The practice of SEO has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, which is a glowing testament to its effectiveness. It seems that more and more businesses are jumping onto the SEO bandwagon each year.

  There are several ways to approach SEO from a strategic standpoint. Trouble is, most people get so caught up in strategizing that they fail to take any action at all. Here's a simple tip that should shake them back to their senses: having a bad strategy is more effective than having no strategy. Be careful about your overall approach, but once you having your basic parameters down, don't dilly-dally. Move forward and implement that SEO plan as best you can. That way, you will get positive results sooner.

  Unfortunately, not every SEO technique is effective or ethical, for that matter. Sadly, a growing number of Web sites use SEO in an unscrupulous manner or with no regard to the quality or legality of their content whatsoever.

  In this regard, SEO techniques may be classified into White Hat and Black Hat. White Hat SEO involves following the guidelines that search engines endorse as stipulated in their rules and regulations. This type of SEO has a relatively long shelf life and reap dividends for Web sites on the long term. Careful attention is given to content and quality, which is the key reason why sites that follow White Hat SEO rank high in search engines.

  On the other hand, Black Hat SEO tries to get around rules and revolve around tricking search engine spiders or crawlers to boost page rankings. As such, these techniques are mostly unethical or illegal. They include spamdexing, wherein a site repeats certain keywords again and again with no regard to quality. Eventually, sites which resort to Black Hat SEO eventually get banned on the major search engines like Google or, if allowed to continue, are lumped into the lowest rung of search results.

  The most respectable way to gain a high ranking in search engines is to apply the so-called halo effect of SEO. This involves targeting keywords that not many other Web sites are using so you have less competition when a search is made for these keywords. Once these keywords are working for you, you can then add more popular keywords for best results.

  Another good strategy is to compose SEO articles, which are articles that contain a substantial number of keywords to attract the attention of search engines. However, in this instance, don't overdo it. As explained above, search engines tend to red flag such sites. Moreover, keyword stuffing may work occasionally and succeed in giving the site a good search ranking, but what kind of user experience will such a site provide? Chances are, the flow of the articles will be severely impaired or the article itself may not make much sense. This will not only distract readers but dissuade them from visiting your site ever again.
For best SEO results, White Hat is the way to go.