Avoid Gimmicks When Marketing Your Site. Quality is Key.

In some niches, the competition to get your website ranked in the first page of search engines is stiff. Companies and site owners are racking their brain to think of innovative methods to attract traffic. As you are deciding an approach to take towards marketing your website, do keep in mind to avoid gimmicks. As you have probably heard by now, content is king, and if you are willing to dedicate effort to provide valuable information to your visitors, you will gain more traffic and supporters over time.

We have heard so much about SEO, the key to a successful marketing campaign of our site. Some webmasters adhere to strict guidelines and only engage in white hat SEO tactics, while the rest resort to black hat tactics.

One common black hat SEO tactic is keyword stuffing in articles. These articles tend to sound unnatural, and we often say that they are meant to be read by search engines, not humans. Cloaking is also a widely used approach where web pages are altered to present different content to the search engine spiders than the ones displayed to visitors. On the topic of cloaking, controversies were sparked off when NPR and Google Scholar cloak their sites for a higher ranking without being penalized. Understandably, these two sites do have good content, but it would help that Google alter its policy to include that cloaking is fine so long as prior permission was obtained, or it feels that the result is improving the quality of their search.

Black hat SEO tactics can actually be used in an ethical manner. It is a double-edged sword, and it is up to you how you want to make use of them. The thing about black hat SEO tactics is that they do work, but only temporarily. It doesn’t take long for search engines to catch on, and your site can get penalized. You might have other tricks up your sleeves, but I would find it more tiring to keep thinking of new means to get around the rules compared to improving the site’s content. The former may get you high rankings and traffic, but the latter can get you both AND the respect of your visitors. If you continue delivering good web content and products, your visitors will stay loyal, and refer more people to your site.

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2. The Importance of Quality Web Design in Online Marketing