Being a white hat SEO means you keep up to date on search engine guidelines, read their instructions for creating good content and strong SEO, and you actually follow the SEO best practices presented.
Google also clearly states what they consider being best practices for websites and content. If you’re a white hat SEO, you stay up to date on this information and you make sure your actions stay well inside the rules.
White Hat SEO Tactics
- Have a well planned, easy to navigate website
- Perform keyword research
- Map applicable keywords to individual website content
- Write quality content that is unique and high quality
- Write for users and not the search engine spiders
- Have accurate and unique meta descriptions and titles
- Use accurate alt tags for images and links
- Create an XML sitemap and submit it to the major search engines
- Build off page branding and high quality, industry focused inbound links
- Create a solid robot.txt file
- Watch visitor bounce rates and improve content and/or formatting where needed
If you own a website or blog it is important for you to understand white hat SEO and do what you can do stay within the guidelines of the search engines.
A great place to start learning about white hat SEO is Google’s own PDF titled Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. It will provide some great basics that can be augmented by an online SEO course, workshop, and other education opportunities.