Part 1 : What your visitors and Google can both read
The words on your pages are where most of the SEO work happens: that's why professionals call it "on-page SEO". Both your visitors and Google read the same titles and the same text. What works for one usually works for the other.
1. How to choose the right keywords for your website
Keywords are the words your visitors would naturally use when searching for what you offer.
If you run a guesthouse in Lisbon, your visitors probably search for "guesthouse Lisbon," "family hotel Lisbon," or "where to stay near Belém." Those are your keywords. You don't need a special tool to find them. Go to Google, start typing your main topic, and watch the suggestions appear. Look at "People also search for" at the bottom of the results. Those are real searches by real people.
Write down the phrases that match what you offer. Use them in your titles and throughout your text. But don't overuse them!
Read the full FAQ: How do I add keywords to my website?
2. How to write a good website title
Your website title appears in the header on every page. It's the name people will see first and the name they'll remember.
A good site title reflects who you are or what your site is about. It can be your business name, the title of your book, the name of the place you're blogging from. You can add one or two keywords to give it context, but be careful: a header crowded with keywords loses its identity and stops being memorable.
Keep your site title very short. Find the balance between identity and description. The title of your site sets the feeling visitors carry from page to page.
Read the full FAQ: How do I write a good Title for my website?
3. How to write good page titles
A page title should summarize what's on that specific page, using the words your visitors would type when searching for its content.
"Welcome" or "Our Services" says nothing about what the page actually contains. "Dog grooming in Melbourne," on the other hand, tells both visitors and Google exactly what they'll find.
When someone lands on the page, the title is the first thing that confirms they're in the right place, making them more likely to stay and read further.
How should you phrase a page title? Think about what a stranger would type into Google when looking for what this page offers, and let that shape the way you compose it. The same is true of AI search tools: they look for pages whose titles match the question being asked, as closely and literally as possible.
Read the full FAQ: How do I write a good page title?
4. How to write good section headings (Block Titles) on a web page
Within each page, your section headings break the content into parts that visitors can scan. Most people don't read a web page from top to bottom. They look for the section that matters to them.
A good section heading tells the reader exactly what's in that section. "Why we only use gentle grooming methods" works. "Our Approach" doesn't. If the content of a section doesn't match its heading, either rewrite the heading or split the section into two. Clear section headings also help AI search tools quote your page accurately when they summarize or cite it.
Read the full FAQ: How do I write good block titles?
5. How to link your pages together to create a useful path through your website
A website is more than a collection of pages. It's the trail between them. When a visitor reads about your bakery's bread and finds a link to your delivery service, they follow it naturally. Google follows that same trail and sees a site that's organized and connected.
Internal links don't have to live in a navigation menu. They can be a sentence in the middle of a paragraph, a button at the end of a block, or a related-topic link at the bottom of a page. Wherever two pages on your site touch the same subject, a link between them helps both your visitors and Google.
Read the full FAQ: How do I use internal links on my website?
6. How to choose a good domain name
Your domain name is the address people will type or click to reach your site. A good name for your website is short, easy to remember, and hard to misspell.
You have two reasonable approaches. You can use your brand or business name, in which case the keywords that describe what you do should appear in your homepage title. Or you can use keywords directly in the domain, like vegan-pizza-oakland.com. Either works. What matters is that the domain and the homepage title together tell people what you offer.
Read the full FAQ: How do I choose a good domain name?
Part 2 : Your site's first impression
Before anyone reads your page, Google and social media platforms often preview it first in a search result or when it's shared. A few small settings shape how it looks in those places. Setting them is optional, but it's a chance to influence how your work appears to the world.
7. How to add meta tags to your website
Meta tags are short pieces of information that describe your page to search engines. The 3 that matter most are the Title for Search Engines, the Meta Description, and the Site Name.
The Title for Search Engines is the title of the page as it appears in Google's results. It can be different from the title visitors see on the page itself, and it should be short, clear, and tempting enough that someone wants to click.
The Meta Description is the short summary that often appears below the title in search results. A good description tells people what they'll find on the page and gives them a reason to visit.
The Site Name is a newer element that Google shows alongside your search results. It identifies your brand or website across all your pages. For now, the only way to set it is to have a custom domain name.
Read the full FAQ: How do I create meta tags for SEO ?
8. How to help Google understand your images
Google is getting better at recognizing what's in a picture, but it still relies most on the words you add to it. The main way you do this is with alt text: a short written description of what the image shows.
Alt text does two jobs at once. It's read aloud by screen readers to visitors who can't see the image, so it's part of making your site usable by everyone. And it's what Google relies on most to understand what your pictures are and how they relate to your page.
The best alt text does more than just describe the picture in the abstract, it connects the image to what the page is actually about. On a bakery page, "the sourdough we bake fresh each morning" works better than "a loaf of bread," because it tells both a screen reader and Google what this image has to do with your business. Keep it short, honest, and specific. You are invited to add alt text to every image you place in SimDif.
The filename of an image also counts a little. sourdough-bread-melbourne.jpg gives Google a small extra clue compared to IMG_4429.jpg. We'll be honest: SimDif doesn't yet let you keep custom filenames once an image is uploaded. It's something we plan to improve. In the meantime, a good alt text on every image is doing the work that matters most.
Read the full FAQ: How do I optimize images for SEO?
9. How to control how your website looks when shared on social media
When someone shares a link to your website on Facebook, LinkedIn, or X, a small preview appears with an image, a title, and a short description. By default, social media platforms guess what to show. But because you are creating your own website, you can decide for them.
These previews are controlled by something called Open Graph metadata. You don't need to remember the technical name. What matters is that you can choose the image, the title, and the description that appear when your page is shared, so the preview looks the way you want it to.
Read the full FAQ: How do I add Open Graph tags to my SimDif website?
Part 3 : What happens after you publish your website on the Web
Publishing your website is just the beginning. There's still the work of helping people find it, paying attention to what's working, and improving what isn't.
10. What to check before you publish your website
Before your site goes live, there are small things that are easy to miss. A page without a title. An image without an alt text. A meta description left blank. None of these will stop your site from working, but each one is a missed chance to help visitors and Google understand what you've built.
When you tap Publish in SimDif, you can switch on the Optimization Assistant, even on Free Starter sites. It runs through your site, looks at the blocks and pages you've worked on, and tells you what's missing. Each suggestion is clickable and takes you straight to where the fix is needed. You can act on the suggestions, or skip them and publish anyway. They'll still be there next time.
Read the full FAQ: What does the SimDif Optimization Assistant do?
11. How to tell Google your website exists
If your site is well organized and full of useful content, Google will eventually find it on its own. You can speed things up by telling Google directly.
The way to do this is to submit your sitemap, which is a list of all the pages on your site. SimDif creates this list for you automatically. To submit it, you first need to verify that you own the site, through a service called Google Search Console. In SimDif, the top right corner icon, Site Settings, has a section for ownership verification that walks you through it.
Once your site is verified, you can submit the sitemap in Search Console. After that, give Google a few days. Submitting doesn't guarantee your site will appear in search results, but it gives Google a clear signal that you're there.
Read the full FAQ: How do I tell Google about my new website?
12. How to get other websites to link to yours
A link from another well-organized site towards yours helps Google find you and helps Google take you seriously. There are many ways to earn such links: a directory might list you, a partner or supplier might mention you, someone who genuinely uses what you offer might write about you. None of these can be rushed, and none of them should be bought.
A practical first step is to list your site in a directory. SimDif has its own directory, organized by category, free to join for any Smart or Pro site. You choose the category that fits your activity, fill in a few details, and your site appears in the directory within a day. It's a small thing, but it's a real link from a real site, and it gets you started.
Read the full FAQ: How do I add my site to the SimDif SEO Directory?
13. How to appear in Google Maps and local searches
If you run a business that serves people in a specific place, Google Maps may be the most important place for your website to show up. When someone on a phone searches "bakery near me" or "guesthouse Lisbon," Google often shows a small map with two or three businesses at the top of the results. Many people choose from those before they ever scroll further down.
The way to appear there is to claim a free Google Business Profile for your business. You add your address, your opening hours, a few photos, and a link to your SimDif site. Google checks that the business is real, usually by mail or by phone, and then your business becomes visible on Google Maps and in local searches.
A few honest reviews from real customers help more than almost anything else you can do. Ask the customers who already love what you do; don't buy reviews and don't write your own.
Your Google Business Profile and your SimDif site work together. The profile gets people to notice you; the site gives them the fuller picture and the reason to visit, book, or buy.
Read the full FAQ: How do I get my business on Google Maps?
14. How long does it take for a website to show up on Google?
The honest answer is: weeks, sometimes months. There's no shortcut, and anyone promising you instant Google visibility is selling you something.
For a brand new site, Google needs time to discover it, crawl its pages, decide what it's about, and figure out where it sits among everything else on the same topic. Submitting your sitemap helps. Getting one or two links from other sites helps. Writing clear titles and useful content helps most of all. None of this is fast.
While you wait, the best thing you can do is keep improving the site itself. Add a page. Rewrite a vague title. Connect two related sections with a link. The work you do during the waiting period is exactly the work that will make Google take you seriously when it does come looking.
Read the full FAQ: How long does it take for my website to appear on Google?
15. How to see how many people visit your website
Once your site is live, you'll want to know if anyone's reading it. SimDif gives you a simple visitor count and how many pages they look at, right inside Site Settings under "Number of Visitors." That's enough for most people, most of the time. But watch the trend over weeks rather than reading too much into any one day.
Install Google Analytics for more detail
If you want more than a simple count, Google Analytics is the standard tool. It shows you where your visitors come from, which pages hold their attention, and how long they stay, in almost real time. You'll need a free Google Analytics account and the Measurement ID Google provides, which you paste into Site Settings under Google Analytics on a Smart or Pro site. From then on, your visits are tracked in your Analytics account.
There's a lot in Analytics, but you don't need to understand all of it to find it useful. Start with what's most useful to you.
Read the full FAQ: How do I see how many visitors my SimDif site gets?
Part 4 : Two key principles underlying your efforts to make your site visible on Google
The fifteen chapters above are tasks: things you can do, one at a time, with a clear before and after. The last two are different. They're the principles that the rest of the work rests on. If you only remember two things from this whole post, remember these.
16. Does my website work well on phones?
More than half of all web traffic now comes from phones. Google knows this, and it factors mobile performance into its rankings. A site that looks fine on a computer but is slow, cramped, or awkward to use on a phone will be pushed down in search results, no matter how strong its content is.
The good news for SimDif users is that you don't have to do anything special. Every SimDif site is built mobile-first, with the same features and the same layout quality on a phone as on a computer. Speed matters too, and SimDif sites are fast. None of this is something you switch on. It's simply how the sites are built.
Check your site with a fresh pair of eyes. Open it on your phone and walk through the pages the way a visitor would. If you built your site only on your phone, like many SimDif users do, open it on a computer too. If something feels off, it probably needs fixing, and the FAQ below has a short checklist of what to look for.
Read the full FAQ: Is my website optimized for phones?
17. Should I write my website for Google or for my visitors?
This is the question that sits underneath everything else in this post, and the answer is the same answer Google itself has been giving for years: write for your visitors.
Google's job is to connect people with websites that genuinely help them. The whole machinery of search exists to find pages that answer questions clearly, in the language people use, with content that's useful and trustworthy. When you write a clear title because you want a visitor to know they're in the right place, you're also writing the title Google is looking for. When you organise your pages around the topics your visitors care about, you're also organising them the way Google understands best.
This is even more true of AI search tools. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews read pages, summarize them, and quote from them. The pages they choose to quote are the ones that say something clearly, in plain language, with the answer near the question. That's the same kind of page a human visitor wants to read.
There's no real conflict between writing for humans and writing for search engines, because search engines are trying to think like humans. People who try to game the system, stuffing pages with keywords or chasing tricks, end up with sites that work for neither.
Write the site you'd want to read if you were the visitor. That's the whole game.
Read the full FAQ: Should I write my website for Google or for my visitors?
Where to go from here
Seventeen angles on getting your site found is a lot. You don't need to do all of them, and you certainly don't need to do them today.
Pick the one that matches what you're working on right now. If you're choosing a domain name, start with chapter 6. If your site is built but not yet found on Google, chapter 11 is for you. If you've been published for a few weeks and nothing seems to be happening, chapter 14 will help you understand why.
Come back when the next question arises. The advice will still be here.
For deeper guidance, two things are worth knowing about. The first is PageOptimizer Pro (POP), a professional SEO tool built directly into SimDif in collaboration with its creator. POP analyzes your pages alongside what's already ranking for your topic on Google, and tells you exactly what to adjust. You'll find it under the 'G' icon in the app.
The second is the SimDif Advice Letters, a series of short articles on website building, where we go into the kind of thinking that doesn't fit into a checklist.
Your website is already out there. Now you're learning how to help the right people find it.
