CMee Blog

3 Simple Tricks to improve your rankings on Google

Mike Kevan — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 02:29:14 +0000

1. Get Reviews – Whether you’re a small business selling bespoke plastic googly eyed seashell crabs or an ex private eye turned accountant with a heart of gold, you’re gonna have a reputation. And you need to be proactive in making sure that reputation is of a benefit to you. If you get on particularly well with a client or customer just ask them if they’d mind taking 5 minutes out of their time to leave you a review on Google businesses, tripadvisor or the bathroom stall (the last one’s a joke). But be sure to tell them to be honest. People are weary of reviews that are too good, and are more likely to purchase something with 4 stars than 5 stars! We all know not to trust anything with lots of positive reviews. The only thing that breaks the rule is Breaking Bad. That’s just good TV.

2. Get Social – Maybe you’re the life of the party? Maybe you’re the person who sits in the corner with the dog, avoiding eye contact with anyone while desperately hoping a fire alarm goes off. Just so you can sneak home to reread the victorian murder mystery you’ve been enjoying so much lately… Either way it doesn’t matter, when it comes to your online presence, you’ve got to get social. Whether it’s a picture of your cat stuck in a sleeping bag on facebook, or a tweet about a flash sale in your store. These social activities on social networks drive engagement and traffic to your site. These boosts in popularity will have google noticing that your page is something people like to engage with. If you have a comments board with regular commenters, even better. Encourage discussion. Whose better Kanye or One Direction? Who’d win in a fight Batman or Superman? Is geothermal energy a future solution to our current energy crisis or should we realistically look at nuclear energy as a potential option for our growing power needs, and what are the possible ramifications of those? People have opinions, and they like to voice them. Especially older people, and seemingly angry 14 year old youtube commenters.

3. Get Active – One thing that a lot of the recent SEO studies have shown is that google loves a lengthy bit of expert text on a subject. They love it as much as cartoon dogs love fire hydrants. So get out there and write up some fresh, useful, informative, intellectual, challenging, valuable, insert adjective here, content. Content, content, content. People like to read engaging texts about the stuff they’re into. Write useful information, share your knowledge and experience, and make it worth reading. Remember that time the old man showed you the secret to making a great turkey sandwich (sweet onion relish and a squeeze of lime). Tell these stories on your site, on your blog, make them relevant to what your sites about and get talking. Give yourself a routine, do a blog every Friday when you’re feeling good about the weekend. Post it up and give people something to read over the weekend. As the internet grows more mature, content is king! So be an emperor.

The CMee SEO Process

Mike Kevan — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 23:08:45 +0000

How to add a new email account to Microsoft Outlook 2010

Mike Kevan — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 03:45:15 +0000

Adding a new email account to Microsoft Outlook can be a somewhat tedious process if you have not done it before. Follow this step by step pictorial guide to configure and set up any new emails for use with your Microsoft Outlook 2010 application.

To start adding a new email account to Microsoft Outlook 2010, first click on the FILE button on the top left.

Click on the “Add Account” button under Account Information. This should be below any current email’s you already have configured.

Select the option that says “Manually configure server settings or additional server types” and then click on “Next>”.

Select the option that says “Internet E-mail” and then click on “Next>”.

Fill up the boxes with all relevant information. You should have received this information from your email provider. Click on the ‘More Settings …’ button before proceeding to the next page.

Click on the ‘Outgoing Server’ tab up top and make sure the ‘My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication’ box is checked. Select the ‘Use same settings as my incoming mail server’ option.

Click on the ‘Advanced’ tab up top and make sure the Incoming server and Outgoing server port numbers are as in the setup information you have been provided. Once you have done that, click on the ‘OK’ button below.

Click on the ‘Next >’ button when you are taken back to the Internet E-mail Settings page. Outlook should then perform a test to see if it can retrieve and send email’s from the email account you have set up.

The Test Account Settings box should indicated if all the email settings are correct. If you do not see the completed statuses as in the screenshot, you would have entered some wrong information in one of the steps prior to the test. When the box indicates that no errors occured, click on the ‘Close’ button.

Click on the ‘Finish’ button.

You should now see your new email account added to the navigation pane to the left.

More mobile-friendly websites in Google search results

Mike Kevan — Wed, 04 Mar 2015 22:33:38 +0000

In a recent blog post on the Google Webmaster Central Blog, the Webmasters team reinforced the importance of mobile-friendly websites in search engine results. Here is what was said:

Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimised for their devices.¹

Although the mobile-friendly ranking factor has always been heavily discussed topic in the SEO industry, this is one of those rare times where Google has publicly mentioned that a certain website criteria will be included as a factor in Google’s algorithm for ranking websites. The reasons for this are obvious when looking at the share of desktop and mobile web usage for this past couple of years.

Desktop vs Mobile Share 2011-2015 (%)²

The trend is pretty clear from the graph above, more and more internet usage is being done on mobile devices leaving desktop internet usage on a downward trend. This pattern applies to New Zealand as well, which seems to follow the global trend closely. The reason for this desktop (and laptop) transition to mobile is smartphones have become cheaper (and more capable than ever) over the past few years. At the same time, mobile internet cost has also gone down dramatically. Because a mobile device is by definition ‘mobile’, we have these devices on our person or close to us at all times, making it the default option when it comes to looking something up on the internet.

Broadband Subscriptions Q2 2010 – Q4 2014 (Per 100 Inhabitants)³

Data from the OECD show that New Zealand is well ahead of the average in terms of mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. The gap between fixed and mobile broadband has also been expanding, showing significant growth in mobile internet usage for the past couple of years. While we expect this trend to continue, we also have to acknowledge that fixed broadband subscriptions are more often than not shared between a few users while mobile broadband subscriptions are on a per user basis.

Traffic Source 2012 – 2014 (CMee’s Client)⁴

The chart above shows the traffic to one of our client’s websites broken down by internet device. Traffic from desktops have declined while non-desktop traffic has increased in-line with what we find from the charts above. While both mobile and tablet traffic is growing, the former is growing faster than the latter. We expect that this year (2015), approximately 50% of the traffic to the website will come from non-desktop internet devices.

The bottom line is that this coming April, if your website is not mobile-friendly, you will see it slowly, but surely lose its rankings on Google (and other search engines will follow suit) over time, which will be a huge detriment to your business if you depend on leads and clients finding you through searches.

What can you do about it?

The first thing you need to do is to determine if your website is mobile-friendly. A large number of websites have built in mobile-friendly templates if they are built using popular content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress and Drupal. Here is a link to a tool you can use to test your website: is my website mobile friendly? If the result show that the page is mobile friendly, then great, you do not need to worry about making any changes. If not, you should look to update your website with some mobile pages or consider building a website using a CMS with built in mobile templates.

References

1. Finding more mobile-friendly search results, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
2. StatCounter
3. OECD (2015), Wireless mobile broadband subscriptions (indicator). doi: 10.1787/1277ddc6-en (Accessed on 5 March 2015)
4. Google Analytics (Audience > Mobile > Overview) (Accessed on 5 March 2015).

Why you need to have online reviews

Mike Kevan — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 00:37:45 +0000

Reviews, testimonials and referrals have always been a significant part of the consumer decision making process. If you are looking to purchase a product and someone gives you a positive review on that particular product, you are much more likely to go ahead with the purchase. This has not changed in this age of all things online. In fact, online reviews have come to play an even bigger role in that decision making process.

Webrepublic has done an examination into the importance of these online reviews and have produced a brilliant infographic (which can be seen below) summarising how consumers respond to online reviews. Here are some of the key takeaways:

Products with positive reviews sold 200% more than those with no reviews at all.

Products that are rated 4.5 stars (out of 5) sell 3 times more than products with 5 stars.

While only 28% of American consumers have written online reviews, 84% of all consumers read them.

88% of online shoppers incorporate reviews into their purchasing process.

Consumers who read reviews on a smartphone are 127% more likely to buy than those who read reviews on a desktop PC.

Reviews from friends and family are trusted more than reviews from experts and celebrity endorsements.

30% of consumers assume online reviews are faked if there are no negative reviews.

These numbers clearly show how important online reviews are in converting a potential client into an actual customer. Be sure to cultivate reviews on your Google MyBusiness Page, Business Facebook Page and anywhere else your target market will be looking for reviews of your products or services.

Infographic: Webrepublic.

CMee Motracker

Mike Kevan — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 04:57:25 +0000

CMee is doing Movember! Follow our progress here and be sure to donate here: Movember

DAY 3

How do I add new users to Google Analytics?

Mike Kevan — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 04:18:02 +0000

If you have Google Analytics implemented on your website and need to share that information with a third party (agency), here is an easy way to do it.

1. Go to the Google Analytics website.

2. You will then be brought to the home view where you can see a list of your Google Analytics accounts. Click on the Admin button up top.

3. At the Admin page, you will be presented with 3 columns of the various different Google Analytics hierarchies (Account > Property > View). Click on User Management under the Account column. Make sure the right account, property or view is selected (in this case, the account is CMee).

Account vs Property vs View

The Account level is your main access point for Analytics and the topmost level of organisation. An Account can contain one or more Properties which represents your website, blog, mobile app, etc. If company ABC has a website and a mobile app, then company ABC has 1 account and 2 properties. A View represents how the data from a Property is represented. To know more about what these different hierarchies mean, click here.

4. At the User Management page, you should see a list of emails/accounts that currently have access to your Google Analytics account as well as the Account Permissions that those emails/accounts have. Type in the email provided to you by the agency in the Add permissions for box, select the appropriate permissions and optionally check the ‘notify this user by email’ checkbox. Then click on the Add button.

Account Permissions

Manage Users: Can manage account users (add/delete users, assign permissions). Does not include Edit or Collaborate.

Edit: Can perform administrative and report-related functions (e.g., add/edit/delete accounts, properties, views, filters, goals, etc., but not manage users), and see report data. Includes Collaborate.

Collaborate: Can create personal assets, and share them. Can collaborate on shared assets, for example, edit a dashboard or annotation. Includes Read & Analyze.

Read & Analyze: Can see report and configuration data; can manipulate data within reports (e.g., filter a table, add a secondary dimension, create a segment); can create personal assets, and share them, and see shared assets. Cannot collaborate on shared assets.

5. If you’ve followed the steps above correctly, you will see that the email you added previously now shows up in the list of emails/accounts that have access to your Google Analytics. That’s it, you’re done. :)

If you require more help do not hesitate to get in touch with us:
Email Us: jeremy.y[at]cmee.co.nz
Call Us: +64 9 972 1318

New Zealand Facebook Statistics (Q2 2014)

Mike Kevan — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 04:45:58 +0000

If your brand/company is not on Facebook, you are missing out. Here are some NZ Facebook Statistics that will show you why Facebook Marketing is necessary and will also allow you to make targeted decisions if you do decide to do any Facebook Marketing.

Facebook Users as Percentage of Population
(New Zealand – 18 and Over)

Facebook’s global reach is no longer something unheard of with 1.3 Billion active monthly users (1 out of 5.48 people).³ Since 2012, approximately 70% of New Zealanders over 18 have been connecting with each other on Facebook (the biggest of the social media networks in New Zealand). In fact, we love social media so much that we spend close to one full working day a month (7.43 hours) on these social media networks putting us at the top of the list of ‘countries that spend the most time on social media’.⁴ If you think that social media is exclusively for the young or those under 30, you might want to reconsider:

Facebook Age Distribution
(New Zealand – 18 and Over)

At first glance, it seems strange that the data from Facebook’s Audience Insight over estimates the actual number (according to Statistics New Zealand) of Kiwi’s in New Zealand for the 18 – 29 age group. This can happen due to users under reporting their actual age on social media networks and Facebook itself not updating a users current region. We believe it is more likely to be the former rather than the latter. Nevertheless we can infer that most, if not all, Kiwi’s in the 18 to 29 age group are on Facebook.

Sources

1. Statistics New Zealand InfoShare
2. Adcorp Social Media Statistics – November 2013
3. Facebook Quarterly Earnings Slides Q2 2014
4. NZ Tops World Social Media Chart

How do I add new users to a Facebook page?

Mike Kevan — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 04:23:54 +0000

If you have an existing Facebook page and have brought on a third-party (agency) to manage your Facebook campaign, more often than not, you will be asked to provide access to the page to the agency’s social media manager. If you were wondering how to add new users to a Facebook page, follow these 4 simple steps.

1. Go to Facebook and click on the page that you want to give access to.

2. Click on the Settings button up top.

3. At the settings page, click on the Page Roles button.

4. Once you get to the Page Roles page, enter the name or email of the social media manager you want given access to your page and select the appropriate permissions / access level for that user (we’ve provided a quick breakdown of what the different access levels mean) before clicking the save button.

5. That’s it, you’re all done.

Here’s a quick breakdown of what the different access levels mean:

	Admin	Editor	Moderator	Advertiser	Analyst
Manage Page roles and settings	✔
Edit the Page and add apps	✔	✔
Create and delete posts as the Page	✔	✔
Respond to and delete comments and posts to the Page	✔	✔	✔
Send messages as the Page	✔	✔	✔
Create ads	✔	✔	✔	✔
View insights	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
See who posted as the Page	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔