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By alex, April 27, 2012 11:04 am

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 for more information or to book online

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By alex, October 17, 2011 3:32 pm

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 Google’s organic search listings, and that they reach their intended target audience. Here are a few handy SEO plug-ins we’ve used and liked which can easily be installed on your WordPress-powered site. Remember – always backup your database and website files before making any changes to your site!

1. All-in-One SEO Pack

This is probably the best-known and most widely-used SEO plug-in for WordPress. All-in-One SEO Pack allows you to enter custom Title and Meta tags on every page or post on your site- allowing you to create more relevant, keyword-rich Title and Meta description tags, rather than the un-optimised and auto-generated ones that WordPress inserts by default.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

2. Google XML Sitemaps

This plug-in can be used to generate an XML sitemap. XML sitemaps tell search engines about all of the pages in your site and where they are located so that they can be indexed – very useful if your site is difficult to crawl. You can also assign priorities to certain pages in your site (i.e. that product or service you really want to push) so that they are indexed by the search engines sooner and on a more regular basis.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

3. Google Analytics

Having a good stats package like Google Analytics installed on your site is a no brainer – if you haven’t already signed up, we suggest you go here right now – http://www.google.co.uk/analytics ! This clean and simple plug-in lets you enter your Analytics ‘UA’ tracking number, and pulls some of your statistics into your WordPress dashboard, which is very handy! Knowing what search terms people are entering to find your site should help you to optimise your copy, Title and Meta description tags using the All-in-One SEO Pack plug-in.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/

4. Redirection

If you’ve recently converted your site from a different content management system or static pages into WordPress, you will probably want to preserve the excellent page rankings you’ve no doubt built up on Google. This plug-in allows you to create 301 redirects from within your WordPress admin panel, rather than having to whip out a text editor and your thinking cap! A 301 redirect tells search engines that a page has permanently moved to a new location, transferring PageRank and the traffic that goes with it to the new location.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/

Have fun experimenting!

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By alex, September 14, 2011 2:53 pm

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 regarding poor user privacy and partly due to the fact that it didn’t really offer anything new.

Google launched its new Google+ service to great fanfare at the end of June. The service currently only accepts new users on an invite-only basis, similar to Gmail when that service first started back in 2004. In an attempt to remedy the damage done by Google Buzz, the service includes more comprehensive privacy controls and allows users to share posts with much narrower groups of people, known as ‘Circles’.

At this point you might be thinking ‘This is great, but how does this relate to my business?’ As yet, the ability to create a page for your business, like Facebook Pages, is unavailable. Google’s current stance is that the service is just for individuals. However, it is widely expected that Google will add the ability to create business listings in the near future – so keep your eyes peeled!

The ‘+1′ Button

Another area where Google+ could affect your business is in the field of Search Engine Optimisation. Just before Google+ launched, you might have noticed prominent ‘+1’ buttons appearing next to search engine results and on various websites when signed into a Google account. These are essentially Google’s equivalent of the ‘Like’ button on Facebook; a way of giving kudos to a product, service, or in this case a web site that you found useful. Whenever you ‘+1’ a page, it will appear under the ‘+1’s’ tab on your Google+ profile, and you’ll be given the opportunity to post a link to the site on your wall for all your connections to see.

At this point in time, there isn’t enough evidence to suggest a link between the number of +1’s a site receives and its organic search position. However, it has been found in the past that web pages which have been extensively retweeted on Twitter get indexed by Google more quickly than less socially-inclined sites. It’s quite likely that +1’s will have a similar effect on search engine results in the future; after all it is still early days for the service, and Google will want to give people an incentive for using their service rather than Twitter. Google are also known for sudden changes in their search algorithm and leaving their products in the beta stage of development for extended periods of time (yes – we’re looking at you, Gmail), so anything is possible!