For ranking your website and securing a first place in the SERPs you have to take care of many things and that also in the correct way as per the guideline laid by the search engines.

If you want your website to be sustainable and last long in the SERPs, the only correct way to do it without getting penalized by the search engine is through white-hat SEO techniques.

 

“White-hat SEO techniques 2020 and beyond” article will cover the strategies that are effective for securing a top place in the SERPs and also fall under the guidelines of the search engines.

So, without any further due, let’s proceed ahead and start with a definition of what exactly are white-hat SEO techniques.

 

What is a white-hat SEO?

If the technique or the strategies that you use for ranking or securing a top place in the SERPs are ethical or are completely structured as per the search engine guidelines then it can be considered as “white-hat SEO”.

In simple language, white-hat SEO is a series of righteous practices that you carry out to increase your website ranking in a sustainable manner.

So, if you want your website to stay at the top of the SERPs, it’s mandatory to opt for the white-hat SEO techniques. 

 

Now let’s take a look at the following 8 essential white-hat SEO techniques 

• Research/analysis of keywords
• Generating quality content for the audience
• Descriptive URLs for your webpage
• Internal links and external links
• Generation of back-links
• Improving website’s loading speed
• Keeping your website organized

 

7 essential white-hat SEO techniques that will help you in 2020 and beyond

 

• Research/analysis of keywords

Implementing effective keyword research and analysis is one of the first and most important parts of the SEO journey.

It’s the simplest procedure as it can be if you are aware of the domain/genre you want your website or webpage to rank for.

The easiest and effective way to search for keywords is with the help of the search engine itself.

The search engine may be anyone from such: Google, Bing, or DuckDuckgo.

Proceed to the search engine box of the search engine and type the keyword for which you want your website to rank for.

 

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You will see that the search engine provides you with a number of suggestions as you type the keyword.

These suggestions displayed by the search engines are based on data of the most common searches performed by the other users as well.

Now, this is one way of using search engines for keyword research.

The other simple one is that you click on one of the suggestions and you see the SERP with 10 or 20 results.

 

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For example,

Suppose your keyword is “battery”.

So, the search engine will provide you with the result associated with “battery”.

Now, as you get to the bottom of the result page you will find another set of keywords related to your battery.

You can use these keywords and create another set instantly.

Well, it is quite simple right.

There are other instances too which can help you in keyword/research analysis and are as simple as this.

 

The following tools can help you in your keyword research very effectively and dynamically.

• Google Adwords
• Soovle
• Ubersuggest 
• Keywords Everywhere

Well, there are other tools out there too, that can help you in the precise and profound keyword research/analysis for your ranking purpose.

But the above-mentioned tools are more than substantial for finding a good keyword for your website and rank for it with the deluging practices that we will be exploring as we proceed further.

So, this was the first structured step of the white-hat SEO techniques that will land your website among the top SERPs of the users.

 

Now, let’s proceed further to the next step in which you will be using the keywords.

• Generating quality content for the audience

Now, you have identified the keywords for which you want your webpage to appear in the SERPs, the next step would be to weave quality content around that keyword.

Well, you may have heard about the phrase “content is the king”, to be precise we would say quality content is the king. 

Without the content there would be no “SEO” technique, let it alone be a white-hat SEO technique.

 

So, how to create structured quality content?

The first step towards creating quality content is to muster information on the needs, requirements, solutions, or whatever, your target audience is looking for.

There are various platforms that can help you with the above-mentioned things and few of them are mentioned as follows:

Quora

Reddit

Stack Overflow

Indian Forums

Yahoo Groups

Something awful

Askubuntu

Experts exchange, etc

These are a few of the many platforms that can assist you to find various information on different topics, helping you to structure your content based on that information.

With the mustered information you can make new fresh content for your audience.

But it’s unlikely that the content you create is a new fresh topic out there every time.

Well, it’s true that you can not always create content on a new topic. 

Instead, you can review the already existing content of the experts in the particular domain and try to make a modified and better version of that which adds more value to the topic.

For example,

If your website is into the baking industry and you want to create content on “How to make a chocolate cake?”.

But there is already plenty of content that is boxed around this topic and it might be difficult for your website to rank among them.

Instead, you can add your touch to the recipe and make it a little more awesome than the others out there.

This will give you a plus point in the execution of your white-hat SEO techniques and thus will help you rank in the top positions of the SERPs.

 

For creating content in the form of blogs,

Ensure that you create the content without any spelling or grammatical mistakes. This will add the authority for your content in your niche among the audience.

Grammarly is a profound application that will help you out in this perennial situation.

 

• Descriptive URLs for your webpage

It’s necessary that your web page URL indicates its content and what exactly the user can expect inside if they happen to click on the link in SERPs.

If you want your website to rank seamlessly among the top results in the SERPs, you need to have your URL optimized for that particular keyword you want it to rank for.

We are not suggesting that you stuff keywords randomly everywhere on your content as well as on the URLs. 

This will fall under the black hat SEO techniques and not the white-hat SEO techniques which is acceptable by the search engines.

A descriptive URL tells a lot about the content on the web page to the user for which he/she may be looking for in the search engine.

For example, 

Suppose your website is about “leather bags” and the keyword is the same as well.

Then your URL should also have the same keyword in it which will make the URL descriptive for the users and thus will increase the chances of clicking on the link in SERPs.

Take a look at Flipkart an mega E-commerce website that uses this technique for its products.

 

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Though it may seem to be a small point but is very effective to make your website rank in the top positions of the search engines.

 

• Internal links and external links

Internal linking refers to the linking of one webpage to another webpage on your website. 

Basically your whole website works on the concept of internal linking.

When a user clicks on the “contact us” on your website he/she is directed towards the contact page.

Similarly, you can follow internal linking among the different contents (blogs or articles) on your website.

 

Let’s take a simple example that will bring much more clarity to the concept.

E-commerce websites can be considered as a great example of internal linkings. 

Suppose you wanna buy a shirt from the Amazon website.

When you type the keyword in the search box of amazon, let’s say “printed shirts” then it shows a number of options to choose from.

As soon as you click on any product, it takes you to another page on amazon.

There too, at the bottom of your product page, you can see options such as “people usually buy this together”.

And if you click on that you are diverted to a different page of the amazon.

So, this is what internal linking looks like.

 

Why is internal linking important for your website?

When you internally link any web page to another one on your website, you transfer the authority of that particular web page to the other one.

This is very useful when it comes to the search engine optimization part.

Also, this provides the user with a higher value content and great user satisfaction which is necessary for conversion.

Now let’s proceed to the external linking

External linking can be referred to as the link from your website to a totally different website.

External linking is usually used as a referral in support of your content.

In the internal linking section above, you can see we have used “amazon” as our external link to support our content.

Remember that, the external links you are using in your content cannot be of less domain authority.

That is because if you use an external link of lower domain authority on your website, it will directly affect your SEO rankings.

So, before you use an external link it’s better to check it first with the help of tools such as ahref.

Also, if you want to check the number of links on your competitor’s website or any other website you can use smallseotools or semrush.

 

• Generation of back-links

Now we have studied external links which are nothing but the links from our website to the external website.

Similarly, backlinks are links from other websites coming back to your website.

In a simple language, when someone uses your website link in their content or website it can be referred to as a backlink.

So basically, backlinks are the opposite of external links.

 

Why do you need backlinks?

The more quality backlinks you have to your website, the more credibility your website will get from the search engines.

This means your website will be considered more relevant by the search engines as compared to others and thus will appear on top of the SERPs.

How to create quality backlinks for your website?

 

• Find broken links of websites

This is the most easiest and effective way of getting quality backlinks for your website.

You just need to look for a broken link in a website across niche and then suggest them to include your link on to their website by contacting them through the mentioned details on their website.

Make use of check my links (google chrome plugin) for finding broken links in websites.

 

• Backlinks through infographics

If you have valuable information (numbers and graphs) in your content then you are more likely to get backlinks then the rest of the websites in your niche.

For example Gartner or statista or economic times.

 

• Be a guest poster

Guest posting is an effective way of reaching to the audiences outside the circle and creating an impressionable mark.

This can not only help you in getting backlinks but also help in boosting the brand image of your website.

Well, guest posting is indeed an important part of the whole white-hat SEO techniques collection. 

You can refer to the tweet by the largest search engine around the globe.

Go for the following search queries in the search engine for finding the websites that accept guest posting:

 

• Intitle”guest post”
• Inurl”guest post”
• Intitle”guest author”
• Inurl”guest author”
• Intitle”guest contributor”
• Inurl”guest contributor”

 

• Keep an eye on the competitor’s backlinks

Checkout for your competitors when they are posting new content, what is their content pattern, everything for enhancement in your strategies, the simple way of doing it is by subscribing to their newsletters, following their social media handles, or simply creating an alert for that website on google alert.

Well, there are many more methods by which you can carry out the backlink generation but the above-mentioned ones are the most effective ones.

 

• Improving the website’s loading speed

For sustainable ranking in the SERPs, we can say it’s more than mandatory to have fast loading speed for your website.

You have a better chance of getting ranked in the top results of the SERPs if your website loading speed is less than 2 seconds.

If your website isn’t loading fast enough then visitors are not gonna wait for long and gradually it will disappear from the SERPs.

We have a separate article on techniques for boosting your website loading speed. 

Have a look at it for one of the most crucial requirements among the other white-hat SEO techniques.

 

• Keeping your website organized

Keeping things organized makes you faster and also makes it easier to find things without any efforts.

Similar is the case for your websites, if your website is structured in a well-organized manner it becomes easy for the search engine crawlers or bots to crawl through your website.

This way crawlers get to know your website faster and thus indexes them faster for appearing in the SERPS.

 

Following are the 5 methods you need to pay heed on for an organized website

• Create an XML sitemap
• Check for the 404 errors
• Check your robot.txt files
• Acute interlinking strategies 
• Profound explanations for the images used

 

Summary: The most important rule for getting your website ranked in the top searches of the search engines is to stick with the search engine’s guidelines and white-hat SEO techniques is the only way to do that.

 

Note: Although the above white-hat SEO techniques will surely help you in your SEO journey the search engine ranking algorithm keeps on modifying and upgrading. 

So, it’s important to keep up the changing trends.

 

We hope that this was a helpful piece of information in terms of growth.

Well, if you are profound in executing the white-hat SEO techniques, then you can surely do it on your own.

But if you are not very sure with all the technicalities, it’s better you opt for help from an expert such as Butterflythemes. 

 

Have any questions or suggestions for us?

You can ping us at support@butterflythemes.com or call us on 9930447774.