James Patten

Google Search Console (GSC) is a must for any business hoping to get more website traffic from search engines. But what exactly is it, and how do you use it?  At Cognique, we’re clued up on all things SEO. Explore our step-by-step guide below for everything you need to know about Google Search Console – and how we can help you start using it to your business’s benefit. What is Google Search Console? Google Search Console – previously called Google Webmaster Tools – has alway...

You've dived into your Google Analytics and you know where your website visitors are coming from and how they find and use your site. You also discover that your bounce rate is really high. Is this a problem and if so, what can you do about it? What exactly is a bounce rate? A website bounce occurs when a user visits your website, views just one page and then exits immediately. They essentially 'bounce' off your website. Your bounce rate is calculated by dividing all single page sessions by all...

B2B ecommerce is seriously big business. The global B2B ecommerce sector is forecast to be worth £5.2 trillion by 2020. As digital savvy Millenials take over senior buying and procurement positions, businesses need to be ready to meet and service their needs.  Historically, B2B digital marketing has been slow to evolve, falling behind its B2C counterpart. However, in recent years there's been rapid growth in B2B ecommerce sales, so it's a proposition that deserves serious consideration. ...

So you’ve launched your brand spanking new website and it's received fantastic feedback. But does a website have a 'shelf life' and if so, when should you start thinking about developing a new one?Let’s be SMART about itIn principle, the success of a website can be measured against its intended purpose. Was it developed to attract new customers? Is it an eCommerce site that needs to deliver a specific ROI? Maybe it adds credibility to your business or service? Or perhaps it's purely...

Have you heard about Google’s RankBrain? Here’s why you need to take it into account for your search engine optimisation. What is RankBrain? Many of the details (like much of Google’s operations) are shrouded in secrecy. But since it was revealed in 2015, more information has come to light. Basically, it’s an artificial intelligence machine learning program. It teaches itself and applies its learnings to search results. It first came about (as far as we know) in 2013 when Google were...

Struggling to find the stats you’re looking for in Google Analytics? Then you’re going to love Google Data Studio! A relatively new product from Google, Data Studio allows you to create at-a-glance reports from multiple data sources, including Analytics, Adwords and Google Sheets. And even better, since February this year, Google Data Studio has been free to use for all businesses. Why use Google Data Studio? Instead of having to go into Analytics and spend time unearthing the key statis...

Website security isn’t the most exciting topic, we get it! But not thinking about it could put your business at serious risk.Your website is a valuable business asset, and if compromised, it puts your business reputation on the line, plus potentially your customer privacy. With GDPR rapidly approaching, securing your website is now more important than ever.If your site is targeted, you could lose revenue for every day that it's down. What's more, sites that are compromised are penalised in...

We’re massive fans of WooCommerce for a whole host of reasons. It’s easy to use, highly customisable, secure and amazingly, it’s free! Recently WooCommerce got even better thanks to the addition of Apple Pay as a payment method. Why add Apple Pay? For users with iPhones, Apple Pay provides one of the easiest and quickest ways to make a purchase.The more obstacles you can remove on the path to purchase, the better. With Apple Pay, buyers don’t have to get up to find their credit ca...

Thinking about buying an off-the-shelf WordPress template or wondering if a bespoke Wordpress theme would be better? In this blog we cover the pros and cons of both. Turnaround time Wordpress templates can be a great option for small businesses just starting out. Those that are tech savvy could have a simple site up and running within a few hours, providing they have the content ready. On the other hand a bespoke theme would take longer to develop, but it would be entirely tailored to your ...

Before you can set up your WordPress store you’ll need to setup your Wordpress website and install an ecommerce plugin. Our plugin of choice is WooCommerce. Once you've done that, here’s a checklist for getting your WordPress store up and running. WordPress store checklist 1) Product descriptions Write product descriptions that are clear and easy to read. They should include everything your prospective customer will need to know to make a decision about buying your product, including: ...

We’ve already talked in detail about why we prefer to work with WooCommerce. In this blog post we’ll look at the advantages of WooCommerce for our clients, after all, they’re the ones that will be using WooCommerce on a daily basis. WooCommerce review 1) It’s easy to use WooCommerce is as easy to use as WordPress. WordPress is one of the most intuitive content management systems, and WooCommerce uses the same interface, making managing your products and stock easy and stress free. Ad...

In previous posts we've explained why you should use Google Search Console, plus provided instructions on how to get set up. This is the first in a series on how to actually start using Google Search Console. A lot of the features of Google Search Console aren't something you need to use every day, and that's certainly the case with the disavow tool. In this blog, you'll learn how you can use Google Search Console to disavow backlinks, and why you might need to do that in the first place.W...

In the second of our posts on using Google Search Console, we look at how you can tell Google that your site is no longer compromised if a "This site may be hacked" message is displaying above your website in search results. This can happen if your site has been the victim of hackers, spam or phishing scams.Sign up to get updates via Google Search Console If Google add “This site may be hacked” to your search listings, they will notify you via your Google Search Console. Even if your si...

Ever wondered where your website traffic comes from? How do people find you and end up on your site? Thankfully, it’s easy (and free!) to find out with Google Analytics. If you don’t have Google Analytics yet, here’s how to set it up.How to check your website traffic Once your website is set up on Google Analytics, head to Acquisition > Overview in the left hand side menu. From here you will see an overview of all the different sources that are sending traffic to your website.Ide...

As we mentioned in our best WordPress forms plugins blog, Gravity Forms is our WordPress form plugin of choice. Although we have experimented with other plugins, we now almost exclusively use Gravity Forms for new client sites as we've found it’s by far the best for a whole host of reasons. It’s powerful Gravity Forms are powerful and very well integrated with WordPress. Some clever things you can do include...Allow entire blog posts to be submitted through a form, and saved as a dr...

There are many different ways to add a form to your WordPress website – this post covers some of the most popular options, from basic contact WordPress forms to fully featured customisable plugins. The features, support and pricing models of WordPress forms plugins vary significantly, so it's important to evaluate the options based on your requirements. The best plugin for your business may be entirely different to someone else's. In their simplest form, WordPress forms are ideal for allowi...

Here at Cognique, we are big fans of the WordPress content management system. It is simple and easy to use, yet has the framework available for enhancements allowing the core features to be built upon to create very complex websites. However the world of WordPress ecommerce has always been a bit of a grey area.  We have evaluated many e-commerce plugins over the years, including WP eCommerce, MarketPress and JigoShop. However we have never found a solution we felt was a true competitor to the d...

Since we published this article in November 2015, things have moved on considerably. Read our latest blog on the subject for a more accurate answer: Is 2017 the time to go HTTPS with an SSL certificate? Last year in our blog we wrote about how Google were starting to prioritise secure websites (https) over unsecure websites (http) in search rankings. This was part of Google’s wider campaign for https to be used everywhere, and for all information on the web to be transmitted securely. Since ...

To find out if your website stats are already being affected by referrer spam please read our blog post Is referrer spam affecting your website metrics? Many websites are hosted on web servers that use .htaccess files to control how the server should behave in response to specific requests. The .htaccess file is found in the root of your site directory and can be accessed either by FTP, SSH or web admin control panel such as cPanel. There are two possible methods to block referrer spam to your ...

There are a number of WordPress plugins designed to block referrer spam from accessing your website and affecting your analytics data. To find out if your website is affected read our earlier blog post Is referrer spam affecting your website metrics? You can find instructions on how to block referrer spam with WordPress below: The following instructions assume you are familiar with both WordPress and installing plugins. We cannot be held responsible for any detrimental effects and we do not pro...