Search Engine Optimisation

At Small Star Studios we are often asked about how our customers can get their websites higher in searches. There are various techniques known to improve the ranking of a website in search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc) and collectively these are known as search engine optimisation (SEO).

Sponsored Listings

First, we should point out that there is no guaranteed way to make your website appear at the top of searches. The closest you can get to guaranteeing a listing on a search engine's first page of results is to pay for a sponsored listing.

Sponsored listings usually appear above or to the side of the actual search results. They are a very popular and reasonably effective method of advertising your website. Novice web users often click these adverts believing them to be genuine search results.

Content

While the major search engines keep their precise formulae for ranking a website under lock and key, certain techniques have been proven to work time and time again. One such technique is to make sure that you have plenty of useful, unique content on your website.

Simple brochure-type sites usually perform poorly in search results because they just advertise a service and offer little more in terms of information than an advert in your local business directory. You can go one better by writing articles on relevant topics, which will catch the interest of the search engines.

For example, if you operated a website for your painting a decorating business you could write all sorts of interesting articles on choosing the right paint for the job; points to consider when choosing wallpaper; even on which colours are popular this season. Remember that every word you write is another potential keyword in somebody's search.

If you want to get your website listed higher in search results, you should definitely think about using a tool like the Small Star Admin Panel, which enables you to add new articles to your website without ever having to edit a line of HTML code.

Frequency

Regularly adding new content to your website is another method of catching the attention of the search engines. A tool such as the Small Star Admin Panel will allow you to add news articles or blog entries to your site as often as you like and by doing so you can boost your website's search engine rankings.

Don't let your enthusiasm taper off though. Keep adding pages/articles/blogs to your site on a regular basis over the long term and you will be much more likely to succeed at SEO.

Links

While linking to other websites can be useful for your visitors, the links that truly benefit your business are the ones that other people make to your site. Not only do links to your site help get you more customers, but the search engines track these links and they can help to dramatically increase your website's rank.

The old days of the internet, with every website linking to dozens of other related and unrelated websites are all but over. As more and more people are learning the value of hyperlinks it is becoming increasingly difficult to get them.

More often than not, if you ask another business for a link from their website they will probably ask for a 'reciprocal link' - basically a link back to them from your site. You will have to decide if this arrangement is in your interest, but in general the bigger and more successful the site linking to you, the more valuable their link is. We would recommend using the Small Star Admin Panel to maintain a regularly-updated list of links from your own site as the ideal place to store all your reciprocal links.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that search engines reward your website for having unique content, regularly updated pages and links in from other websites. By following the techniques mentioned above you stand a better chance of hitting the first page of results than your competitors.

Why not give us a call today or type your message in the form below to get in touch and find out how Small Star Studios can help to get your new website project rolling. Also, please don't forget to check out our excellent value unlimited web hosting package

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