The team here are very excited with the way the recently launched Website Resources section on NZS.com is building momentum since it was launched last month. Businesses from across New Zealand are getting involved by adding their business details directly to NZS.com including using the extra marketing options for marketing descriptions, search tags and even marketing URL’s like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Anyone adding their business details also receives a “Business Info” button next to their website listing in the normal category results which is proving a valuable addition. For an example, have a look at the Black Sheep Marketing listing further down the page on the Strategic Marketing category. This helps increase clicks through to your website from NZS.com and it only takes a few minutes to complete.

To give you an idea of the information you could have on NZS.com as well you can see what Avatar Web Promotions have entered on the Avatar.co.nz Site Profile.

All you need to do is head along to the Website Resources section on NZS.com, register and follow the instructions.

While you’re there, if you’re interested in a succinct introduction on how New Zealand websites can enhance their performance, usability and visibility, read The First 15 - A Guide To Improving Website Performance.

Investigating a search trend in any one day almost always turns up something unexpected.

After looking through the latest top searches on NZS.com I came across a number of searches for the “new zealand flag meaning” and similar terms.

Sounds like there’s a school project going on with students researching the meaning of the New Zealand flag on the Internet?

If you’re looking for the New Zealand flag meaning, you can have a look at our own Flags Category for clues, or perhaps the history of the NZ flag from the Ministry of Culture & Heritage will provide a helpful resource.

For interest, you may want to be careful how you display the New Zealand flag as the Flags, Emblems and Names Protection Act 1981 defines how the flag can be used, and allows for prosecution on misuse!

Good luck with the research!

Image from Flickr.

Looking for a way to save your hard earned cash, but spend at the same time? The best way to get great deals is to clip coupons, but you don’t have to scour the weekly junk mail from your letterbox for them anymore!

Virtually clipping printable coupons means you can enjoy discounts from all of your favourite service providers - from video stores to local bars and thousands of things in between. We’ve come a long way from clipping coupons from circulars on a weekly basis, they’re now printable! That’s right, printable discount vouchers are the wave of the future. Simply select the vouchers you want to use from many of the top brands and companies from your city, print, and redeem.

Whenever you plan to go out, print off some more money saving coupons - there are no limits, no fees, no worries! Spending and saving at the same time doesn’t get simpler than that.

With the OCR at a record low of 3.5%, it’s a great time to invest in a new house as you can get a low mortgage rate, but those with savings investments get the short stick with lower interest rates. Investing definitely has its ups and downs.

Are investments ever absolutely safe? Cars and houses can depreciate, stocks can fall and businesses can have rocky times, so of course not. However, having savings in the bank is a pretty safe investment to have, and believe it or not, you can still get great, competitive interest rates. While the market average interest rate is 3.55% from the big banks in New Zealand at the moment, there are online banking services which can give you an on-call interest rate of 4.50%.

How do they do this? Online banks have no branches and no tellers, meaning smaller overheads. Smaller overheads means small margins need to be made to cover costs, so instead of contributing to a bank branch’s power bill, you get a higher interest rate (meaning more interest earnings in your account). Nice to know that in these financially challenging times you can still get a high interest rate, isn’t it?

With the holidays just around the corner, you and your family are probably itchy to get on the road to your Christmas destination of choice. Whether it be camping or big city dwelling, have you thought about your options for car hire New Zealand?

Car hire Auckland in particular can be daunting around this time of year (the city being the hub of international arrivals), especially if you leave it to the last minute. Booking early is essential, as there’ll be floods of tourists around the Christmas and New Years period snapping up all the rental cars New Zealand has to offer.

When you’re planning your car rental early you’ll have the luxury of choosing the car to perfectly suit you and your holiday needs the best. Check out our article on rental cars New Zealand for advice on the types of cars you can rent in NZ, their capabilities, and what kind of journey they’ll be best for.

Image from Flickr.

December’s rolled in, meaning you’ve got the go ahead to spruce up your home and workplace with Christmas decorations! No judgment, of course, for those who put theirs up earlier (mine went up two weeks ago) - but now the festive season can really begin! Find the perfect Christmas trees and decorations and get in the merry spirit this year.

If you’ve got kids around why not teach them some popular Christmas carols to entertain the family with throughout the month? There’s nothing cuter than wee tykes trying their hardest to belt out a Mariah Carey Christmas cover!

With the big day just three weeks away, it’s time to start planning your Christmas recipes. Croissants for breakfast, ham and cake for lunch, leftovers for dinner? Get the lowdown on planning for a great Kiwi Christmas and get your recipes sorted early.

If you’re sending out e-cards, newsletters or any other communication to the outside world this month, you’ll need to add in the perfect Christmas pictures. Use our guide to finding online images to suit all of your visual Christmas needs.

Image from Flickr.

Are you set with your holiday season travel plans yet? For most of us, the answer to that question is still no, even though we’re only 6 weeks out from the festive break. The reason? Searching for the best travel deals can be such a tasking experience it’s enough to make you want to stay home!

Trying to find the cheapest flights and best accommodation for you and your family isn’t always easy, especially when you don’t know where to start. Scour the daily paper every morning looking for flight sales? Open five windows or tabs at once and compare site after site (and trying to remember which prices included taxes and other costs and which didn’t)? It’s all a bit much, especially at this time of year.

Luckily, NZS.com has just launched a brand new travel deals section - and we’re about to make planning your holiday a whole lot easier for you. Our new travel page is powered by Wego, and searches over 100 different travel websites, including online travel agencies like Zuji, consolidators like Orbitz, airline websites, and hotel websites. This means we can find you the best deals available online, even sale fares and limited promotional deals from budget airlines like Pacific Blue and Jetstar.

It’s fast, it’s easy, and you can customise just about every variable - from flight times to price range - so make sure you plan your travel this Christmas via NZS.com’s New Zealand travel deals section.

The Official Cash Rate of New Zealand, or OCR, has just been changed from 7.5% to 6.5%. The current world financial crisis has played a big part in the decision to do this, announced the Reserve Bank of New Zealand late this morning.The RBNZ Governor stated that owning to the current state of the financial world;

“economic activity in New Zealand will be further constrained, relative to the outlook presented in our September Monetary Policy Statement, by current international developments. New Zealand can expect to face lower demand for exports and credit is likely to be less readily available. In this environment consumers and businesses are likely to be more cautious and curtail spending.”

Looking for your New Zealand financial hub? NZS.com has just launched a New Zealand finance section, enabling you to view and compare interest rates and exchange rates by day, month and year.

Updated daily at 3.30pm courtesy of the RBNZ, NZS.com gives you a quick, easy to comprehend view of current and archive New Zealand financial data.

If you manage a business located in New Zealand, you’ll generally be familiar with the Companies Office website. From July 1, 2008, it became mandatory to complete company administration online, which includes name reservations, company incorporations, annual returns and general company maintenance such as the appointment of directors.

In August the New Zealand Companies Office (www.companies.govt.nz) refreshed their website to;

“..reflect the ongoing commitment of the Companies Office to the provision of improved services and a lower cost of compliance..”

A major use of the website is research on New Zealand companies as many people include a Companies Register Search in their first step towards understanding the basic structure of a company in New Zealand.

Over time it is expected that the internet will become the predominant method for interacting with your government. Within New Zealand the e-government initiative is working towards this goal, acknowledging that people who have grown up in the online world have very different expectations of how they interact with governmental agencies.

It’s the first day of Spring! September 1st is not only a big day for every Kiwi that has been hanging out for warm weather, it’s also a big day for us at NZS.com: today we’ve launched two innovative new features to the NZS.com directory, Kiwi Status and Site Profile.

You’ve probably already noticed the categories are looking a little different within the NZS.com directory, and there are new icons beside every listing - this is Kiwi Status, NZS.com’s new way or ordering our website listings.

Kiwi Status is a unique way of identifying quality within the New Zealand Web space. We’ve created a system (the only of its kind in New Zealand) which orders websites based on around 20 different criteria - and gives them a “Kiwi Status”.

Kiwi Status offers you an objective view of what is available in the New Zealand Web space. The primary objective of this is to ensure that you get you the quality information that you want, faster.

Coinciding with the launch of Kiwi Status has been the launch of Site Profile. Site Profile is a useful tool for SEO (search engine optimisation). It displays the information about your site that search engines can see, such as: title tag, server information, Kiwi Status, and information from your NZS.com directory listing.

Site Profile also displays all of the sites that are currently linking to your site, and who you are linking to. This is a great link building SEO tool, as essentially you can use it to find out who your potential online partners could be, who could be linking to your site.

If you’re looking for government sites you can read the newzealand.govt.nz Site Profile, or if you’re more interested in news sites check out the stuff.co.nz Site Profile.

For more information, check out the Kiwi Status information page and the Site Profile information page.