White hat vs. Black hat: building links for immediate success

Black hat SEOs are the bad guys, and white hat SEOs are the good guys. Now, that sounds rather tongue in cheek, but that is the truth. It is quite simple to understand if you think of it this way – all white hat SEOs follow the rules Google has laid down for search engine optimization. Black hat practitioners manipulate the search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! to gain more views and sales.
One black hat technique even white hatters use
Black hat SEOs love to use the re-spun content. This content has no originality. They usually look for great content on the web and use a rewriting content software to “rewrite” it. This can somewhat avoid plagiarism detection by Google.
Now, since software is “writing” this content, grammatically it is a nightmare. Reading a spun content is quite impossible for human and humanoids. Although it makes take you a couple of seconds to read and rewrite a great content. It will create poor quality content that is not at all SEO friendly.
Rewriting one source for great content is a black hat technique that many white hatters regularly use without realizing. Great content can change the way your site interacts with the most popular search engines. If your site is interesting, easy to understand and your blogs say something relatable for most readers you will automatically climb the ladder of fame.
Now, that we have cleared up the difference between great content and black hat way of content; let us find out different factors that facilitate great link building in this ultimate white hat guide.
Enormous content for safe link building
Roundups, how-to’s, ultimate guides and power page. These are a few names we prefer for our huge pieces of content. The goal is ultimately the same for most of these great pieces. Creating massive content pieces can attract a lot of traffic and attention simply due to their sheer volume. The bucket-loads of information each content contains will ring with every search engine. Other bloggers and marketing teams are likely to link to these content pieces.
Here are a few steps to build a mammoth content and find good quality links to it –

1. List down all bloggers within your niche.
2. Use social media listening tools to find their profiles and extract their email ids. If you have endless time or a lazy intern, you can do this manually.

• Reach out to these bloggers and authors. Ask them if they want to check out your current article or blog piece.

1. You should ask the ones who did like your piece to share it through their channels or via their social media profiles for boosting views.

Build your broken links
For this step, you will need a good crawling tool. ScreamingFrog is popular in this niche. You can also start with Check My Links and AhRefs, depending on what CMS platform you are using.
These tools will yield the pages that show a large volume of broken links. In case, one of your favorite pieces has some broken links, create a post that is similar in quality. Then approach all the people who had initially linked to your page. Point out the reason behind the replacement. You may end up losing a few links. However, your new web pages will earn more favors from search engine bots.
Curate guest posts
Guest posting is risky. That is true. However, it is also true that Google will not penalize you if you get guest authors to your blog. You need to be wary of misusing links in syndication. Nonetheless, it does not have to clash with guest posting. Keep a strong regulation on the quality of the guest post content. Always do a background check on the author’s blog and look for dubious links.

• To find guest posting opportunities, you can run Google searches using terms like “Guest guidelines” and “Write for us.”
• Find the owners of these sites and pitch your blog/post idea to them. Send at least 3-5 ideas in one email for them to consider and choose.
• Check their guest post guidelines closely. Always match the standard of post on another author’s blog, while maintaining your originality.
• Guest posting is not only about white hat link building. It is more about online relationships that pay off in the long run.

Videos or V blogging demands your attention
People are going gaga over video blogging. Be it on Twitter or Facebook; people are becoming fans in less than a minute. Explainer videos, reviews, and tutorials are selling like hot cakes. You need to get yourself a slice of the real while the craze lasts. Short videos, between 1 minute and 3 minutes, garner the most number of views.
You need to remember two factors during video marketing –

1. Always mention your brand
2. Ask people to subscribe and share

Each social media share and mention is a new link. Moreover, if people have you on their list, they are likely to visit your website as well.
Infographic is the key to more links
You can create an infographic using your Illustrator skills or get your creative team to do one for you. Nothing can beat info graphics when it comes to white hat link building.

• Make sure you have enough data to convert into info-graphical form.
• Organize your information and choose proper coloring. Some colors perform better than others on infographics, do not forget to get a crash course on color selection before you start.

Add easy share buttons right beside your infographic. This will allow your readers to share it on social networking sites. Each share will contribute to one valuable link.
Conclusion
Till 2017, Google has not cleared up their take on social shares and social links as valid links. However, once you Google Rihanna or Justin Bieber, their Twitter and Instagram accounts show up within the top 10 results. This shows you need to get your social media game on point to get enough recognition on Google. White hat link building takes time, but it also lasts longer. It is a long-term investment, which every top SEO of the country prefers.