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Recently, Google Places became Google+ Local, and at first glance very little changed other than the name. You’ve all seen these pages come up in Google’s search results – typically you search for a business type plus a location – in the example to the right I searched for ‘Dentist Shifnal’ – and you see a ‘pin’ and a link to a Google+ page. Google wants to assign all businesses to a…

In our day to day work at Ascendancy we look at hundreds of websites every day from almost every industry you could think of. We look at our own websites of course, but we also do search engine and pay per click advertising work on websites that we didn’t build ourselves, we look at our…

You’ve probably never noticed, but at Ascendancy we call ourselves a ‘Website optimisation company’ as opposed to a ‘Search engine optimisation company’. The difference is that we recognise that for clients’ websites to succeed, you don’t just need to get traffic to a site – you need to convert it into actual sales or enquiries. You usually can’t just ‘bolt on’ search engine…

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve just launched a new WordPress-powered website for Stipersones and Corndon Hill Country Landscape Partnership Scheme. Normally we wouldn’t blog about the launch of a new website – but we’re really proud of this one, so it gets a…

Are you baffled by the thousands of WordPress plug-ins on the market? Not sure which you need? Here are 3 of our current favourites that are simple yet effective to try on your site. Why we love WordPress As you know, we’re big advocates of WordPress, not least because it’s a simple platform to…

As of the 26th May, a new law will come into effect which will mean that all UK websites should gain the consent of visitors to serve them with web cookies. What does this mean? Well, to the general public, not a lot, as many people don’t even know what a cookie is and if they’re aware of them, they’re suspicious.  In fact, according to a recent consumer survey by Econsultancy, only 31% of consumers know what cookies are and what…

We’d like to say a big thank you everyone who came on our second WordPress in a Day course yesterday. A great time was had by all and we received some excellent feedback. If you’re interested in a WordPress training course geared towards the beginner with friendly tutors, great food and free parking, please get in touch today. Our next course dates are: Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Wednesday 20th June 2012 Thursday 19th July 2012 Click here…

Would you like to know how to make sure that your social media activity pays? Social Media Optimisation (or SMO) is no new thing, but it’s so important to make social media activity and search engine optimisation work hand-in-hand. This article tells you how; with 6 simple SMO tactics that will keep Google happy (and keep your site visible to the right people). Most site owners know the importance of search engine optimisation in ensuring that…

Picture the situation; you’ve paid a large sum of money for a brand new website with all the bells and whistles. A few months down the line the web developer goes bust, and your site is left in limbo. With no support number to call, what would you do in this situation? You’ve bought a website, but does that mean you own it? Follow these top tips to keep your website under control: Check your domain name is registered in your own name If your…

We’re big fans of WordPress at Ascendancy. The open source blog/CMS is our tool of choice when building new sites for many of our clients. It’s dead simple for clients to add new content to their own site, and easy to add new functionality, with new third-party plug-ins being created every day. As some of our readers may already know, we started out as an SEO agency, so we’re big on ensuring that our clients’ websites perform well in…

Over the last few months, you’ve probably heard quite a bit about Google’s latest attempt to break Facebook’s grip on our online social lives. Google’s previous social project, Google Buzz, never really got off the ground. This was partly due to the negative publicity the service received…

Hopefully, all readers of this blog should have access to a website statistics package – usually Google Analytics – that tells them how many visitors are coming to their website, what the most popular parts of the site are, how much of their traffic is coming from Google, and so on. (If…