Until a few years ago, creating websites was a profession that only professionals who had studied programming and html code could do. Today creating a website is not complicated thanks to CMS and assisted CMS tools that facilitate the design task and allow you to do it even without knowing programming codes or html. The real problem then became getting people to find this site and, specifically, making sure that the site is indexed and searchable by anyone with Google .
The site must respond to what is called SEO, Search Engine Optimization, which includes practices to optimize a site and ensure that it is cataloged by Google so as to appear at the top when looking for a word relating to the topic.
Since I am not a professional webmaster nor an SEO expert, I have often tried to look for indications and tips to optimize my Navigaweb.net site. I read many guides of people who seemed to know what they were talking about but I stumbled, in many cases, on old sites, with bad advice, with attempts to scam or rip Google (with techniques called "Black Hat SEO"), with indications obvious, with more advertising than content, which, at times, offer to make you rich by buying a book or participating in an expensive conference.
In the end, I relied more on common sense than on guides written by others and I found more valuable the advice and help of some forums where questions were asked for specific problems, without obviousness or bad advice to fool the Google system.
Among the best sites for SEO I mention the Italian forum Giorgio Tave and the English-language WebMasterWorld and then the Seroundtable site that warns us about all Google's algorithm updates (Core Update).
So I would like to share 10 useful tips for those who want to index their website in Google and to find it at the top when someone searches for the topic. These theoretical and practical tips apply to all sites, personal or business, whatever the method used for the realization, be it a cms (Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal), or through an online tool (Blogger, Wordpress.com, Weebly), whether created through html programming code or using programs like Dreamweaver.
1) Sites born in the 90s were able to become first on Google for several words by simply writing a "KeyWords" meta tag on the html code and filling it with words. The meta-Keywords for several years has no longer been considered by Google and Yahoo and, indeed, if too many words are marked, the site becomes at risk of being penalized and the opposite effect would be obtained. The good practice is to enter a dozen words, even combined, without always repeating the same.
2) The most common mistake of many old school websites is to think about going up, for the search of a certain word, on the Google search engine by repeating this word continuously on the published page. This technique is now seen by Google as an overoptimization and, again, the site is likely to be not only downgraded but even taken for a spam site and therefore not worthy of entering the search engine indexes. What you have to do is write without thinking of optimizing, without counting how many times a word is repeated in the same way; paying attention to keywords is important but it should come naturally and never be forced.
3) The title of the site and of the single web page is the most important factor for indexing.
In another article I talked about how to choose a website title and name, but the same is valid for a single page. The title is important and must be original and unique, not only must it be different between the titles of similar topics on other sites but also within it, it must not be repeated. The title must be written consistently with the content of the page and must be descriptive and concise.
4) As the title, the permalink is important , that is the URL or internet address of the single web page .
We still see sites whose pages have addresses like www.sito.net/php&23432.php. A link of this type is wrong because it does not give indications on the content of the page and Google struggles to consider it good. SEO practice has it that a link is descriptive and relevant to the page content . The URL doesn't have to be the same as the title, it doesn't have to be too long, and it doesn't even have to be a senseless combination of words.
5) The use of Javascript and Flash animations should not be abused and should never be the only element of a website.
Although some flash sites are very beautiful and even though javascript (also Ajax) can make navigation very dynamic and fast, Google still finds it very difficult to index and find content within these sites and, indeed, if it finds too many javascript, consider slow loading. They will probably have more consideration in the future but, for the moment, it is better not to use it too much if you want the site to come out on Google and be found by people.
6) It is known that Google considers the popularity of a site very much, that is, how much it receives links and backlinks from others .
The bad practice and the mistake of many people is spreading their links in catalog sites, going to create spam by writing useless comments on the most famous sites, always trying to insert the address of your website in the forums and, in more cases serious, by buying and selling links and exchanges with sites of different topics. If it is true that a good site with good content has no need to convince or push others to the link, it is also true that putting your site in long lists, aggregators and directories not only has no effect but can even be counterproductive. I have seen people spamming sites like Yahoo Answers, writing "nice" blog comments or asking for hundreds of link exchanges.
7) A site with too many images is likely to become heavy and slow to load.
The images should be optimized with the description in the tag, but keywords must not be abused here either. If there are many images on a page, the alt tag must not necessarily be in all and above all it must not be the same for all.
Those who want to upload many large images must leave the user the choice to view it, by clicking on it, at original size.
On the landing page, the images must be smaller, as wide as the web page and never more.
8) Reporting a website on Google or Yahoo is completely unnecessary .
In general it is enough to have a little patience and any site or blog is indexed and becomes searchable on the internet. All those sites that promise automatic inclusion on Google, sometimes asking for money, are scams.
On Google, however, you must enter the Search Console website (essential) for inclusion in the search engine and indexing, providing a sitemap file that lists all the pages of which it is composed.
9) When you put external links to other websites you must be careful not to connect with dangerous sites, which carry viruses or which publish spam. When you make a link to reputable sites, no problem but, if you intend to share a web resource that comes from a dirty site (such as those with crack or with movies to download), it is better to insert the rel = "tag nofollow "on the link so, if it were blacklisted by Google or if this site disappeared overnight, a protection shield is created from possible influences.
In this context, an overcrowding of advertisements and paid links must also be avoided, which, in addition to creating confusion on a page, risk creating a link of your site with poor services and scams.
10) Producing content without quality or copied by others is the worst mistake you can make if you want your site to expand the user base and last a long time. Obviously, the quality of the content does not mean that you write like Manzoni, you just need to respect the grammar and logic of the sentences. Copying does not mean having to talk necessarily about something new and original but not to create an identical copy to something that already exists. You must always give something more than the existing one and, if this cannot be done in the contents (for example, a guide to format the PC), at least in the way of dealing with the topic.
There are countless blogs where articles are poorly written, ungrammatical, without logic, quickly, with long lists of words.
It is true that Google prefers fresh and constantly updated websites and blogs with new content, but this does not mean that you have to neglect quality only to get content published quickly.
In general, even from my experience, the most successful web pages are those in which we have committed ourselves, writing something useful or descriptions of services, in a complete and interesting way.
I also stop here because Google has published the official guide to index a site on the search engine with important rules that can be followed to optimize a site on Google and have it find the first results.
To be happy with your job, whether it derives from pure passion, or if you do it for a trade, you must keep in mind that there are no tricks to index a site and that, in this sector so monopolized, it controls a robot ( Googlebot ) therefore, trying to screw him can lead to penalties that are difficult to recover.
In another article, I remember the best automatic SEO tools to discover and correct problems related to the relationship between a website and Google.
