True White Hat - Everything By The Book

[DyingDecade]

Hey guys, I've been reading the forums for a few weeks now, but wanted to post with a specific question.

I work for an ad agency, so I have to actually do things by the book that can't get my clients banned or sandboxed. I also only have 2 IPs to work from, so same deal there.

I know the basics of SEO, and already do all of the keyword research and implementation, and have created backlinks manually. I also do SMM regularly. Problem here is I'm not searching for easy to use keywords - I have to use keywords that make sense for an already established website.

Just wondering what techniques that are 'by the book' and safe long term have worked best for you. It's so hard to tell what programs and sites are safe, and which are not.

Thanks!

 

[lancis]

There is no such thing as white hat off-page SEO in the eyes of Google.

There is only one legal way - adwords.

Given that, anything you will do is black hat. So why bother with the books?

 

[DyingDecade]

Okay, well - yes I guess that's true.

But I think you know what I mean. Maybe not by-the-book, but at least stuff that they aren't going to catch.

I've been manual link building, in the way that normal people would - multiple accounts on multiple bookmarking sites with different keywords, directory submission etc.

Just wondering what else I can do that would be quicker and easier.

 

[nossie]

Ofcourse there is whitehat off-page SEO.

1) Create viral content
2) Guest blogging
3) Video marketing
4) Create high qualtiy web2.0's, I mean REALLY HIGH quality.
5) More.

 

[theironlemming]

If you're trying to make link building look white hat, the key is to build a lot of legitimate web 2.0 properties with good content. Start with wordpress.com, blogger, quizilla, blog.com, squidoo, etc.

Use automated link building tools on those properties.. or if you're super paranoid build another layer of properties and then blast those.

 

[lancis]

To be "white hat" you will have to do the same black hat community does, with one major difference - content.

I.e. you will stay under radar if your backlinks look legitimate. Instead spun content - good content. Instead auto blog - seemingly real blog with a lot of content and unnoticeable contextual backlink. And so on, and so on...

The only problem with such an approach is time and resources - alone you will always be behind your competitors.

Large companies invest a lot of money into SEO exactly because of it. But even they reduce the investment by black hatting their 3rd tiers.

 

[zebrahat]

You can do WH off page SEO, but you can't succeed with it unless you use some BH to give it a turbo boost. Scrapebox is revered around here the most by people who have done viral, commenting, etc the manual way, and gotten nowhere. You can walk from NY to LA "by the book' and take forever, or you can take a plane ride with BH, and actually get somewhere.

 

[DyingDecade]

Well thanks to everyone so far -

Esp for the last two, I'm not 100% sure how that would work though. I have clients like banks, car dealers, retail stores etc.

Creating blogs and stuff for those are really difficult, and seemingly meaningless, right? It's not like I'm picking a keyword and doing SEO for that - but I have a site, with real keywords, that I have to get traffic to.

 

[teeniegenie]

OP: this is worth a read - everything up to step 9 is pretty whitehat...

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...lueprint-senuke-amr-bmd-xrumer-scrapebox.html

 

[davids355]

White hat, total White hat is:

Work on all of the fundamental structures on the site:

Make sure the coding is perfect (don't say it doesn't matter, it does), use the proper tags, use legitimate and correct code, use things in the right place - don't use tables unless you have to etc

Make sure the structural order is correct - title, h1, h2 p etc

Make sure navigation is well thought out - site needs to be easy to navigate for both robots and humans

Make sure you take care of things like www/non www, pretty urls (not page?2353:,455fg etc), make sure you redirect defunct pages etc.

Once your sites architecture is absolutely perfect - and sustainable, move on to your content plan:

You need a strict content development plan - it needs to be added, updated and maintained on a regular basis - it's the most talked about thing when discussing White hat seo, it's also the hardest thing, but if you are an authority in your industry and you write great content, it will attract attention and it will do lots of good.

Next thing is link building - if your White hat, you need to be really creative and really thorough here, some pointers:

Submit to directories - there are loads, some really good free ones (dmoz for example - but you REALLy need to follow their guidelines), there are some good paid ones (is that still White?, not sure...

Search around your niche (go wide and be creative), and work on trading links - this works great.

Get on forums and make posts if appropriate. Link2me.com is ok-ish.

There's loads of other ways...

Then there is maintenance :

Keep monitoring all of the above closely, actually mOnitir your SERPS and stats (statcounter is the best IMO), watch for rises and falls, keep an eye on keyword with the most potential and develope them).

Keep all of the structure and coding practices perfect. Also keep an eye out at webmaster tools - any potential issues will be flagged up there by google, and rectifying those issues helps alot.

Keep doing this and it will work - I have a particular site that is 100% White hat, it is in a reasonably competitive niche, service provider and it comes in the top five (is was number one, so the guy stopped paying ), for the broadest description of the service (non location specific), 1.3m results. So whitehat can work.

Grey hat:

If as you said you want to dabble in the not allowed, check my sig, buying high quality and low quantity links is the way to go - very very natural and hard to detect, and will have a BIG impact, and is also subtle.

Now I'm getting out of here before I'm seen in the White hat section

 

[cybernac]

You can do WH off page SEO, but you can't succeed with it unless you use some BH to give it a turbo boost. Scrapebox is revered around here the most by people who have done viral, commenting, etc the manual way, and gotten nowhere. You can walk from NY to LA "by the book' and take forever, or you can take a plane ride with BH, and actually get somewhere.

...LOL! Well Said!