In today’s world it’s all about speed. This is true especially when it comes to internet and SEO. Search engine algorithms for example are changing every second so it is crucial to stay on top and be as fast as possible because your competitors are not going to wait for you. Demanding clients and short deadlines are the other two reasons why so many people are taking shortcuts. But are those SEO shortcuts really effective? Is it worth risking it all and how much risk exactly do you take?

First of all, let’s say you have a blog with a fair amount of readers and they are all subscribed for your newsletter which you send every week. This is great but you start feeling like the list of subscribers is growing too slowly. So you get greedy and you buy a list of 50,000 email accounts which you include in your e-mail marketing campaign. At this point you should realize that the risk you are taking is huge and the worst will most likely happen. Think about all the people who have never visited your blog and will flag your e-mails as spam. If, for example, you are using an e-mail marketing tool such as Constant Contact, you will get your account banned when they receive too many spam notifications and you will lose your valuable contacts as well as the ones you purchased.

Spamming is never a good thing and rushing things almost always leads to that. Black Hat SEO is something which always sounds tempting but it only provides results for a short period of time. Although those results are quick and easy to measure they always lead to complications and search engine penalties.

One of the most popular Black Hat shortcuts is getting bulk links from spun articles that provide no quality content at all. Using article spinning software to generate 100 “different” articles using only one is something that will help you save time but will be ineffective and the links you will get will not pass any link juice at all. Not to mention the bad reputation your website will get and the high chance of penalty from search engines like Google.

Having demanding clients who always want to see quick results is difficult most of the times because of the nature of search engine optimization. The hardest part is explaining that nothing will happen over night. Just because you have a deadline doesn’t mean you should take shortcuts and show results that will not bring any benefits in the long term. Avoid any Black Hat SEO techniques at all costs and stay on the safe side. Slow and steady is always better than fast and risky.

Atanas Valchev works for one of the leading SEO companies in Bulgaria – SEO PAL. He and his colleagues share great SEO tips on the company blog.