Understanding SEO: Why Top Rankings Don’t Happen Overnight

As the wise saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day. The same goes for businesses sitting at the top results of certain keywords. It takes time and an effective SEO strategy to increase a business’ rank in the search results without any consequences.

If a digital marketing agency claims to have a secret to increase your business’ search result rankings quickly or guarantees a top spot, take it as a red flag. While it sounds ideal, an SEO strategy that lasts and produces no long-term penalties does not happen overnight. 

White Hat vs. Black Hat Strategies

Analysts use two terms to describe SEO strategies: white hat and black hat techniques. On the one hand, white hat SEO handles quality content and organic link building using strategies such as share-worthy articles, keyword research and use, internal linking, and website content and meta description optimization. This strategy takes time to grow organically but follows Google’s rules and standards to avoid penalties.

Black hat tactics, on the other hand, is the aggressive short-term solution to improve rankings. Methods such as using keywords unrelated to the business, adding fake and automated comments, doorway pages, cloaking, and invisible texts increase rankings without paying any attention to quality.

In the past, tactics that added hundreds of the same keyword may have worked for certain businesses, but today, Google’s algorithm has changed. The search engine appreciates high-quality content, organic traffic, and the time people spend on websites. It also detects black hat methods and penalizes these attempts accordingly.

Google Penalties

For every algorithm update, Google lists guidelines for business websites. Parts of these rules do not allow black-hat tactics, and failure to abide incurs resulting penalties in that business’ rankings.  Penalties are not limited to black-hat, but websites guilty of practicing bad SEO drop in Google’s rankings and find it difficult to recover.

Slow but Lasting SEO

If a digital marketing agency promises fast results, they are using black-hat tactics. You may see fast results, but when Google detects this and drops your rankings even further, is it really worth the risk? On the internet, where slang like “Just Google it” and jokes like “the best place to hide a body is on the second page of Google search results,” are serious, messing with the algorithm and using bad strategies may mean negative effects for your business.

Instead of choosing digital marketing agencies that promise speedy results, work with those that provide effective strategies with long-term effects on rankings and reputation under Google’s algorithm. With the algorithm constantly changing, you want SEO experts who can tell good from bad methods and only use strategies that will not harm your business.

It is better to get the job done well than to get it done fast. For the sake of your business, do not believe claims of fast outcomes. SEO requires a long process that, if done right, will improve your rankings, visibility, and revenue.

For white hat techniques that produce results, consult with the SEO experts at SEO in St Petersburg, FL.