Pages with videos embedded on them not only provide more interesting content for your visitors, but the pages themselves have a higher chance of being shared through social networks and even of appearing higher in search engine rankings. Encouraging people to interact with your website and to stay longer on your page is always appreciated by Google and goes towards the large number of factors that help your content to rank.

When it comes to video sharing services, there are very few people that haven’t heard of YouTube. Boasting over 800 million unique visitors each month, it’s easily the most popular video hosting service.

However, despite providing a wide range of customisation and editing facilities – such as the new ability to select a royalty-free song to add to your video, or the ability to add post-upload special effects – there are still some alternative providers that offer some unique extra services that make them worthy of investigation.

Amongst others, these extra providers include the ever-popular Facebook (through Facebook videos), the more funky and creative Vimeo, and the unique and clever Howcast video sharing services.

Read more about the great features that these three services provide and compare them with YouTube’s own offering over on our Video Sharing Services Website Resource.

• People surfing the Internet often have a shorter attention span than those looking through a magazine or newspaper.
• When writing for the web, you need to consider search engine robots as well as the human reader.

To write online content that gets found, draws attention and compels the browser to read on, it’s important to write titles that take into consideration the short attention span of the reader as well as the fussy relevance and quality rules of search engines.

Check out our top 3 tips for writing quality titles that draw the attention of both human readers and search engines.

Tip 1: Use keyword research tools to help you choose a title

Depending on your audience and your website’s unique traffic, you may not have to worry about traffic to your article or blog post from search engines. If you’re already receiving a high amount of direct traffic or traffic that is referred from social networking sites like Facebook, it’s more likely that you’ll have the freedom to write whatever title you like without worrying about appearing in search results.

However, to maximise the traffic to your content, it’s always a good idea to consider specific keywords or keyword phrases that you could include in your title to give your content a head-start when it comes to being found in search results.

While you could simply ask a few friends and take a stab at what keywords might get the most searches, you can eliminate the guesswork by using any one of the many tools that are available online.

You can find three great tools as well as a couple of other keyword-finding suggestions and tips in our website resource on keyword research tools.

Tip 2: Use emotive language to add life to your titles

Obviously it’s not a good idea to get too carried away but emotive language can help to add a human touch to your titles and make them more interesting for the reader.

We could have named this blog post simply “3 Tips for Writing Titles” but it may come across as a little dull and robotic. By adding emotive words like “great”, “love”, “brilliant” or “fantastic”, you could make your content title just that much more interesting to encourage a reader to click on your title rather than someone else’s.

Tip 3: Use numbered lists!

While some people may spend a lot of time reading a piece of content online, most online readers tend to have a shorter attention span than if they were reading a magazine as, with the entire online world at your fingertips and with Flash animations, moving banners and Facebook notifications all competing for your attention, it’s very easy to get distracted.

If you have a long text-heavy page or blog post, it can be a good idea to see if you can break it up into a numbered list, such as this one. You can then reference that list in your title.

Numbered lists can suggest that your content is concise and to the point and also give the reader the option of simply scanning over the headings or choosing to read more about each point.

Common lists include those such as:

• Top 5 tips for …
• 3 reasons why …
• Our 10 best ….
• 3 best methods for …

By combining the above three tips, you’ll be able to create quality and eye-catching titles that help you to place well in search engine results while grabbing the attention of those looking for information online.

Flickr Image Credit: create_up

NZS.com Likes

NZS.com Likes is a simple feature that packs a heap of functionality. Simply by clicking the ‘Like’ button on a website listing or Site Profile page, you perform the following actions:

• Add a listing to your ‘My Likes’ page so that you can quickly find your favourite websites
• Add a visual thumbs-up to that listing so that other searchers can see your recommendation for that website
• Help the listing to display in a ‘Popular’ tab which only shows websites that have been given kudos

Popular Listings

The Popular tab adds a whole new dimension to categorised content. By clicking on the tab, you can refine your view to only display websites in a particular category that have been given 2 or more Likes by NZS.com visitors.

For example, perhaps there are too many cafés in a category to choose from? Simply click the Popular tab and you’ll only view those that have been recommended by others. You’ll also see just how many Likes that listing has received.

Next Steps:

Like a Site Profile: Use the ‘Search Site Profiles‘ tool to find a Site Profile, click ‘Like’ on that page and start building your list of favourite websites.

Flickr image credit: sarahreido

The key trends that we’re seeing in this month’s NZ browser statistics:

• Internet Explorer as a whole has had a 1% increase which is the exact opposite of last month
• Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple’s Safari all had small decreases contributing to IE’s increase
• Safari has now dropped just below 10% in total usage on NZS.com

IE 9 has continued to take some decent chunks out of IE 8 this month with later down just over 5% this month. Internet Explorer 9 has now over taken IE 6 into third spot, while Internet Explorer 7 dropped in popularity by just over 0.5%. Internet Explorer 6 continues to hang around with only a small decrease this month. The Internet Explorer stats were IE9 10%, IE8 68%, IE7 15%, IE6 6%.

This data is taken from Google Analytics on NZS.com over the month of May 2011.

In fact, a global health survey carried out by Nielsen states that colds are one of the most common ailments of the world’s consumers, alongside headaches, sleeping problems and back aches.

Because of this, there are thousands of resources online that provide information and advice when it comes to the common cold.

At NZS.com, we’ve recently published an article written from a New Zealand perspective to help you to stop coughing. Here you can read about the cause of coughing as well as find some solutions in the form of medicinal products as well as natural products.

However, your dear old gran will tell you that the best way to stop a cold is to never catch one in the first place – and she’s right! We also have a helpful resource on preventing colds so that you never have to suffer the symptoms in the first place. Or, at least, you may not have to suffer them as severely or for as long as those that don’t take the recommended precautions.

So as the weather continues to get colder, wrap up warm this winter and if you do end up catching a cold, try not to pass it on to your colleagues!

Flickr image credit: cspiegl

The key trends that we’re seeing in this month’s NZ browser statistics:

• Internet Explorer as a whole has had a 1% decrease in usage on NZS.com
• Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple’s Safari have had small gains contributing to IE’s decrease

Internet Explorer 9 has now arrived on the scene and although it has a relatively small usage on NZS.com it has taken some decent chunks out of IE 8 and Internet Explorer 7. Internet Explorer 8 has had a 2% decrease from the previous month where as IE 7 had a 1% drop.

The kicker with IE 9 uptake though will be dependent on the uptake of Windows 7 as Internet Explorer 9 relies on the user running the latest Microsoft OS. The Internet Explorer stats were IE9 4%, IE8 73%, IE7 16%, IE6 6.4%.

This data is taken from Google Analytics on NZS.com over the month of April 2011.

The key trends that we’re seeing in this month’s NZ browser statistics:

• After continually showing a decline, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has had an increase in popularity this month
• Firefox has dipped below the 20% mark as it continues to fluctuate around this figure
• Google Chrome has again increased by around 0.5%

Internet Explorer 8 has doubled its increase from last month with a 1% increase, which looks to have come mainly from upgrades from IE7. The new Internet Explorer 9 which is still in release candidate stage has now jumped above the 1% mark. The Internet Explorer stats were IE9 Release Candidate 1.3%, IE8 75%, IE7 17%, IE6 6.7%.

This data is taken from Google Analytics on NZS.com over the month of March 2011. You can see more information on the number of visitors the data is sourced from on the NZS.com Statistics page.

For many, the adrenaline of the Christchurch aftershock on 22nd February is now in the past and many Christchurch businesses are left stranded without access to their office equipment, computers and personal files. For just as many, the worst part is the lack of information when it comes to when access will be granted and whether or not their office is actually still standing.

Our newsletter, which you can subscribe to here, provides information on a number of online tools and resources that can help businesses to recover after significant interruption and can future-proof businesses to reduce the affect that future interruptions have on every day operations.

Below is a summary of the actions you will want to take following an interruption such as an earthquake and how you can use online tools to get ahead.

1. Access your emails:

Many people think that all email systems are quite similar. The truth is that some systems download emails to a local server located in your office whereas others are only accessed online and so are available from any location that has Internet access. You can, and should, still keep an email address that ends with your website’s domain rather than that of a free service provider such as Gmail, Hotmail, Xtra and Yahoo. Find out more about this in our Email for Work resource.

2. Contact your clients, suppliers and prospects:

One of the first things you’ll want to do in a significant interruption is contact all of the people associated with your business to let them know at what capacity you are operating. One of the most frustrating things after an earthquake is knowing that your phone could still be ringing at your office and you are unable to get to it. There are a number of Internet based email marketing software solutions that you can use to store your email database, contact  everyone to let them know your situation and send marketing emails to to help your business get back up and running.

3. Access your files:

If you aren’t already using online document storage, you may want to look into it. There are a number of services to help you build an online office with online document storage and collaboration. With your files stored on the Internet, you can access them even if you can’t get to your actual physical office or computer.

4. Keep up to date with news:

Information is king in the event of an earthquake. Following the disruption of the February quake, Twitter really shone as a way to keep up to date with important news announcements and also to meet other business owners in the same situation. Even if you’re not a serious user of Twitter, you can still use Twitter feeds to keep in touch with what’s being said about the earthquake and block out everything else with the #eqnz hashtag. Find out how to do this in our Twitter Hastags resource.

5. Recover lost data:

If you do have access to your office but you find that your computer or external hard drives are damaged, there’s a chance that the lost data can be recovered. Read more about this in our Data Recovery resource.

To all those Christchurch business owners that are facing an uncertain future, we stand by you and hope that you receive good news soon. In the mean time, you can keep up to date with the latest earthquake news on Twitter and find many important links to earthquake related information on our Christchurch earthquake information page.

The key trends that we’re seeing in this month’s NZ browser statistics:

• Web Browsers stats this month have been pretty stagnant
• Google Chrome has increased the most by around 0.5%
• Safari has dropped by almost 0.5% but stays above the 10% mark

As with the overall web browser statistics this month IE stats have stayed rather stagnant aswell. Internet Explorer 8 has only increased by around 0.5% this month with most of that coming from updates from the ageing IE 6. The Internet Explorer stats were IE9 Release Candidate 0.8%, IE8 74%, IE7 18%, IE6 7%.

This data is taken from Google Analytics on NZS.com over the month of February 2011. You can see more information on the number of visitors the data is sourced from on the NZS.com Statistics page.

The key trends that we’re seeing in this month’s NZ browser statistics:

• Internet Explorer as a whole has dropped by 1%
• Chrome has increased by over 10,000 visits
• Safari has jumped over 10% traffic on NZS.com
• Firefox has had a small decrease, but stays above the 20% mark

The three smaller web browsers Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari continue to eat away at Internet Explorer’s dominance of NZS.com which is great to see from a web development point of view.

IE users are again continuing to update their browser version to the current edition of Internet Explorer. This is great for web designers and developers as it means the majority of users will be on Microsoft’s most web compliant browser yet. IE 8 has again increased its popularity by around 2% with Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 6 declined by over 1%. The Internet Explorer stats were IE9 BETA 0.7%, IE8 74%, IE7 18%, IE6 8%.

This data is taken from Google Analytics on NZS.com over the month of January 2011. You can see more information on the number of visitors the data is sourced from on the NZS.com Statistics page.