If you were in any doubt as to the importance of branding and identity online, search statistics clearly show that brands matter in online marketing.

The best brands all have one thing in common: they become synonymous in customers’ minds with a particular product or service. Some of the most successful brands today have built their reputation online - and enjoyed flow-on success in the offline market. On the other hand, businesses established in the offline market have had to adapt to the increasing dominance of Internet marketing over other forms of media - achieving varying degrees of success.

According to Hitwise search data, some of the most competitive search terms are brand focused - that is, they’re specific rather than generic. Take the New Zealand fashion industry. The top ten fashion searches over the last six months were:

1. pumpkin patch
2. supre
3. glassons
4. just jeans
5. country road
6. lv*
7. billabong
8. bendon
9. cotton on
10. jeans west

* Louis Vuitton

And Kiwis looking for insurance in NZ are similarly brand focused (save for one generic term):

1. state insurance
2. acc
3. travel insurance
4. southern cross
5. ami
6. ami insurance
7. aa insurance
8. nzi
9. tower insurance
10. amp

Whether you’re thinking clothing brands, beer brands, bike brands, car brands or chocolate brands, never underestimate the strength of brand value online. If you need a hand working out your online branding strategy, get corporate identity services from the professionals.

Image from Flickr.

Our personal health and fitness is one of our biggest concerns, so it’s no surprise that we look online for health information, advice, diagnosis, products, insurance, health shops and pharmacies… but what exactly are we looking for?

According to Hitwise, gatherers of online search data and statistics, the top 10 New Zealand health searches for December 2007 were:

1. movember
2. les mills
3. bmi
4. treasures
5. weight watchers
6. pubmed
7. southern cross
8. sparc
9. depression
10. auckland hospital

Viewing and analysing search data such as this can be hugely valuable in terms of creating content, targeting Web users and reading the minds of New Zealand searchers. We’ve got a lot of health issues on our minds, covering:

• Health fund raising - Taking part in the men’s health event of the year (the month formerly known as November)
• Health and fitness - Finding gyms, fitness centres and recreational pursuits
• Weight loss - Calculating Body Mass Index and signing up for Weight Watchers
• Health care - Sourcing private health care, hospitals and PubMed (an online medical information resource)
• Mental health - Depression, an all-too-common symptom of modern living?
• Baby nappies - The essential item for newborns and infants!

Not only is this kind of information useful, it’s also changeable throughout the year; in winter, for instance, ‘cold and flu’ searches will be big, as will any hot current events, such as immunization or bird flu. So, keep an eye on search data - it makes for a fascinating insight into the world of search.

After confirmation that advertising on the Internet is a fast-growing phenomenon in New Zealand, a study from IAB New Zealand shows that Kiwis are putting most of their online marketing dollars into classified and display advertising.

Global search marketing trends
Internationally, search engine advertising and getting your website to the top of major search engines - such as Google - is the number one priority. Global statistics show search engine marketing has the majority share in online advertising:

Australia - 46%
United Kingdom - 57%
United States - 41%

Search advertising in New Zealand
Here - where the online marketplace is smaller and advertisers less Internet-focused - search marketing accounts for only 25% of our online advertising dollars. In contrast, classified ads and display advertising gobble up 44% and 31% of our online advertising spend.

Why the discrepancy?
The most likely cause is a lack of awareness in the field of Internet advertising, in both New Zealand’s business and advertising sectors. As an online market, New Zealand is still in the early stages of development when compared to other nations, but this doesn’t necessarily equal a weakness. From a ‘glass half full’ perspective, it means there is still a huge amount of opportunity for search marketing and optimisation in New Zealand. And interestingly, the cost of search advertising in the local market is about half that of international markets.

Stay tuned, as the fledgling New Zealand search market takes off…

More interesting statistics from the world of online search, this time demonstrating clear online search trends as we approach the holiday season. A highlight of many a New Zealand summer is the Kiwi camping holiday - packing the car and heading to the beach, campsite or holiday park with kids, chilly bins and kayaks in tow.

And New Zealand search statistics are showing the popularity of this summer pastime. Reports from Hitwise show that searches relating to the great outdoors have increased significantly in recent weeks. Most of these high ranking search terms are generic (like ‘camping grounds’), but other popular search terms are geographically specific (for instance ‘paihia camping ground’).

Top ten searches relating to camping holidays in New Zealand, for the week ending 8 December, 2007 were:

1. kiwi camping
2. camping grounds
3. camping
4. camping equipment
5. camping gear
6. camping nz
7. camping ground
8. camping sites
9. new zealand camping holidays
10. camping new zealand

So, what can we do with search keyword stats like this? Information on how searchers are finding your website can be used (along with data on what searchers are looking for online) to better tailor your website content and keywords. These statistics also show the power of seasonal search trends (online promotions should take into account the time of year) and region-specific searches (you may not be number one in generic camping term searches, but you could rank highly for a geographically specific search).

And if you’re getting ready to relax over the summer holidays, get sorted for your camping holiday with our directory of New Zealand camping grounds and camping equipment stores.

What are Kiwis searching for online?

Recently released 2007 search stats from Google show clear (and unsurprising) favourites in New Zealand search trends.

Top Google Searches:

1. Bebo
2. TradeMe
3. YouTube
4. Hotmail
5. Gmail

It’s great to have a New Zealand site in the top five searches - and what a phenomenon that NZ online auction site has become. As someone who’s navigated A LOT of the New Zealand Web space, I can tell you there are many copy-cat TradeMe’s out there, although it seems they’re fighting a losing battle on this one.

Other interesting top search results were the rising stars of the search phrase world, as compared to 2006 search statistics.

Fastest Rising Searches:

1. Facebook
2. Rugby World Cup
3. Americas Cup
4. YouTube
5. Cricket World Cup
6. Grabaseat
7. Bebo
8. Kiwisaver
9. Heroes
10. Vector Arena

These results show an intriguing mix of social networking sites (international, but with large New Zealand community bases) and sports events (although all the online searching in the world couldn’t bring these sports trophies home), with a dash of popular culture and concern for our financial security during retirement thrown in.

Earlier this week Eurekster, a New Zealand company working on vertical search engines called ‘Swicki’s’, came out of Beta. Steve Marden (the Eurekster CEO) wrote a blog post on what it means to be out of Beta - it’s a great read on the achievements of a local New Zealand company who have been making waves in the search world globally. The reason for completing the Beta testing phase comes down to having achieved the company’s initial vision to;

Allow anyone to create and maintain a vertical, topically focused search engine.

NZS.com have our own New Zealand Swicki covering all things New Zealand. Having a look over the ‘Hot Searches’ on the New Zealand Swicki is an interesting insight into what’s being searched on in the New Zealand market at any given point in time. Looking at the current Hot Searches turns up a wide range of searches from kids Christmas recipes to job vacancies.

If you’re looking for information about businesses or services on the Internet, you may (like 85% of Internet users) start your search off by using a search engine. Search engines are amazing tools that are designed to retrieve and display information.

Getting the results you want
To get the most relevant results from search engines, you need to be quite specific about the ‘keyword search phrase’ you type into the search box. In this example, you have decided to use NZS.com to help you find out where you can buy piano music at a reasonable price. You are based in Christchurch (the city in New Zealand, not the town in England). The words you might choose to include in your search term would then be: “second hand piano music christchurch”.

By being so specific about your search, the search engine can pull up what it considers to the best and most relevant result to answer your query.

Searching for New Zealand Web sites
If you’re interested in searching for a New Zealand service or company, NZS.com itself is a great place to start, but Google is still the world’s favourite search engine and comes in hundreds of different varieties. Google NZ offers the option to search New Zealand Web pages only, so you can start narrowing your search field that way.

Read more about keyword phrases and using them in your search engine marketing campaigns. More on this in another post! Adios!

What’s your style when looking for information online? Do you prefer to search and view results, or would you rather browse from a categorised selection of listings?

NZS.com is a search engine and a directory, which means you can browse as well as search for New Zealand websites. With the fad for instantly gratifying search (seen by some as an easier option), it’s easy to forget that browsing can be a great way to find exactly what you’re looking for. We offer a clear, intuitive, easy-to-navigate directory structure, with thousands of categories. We’ve got everything from outdoor education and personal chefs, to dairy farming, wedding venues and adventure tours!

It’s best to browse when…you know a little about your subject matter. Think of it like going to a library section where there’s a whole shelf of books on a particular topic. Say you’re looking for reiki (you know what reiki is and you want to find a local practitioner). You browse to the main Health category, click on the Alternative Health subcategory and, voila, there’s a Reiki category listing all New Zealand reiki practitioners.

It’s s best to search when…you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, or you’re unfamiliar with your subject matter. Let’s say you search for ‘reiki’ (it’s something you’ve heard of, but you have no idea where you might find it). Your search results tell you there are many relevant listings. You can also see that there’s a whole category devoted to Reiki in the directory, where you can browse all available listings in one place.

So you see, searching and browsing offer two different paths to the same end. The NZS.com directory combines the two - so you can enjoy the best of both worlds!

Search engines are basically computer programs that search the Internet for Web sites. With over 85% of people using search engines to start their Internet sessions and about 81% of these people finding NEW Web sites via search engines, you can see why search and search engines mean big business.

You may have heard of ‘little-known’ engines like Google, Yahoo! and Live Search (formerly MSN)? Well, as you may have guessed, Google is the big enchilada of search engines with over 80% of New Zealand searchers using it to find Web sites and images. It’s important then, that Google likes your Web site so you can get in front of people online. Your next question is probably something along the lines of, ‘how does my Web site get loved up by Google?’

What search engines like Google go for
There are lots of factors to consider, but here are a few of the things about Web sites that search engines like Google tend to prefer:

• Sites that make their content accessible to spiders or robots (programs that index the Internet)
• Sites publishing lots of unique, relevant and interesting content
• Sites that offer a lot of textual content and aren’t heavily graphic or Flash laden
• Sites with lots of votes from other 3rd party Web sites (incoming links)

View more info about Web site design that’s search engine friendly. Good luck!

It’s great to have the opportunity to contribute to NZS.com’s shiny, new blog. As an optimiser, Web writer and Web marketer, I’m looking forward to sharing info, tips, news and views about each of these disciplines with you.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) - a brief intro
Search engine optimisation or SEO is all about visibility. Visibility on search engines in fact, just as its name suggests. It’s the process of enhancing Web sites with specific content, with the aim of encouraging search engines to feature these Web sites in their results pages. Web sites can then be found and seen by people using search engines (I’ll talk more about search engines in another post.)

Optimisers, like me, spend time analysing the words people use on search engines. We then optimise (or edit) the content of Web sites with these words in mind and promote sites to target specific searchers (and searches).

Getting to the top of the ranking…
If people use the Google search engine to find a Web design company in New Zealand, their search words may be, “new zealand web design”. At the top of the searches, at position #1, is Avatar’s Web site. Now this didn’t just happen… It’s partly the result of a successful optimisation strategy. (Phew! You might just think I know what I’m talking about now!) Tune into NZS.com’s blog for more insight into the wonderful world of optimisation and how it can help you improve your Web site visibility.