White hat method is seen as the more legal and acceptable way to improve your website. In other words, it’s the ethical way. The content of the site is easily available to their spiders. Simple methods that are considered white hat method that’s generally accepted by search engines are:
•    Naming each page with unique titles
•    Increase the amount of quality content of the site
•    using accurate HTML Header tags, and is descriptive to the page
•    using precise meta tags of sound sizes, without excessive keywords or off topic terms
•    Allowing search engine spiders without the need to accept cookies of session ids
•    Allow your site to have good web ring participation

A good white hat technique simply means that the website is worth the recommendation. Of course, with such quality, the amount of work needed is hectic.

However, with every white hat technique, there is always a black hat technique for replicating it. While the so-called good people crack their minds to write assuring information that is more useful to the human mind, the black hats write software that is able to generate tons of grammatically correct but meaningless information full of keywords that brings in a lump sum of traffic.

Two of the most common Black hat tricks are spamdexing and cloaking

Spamdexing itself can be separated into content spam, linking spam and others.

Content spam

•    Hidden text
One famous way is to hide text. This is done by using tiny fonts, having the text’s colour to be similar with the site’s background colour or even hiding text in the HTML code.
•    Keyword stuffing
Another content spam includes keyword stuffing where random text that has no relevance to the site is filled to raise keyword density
•    Meta tag stuffing
This is as simple as repeating unrelated words in the Meta tags.

Link spam

•    Hidden links
Links are added so that visitors might be able to visit another site after the current one is done with. Generally the more links, the link popularity of a site is increased. However, in this sense, hidden links can be put for the sake of improving link popularity.
•    Buying expired domains
Some spammers even monitor DNS records to see which domain will expire soon. They will then take the initiative to purchase them when they expire and replace the page with links to their website.

Cloaking on the other hand, is more to mislead a search engine regarding the content of the webpage.

Yes, black hat schemes are seen as a negative way to gain online traffic, and are ethically wrong in most eyes, and it all comes down to the webmaster’s point of view. It is of course a lot simpler to than white hat techniques (explains the popularity). Overall, its up to the webmaster to do either the principled thing, or to so call ‘cheat’ and get quick results.

Here are a couple of common factors of the SEO contests

•    The contests usually focus on Google. For one, Google is a difficult search engine to get a good rank, particularly for new websites.

•    Typically SEO contests require participants to optimize a single webpage for a fictional phrase of two silly words. The reason why this is done is to make sure that some websites do not get an advantage and regular internet users to have a smooth usage of the search engine.

•    Blogs seem to do well especially when it comes down to new fresh information on a temporary basis.

The first known contest was the nigritude ultramarine competition, started on May 7, 2004. The contest was won by a man named Anil Dash, two months later. In this contest there were about two hundred competitors. The competitive conditions were demanding, as many contestants use illegal black hat techniques to gain recognition. Although Anil Dash won the competition, another competitor who wrote nigritude ultramarine FAQ won the Judges Choice award due to the fact that it is a valuable source of information about the competition. This web page was placed sixth in the overall standings.

Many Black hat methods involved in the nigritude ultramarine competition includes:

•    False Spam reports- A common technique where contestants try to get search engines to penalize the competitors’ page by filing false spam complains
•    Google Bombing- This method distorts the Google search results for target keywords
•    Parasitic link farms- A parasitic link farm is a big website containing thousands of inter-linked pages.
•    Page count inflation- This is done by adding a huge sum of other pages to the same domain.
•    Guestbook spamming- A guestbook spammer is someone who goes to many Guestbooks just to create multiple links back to their site to boost its position in the page rank system
•    Blog spamming- Similar to guestbook spamming
•    Forum spamming- Similar to guestbook spamming

The first Google SEO contest was seraphim proudleduck. There were over 520000 participants for this competition. Now, only about 84600 seraphim proudleduck URLS exist.

Over time, new special rules and limitations are added to make the competition more challenging. For example, in January 2006, the Redscowl Bluesingsky contest was only opened to web pages with new domains only.

One thing is for sure more SEO Contest will showcase fun and excitement in SEO.

• Not having a < title > for the webpage
When a user searches for some information on a search engine, they usually have a choice of which link to click. Users would scan through the titles and have a clear first impression of your site on their mind. A boring title will most likely be ignored. Apparently the title tag is an important part of your site. Search engines do display the subject in the title tag. Not having a title tag will be harmful to the ranking of your website. Also, title tags such as ‘welcome to my site’ or ‘my world’ which are irrelevant are suicidal towards gaining a good rank. It is vital to have a title that truly reflects your site. However, try not to have a title that is too long, as there is a limit that most search engines can abridge to. Of course, not having a title is even worse.

• Irrelevant keywords
There is a case of too much keywords that are unrelated to your site. For example, sites about selling carpeting equipment with keywords like “David Beckham”. Sure, tons of individuals that are searching for David Beckham will end up at the site, just to realise there is not connection with “David Beckham”. Nothing is gain from such traffic. On the other hand, having the right keywords can be essential to bring in more potential customers. Make sure that the keyword used is specific and it gives an overall picture to the whole site.

• Having too much graphics
Beginners often like to include a lot of pictorial content, sometimes even flash animation. To include vast number of graphics or even flash animations can do one’s site no good. It might look pleasing to a human eye, but means nothing to a search engine. The search engines regrettably are not able to index content or navigation that is embedded in a flash file. A huge quantity of pictures will also not help your site’s ranking at all. For another simple reason, the site might take nearly forever to load. It is a lot wiser to have more keyword content than having a page flooded with graphics.

• Not enough links
If your site has a very limited amount of ingoing and outgoing links, chances are your traffic can be extremely limited. The best way to do this is to exchange links with other sites. Links on other websites to your own plays an important part to increase your page rank of search engines. However, it is also important to have links that are from good quality sites instead of low quality and banned sites. If not it will not contribute much worth to your site.

These are the common mistakes that most beginners will make. Note that there are a lot more faults out there to avoid. Remember, good SEO is important to have good site traffic.

• Know your audience

First and foremost, you as a webmaster need to know who your targeted visitors are. This is of course the most important first step anyone can make. With your targets, you can then move on to what your audiences want. Have content on what your audiences want to read. Remember, no matter how good your website is to you, it is pointless if no body else likes it. Play the popularity card.

• Broken hyperlinks

Just never have even a single broken hyperlink. Make sure all possible clicks lead to somewhere useful. A broken hyperlink will give your visitor an impression that the webmaster never updates his/her site. It destroys the mood of an eager visitor wishing to land their minds on a certain section only to find out that the hyperlink leads no where.

• Security and privacy

Something everyone ignores and some suffer the consequences. No one in the right mind will want their computers to be infected by Trojans, adware or spyware. If your site requires personal information from visitors, especially when it comes to credit card numbers, make sure the system is secured and nothing leaks to nowhere. Earn the trust of your guests.

• Keep your layout interesting

I don not fancy reading information on a site with grey background and size 6 text. I believe I am not alone. Reason number one, it is boring. Reason number two, it is boring. Want to guess what is reason number three? Keep the page colourful, but not too colourful. Make sure neither the text nor the background is an eyesore, not too bright or too dim. Text should also be in an appropriate size, not too small and not too big either. A good website should be pleasant to read. Graphics might help, but never overuse graphics. Not everyone is using a T1 connection out there.

• Navigational Toolbar

Have a navigational toolbar, preferably at the side where all the hyperlinks are displayed. It is easier to maneuver around your webpage with a toolbar, keeping track of where you’ve been and where to click on next. Make sure it satisfies a visitors needs allowing them to get around your website with minimum setbacks or fuss.

• Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors

Ensure that there are no spelling mistakes or grammatical inaccuracies. Keep your language simple, understandable and error free.

• Promote your site

Next thing to do is to bring in crowds. For a start, tell your friends and family about the site. Get them to support you in anyway possible. If you are lucky, they are going to introduce your site to others. Next, join a link exchange program. There are plenty of sites offering this scheme. Perhaps providing free items, like free downloads will increase the popularity of your site. Other ways includes writing blogs or e-books with lots of links connecting to your site. It works.

Follow these simple steps to get started in style. Time is of the essence, make your webpage today!