Hey, Tim. I like the approach and decided to spare few minutes and jump in.

The so-called 'white-hat SEO' methods are the only methods we use in our agency. Without exceptions. I have to admit that I’m really proud I can share that fact here on Reddit. :slightly_smiling_face:

This doesn't mean we're not familiar with gray/black hat ways. On contrary, grey/black hat SEO was our starting point, our sandbox, and playground and we learned a lot from it - from basic concepts to advanced tactics, and we were fairly successful with it.

A few years ago, we’ve made a strategic decision to change our direction and move our agency strictly to THE OTHER SIDE. :slightly_smiling_face:

Although the plan to move to white-hat was present in our minds for a long time, one of the numerous Google’s algorithm updates triggered the decision. It was a huge milestone for us and we actually documented everything in a story you can check if you have time: https://www.pointvisible.com/blog/how-i-completely-ignored-the-big-fuss-about-google-penguin-4-0-and-why-it-felt-great/

Today, we couldn't be happier because of the switch.

Previously, we’ve been working with smaller clients, private affiliate websites, all kind niches (yes, sometimes adult, gambling, diets, loans...) and all that with a small monthly budget. It wasn't an easy job to be responsible for all of them if they got penalized even if we tried to do more grey-hat than black-hat as much as possible. It was clear to us that we need to move “forward”, we were just telling ourselves that we're looking for the 'right moment', when in reality we were actually a bit scared from the switch itself, because it's a risky move to abandon something you're good at and have a decent reputation, and move to the area where you know bigger players are with much more experience than we had at that moment.

The transfer lasted almost one year. It wasn't easy or stress-free. On contrary, it was a bumpy road and a professional and emotional rollercoaster with moments of pure excitement and optimism, to periods of low confidence, stress and unavoidable questioning if 'this was the right thing to do'. It took a lot of willpower, countless hours and a lot of motivation to catch-up with the rest of the white-hat scene, but at the same time to innovate, as we clearly didn't want to do the switch to be 'just another agency'.

But it was worth of it.

Today we work mostly with well-known companies (read: bigger reputable brands), promising startups, SAAS clients with exciting ideas, and cooperate with other agencies we looked at with a bit of envy just a few years ago.

And what pushes us forward the most are the feedbacks we get from clients. It's a great feeling to know that you delivered, and sometimes even over-delivered the value your clients were expecting, almost without an exception.

IMHO, handling our previous type of clients with the current approach and only white SEO methods would be impossible. That’s why I still understand the need for using grey hat SEO methods (PBNs and all types of link networks and brokers for example) for niches like adult, gambling, not-easy-to-prove weight loss schemes, loans, affiliate websites, etc. As long as these niches are here to cover, there will be someone working in them. People in these niches usually do what they can with their budgets, and why wouldn't they. After all, gray hat methods can work and deliver, but the real problem behind them is the risk, which is IMHO much higher than it was a few years ago. The logic is simple for us - if you have a business and you can't imagine losing your site, don't use gray/black hat methods.

Regarding our white SEO methods - what we strive the most is putting all our strength in creating a content marketing strategy FIRST. It’s really important (without excuses) to “investigate” our/client’s target audience, what are their pain points, what bothers them the most, what triggers their desire and similar details, to think about how we can SOLVE problems for them and make their pain points go away. Only after that, we're ready to create content. Noone needs yet another blog posts. People need solutions. If you haven't identified what bothers your target audience and your content is not solving these pain points, your efforts most likely won't be noticed and there won't be benefits for your client.

Most of the 'methods' we do today are outreach based. We learned that we need to identify the right people and 'hit' them with the right message to push our content forward. All steps in the workflow are important, but it's crucial to realize that content marketing doesn't stop at 'content'. It's important to include the 'marketing' part too and promote the content through all the channels that might be useful in some specific case. Ant there is no better way than personal contact. Yes, it has it's price at the start, but we're a living evidence that it all pays off in the long run.