Search Engine Round-up #37
The Search Engine Weekly Round-up is a quick collection of the finest articles from the online marketing world that have been released throughout the week. In the 37th instalment of this content round-up, we have articles which look at White Hat vs Black Hat SEO, getting more reviews, an analysis of the SERPs and the verdict on some of the most common link building techniques.
Black Hat vs White Hat SEO
Martin Macdonald
Follow @searchmartin
Something which caused a bit of a stir in the community earlier this week is the re-emergance of the black hat/white hat discussions, primarily started by our very own Charles Floate in a thread on Inbound. So, in somewhat of a rebuttal, Martin Macdonald whipped up this post on the whole black hat/white hat ordeal. Martin wraps the post up by stating that in order to really be a top dog in this industry, you’ll have to don the white hat.
There have definitely been plenty of contrasting opinions on the matter, with one particularly interesting comment coming from Barry Adams, who says that black hat/white hat is superficial, and we should do whatever we can for the client, as well as Charlie himself saying that black hat is the only way to ensure that the big bucks start rolling in, in a short amount of time. What are your thoughts on the matter? Feel free to leave them in the comments below.
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Get More Reviews Without Becoming an Outlaw
Joel Klettke
Follow @JoelKlettke
Getting people to leave honest reviews on your site, whilst all abiding by the guidelines and such, is certainly some feat, and can be difficult to achieve. These guidelines that you’ll find describe how you shouldn’t offer incentives to the customer, how you’re not allowed to use in-store kiosks for reviews, et al.
Taking these into account, Joel Klettke has taken the time to provide us with a plentiful amount of tactics and techniques which can be used in order to get genuine reviews from your customers. The tactics listed in this article include informing the customer of the review process, creating a feedback page on your website, as well as a slew of online/email related tactics.
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A New Analysis of Google SERPs Across Search Volume and Site Type
Matt Peters
Follow @mattthemathman
During the recent MozCon event, Matt Peters presented Moz’s data regarding the ranking factors for search engines in 2013. This post is somewhat of a follow-up to that, with Matt Peters once again presenting a whole host of data on the Moz blog. This is all to get a better grasp of the Google search algorithm, and find out whether there have been any changes in regards to Google’s search results across search volume or topic category.
This is some excellent, thorough analysis into the workings of the SERPs, with the correlation between rankings in the SERPs and links still proving to be very strong.
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The Verdict on 10 Common Link Building Tactics
James Agate
Follow @jamesagate
The final post this week focuses on several link building techniques, and whether they can still play a part in an SEO strategy these days. James Agate takes a look at the most commonly used link building tactics such as guest blogging, getting links from web directories, linkbaiting and paid links, and provides a verdict which dictates whether they should be avoided or welcomed in a link building strategy – as well as the most appropriate time for them to be used. Considering that SEO and all that it encompasses is ever-changing, it’s great to have an informative resource such as this.
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That’s all for this week’s round-up. If you fancy sharing the content which has been mentioned in this blog, click the corresponding Tweet buttons. So, what have been your favourite articles of the week? Feel free to leave your comments below
