Introduction

You know when you do something bad, and then you make the always applicable excuse and say, “It’s a grey area!” nonchalantly making the hand gesture associated with dismissal. “Who would mind?” Well, no one, actually. As long you are smart about it. Knowing how black hat SEO techniques can bring you severe penalties and shatter your efforts to make your website rank well, you might think, “Google. Google will mind!” And we all know how powerful this search engine juggernaut is, so you don’t want to mess with it. Worry not because employing grey hat SEO techniques to boost your website ranking is not that bad.

What Are Grey Hat SEO Techniques?

The term “grey hat SEO” has been used in digital marketing for years. It implies using specific techniques that are not precisely against Google’s guidance, but they aren’t the best practices either. They are even a bit outside of what you would consider the best way to go.

Take a look at this example. Google loves backlinks. If you get a referral from an authoritative site, it will reward you. However, Google wants you to get those backlinks organically but has no way of knowing whether that’s how things went down. So, you may need to contact a website owner and request a backlink. That would be considered a grey area.

Why Is Grey Hat SEO necessary?

Website optimization is critical for making your site rank well on Google. It is how you get organic traffic to your website. Once you have an interested audience, you can employ other tactics to get them hooked, make them stay longer on your website, and convert them to customers. As a result, you improve your bottom line. To achieve this, you have to understand how pages rank and what you need to do to make them rank well.

Grey hat SEO allows you to build your online presence without resorting to black hat SEO. It can help you massively with the Google algorithm and attract more visitors to your website.

If we look at the backlink example, it’s easy to see how it works. If you get other websites to quote you or mention you in their content, their visitors may be interested in what you have to say and click on your link. Plus, you can incentivize website owners by offering them to exchange links – a tit for tat, so to speak. That way, you can both benefit. You get a chance to attract their visitors to your page, and they get equal exposure on your website. Just make sure you pick a niche whose clients would be interested in what you are offering.

Grey Hat SEO Techniques To Explore

Besides the link exchange that we have mentioned already, many more grey ghat SEO techniques can help your website rank. Some of the prevalent ones include:

1. Purchasing an expired domain
2. Increasing content length
3. Moderate keyword stuffing
4. Creating multiple social media accounts
5. Commenting on blogs and forums to get a backlink

Purchasing an Expired Domain

This is a widespread practice used to increase ranking. Buying an old domain to improve your SEO and increase the number of backlinks is called domain grabbing. If you purchase an expired domain with excellent authority and then link back to your website, it helps boost your website ranking.

However, you have to play this right. Grey hat SEO techniques only work if you don’t get caught. If you do, you will get a penalty. So, don’t go buying loads of expired domains. Pick highly relevant ones and wait to reap the results.

Increasing Content Length

Long but high-quality articles that provide value to the readers work better. Some of the advantages that longer articles can bring include:

• Possibility to acquire more backlinks
• Increased interest from bloggers to promote you
• Growth in traffic
• More shares

If you notice that your 1000-word long articles don’t attract enough traffic, increase the word count to 2000. Pick several top-performing articles on your website and add more content. Here is what to do:

• Add keywords
• Break up the text with images and subheadings
• Add more relevant information
• Update outdated elements

Moderate Keyword Stuffing

Keywords are the backbone of SEO, but keyword stuffing will bring you penalties because it’s spammy. However, if you are careful with your keyword density, it helps Google understand what your pages are about, allowing you to rank higher.

Keyword density should be about 0.5%. A 1000-word text should have about 4-5 keyword phrases, but anything up to ten is acceptable. Also, you need to use these keywords strategically to get the maximum outcome.

Here is where you should place your keywords:

• Title tag
• H2 and H3 tags
• Meta descriptions
• URLs
• Image alt tags and captions
• Beginning and end of articles

Creating Multiple Social Media Accounts

People spend a lot of their time on social media, and you probably do too, so why not use it to your advantage and boost your website ranking. You can create multiple social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) and increase the number of likes, followers, and shares.

Of course, if you are good at your field and provide value to your customers, they will come organically. So, there won’t be a need to fake your online presence.

Commenting on Blogs and Forums To Get a Backlink

There is an elegant way to get a backlink on a forum or blog without asking for it directly. You can write a comment mentioning the article on your website that you would like a backlink for. You can also use specific phrases related to your article so people can find it if they look for a similar topic.

Final Words

There is always the right way to do something, and there is an easy way. In the long run, the right way will bring you more. It’s crucial to follow Google’s guidelines because it ensures you avoid unnecessary penalties. Always remember that recovering from penalties can be tricky. Grey hat SEO techniques can help you boost your website ranking, but you have to be careful not to slide onto the black hat territory. The line is fine.

Bio:

John Sloan is a content writer who mainly focuses on SEO topics. He loves the challenge of keeping up with the ever-changing search engine algorithms. In his free time, John plays basketball and goes on adventures with his family.