SEO. Search optimization of the site. Short recommendations

What should be done so that a significant number of users visit the site? What measures should be taken to popularize it?

SEO optimization. Promotion and promotion. TOP-10 in search results

Search engines rank sites in the search results according to a certain coefficient of relevance (that is, correspondence) to the key query. There are over 200 ranking factors used by SEO optimizers to promote sites. Using and maximally taking into account all these 200 factors, you can get a high-quality site that will meet the requirements of search engines.

Methods of SEO optimization

Optimization methods can be conditionally divided into three classes:

• White optimization - work on the resource without using the methods of promotion of the resource officially prohibited by each search engine — without affecting the search algorithms of the sites. You can find out about all permitted methods of search optimization directly on search services;
• Grey optimization — this includes adding a large number of keywords to the text of the page, often with a loss of human readability, repeating key queries a certain number of times in different cases, singular and plural, as well as different forms of the verb, etc.;
• Black optimization — these are all methods that contradict the rules of search engines. Among them, the following can be distinguished: the use of doorways (pages and resources created specifically for search engine robots, often with a large number of keywords on the page), a method called cloaking (the user is given one page that is easy to read, and the search engine is given another, optimized for any queries), the use of hidden text on the pages of the site, which is hidden with the help of a color matching the color of the background or other methods, the use of "one-pixel links" and so on.

Briefly about SEO optimization of sites

In general, if from the very beginning the site is made in accordance with the defined SEO recommendations (for example, from Google) and in accordance with the current specification HTML5, when the site passes inspection (validation) without errors and warnings during inspection validator, the site will already be perfectly indexed and found by various search services, in particular, such as Google, Bing or Yahoo. And although a correctly compiled and valid site does not yet mean its presence in the TOP-10 search results for relevant queries and the subject matter defined accordingly on the site, it still guarantees its possible success in indexing and appearance in search results, even if not in the top ten.

And in order for the site to appear in the TOP-10 search results, of course, it is necessary to pay due attention to its SEO optimization with the application of all necessary measures for its promotion and promotions. This is especially true of commercial sites, whose owners aim to make money with the site and generate income thanks to Internet users.

Some web developers use methods of SEO optimization of sites, which are not always "honest", when thanks to artificially added keywords or phrases on the pages, such a site gets into the TOP-10 of search results, but the site itself does not contain useful information for users. Now, such "black" methods of search optimization are easily recognized by search services, which even block such sites, throwing them out of their search results altogether.

But any web developer (web developer) who works directly with HTML code can carry out SEO optimization of the site for search services independently, using very simple, but quite effective methods for getting into the TOP-10 of search results. For this, it is only necessary to follow certain rules and recommendations provided by the search services themselves, such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and others. Below are just a few, but the most important recommendations and requirements for SEO optimization of sites and, as a result, their possible entry into the top ten of search results.

The most important recommendations for SEO optimization of sites:

• The page must be accessible to search engines (response code 200). Pages that are prohibited from being indexed by search services cannot appear in search results. Make sure the URL returns an HTTP 200 code and is not blocked in the robots.txt file, and the page does not redirect using the refresh metatag to another URL;
• Use original text on the site that is not found anywhere else on the Internet. It is recommended to use at least 50 words or at least 300 characters per page;
• Use the exact occurrence of keywords in the page title <title>; It is the title of the page that is searched for by search services in the first place;
• The length of the title (between the tags <title>...</title>) must be between 10 and 70 characters (including spaces);
• Use only one description meta tag. The use of several META-descriptions significantly confuses the search engine and negatively affects the ranking of the site. The length of the description meta tag should be between 70–300 characters (including spaces). Optimally from 150 to 180; This is a pretty important meta tag. It is the description of the page that appears in the search results, and it is often the description that is paid attention to by users looking for some specific material on the network;
• Use keywords in metathesis keywords (as needed). The number of keywords should not exceed 10. These are usually the words that occur most often on the page. At this time, Google, like most other search engines, refused to use this meta-tag for indexing. Therefore, this meta-tag no longer plays a major role in promoting sites and is optional;
• Use only one <h1> tag per page. At this time, using the <h1> tag more than once on a page is not considered an error when checking on the validator. But for SEO optimization, it is usually recommended to use this tag only once, including the text that corresponds to the content of the page, as well as the keywords for which you are promoting this page;
• Use the length of the text between <h1> - </h1> tags no more than 70 characters (with spaces);
• Use at least one image per page using the img tag;
• Use the required alt attribute for images;
• Use keywords in the alt attribute (recommended, although not required);
• Use the title attribute for images (recommended, but not required);
• Use a limited number of headings with <h2> - <h4> tags per page (recommended within 2-5);
• Use a code/text ratio of no more than 20% (preferably no more than 10%);
• Use key (thematic) words evenly throughout the content of the page;
• Use the number of keywords (word nausea) on the page within 6-8% (at least 1% of the total text volume is recommended). There can be several keywords (usually up to 10). Please note that search services do not like keyword overload and can automatically significantly lower the ranking of such pages in search results;
• Use semantic tags according to sections and elements on the web page; semantic tags are well received by search services and allow web pages to rise in search results;
• Use semantic <strong> and <em> keywords in the content sparingly and evenly across the page. At the same time, it is not necessary to select all keywords with these tags. It is recommended to use the <strong> and <em> semantic tags on the page no more than 10 times. It is also appropriate to highlight keywords with tags <b>, <i> and <u>;
• Use the amount of highlighting keywords with <strong> and <em> semantic tags no more than 3-4% of the total amount of text. If there are more than 4% of such words, search engines may consider such a text to be spammed (cluttered) and will remove it from the search results;
• Use keywords so that they are included in: url pages, page content, title tag, metatags description and keywords, h1 - h6 tags, alt image attributes, internal link anchor text, and backlink anchor text;
• Avoid repeated use of keywords in the description metathesis description;
• Use a ratio of text/html on the page of at least 15%, that is; the amount of text should not be less than 15% of the weight of the page. The optimal indicator is considered to be 50% or more;
• The text should contain keywords that are in <h1>, <title>, description;
• Set the correct language of your page (site), in which most of the content in the tag is created <html lang="page_language">. If your site (most of the content on the site) is in Ukrainian, then the language should be indicated in Ukrainian — Uk (English — En);
• Be sure to specify UTF-8 page encoding (this is the best option used on most modern websites);
• Make the URL more understandable to people and search engines (according to the content of the site or page). It is optimal to use url with words that correspond to the content of the page and are written in Latin letters, for example, the address of the page with HTML lessons can be called uroki-po-html.html or in English html-lessons.html (page extension may be different or not displayed at all);
• Minimize the page's use of inline styles - type constructions style="" or <style> tags. Use them only in case of extreme necessity. Optimal — transfer the styles to a separate file, using only classes — construction on the html page class="". Search engines really don't like using inline styles;
• Minimize on-page use of inline scripts using in-view tags: <script>якийсь javascript-код</script>. Use them only in case of extreme necessity. Optimal — transfer the styles to a separate file, using only the connection of external scripts in the form of the html page <script src="link_to_script.js"></script>. Search engines do not like the use of embedded scripts;
• Give up unnecessary counters (informers) on the site. All of them, as a rule, use javascript code, which can be either built-in, with the loading of third-party code or images, or with the connection of external javascript files. It is often the external (invisible) javascript code that slows down page loading, and may also contain malicious code. Do not use counters and various informers from other sites on your site if you are not sure of their safety and fast operation; an exception can be only scripts of counters or other informants from services such as Google (for example, Google Analytics) etc.;
• Minimize (or completely eliminate) the use of flash animations and frames on the page. This negatively affects the page loading speed, its processing by search engines and the adaptability of the site. In addition, connecting flash animations or frames from third-party sites may contain malicious code that will interfere with the normal operation of your site or pose a virus threat to users; in case of extreme need, frames can be used on the site only with pages of the same site;
• Set domain redirection from www to no www (or vice versa). This is an important point in SEO optimization. If you don't, search engines will index your site as two different ones. Accordingly, your content and links will share weight in half, which reduces the significance of the site for search engines; sometimes this function is already available on the hosting where the site is hosted;
• Do not use different characters in links, such as ?, $, #, @, etc. The link should be written in the form of plain text in Latin, optimally it should also contain keywords used on a specific page;
• Using underscores in links is not recommended. It is not desirable for the link to be in the form: link_to_page. Use hyphens instead: posylannia-na-storinku; although this recommendation is not mandatory;
• Use no more than 5 external links on the page (leading to other sites);
• Use the rel="nofollow" attribute for external links that should not be indexed;
• Use an attribute with a value of rel="noopener" for external links that have a target attribute of target="_blank"; This is a relatively new recommendation from Google. A given rel attribute with a value of noopener prevents an attacker from accessing an open tab or window with a link. This value prevents, for example, JavaScript code on a third-party site from accessing window.opener and changing the content or behavior of the link.
• If you use external links, select only such links that correspond to the topic of the site; It is allowed (even recommended) to use external links to sites that have a similar topic to your site, if you trust these sites and the links themselves contain key phrases and words identical to the topic of your site.
• If the site implements comments from all users, set nofollow to all user links in the comments;
• Use interlinking within the site (links from one page to another, but no more than 100 internal links on one page);
• Use one link to the main site page on each secondary page;
• Use semantic tags. They inform search engines of the necessary information about the structure and content of the page, which allows it to be issued to users on a more relevant request;
• Use XML Sitemaps. It is the site map that search services look for first of all. All web pages listed in the sitemap will be guaranteed to be indexed by search engines. It is MANDATORY RECOMMENDED to have at least one sitemap on your website!
• Use the robots.txt file, in which all the most important pages of the site should be indicated, and which should be indexed by search services, or vice versa - those pages that do not need to be indexed are forbidden for indexing by search services!
• Use favicon (favicon) for the site (at the root of the site);
• Place a 404 error page (error page) in the root of the site;
• Optimize the image (reduce the size as much as possible, and also compress it with appropriate web services or programs without losing quality);
• Use Mobile Viewports (optimization for mobile gadgets);
• Optimize the size of active elements (size of links or buttons for small screens). Search services pay considerable attention to the ease of use of active elements for users of mobile gadgets;
• The weight of any web page with all elements should not exceed 100 Kbytes (better up to 50Kbytes) — RECOMMENDED!;
• When clicking on the site logo, there should be a transition to the main page of the site from any other page;
• When linking with an anchor, the link must be made using a word or phrase that will correspond to the topic;
• Check all web pages of the site for compliance with the HTML5 specification using the validator: validator.w3.org. Also check the CSS stylesheets: jigsaw.w3.org/ of the current CSS3 specification. If you find errors, correct them and only then place the pages on the Internet.

Additional SEO optimization

• Use code compression (compression of HTML/CSS/JS files);
• Register the site in various search services (Google, Bing, Yahoo, Meta, Duckduckgo, etc.) and in various site directories;
• Use micro-markup - machine-readable dictionaries schema.org;< /li>
• Use Open Graph Protocol markup tags (for social networks);
• Use an analytics tracking tool (Google Analytics (optional)
• Maximum increase in the number of active links to your site (or to its individual pages) from other sites;
• Encourage users to visit your site (for example, using links to your site on social networks);
• Use the main query (or keywords) in the first and last paragraphs of the text. Remember, paragraphs (paragraphs) should be no more than 4 lines (recommended!). For the convenience of users and better perception of the text, paragraphs should be visually separated from each other;
• Use bullets and lists, highlighting important parts by numbering or bolding (<strong> tag);
• Add to the site buttons for liking (likes), reposting in any of the social networks, which will help spread information about your site and attract the attention of new users;
• Use the capabilities of various artificial intelligence services, for example, ChatGPT, Bard, BingChat, etc.;
• Periodically use SEO optimization services to check your site or its individual pages. Follow the recommendations and tips of these services and correct errors on the site if there are any;
• Use services to check your site for code errors and follow the recommendations of these services (for example, Google Search Console).

WHAT DON'T TO DO WHEN CREATING AND DEVELOPING A WEB PAGE:

• Do not abuse the number of keywords on the page;
• Do not abuse the number of words highlighted with <strong> or <em> tags;
• Don't put circular links (that refer to the same page) on the page;
• Do not allow non-working (empty, broken) links on the page;
• Links with commercial anchors should not be more than 40% on the site;
• Do not create more than five external links in one block. If the search engine considers that more than 5 links are not suitable for the topic of the site, there may be sanctions;
• Do not set email addresses as plain text on the page;
• Don't use or try to use minimal inline styles (CSS inline);
• Do not use or try to use minimal JavaScript scripts on the page (on the site at all);
• Don't use Flash unnecessarily;
• Don't use iFrames unnecessarily;
• Don't hide a keyword text with a tiny font or page background color. Search services quickly recognize this and bypass such sites;
• Do not overload the website (or a separate web page) with advertising blocks. If there are more ads than useful content on the web page itself, then such pages are ignored by search services.