Every company wants its web presence to thrive, regardless of its scale of operations. You might consider resorting to any means necessary to reach out to every potential client that you can. However, black hat Search Engine Optimization strategies like spamdexing only give short-term benefits at best. They may even drive away potential customers who recognize what you’re doing. So, let us go over how to ditch SEO and do ethical PEO instead.
Before we get started, let me explain what black-hat SEO is, its mirror, white-hat SEO, and conversion rates. Then we’ll cover PEO and how to implement it.
The short version; black hat SEO is using underhanded means to artificially climb rankings.
Google and other search engines want to provide results with meaningful content, rather than spammy garbage. If the front page of results was always full of content-mill sites that are nothing but random keywords and irrelevant links pointing back and forth, would you continue using Google? I know I wouldn’t.
Because of this, Google is constantly evolving how it determines search rankings. Since the internet is so vast and grows by the day, there is no way they could determine rankings manually. Whenever someone discovers exploitative means of climbing the rankings without genuinely providing quality content, Google shoots it down ASAP. Hence its need for constantly updating algorithms.
A few SEO practices considered Black Hat are:
The short version; white hat SEO is generating content worthy of climbing search engine rankings. There’s no trickery of gaming the algorithms to get an undeservedly high position on desired keywords.
Of course, these methods take more time and effort to implement. Otherwise, why would black hat methods even exist?
A few SEO practices considered White Hat are:
Conversion rate is the ratio of visitors that carry through with the desired Call to Action of the page. This metric is trackable by gauging what percentage of visitors do things like filling out forms, following links, or making purchases.
Conversely, the bounce rate is based on the number of people that leave the site without engaging with the site any further.
To determine the success of your online business, it’s more important to consider the conversion rate over plain page views. By optimizing your site for your intended users instead of randomly screaming, “I am here!” into the void, you’ll earn happy, loyal clients.
A large driving force behind high conversion rates is ethical PEO.
People’s Eyes Optimization, aka Conversion Rate Optimization, is when you focus on catering to your visitors. By providing a positive user experience, visitors are much more likely to stick around.
SEO is focused on people finding out that your site exists when searching for related keywords. However, when you only care about SEO, you’ll have a higher bounce rate. Putting your emphasis on PEO will not only improve your conversion rate but also naturally improve your SEO in the long term, too.
Most white hat SEO techniques go hand-in-hand with PEO. This is intentional on Google’s part since it wants only the best results for its users.
However, their algorithms aren’t perfect. Several PEO-focused aspects aren’t trackable by Google. One aspect, in particular, is the effects of visuals.
How to ditch SEO and do ethical PEO? And why?
Numerous Eye-tracking studies have discovered some interesting things. For example, while images quickly attract attention, pictures of people are even more effective. Within that category, depictions of women, babies, and attractive people draw the most attention of all.
You might have heard of the halo effect before. It stands true in PEO as well. In the previous example, people often have a cognitive bias towards attractive people. Once a positive impression is made, people tend to let it skew their opinion on the subject and anything related to it.
While users are focused on images of people, they are influenced further. Humans instinctively follow the gaze of others. An image of a person looking in the direction of a block of text will guide users’ attention to it, too.
Additionally, photos of people increase empathy and influence the emotions of viewers. Including pictures of your company’s employees will make them seem more relatable to users. Likewise, pictures of happy smiling people will instill feelings of trust and happiness.
Google only understands the alt text you provide for pictures. However, your site’s visitors might be more influenced by the imagery than the text itself. For example, if you are selling a product, images of the product can be far more effective than the narrative description. Of course, you should still include the text, too.
Now that we’ve covered things in-depth, here are some pointers on how to implement this newfound knowledge on your business’s website:
It’s a pretty clear gimme that visitors will appreciate carefully edited, high-quality content over something riddled with inaccuracies and typos.
With all of the previous information in mind, some steps on how to ditch SEO and do ethical PEO:
Hopefully, your site doesn’t need a major overhaul to implement these suggestions on how to ditch SEO and do ethical PEO instead. Even if it does, prioritizing your users rather than scrambling to temporarily climb Google’s rankings will be more than worth it in the long run.
Good luck with your business growth endeavors. Now you know how to ditch SEO and do ethical PEO. Together, let’s make the internet a better place by ethically putting people first instead of chasing algorithms at the expense of our users. If you need help on this journey, don’t hesitate to contact us through the live chat in the bottom right, leave a comment, or send us an email. It might also be worth checking out more about SEO proxies.
Cui: 45488166 J40/703/2022