When it comes to developing your search engine optimization strategy (SEO strategy), you will find yourself in one of two camps. Firstly, there are those who see the search engine as their enemy that they must conquer at all costs. Secondly, there are those who see the search engines as their partner and vital coworker in their online marketing strategy. Both approaches have their own pros and cons and it is important to be aware of those before you decide which side to choose.
Adversarial Search Engine Optimization Strategy
Firstly, there is the adversarial philosophy. This believes that SEO is like playing a game of chess with really high Stakes. It sees the search engine as the enemy and every other website as a competitor that must be beaten. It also has a high technological underpinning. Success is down to figuring out exactly how the algorithms work and thereby staying ahead of what the search engines are looking for. Effectively, it is about tricking search engines to show a website without actually venturing in black hat techniques. It must be made clear that black hat techniques should not be part of any SEO strategy.
Partnership Search Engine Optimization Strategy
The second option believes in partnership. With this philosophy, it is about embracing the fact that SEO is in place to ensure websites rank highly because they are actually what people are looking for. This is about creating value to the visitors of the websites rather than doing what the search engines want. This is a logical theory because it focuses more on consumer satisfaction period it takes the approach that, while everything is now digital and online, the consumer is still central to everything that is done and what they need override what Google, Yahoo, and Bing needs. With the partnership approach, website owners also work together with other website owners, linking to each other to add more value to their respective visitors, hoping that this will translate into more paying customers.
So which strategy is best? This all depends on your ultimate goal. If you are an online business in a highly competitive niche, then the adversarial approach is probably best. That is because your goal is simply to be found since you already know that your products will be purchased. However, if you are a service provider or you focus on an area of the market in which there is less competition, the partnership approach is definitely better as it will build up your reputation as being a true authority in your field.
It must be repeated once again that regardless of which of the two sides you choose, you should never engage in black hat SEO techniques. Those techniques are considered adversarial techniques but they are also methods of actually cheating. When you cheat, you will eventually get caught and this will mean losing your website or together as it will never be found on the search engines again. Regardless of which of the two camps you sign up to, being honest and transparent must always be of the utmost importance.