There is always a lot of discussion and debate about what black hat, white hat, and gray hat seo are. The topic has really been beat to death and so have the labels.

Most SEO professionals have one thing in common.

They want their clients to do well. Most SEOs are competitive. They want their clients to rank well for their search terms and they want them to profit from that traffic. It isn’t just that they are competitive. You will spend more money if what you spend is making you a profit. You will refer other people to the SEO that is helping you do well. So it is to our benefit that you rank well and get a good return on your investment.

Different SEO Service Providers have different methods. Some are very technical in their approach and can manipulate certain technical capabilities or flaws to help you rank well. Some are more content oriented. Some are more focused on link building.

But all of them use techniques that have proven to work in the past. Again, they want you to benefit from what they have learned.

What one SEO says is black hat seo, another says it isn’t. Personally I believe that anything that is “gaming” or “tricking” the search engines would fall into black hat seo. But that is my opinion. Others would argue that anything you do that helps your client is just doing your job.

Lawyers use every trick in the book to defend their clients. Most people don’t like lawyers for that reason. But when you need a lawyer, you want someone who will do everything they can to defend you.

So when you need an SEO Expert, do you want one that will do everything they can for you? Of course you do. So basically, if it is not illegal and is not something that will get your domain name banned from the search engines or harm your reputation, then let your SEO Service Provider do their job and you will benefit from what they have learned.

Don’t micromanage your SEO company. You may know a lot about SEO yourself, but no one knows everything. Your SEO Expert probably knows some things you don’t know. Letting them get creative and letting them do what they have a good experience with will benefit you. There is trust involved, but you’re better off trusting them to do their job.

Of course there are bad SEO companies. Just like in any other business. If they say they can guarantee you top ranking in google in 30 days, you might want to look elsewhere. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

So ignore the white hat, gray hat, black hat discussions. Leave that to those who like to label everything and focus on picking someone to do your SEO that seems to care whether you rank well or not.