Are UK Sites Ready for the Panda / Farmer Update?

Google routinely update their ranking algorithms. These are the computational procedures that they use to determine where web pages should be ranked in response to a searcher’s query. Most of these updates are subtle and go completely unnoticed by Google users but on the 24th of February they launched a major algorithm update in the [...]

Track your SEO performance and react to trends

If you don’t know what’s going on in your business, it’s impossible to react intelligently. Knowledge is power. Which is why keeping a simple spreadsheet, list, graph or chart of your SEO performance is really important.  Yes, regular SEO activity can keep you on page 1 of Google. But you can just as easily drop to page two if you [...]

Your maximum meta description length is 152 characters…

… but it’s a limit, not a target. A strong, sales focused, benefit led meta description works wonders for SEO. But do you need to use all 152 characters? No. It’s best to use common sense rather than slavishly create 152 character meta descriptions every single time: a short, sharp meta description can sometimes make your point [...]

Remember to promote your site’s internal pages!

It’s wise to promote your internal pages as well as your site’s index page.  Why? If you’ve designed your site structure with SEO in mind you’ll probably have a fistful of pages named after your most powerful long tail phrases. For example, one of my sites has pages called:  seo-copywriting-samples contact-SEO-copywriter freelance-SEO-copywriter If you optimise each page for the long term [...]

Avoid doorway pages – they’re bad news!

What is a doorway page? a doorway page is designed purely with SEO in mind – a page absolutely stuffed with key words and phrases because it is created exclusively to rank high in search engine results, it doesn’t take human visitors into account  it will either contain a link to another site or will automatically re-direct you to another site   Why are [...]