SEO - Search Engine Optimisation Techniques and Best Practise

Google Explained

A lot of people ask me how Google decides what to rank where. How do you get to the top? What are ads and how do they work? How do you get a local result and a map marker? Well, I'm going to try to explain it all in plain English, without loads of waffle and jargon, and hopefully it will make a bit more sense! Before we start, lets get the jargon and technical terms out of the way. Take a look at the key below ... Read More >

What is Google Panda?

In a straight-talking, no-nonsense approach, I thought I would talk to you about Google Panda and how it might affect your website. With Google Panda, Google changed it's 'rules' around how it ranks websites in it's organic search results. This is old news, and the point of this blog post isn't to just inform you of that. The reason I'm writing is to inform you of some myths surrounding Google Panda. Panda was released to penalise poor websites, simple as that. By poor websites, I mean low on ... Read More >

Reflecting on 2015; the year of the ‘mobile-friendly’ Google update

In the first of a series of end-of-year blog entries, I wanted to talk about one of the biggest changes in the history of Google Search - the 'mobile friendly' update. On 21st April 2015, Google made changes to it's search algorithm, which meant web pages that were 'mobile-friendly' were favoured in mobile search results. This meant that Google would look at the code from a web page and identify if it was easy to use on a mobile device, such as a Smartphone. Google uses a number of factors ... Read More >

How Websites Work (Without the technical jargon)

Since the day I started in the web industry, I have come across loads of customers who really don't understand the first thing about how a website works. And why should you? That's my job. Questions like "what is hosting?" "what does a domain name do?" and "how does my website appear on the web?" are all commonplace amongst people who run their own business and want to build a website. So, what I wanted to do was try to explain it all, in a nutshell, without ... Read More >

Inbox (1) – “We can get you to the top of Google…” – BEWARE!

Beware of Dodgy SEO Companies (COWBOYS)! This month I just wanted to mention an increasing amount of emails I'm noticing from (mainly overseas) SEO companies claiming that "your website contains errors. Let us give you a free review of your website and we can help you increase your search engine ranking." Please beware of these offers. On the rare occasion, they might be from genuine, reputable SEO experts, but the likelihood is that 99.9% will come from overseas based cowboys who send out thousands of emails a day ... Read More >

Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools)

It is amazing how many website owners don't use, or haven't even heard of Google Search Console. Google Analytics is definitely more well known and widely used, but Search Console seems to often be forgotten about. Google Search Console is an essential tool for any webmaster, as it provides some brilliant tools that help you ensure your site is healthy and ranking as it should be on the worlds biggest search engine. When you have a site with gowiththetimes, we set you up with Google Search Console as ... Read More >

SSL – Is Your Site Secure?

I've been putting it off (mainly due to not having time) but I've recently purchased an SSL certificate and am in the process of installing it on my domain. You might be thinking "What is he talking about now?" so here goes... What is SSL? In a nutshell, it adds a level of security to your site which protects your users information. Why is it Important? 1. To protect your users 2. Your reputation 3. Google rankings How Does it Affect Google Rank? Well, have a read ... Read More >

Dodgy Backlinks – Google Ain’t Stupid!

You may or may not be aware that links to your website are a Google ranking factor. For years now, Google has used links to your site as a way of establishing how trustworthy your site is. So the more links you have from other sites to your site, the better eh? No, not quite. That might have been the way a while back, but it's now far more important to have VALUABLE backlinks to your site. Gone are the days of paying for links, swapping links and ... Read More >

3 Weeks Left – Are You Mobile Friendly?

April 21st is the day that Google introduces it's new algorithm for 'mobile-friendly' websites. You may have noticed that if you do a Google search from your smart phone, the results now have a new 'mobile-friendly' tag attached to them (if they are mobile friendly that is). At the moment, this doesn't affect a sites ranking in the search results, but as of 21/4/15, it does! So, is your site mobile friendly? Find out using Google's own mobile friendly test. How did it do? All green? Great! ... Read More >

Google – How to Reach the Top (again!)

Hi everyone, Here is the latest installment about SEO and how Google is working in 2015. Despite the (still) widely believed myths that Google rankings are based on cramming keywords into your content and getting as many back-links as you can from wherever you can, that is NOT THE CASE ANY MORE! I can't shout that loud enough! Google in 2015 is very different to the Google of 10 years, 5 years or even 1 year ago. It is more intelligent, more popular and is bigger and ... Read More >

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation Techniques and Best Practise