Best procedure for optimizing Blogs / Forums / Websites?

I would appreciate ideas, comments, and/or suggestions from anyone who can offer what may possibly be the best way to get a forum / website to appear in the Search Engines.

Trying to accomplish a high (or higher) ranking for one's forum / website in order to attract more potential Visitors (and who hopefully will become members) can be a very frustrating and often times consuming task without satisfactory results.

Many people apparently seem to rely upon optimizing the Google "settings" - and Forum Software Developers (including Woltlab) have set up a process to set up and implement Google.

But relying upon Google (at least for some types of particular forum / website content) can be an exercise in futility because Google has a rather nasty habit of "downplaying" or ignoring (not recognizing) those websites it doesn't like.

And social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are even more "troublesome" in this regard - (Even Mark Zuckerberg's co-founder in a recent interview with the news media said as much regarding Facebook.

As for Twitter, they often engaged in"shadow banning" of those Blog, Forums, and Websites they don't approve of.

So - unless I am leaving out some alternative here unknown to myself - that leaves a person to invest time and effort (and in some situations money) in the remaining alternatives:

Listing one's website with those service providers who specialize in promoting websites via "manual listing" of various search engines - not just Google; advertising one's website on their website; or through a combination of the aforementioned together with Banner Advertising (on various "promotional websites" which accept promotion of other websites if they meet their criterion).

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR ABOVE POST #1:

In looking over a particular Domain Registrar which is reportedly the largest Domain Name Seller and Registrar (Domain . com), they have some interesting comments regarding the choosing of certain Domain Names for the purpose of achieving better site traffic to one's website.

Primarily, their opinion is that purchasing a Premium Domain Name can be preferable over choosing one that has never been created or used before by anyone.

One big drawback however is the initial cost of such Domain Names!

I looked at some of them that might have worked well for me in my newest forum/website project.

The cost? The average price range was anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 USD. And some, believe it or not, were as high as $50,000 plus!

Quote from SoftCreatR

That's what they suggest, for sure. Because that's how they make money A seller for SSL certificates will most likely suggest to get a paid certificate, instead of generating your own using Let's Encrypt...

Yes, of course you are correct; it's all about the "money".

As for the SSL Cerificate issue, the Hosting Provider I use supplies an SSL Certificate free of cost (and which is renewed every year for free) -

if a VPS Hosting Package is purchased (which I do anyway).

Quote from kbarg

But since your host supplied certificate is probably not generated via a real Certificate Authority (Sectigo for example)....Your site may not be as trusted as it could be.

My cPanel autogenerates certificates but thats essentially just a self-signed certificate.

I believe the SSL Certificate I get from my Hosting Provider is. I will, however, check this out when I start up my new website (soon).

However, while on this particular issue of SSL Certificates, it is of course possible to upgrade (or from the get-go) to purchase an SSL Certificate that has all the "bells and whistles". And of course the price goes up accordingly. So again, thus, we're back to what SoftCreatR said in the #3 post above.

But for me, I am satisfied if the particular Certificate I use indicates to the visitor or member of my forum/website that the site is valid and that the "https" designation is actually real.

And keep in mind that, different Browsers treat (act upon) the various SSL Certificates available, in different ways.

In order to make sure that the SSL Certificate one has installed on his/her website, can handle (cope with) all the variations, it stands to reason that

the cost of that particular SSL Certificate is going to have a higher cost.

My guess or opinion is, it all depends upon what the individual website owner is trying to achieve.

For me, what I said above in paragraph 3, is good enough for me.

For someone else, it may very well not be enough.