The black hat SEO guys seem to be making the rounds again. Unfortunately, their bag of “gifts” isn’t as much fun as Santa’s likely was.
Every year or two it happens. Black hat SEO guys get their hands on a list of senior living providers and leadership teams and blast out email campaigns. It usually happens during the holidays and the start of a new year.
They make big promises about links and rank and all the marvels of having the right SEO company on your side.
While we aren’t SEO consultants, we do know SEO. And we know most of these guys are just plain corrupt.
They will take your money and vanish. Sometimes taking your company credit card number with them.
Others will string you along with unrealistic promises and no real results.
Then there are those who use black hat SEO tricks to gain a short-term pop but ultimately land you on Google’s naughty list.
What does Google say is naughty? And what the heck is black hat SEO?
Here’s what you should know to make sure your senior living website doesn’t get banned by the search engines.
Protect Your Senior Living Website: Black Hat SEO Tactics to Avoid
Let’s start by first discussing what black hat SEO is…
If you ever watched old westerns with your grandpa (raising my hand on this one!), you probably know the bad guys always wore black hats. And the good guys wore white ones right?
The same analogy applies to SEO. White hat SEO are the techniques and tactics you can employ to build your site’s rank the right way. Thoughtfully. Strategically. Methodically.
By contrast, black hat SEO is a bunch of tricks that usually violate search engines’ terms of use. You may get some early results, but your senior living website will eventually be banned by the search engines.
What behaviors do black hats employ?
Here’s a list of some of the most common ones:
- Keyword stuffing (this is the one we see most often- sometimes unintentionally)
- Hidden words and links
- Manipulating links or link schemes (usually buying links or participating in link farms or networks)
- Sneaky or malicious redirects (including from social media channels)
- Falsely reporting a competitor for using black hat techniques
- Creating multiple pages of duplicate, keyword stuffed pages
The bottom line is there are no quick tricks or guaranteed methods for getting your senior living website to the top of the search engine results page in a hurry. When a person or company is making those promises, it’s a sure sign they aren’t legit.
Granted it’s not the most exciting thing you’ll read in the new year, it might help you learn more if you take a quick look at Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
While you probably aren’t interested in becoming an SEO consultant, you should learn enough to avoid being taken advantage of by a black hat.
If you are brand new to content marketing, our Senior Care Content Learning Center is another helpful resource. It’s currently going through a bit of a remodel, but you’ll still find valuable insight and tools.