent amount of keyword density, and also have your anchored text pointing to your site with your keywords in it.
Forum Marketing. Another thing people commonly do is find a variety of forums that are related to their website and answer questions. They will then leave a link in their signature with their website. Again, they will have their keywords in there with a backlink to their website. Furthermore, a lot of people are actually hiring people to answer questions in forums for very cheap. This is not my favorite method, but I guess it can work for many websites.
Blog Commenting. Leave quality comments and drop your links in the comment where they are necessary. Leaving nice post, great job, ect. are not good comments. Actually taking the time to read their post and leave an intelligent comment for them (is a great idea). Better yet, when you leave a comment; I want you to imagine that it is your blog, and you wake up and read your comment. Would you accept it, or just delete it as spam. Seriously, do it and it will help you A LOT.
Link Exchanges. Again, not my favorite, but I guess for some it might work pretty good. Basically, send an email to a webmaster stating that you will add their site on two of your sites in exchange that they will link to your site. Or you can offer a reciprocal link, but these are off lesser value in Googles eyes. The only time I really use a reciprocal link is when it is a really authority site, and I will benefit more from it.
The four above are what I call “basic white hat seo tactics.” Below are more intermediate link building tactics that you should be using.
Intermediate White Hat SEO
Guest Blog Post. You can find a lot of places around the net, such as myblogguest.com which is a network of sites and blogs that are looking for guest post. I actually used this method to get in contact with the webmaster here 
. You could tailor an article on something pertaining to your site and then leave a backlink to your site for reference. Along with that you might want to make a couple of good articles, but in one of them actually have your keywords in the title for maximum benefit. Along, with that you could always ask for a link in their blogroll. Don’t be afraid to ask for a link and a lot of times if you run a quality site people will help you.
. You could tailor an article on something pertaining to your site and then leave a backlink to your site for reference. Along with that you might want to make a couple of good articles, but in one of them actually have your keywords in the title for maximum benefit. Along, with that you could always ask for a link in their blogroll. Don’t be afraid to ask for a link and a lot of times if you run a quality site people will help you.
Video Marketing. Creating videos on YouTube are going really good these days, as well as a handful of other popular video websites. Create a couple videos with your keywords in them and leave a link on your “about you page” and in your description. Most importantly, you can use a number of the free tools on the net to stamp a box on your video with an active link. Don’t forget that you are going to want to comment on others videos, as well. You can even contact people, and ask for link exchanges and guest post through these video sites.
Social Media. This is a topic that I could write forever on. Social media could be anything from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Hi5, or the other 50 million social networks on the internet. For example, on these you would setup fan pages (not on Twitter). You could auto feed your post, articles, pictures, ect to all go to these networks. This is an endless way to create an endless amount of authority backlinks to your site. Then you are going to want to participate on these networks. Better yet, outsource people to do it for you.
Directory Listing. This is a commonly overlooked tactic that you should be using if you are not already implementing into your seo tactics. There are a handful of great authority directories that you will want to submit your site to, such as, Yahoo directory, DMOZ, JoeAnt, business.com, botw.org, v7v, Aviva directory. For a full list please see this awesome list of strong directories.
These next tips are going to be some methods that you probably haven’t heard before are great white hat SEO tactics.
Advanced White Hat SEO
ScrapeBox. This is a tool that I use (it can be used as a black hat tool), but I do not use it that way. It allows you to autocomment on millions of blogs at once. However, I use it for the function of researching my competitors to see where they are getting backlinks from. You can generate a huge list of good blogs that are relevant to your site, and request guest blog post and even leave quality comments. A good tip is take all the top 20 for various keywords and generate a massive list of sites you could then “link prospect” to get backlinks to your site. ScrapeBox seriously has saved me hours and hours of time! You could do it my hand, but it worth it.
Blog Post and Reference. Another great tip for you is to have a blog on your site, and write quality content. In your blog post reference sites that your competitors are getting links from. Now right a really good tidbit about them along with a link pointing to them. Now here is the kicker. You are going to want to contact them through their “contact us” page and provide them with the link you used to link to them. Ask them if they will give you a link to your homepage. Nine times out of ten people will add you to either a blogroll or area on their site.
Google Search. In this method you are going to use the advanced functions in Google to help find other sites in which you can contact to get links from. You can either approach them with guest post, blog post and reference, ect. I use these methods all the time and it has really helped my seo a lot over the years.
• intitle:add+url “keyword phrase”
• intitle:submit+site “keyword phrase”
• intitle:submit+url “keyword phrase”
• intitle:add+site “keyword phrase”
• intitle:add+your+site “keyword phrase”
• intitle: directory “keyword phrase”
• intitle: list “keyword phrase”
• intitle: sites “keyword phrase”
Pack all these methods into one and do them naturally and your site will be thanking you! Your site does have to be optimized correctly if you want to see real results. That you must do extensive keyword research to insure you are not wasting your time. There are a lot more methods that you can use in order to get good quality backlinks to your website. I am interested to see what methods you guys/girls are using to help your sites rankings in Google. Please do share with us, or if there is something you would like me to elaborate on, please speak up
This article was written by Garen Arnold, who is a graphic designer out of Kansas City, Missouri. Garen provides people with the Best Web Hosting Service by using his expertise to help people choose the best web hosting service for their business.
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