In the world of site optimization, there are three types of SEO. Black hat SEO, white hat SEO, and most importantly, gray hat SEO! The reason that justifies the priority of gray SEO to other two types is that most of the actions masters take to improve their site are of this type.
Given the importance of the topic, we first discuss the concept of grey hat SEO and then overview some of its techniques.
What Is Gray Hat SEO?
Google wants you only to use the recommended and approved solutions to improve our sites; Just like a polite, docile boy! However, implementing these strategies, known as white hat SEO techniques, is quite time-consuming!
On the other hand, if you implement illegal solutions to show up on the first page faster, Google will probably notice your black hat SEO techniques and impose heavy penalties on you.
There are solutions for site optimization between these two types of SEO that, although not wholly legal, Google cannot recognize yet. These techniques are known as gray hat SEO.
These techniques will help you to have the advantages of black and white hat SEO while avoiding the disadvantages of both. It means that while you move faster, you will not face a Google penalty!
Example of Gray, Black Hat SEO
Let’s investigate gray, black, and white SEO with examples:
Content creation is one of the white hat SEO strategies. To produce content this way, you need to write and upload an original article based on your knowledge and deep research. Well, this is relatively time-consuming and costly.
If, instead, you assemble articles from other websites and upload them to your own, Google will find it and give you a penalty for this black hat SEO.
There is also another way. You can find a few related articles by searching, Carefully reading them, and then writing a nice essay using their content. Google will probably give this article a good rating, and you will soon be ahead of competing sites. On the other hand, your content will be read more because it is the complete one among related sites. This was an example of a gray hat SEO.
The Importance of Gray Hat SEO
Before I get into the gray hat SEO techniques, let me write a few lines about the significance of this site optimization method. In short, the importance of gray hat techniques is summarized in the fact that you can get to the first pages with low cost, little time, and low risk.
If you engage yourself with plenty of white hat SEO tasks, you have to spend a lot of time getting to the first pages. In some fields of business, it even may take more than a few years! On the other hand, if you try black hat SEO techniques, you will probably get a Google penalty after a short time, leading to your entire internet business being lost.
Gray SEO Techniques
Well, we come to the part where we talk about the middle ground, the gray hat SEO techniques.
#Technique 1: Update Your Contents
Frequently, I have stated in numerous SEO courses Google loves updated content. Google likes you to write complete and valuable content, go back to it after a while, add some helpful images and subtitles to make it richer.
Now we know Google’s Achill hill of intense interest in the update; let’s take some advantage of it! True! Updating contents is a kind of gray hat technique. Write a valuable, complete, but short text for highly competitive keywords instead of writing a few thousand words from the beginning.
For example, if you want to teach content SEO in 10 points, write an article with ten educational points but a total of 2,000 words. Once Google has indexed your article and displayed it on pages 1 to 10, go back to it and enrich the content. This time, the text of the article may reach 4,000 words.
After a few months, you can return to the article when its rank has improved to upload attractive images, infographics, video, and audio. In this way, with the help of Google’s intense interest in content updates, we can easily optimize our articles for search engines.
#Technique 2: Buy Social Signal
To ensure a site’s credibility, Google pays attention to the audience’s behavior towards a brand on social networks. For example, if it finds that the audience likes the published posts on SOJECT LinkedIn, it gives a positive opinion on SOJECT, and even shares the articles to improve its credibility.
Google also gives a brand more credibility if it recognizes the positive behavior of its followers on Facebook and Twitter.
However, so far, we have talked about white hat techniques! Basically, if you wait for the audience on social networks to follow our account, become interested in the posts, and finally like and comment on them, you will have to wait too long.
Well, here we go to social signal sales sites.
After a few months of activity on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linked In, etc., you can buy social network signals such as likes, comments, and post sharing. After this, a large number of signals will be assigned to your posts on these social networks, and Google will find you more credible.
#Technique 3: Build External Links
Much of the competition in the SEO world, especially in highly competitive fields, is over external link building. Like Social Signal, Google believes that other sites on the web will definitely link to you if you are a reputable website. So Google expects you to produce content for years, become a reputable brand, and then get natural external links.
But again, if you want to go for the gray hat techniques, you have to pull up your socks and build or buy external links. You can use reputable sites that sell backlinks and ask them to link to our site. You can also sometimes link to your business in the comments section of other sites.
Note: Gray hat linking is not so far from black hat ones, and you may get penalized if you make a mistake in this technique! Therefore, be careful and do more research before taking any action.
#Technique 4: Create a Site for External Linking!
If you spend a little money and time, you can build a new site instead of spending money on backlinks selling sites.
To do this, create one or more websites on different domains and different hosting companies. Then generate content regularly for a few months, and when they get good rankings in Google, start building external links through them.
#Technique 5: Website Redesign
This gray SEO technique takes advantage of Google’s interest in updating content to improve the site rankings.
To get a better ranking in Google results, redesign your site from scratch. You can get help from a web designer or change the previous template by purchasing a new one. This way, your site’s codes will change and you can attract Google attention to improve your ranking.
#Technique 6: Add Data as Comments
This technique, like the previous one, involves updating the content. When someone comments on an article, your page is updated, and this will improve the ranking of your page.
Furthermore, just like Instagram, Google has a positive attitude towards interacting with users. This means that when your users comment under a post, Google concludes your content is attractive and improves its ranking.
However, if you want to use white hat SEO techniques, you have to persuade your audience to comment. Here you may use creative ways, for example, encourage them to ask their questions, and you will consult them just right there.
But if you want to join the world of gray hats, enter the web page with different devices to leave comments. However, long comments are more helpful than short ones.
#Technique 7: Buy Reportage
Reportage is another type of backlink, which is accompanied by advertising. Reportage is content that includes around 1,000 words that is published on news, entertainment, or any other reputable site. The site owner will charge you for publishing this article.
You are allowed to give between 3 and 5 backlinks to the site and its various pages in a reportage article. This way, and due to the high visits of the site that publishes the report, the rank of your site will also increase.
In addition, due to the high traffic of the host site, new customers will be attracted to your site.
#Technique 8: Multi-knot Linking Gray Hat Technique
Multi-node linking is the eighth gray hat technique we provide in this article. As mentioned, you can improve your site SEO by buying backlinks or reportage. The more credible the purchased backlinks, the more credibility your site will gain.One way that helps you strengthen your backlinks is to build multi-node links. In this method, you buy some powerful backlinks and link them with some other inexpensive backlinks to make them stronger. This way, you can significantly improve your SEO.
#Technique 9: Linkless Mentions
Pay close attention to this last technique! It is both easy to implement and low risk:
In a SEO experience webinar video, I talked comprehensively about this gray hat technique and shared my positive experience of getting a site out of the google penalty using this method. To apply this technique, you should write the name of your website on the web. For example, in the comments section of various sites, social networks, and anywhere else, you should mention your brand name.
Linkless mentions belong to external SEO techniques. Google believes if you are reputable enough to receive a back link, your brand name should be mentioned in articles, comments, etc. This way, Google will make sure that you are a famous brand. Thus, by mentioning your brand name on the web, you can improve your ranking as a renowned brand.
A Few Common Guestions
What Is Gray Hat SEO?
Defining a gray hat SEO is a bit difficult. According to SEO expert John Andrew, “gray hat SEO is not something between white and black hat SEO. It includes techniques that, if Google detects their use, will penalize your site.”
What Are the Most Important Gray Hat SEO Techniques?
Updating site content
Making pbn
Buying reportage
External link building
Buying Social Signal
References:
- personal experience
