To briefly re-cap, when you carry out a search in Google, the personalised search function means that you’re more likely to find websites that have been shared by people in your social networks.

Armed with this knowledge, in less than a minute you can share your Site Profile which could increase your company’s presence in search results substantially for people within your networks.

Why Share your Site Profile?

Your Site Profile supplements your own website perfectly by not only displaying your contact details and description, but also displaying all of your latest blog posts and social media updates, all on one page.

It’s all positive content about your business and this makes it an invaluable snapshot of your company that appears on the Internet, other than on your own website. There’s an added bonus in that you have control over the content that displays.

For that reason, sharing your Site Profile results in a win-win scenario for you and your business. This helps to get more positive content related to your business in front of people that are connected to you through the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

NZS.com integrates with social media to make sharing your Site Profile a breeze. Simply follow this process:

1. Log in to My NZS.com and click on My Websites to view your stored websites.
   If you haven’t claimed yours yet, now is the time to do so!
2. Check that your details are up to date.
   If not, you can edit your details before moving on to the next step.
3. View your business details and click on the sharing options.
   On the right of your Site Profile you’ll see a number of sharing options under your website’s thumbnail. Simply click those to share your Site Profile on the relevant social networks.

Not only will those in your social networks now see that you have posted a link to your Site Profile, Search engines will also pick up on the fact that your Site Profile has been shared and so may increase your ranking in search results leading to more traffic for your website.

Find more tips like these in our Online Marketing resources.

Rather than trying to figure out every individual factor, it’s often best to simply look at your website from a human point of view and consider what factors would influence someone’s decision to view your website. Draw these up on a list and you might include:

• The website’s menu is obvious and easy to navigate
• The website is visually appealing and not too cluttered
• Text is well written and explains the product or service clearly
• The website’s owner or content creator is trustworthy and credible

It’s fairly easy to see how you can improve most of these elements for your website and so, hopefully, improve  the overall search engine optimisation of your website, but the final point could seem to be a bit trickier. How can you tell human visitors and search engines alike that the content on the website is written by someone that is trustworthy and credible?

In terms of search engines, there is one way that you can tell a search engine that your content has been created by a credible user, and that’s by using the power of your online profile.

Crediting an Author to Improve Search Rankings

Search engines are quite smart. They realise that, from a human perspective, two pieces of content on the same topic could be written by two completely different authors with different levels of credibility.

For that reason, if a page specifically credits an author that has a good profile in social media channels, the page itself has a chance to rank better in search results than if it had credited an author with a minimal profile in social media.

Obviously there’ll be some fairly solid checks in place to stop website administrators simply crediting their own content to individuals that have strong profiles but have nothing to do with the content, but if you write content online in an article or blog post and use the correct authorship methods, you can see how having a great profile in social media has the potential to provide a good pay-off when it comes to getting your content seen in search engine results.

If you’re interested in learning more about website optimisation and social media, be sure to sign up to our newsletter where you’ll receive tips like these and more.

Flickr Image Credit: ari

1. through performing a search in a search engine, like Google or visiting a directory
2. through viewing links posted by those in your social networks

Traditionally, when you head to a search engine or directory, you’re usually looking for something specific. When you’re browsing through Twitter your social networks, you’re more likely to be looking for simply anything of interest that has been recommended by your friends.

In the past, these two methods of finding content were mutually exclusive. Today, social networks are having an increasing influence on the results that appear in your search results and in modern directories like NZS.com.

In terms of search engines, the influence that your social networks have on the results that appear can be surprising and yet also difficult to detect.

How does Google know who you are connected to?

Predominantly, Google finds out information on who we are connected to through the social media accounts connected to our Google profiles. If you add your Twitter account to your Google profile, Google will search through the people that you are following on Twitter and use that information to personalise your search results.

While this may sound intrusive, it’s actually public information. If you had time on your hands, you could go look at the people that we’re following on Twitter by clicking on ‘Following’ on our Twitter profile. Get a feel for the type of people that we like to follow and you would have a much better idea of content that might interest us. This is exactly what Google is doing with personalised search results.

Just take a look at a screenshot of a search example in our ‘Social Media and SEO‘ resource and find out about the advantages and disadvantages of personalised search results.

Why should I share content online?

After seeing the affect that your own social networks can have on the results that display in search – even so far as displaying websites in the first few results that previously weren’t even on the first page – it’s plain to see the reverse of this.

If we’re part of a large social network and have a number of followers on Twitter or Google+, we may find that when we click on a social sharing button we’re actually influencing the search results of a good number of people.

In that sense, it’s a good idea to share the content that you publish online. Obviously we can only ‘+1′ or ‘Like’ our content once so it’s also a good idea to look for positive content related to your business, services and products and share those pages with your networks as well.

The more content about your business that you can get into search results, the more you will get your brand in front of searchers. A classic example, if you’ll excuse the shameless plug, is to share your site profile on NZS.com. If you don’t yet have one, just complete this form to update your details and once your profile is live use the sharing buttons on that page to share it with your social networks. The Natcoll Design School have a great example of what this can look like.

What’s the catch?

As with most methods of influencing search results, there are, of course, two sides to every story. If we go overboard with sharing our own content and waxing lyrical about our own services, there’s a good chance our followers will start to disconnect.

Raving about your own content on Twitter is like walking into the middle of a conversation and shouting about your latest special offers. The conversation will usually move away and you’ll find yourself in an increasingly lonely situation!

So when updating any social media network, be sure to intersperse updates about yourself and your business with a good amount of general discussion with other users as well as links to other content that you find interesting online. If you’re struggling for time, speak with a social marketing professional to discuss a social media strategy for your business.

Flickr image credit: courosa

For some, this means a struggle to get to work and m any will choose to stay at home. Thousands of students will also be at home today after high schools and universities close.

All of this plays a part on the country’s use of the web. This can result in a number of unusual results in our website statistics, particularly for a Monday when most people would be starting their working week.

This video shows some of the snow around Christchurch this morning and explains how people might be using the Internet differently today.

Video Transcript:

Hi, my name’s Mark from NZS.com. As you can see behind me there’s a lot of snow around today and a lot of people are going to be stuck at home.

You might be wondering why an Internet company has an interest in the weather. Really anyone who’s interested in their website statistics should definitely be looking at them today and comparing them with the past because the Internet traffic will change quite a bit with the weather, surprisingly enough.

A lot of people probably stuck at home today. The universities will be closed, a lot more students at home so perhaps search traffic will rise for terms related to students like student jobs, courses, all that kind of stuff.

Obviously the morning will start with heaps of people searching for snow reports, road closures, so that they can find out whether they can get to their place of work.

If they can’t, or even if they can, a lot of staff will be at home so today’s going to be a really good opportunity for business owners and business managers to spend some time online – on their own website, on their search engine presence to see how well they’re doing in search results.

It’s a good chance to look at that and to look at opportunities that might lie in social media to get a bit more presence out there. There’ll be a lot of things that they’ve been wanting to do to their website, to their blog, to their newsletter that they might have been putting off for a long time because there’s too much other stuff going on.

There could be a lot of searches for website design ideas and things like that perhaps. Plenty of that on NZS.com of course. nzs.com/website-resources – you can see that straight from the home page on the menu. Jump in there, have a good look around, there’s a lot of contributors from across New Zealand, all web professionals that have all been contributing some articles and guides on how to get the most out of the Internet and out of website design, search engine optimisation, etc.

Check out the blog, nzs.com/blog, have a crank through that. There’s some good tips in there so subscribe and we’ll see you more in the future with some more tips and ideas.

Cheers, stay warm!

If you are looking at your website statistics today in places like Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Central, take a look at our guide to understanding search queries for some key stats to look out for.

The Google +1 is Google’s answer to other social sharing functions such as Facebook Likes. For along time, Google has been trying to expand it’s share of the Internet user market and has tried to reduce its dependence on search by introducing social media products such as Google Profiles and Google Buzz.

Sharp eyed users may also have seen search results that are relevant to their social networks at the bottom of search result pages, such as images specifically from their own Flickr network as well as other social media channels.

With +1, Google hopes to step further into social sharing and finally create a button that can take its place alongside other social sharing buttons such as the Tweet and Facebook Like buttons. You can find out much more about these sharing buttons as well as how many New Zealanders are interacting on social media in our Social Buttons website resource.

In reality, +1 may be much more targeted and limited in its use than initial appearances would suggest.

Limitations of Google Plus One

Firstly, it’s only open to Google account holders. Nothing too wrong with this – you can only Tweet something if you have a Twitter account and, generally, you can only Facebook Like something if you have a Facebook account.

However, +1 can only be used specifically by Google account holders that have a Google Profile. If the Google user doesn’t have a profile, they’ll be prompted to create one simply by adding a couple of quick details. This is obviously quite a strong push by Google to get more Internet users into Google Profiles. The issue is that those users that have a Google account for their business may not be authorised to create a Google Profile. Google doesn’t recommend that profiles are attached to business accounts as if that individual leaves the business, they’ll probably lose access to their profile.

It appears that Google is suggesting that searchers create their own personal Google account and Google profile so that they can use the plus one feature. This is made ‘easier’ by Google by providing a quick link to switch Google accounts so that a user with a business Google account can switch to their personal account to +1 a search result, blog post or similar.

Again, the reality is that, at this stage, this service is almost completely unusable. For those that already use a Google account for business and have a personal Google account as well, it’s obvious that this switching account service has substantial flaws. The main flaw being that if you switch a Google account in one browser window, you lose access to the Google apps that you had open elsewhere, such as Google Docs, Google Webmaster Central and Google Analytics to name a few. You could lose your place in many documents all just to add a +1 to a search result.

For some users, the +1 service could still be very useful to bookmark results and find more websites based on recommendations. For others, Google needs to fix its account issues before this service will become usable.

Don’t forget to read our Social Buttons resource to find out more about social sharing and how New Zealand is using social networks.

“NZS.com is one of the most Social Media active directories in New Zealand!” – Cue Social Media

But we’re not stopping there!

We’re proud to introduce a brand new way to visually browse New Zealand websites.

Eagle-eyed visitors to NZS.com category pages will have noticed a new tab - the Screenshot Wall. The Screenshot Wall is a brand new development that displays screenshots (or thumbnails) of the websites that are displayed in that particular category.

This isn’t only a funky little toy, it provides a number of practical uses… A neat way to visually browse through New Zealand websites Quickly identify high quality websites Study similarities in design of websites in the same industry Find graphical inspiration for the design of your own website Visually browse 15 websites at once!

To try it out for yourself, simply visit one of the NZS.com categories, such as the travel insurance category, and click on the grey ‘Screenshot Wall’ tab. If you have some feedback for us or you can think of some extra uses that we haven’t mentioned, feel free to leave a comment below.

Oh and don’t forget, these screenshots also appear next to your listing on the category page if you have added details to your Site Profile. This makes them stand out far more than regular listings and it’s free to add details!

You can add details and your screenshot by heading here.

All of us Kiwis with relations in the UK will already be thinking about Mother’s Day as the keen Brits celebrated Mother’s Day back on the 3rd of April.

The day itself is all about showing appreciation for our dear mothers and rewarding them for all of the hard work that they’ve done in bringing us up to the fine men and women that we all are today.

Here at NZS.com we start to see a number of search terms related to Mother’s Day as early as March, perhaps with the earlier UK Mother’s Day causing some confusion and a few last minute desperate searches!

Here are some of the popular Mother’s Day search terms as provided by the NZS.com search community:

• mothers day cards to make
• mothers day gift ideas
• making mothers day cards
• mother’s day present (and presents)
• mothering quotes
• mothers day poems
• beauty deals for mothers day
• beauty gift vouchers for mothers day
• quotes for your mum

And don’t think that the average New Zealand is too tough to show their tender side with these aww-inspiring searches

• soppy mothers day cards
• soppy mothers day poems

Now that you’re clued up on search terms that people are using this Mother’s Day, perhaps it’s a good time to take a break from work and check out New Zealand websites related to gift baskets (keep a look out for Tastes from Around New Zealand as well as Boxed.co.nz) and call a local florist to book your flowers for Mother’s Day before the rush.

And gents, don’t forget to act on behalf of your children if they’re too young to show their own appreciation for mum!

Flickr image credit: woodenmask

Search trends, like many things, are seasonal in nature. The longer you follow search trends the more predictable they become and the earlier you begin to think about them each year in order to consider what people are going to be searching for before they actually need it.

Seasons, anniversaries and almost anything that occurs at a regular annual time fit into this cycle.

You can see from the summer search trend graph below over the 2009 – 2010 year that searching for summer keywords has begun to increase in May, steadily rises through June to October and then steeply diving again in November:

This trend is a common one in search where people are researching an event well in advance to it occurring, especially so when there is large scale planning involved (like summer holidays and seasonal work). The norm is for searching to peak at the edge of an event actually happening and then tail off very quickly following the start of the event. For a season like summer, there is less of a defined start for the event however with other non-seasonal events such as concerts, the peak and tail-off is abrupt.

A good analogy in the seasonal trend of searching is the retail market. If you’re someone who has ever thought about buying a Valentine’s Day gift, turned a corner and seen the first displays in the shop windows then you can guarantee whoever produced those displays was thinking about it long and hard before you and timed their set up ready to catch your eye just as you’re turning your mind towards it.

The online search industry is a lot like this. Those who live and breath search (like the team here at NZS.com) often spend our time researching, evaluating and getting ready for search trends that cycle up well in advance of an event.

Major summer keywords in order of number of searches:

1. summer jobs
2. summer work
3. summer fashion
4. summer recipes
5. summer holiday
6. summer dresses
7. summer camps
8. summer music
9. summer festivals
10. summer events

Source – NZS.com’s Google Analytics report for top 10 “summer” searches from 01 Oct 2009 to 30 Sep 2010. Duplicates (e.g. plurals) removed.

Analysing search trends in New Zealand is a core focus for NZS.com’s team to help bring the right content to local searchers at the right time.

Interestingly, the biggest jump so far was on the 1st November. Perhaps people hit November and started thinking about Christmas shopping straight away? The 1st November was also a Monday so perhaps it was a case of people searching online for Christmas party supplies? We’re certainly seeing an increase in activity in that category (a great opportunity for someone selling Christmas supplies to Enhance their listing and get their share of the traffic!).

This chart shows the rise in pageviews on NZS.com for Christmas-specific articles and categories:

Either way, it’s clear from the chart that searches for Christmas related terms are on the rise and set to increase rapidly from now on until Christmas day. If you’re one of the many business owners that provides Christmas related products via the Internet, now’s the time to inject some life into your online presence and website marketing.

For the rest of us, our Christmas Gift ideas article is proving to be very popular as a great way to find some ideas for Christmas presents. Or if it looks like the family Christmas get-together is at your place this year, now’s a good time to start topping up your Christmas decorations and practice some quality Christmas recipes.

New Zealand isn’t so much into the rather barbaric ‘make a combustible version of Guy Fawkes and throw it on a bonfire’ version of Guy Fawkes night that our UK cousins are into. It seems that fireworks displays are far more entertaining for us. However, we do seem to like leaving things to the last minute! This chart shows the level of traffic that NZS.com received over the period running up to Guy Fawke’s night.

As you can see, while many people started looking for fireworks to buy and fireworks display events during the week, the vast majority carried out their searches on the 5th November itself. This could either be because people were looking for fireworks to buy at the last minute, or it could be because everyone waited until Friday to plan their weekend. The poor weather across the country may also have caused most searchers to wait until the last minute before searching for ‘fireworks displays’ so that they could find out the latest news on whether the events were cancelled or postponed.

Whatever the weather, you can find a number of events in the Events category of the directory. And to our Christchurch friends, don’t forget Canterbury Anniversary day this Friday!