Don’t: Use Black Hat SEO Tactics
Too many professional online marketers fall under the spell of Black Hat SEO tactics. Black Hat SEO is a set of methodologies that are used illegally increase the page rank of a website on search engines. These tactics are not technically illegal but they do violate the search engines’ terms of service that all websites must adhere to in order to have their website ranked.
If you search online you will find that there are hundreds of companies offering professional services that they claim guarantee you a specific ranking on Google and other search engines. The only way a company can make this type of guarantee is to utilize tactics that that run contrary to the written guidelines of Google or the other search engines.
Because there are so many websites ranked and companies want to get their sites on the first page of a search there is always a great temptation for them to hire one of these companies. The company can even point to sites that seemingly have no reason to be at the top of a search that their company has manipulated. So in some cases they can do as they claim.
The big problem is that if the search engine discovers that you have used the Black Hat SEO tactics to manipulate the position of your website, they will ban your website from their search results and seek to make it difficult to be included in their search when you create new sites. Instead of looking for illegal tricks the best path is to use legal White Hat SEO tactics. Smart businesspeople like Michael Volitich know that these tactics take more time and are not as certain to be as effective as Black Hat SEO, but they will be sure to keep you in the good graces of the search engines which can make or break your website.
Build a Social Media Following the Right Way
Social media has become a primary way for marketers to build an audience of customers and to interact with them often and directly. The way to build an audience on social media is to put in the time and do it utilizing slow and steady steps. Today many companies offer to sell you social media followers. They claim that they can have you 1 million followers or more in a short time making you look more attractive to others who will see that you are very popular and want to become a follower as well.
But if your goal is to get reliable and active customers who see your vibrant online community engaging with you and each other, this approach will work against you. When you purchase these followers that will not be active and people will look at your social media page with so many followers and no activity, and they will simply not engage either. Further they will tell their friends that your social media pages have been manipulated. Remember activity should be high with so many followers. The best approach is to build your followers organically. They will be active and engaged and it will cause others to do the same.
