Search engine optimisation includes a lot of different techniques to improve the content and design of a website and to attract more search engine traffic and links from other websites. There are two broad methods that can be followed to attempt to achieve high search engine results. One method includes ethical practices and intends to make search engines perform better and to contribute meaningful information to the web. This is popularly known as White Hat SEO. The second method involves generating large quantities of error free and keyword rich content that floods search engines with a view to get as much money from ad revenue as possible. This method of search engine optimization is known as Black Hat SEO.

The main philosophy behind white hat SEO is to provide a useful, well constructed web site full of useful information and details. When your website has a high quality content, it will be linked to by other high quality sites. The website will gain a slow to grow, but loyal fan base, and search engines will notice this and will endorse your site to a high rank.

At the same time, black hat SEO try to influence the system purely for their own benefit, and search engines are constantly hiring new people to help them combat black hat tactics. When websites that follow black hats infiltrate a search engine’s results, web users will become frustrated with the lack of information found through that particular engine. Therefore it requires search engines to be on their toes always to thwart black hats, and to make it easier for appropriate and quality web sites to rank high.

While black hats are often spammers, looking to make easy money, white hat optimization is for websites that want to be found. But their sole purpose is not to generate traffic just to fool people, but to provide useful information to the users. A website that follows white hat techniques will have an attractive design, and easy to use navigation. You can help promote your site by contributing meaningful remarks on other web sites that you respect. But, don’t leave meaningless messages that simply endorse your site. This might decrease the overall quality of the entire web, and could be considered spam.

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Sometimes if you get good enough at writing SEO you start considering doing it for a living. Be warned however –this is not a career for people who are perfectionist or who see it as a way to having a reputation as an expert advertising copywriter. If you want to research the SEO writing market go to the big writing auction sites like Elance and Guru. This will give you a good idea of the low pay involved in such a career. You will also notice that the individuals with the least feedback and work on there are those that have the idea that they will be selling high quality writing on the Internet. This is not the market nowadays. Lower priced writing that is done for cheap is what most business people on the Internet are willing to pay for. Most of them are likely to have less education then you and also have no real idea what great writing is. Great writing, which is what the mass majority of Americans, which have a Grade Four Reading level, can read. So this is not really the arena to start writing like Shakespeare.

For instance on Elance there are many writers from the United States stuck in off-line world prices for their work from 1988. You see them bidding for jobs at a dollar a word. However the going price is more like a cent a word and they have no idea that the market has changed to favor outsourcing from India. They have nothing to offer a client of value except for a resume dripping with obsolete education. Unfortunately what they teach you as an English major is not the skill set that you need to please the client who wants SEO articles done.

If you truly are a great talent then take yourself to an offline agency that may be able to place you in the right writing job for the right price. SEO writing is not for those who can’t tolerate mediocrity as often-bad grammar and misspelled words are actually part of achieving this type of content.

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Filed under: SEO Tips & Techniques