The much anticipated rollout of Google's Penguin 4.0 arrived on 23rd September and we're already seeing the big changes in search results. Previous Penguin updates have taken place intermittently whereas this update is in real-time.  This means that if your site is properly optimised and well managed, you'll see the benefit more quickly.  You'll also see that penalties can be lifted more quickly. Of course, if there's a problem with your site, or you've got some poor quality links coming to it, you'll feel the pinch straight away.  (As always, Google is keen on clamping down on link spam with its latest Penguin update. It's likely that Google collects data from disavow information in order to automatically detect spam sites…

The practice of search engine optimisation (SEO) certainly looks very different today than it did 5 years ago. Even for professionals working in the SEO business 24/7, it can be hard to stay ahead of the curve. Not surprisingly, when Adwords is straight-forward to understand and measure in comparison to SEO, many clients ask where their budget is best placed. In our experience, there is a strong case for running Adwords campaigns while you build organic rankings for key search terms. In this article, we explain how Adwords and SEO can work hand-in-hand. The case for Adwords Generally speaking, we are strong advocates of Adwords, especially when clients are targeting particularly competitive search terms. The benefit of Adwords is that…

Do a Google search from your desktop PC this week and you’ll notice a change in paid search positions. On pages with so-called ‘high commercial content’ (ie. search pages from which a user is likely to buy), Google now features four paid adverts at the top of the SERPs (search engine results page) instead of the usual three and there are three paid adverts at the bottom of the page. Organic rankings are in the squeezed middle. There are no adverts on the right hand side – apart from Google Shopping images and links. This update has implications for any business which spends money advertising online, of course. The removal of the right hand advert panel means there are fewer opportunities…

Whenever a company gets in touch about search marketing, we always ask for access to their Webmaster Tools.  Webmaster Tools is the ‘dashboard’ which enables you to check that your website is healthy from Google’s indexing point of view. It highlights any indexing issues, such as sitemap submission, broken links or duplicate pages, which need to be fixed in order for your site to be properly indexed by Google. So, Webmaster Tools is pretty important! Unless we’re dealing with a digital marketing specialist in a large company, it’s not unusual for a client to be unfamiliar with Webmaster Tools.  It’s entirely understandable – even the name suggests that specialist technical knowledge is required. It’s a problem which Google has now…

It’s now even more important to ensure your website is mobile-friendly. As of Tuesday, April 21st, Google is expanding its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal, so will give priority to websites which work well when accessed from mobile devices. Tablets are excluded from this latest update, but don’t be surprised if they follow in due course. The company says the change will ‘have a significant impact in our search results’.  They say the aim is to make it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimised for mobile devices. Over the last couple of years, ‘mobile first’ has become a well-worn phrase in the web design industry.  It’s estimated that on average, a third of…