SEO (with tips for MediaWiki and WordPress)
There are so many articles, book, software, etc. devoted to SEO (Search Engine Optimization). While there a lot of great information, the vast majority of content on the subject seems to be devoted to the last 5% / fine tuning of a website. What about the other 95% of SEO, like the basics. It ain't glamorous, but it is important.
And don't forget about CMS (Content Management Systems) that allow for easy publishing of websites. How does one control and make changes to the items Search Engines deem important? Should it all be left up to software to automatically manage that? Nope. So again, how is that controlled and manipulated?
An element of the internet that is missing today is some Google Sized Directory Service (not a Search Engine), but a Directory Service that is maintained by people and has a certain amount of bias towards high quality web sites. ODP (Open Directory Project) is about all that's left of this, although it could be argued that Wikipedia is a reflection of this.
SEO
SEO (with tips for MediaWiki and WordPress)
SiteMaps
Robots
Google Search Console (other search sites too): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Search_Console
Google Analytics
Google Insights merged into Google Trends
Bing Webmaster Tools
Basics
There are some basics that apply to every website and web page. First CONTENT!!! Notice the emphasis on that. If the purpose of your website is to garner traffic for the sake of traffic or selling advertising space, then fork you (Watch The Good Place on NBC and you'll understand that term if you don't already). For all the other people on the planet who are trying to create or write something useful or artistic, you're probably already doing the right thing and there doesn't need to be any further explanation. Although I would point out, spelling, grammar, etc. are important too.
Beyond that, why not start with the king of search, Google, and find out what they have to say on the subject. After all, they are the search engine. So for right now, forget about all of those books that have some interesting information on the last five percent of important things to do for SEO and focus on the first 95%.
- Quality Content. It's self explanatory.
- Title Element for each page: Make it accurate and unique for each page, but not long winded.
- Meta Element, Description Attribute: A simple, concise sentence that summarizes a web page. Avoid the same description on every page.
- Per many sources (noted in the Wikipedia article on the Meta Element), the Keyword Attribute is almost completely ignored since the late noughties.
- Additional "Tips of the Current Era": Look at extensions for MediaWiki, like WikiSEO (discussed later), and the different settings it has. These are some fairly clear indications as to what is important to SEO.
MediaWiki
HTML Meta and Title Extension
To change the <Title> Element, add this extension: Add HTML Meta and Title
Using the "Magic Word" PageName along with the $wgSiteName Variable (in LocalSettings.php), one can keep the automatically generated Title Name and add to it;
<seo title="{{PAGENAME}} - WhatEverAddtionalText" metakeywords="WhatEverKeyWords,AnotherKeyWord,Etc." metadescription="WhatEverDescription,AnotherDescription,Etc." />Tried different Meta Attributes (see W3schools for more) and none of them worked. Even tried it without "meta" prepending the actual attribute name. google-site-verification is another item that does work. WikiSEO is a more advanced extension that does a bunch more.
Not so much for SEO, but nice as it is displayed on every page is the "Tag Line" (Example on the Wikipedia Site:From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) is the "Special Page", MediaWiki:Tagline (by default contains: "From {{SiteName}}", SiteName being a "Magic Word" for the name of the website) can be edited to anything (although "Create Source" must be selected first before it can be edited).
WikiSEO Extension
MediaWiki
SiteMap Script and Cron or a System Timer
WordPress
WordPress
Yoast and others