Top Web Trends In 2010

The web is having a huge impact on our daily lives. Whether, it's a home computer, wifi enabled laptop, portable notebook or web enabled hand held device, the internet continues to revolutionise the way we communicate – and how we conduct much of our business.

With 2009 drawing to a close it is natural to start thinking of what the New Year might have in store for us. While some web innovations will remain unpredictable, there are a few trends that are clearly up and coming.

Top Web Trends For The Coming Year
As web technology continues to advance in leaps and bounds, what online trends might we expect in 2010?

Social Networking
Social media is continuing to grow by leaps and bounds, with no sign of stopping. The tremendous success of Twitter, Facebook, and similar sites continues to feed our appetite for online interaction. The growing demand for more services similar to these is bringing social media marketing to a whole new level.

Social media will continue to grow in strength and stature as a way to promote your business online. How can you know which sites to utilize to best portray your business? That will depend partly on what type of business you have and what audience you are trying to reach.

Smart Phone Use
Smart phone technology will continue to grow and change the way we do things in the coming years. This presents a great opportunity to begin advertising using mobile media. If you hadn't thought of using this medium, you may want to. It is a very cost effective tool with excellent response rates.

Search Marketing Activities
What will happen to search engine marketing in 2010? It might not be a surprise that search engines will continue to play a major part in helping people find what the want on the web.

While paid search marketing is getting more targeted, internet surfers still prefer the organic results over the paid results. Finding them to be more relevant than the adverts.

The opportunities for paid search will continue to grow in 2010. With the growth of ad networks and advertisers' ad techniques becoming more sophisticated.

Online Video Sharing
Video sharing sites have come forward as excellent ways to share information and media with others. This will only get bigger. Posting a video is a great way to dynamically get your message across and attract new web traffic.

Will Email Marketing Still Have a Place?
With all this up and coming technology, what will happen to our old standby, the email marketing campaign? Some might think it would become obsolete, but not so.

Building a list of interested buyers has been a mainstay of online business for a long time – and can remain so. The trend will be more targeted content and recognising your subscribers' real value.

What Else?
Something else to be on the lookout for? Real-time collaboration. The initial launch of Google Wave earlier this year brought about both excitement and confusion. Google Wave is a platform for getting things done together in real time. Using a crossover of email, instant messaging, and a wiki has got many web users completely baffled. With Google wave communication between different people across different platforms is faster and more fun. Look for Wave's usefulness becoming more apparent in 2010.

As we see it, these will be the major online marketing trends for 2010. Let me know what else you would include. If you need help developing a 2010 online marketing strategy for your business, give us a call today on 01454 261111.

Return to the top

10 Great Social Media Tips

Social networking continues to go from strength to strength, with Facebook leading the way with over 250 million users and growing. So should you be using social media to promote your business? It used to be that just having a website was a big help to a business.

The problem with having a static website in today's competitive online world is that it can only reveal so much about you and your business to your visitors. Social media has opened up a whole new way of communicating with each other. Utilising social networking can therefore help bring your business closer to your customers; but if you don't know the pitfalls and how to avoid them, failure is an option.

Ten Tips For Social Media Success
Does your business rely on 'word of mouth' advertising? If so, social media can be particularly helpful to you. As people get to know you through your posts on the different sites you visit, they will see you as someone they can trust. As you develop your social media strategy keep the following tips in mind.

1. Don't just sign on and dive in – Look at what others are posting and give your reply some thought.

2. Be genuine – People aren't stupid. You will quickly be labelled a fake, which will harm you in the long run.

3. This is a conversation – Don't treat it as a monologue. Other people have opinions and want to be heard as well.

4. Be engaging – See it as an opportunity to share your expertise. Address relevant topics and ask for feedback.

5. Add value – If you are only sharing information about you and your business people will just shut you out. You must contribute in a meaningful way.

6. Think quality over quantity – It is better to make a few high qualities, helpful posts than to make dozens of meaningless remarks.

7. Be personable, but not overly so – Remember you are representing your business, be friendly without being too familiar.

8. Join the conversation – Make references to other users in your replies and posts.

9. Adopt an appropriate tone – See it as an opportunity to give your business some personality.

10. Be consistent – You will have to visit the site on a regular basis so people can get to know you and begin to trust you.

Some people are very uncomfortable with putting personal information online. This can be a stumbling block to getting involved in social media. What you need to remember is that social media can help you meet potential customers and help you make important business contacts. The potential benefits should outweigh your discomfort.

Social media marketing can be overwhelming for some people – but it doesn't need to be. If you would like help organising a social media campaign for your business, call us today on 01454 261111.

Return to the top

Smart Phones – Will Your Business Be Ready?

According to a recent Nielson Company poll done in July 2009, internet phone usage was up 34% over last year with men being the majority users at 53%, and women just behind at 47%. EMarketer provides additional estimates claiming that there will be 73.7 million mobile internet users in 2009, which is an increase of 26.3% from 2008. These figures take into account both mobile web and mobile app (application) usage.

More and more people all over the world will be buying smart phones and using them to buy products, check email, and keep in touch with friends and family through social media, and who knows what else. All while 'on the fly'. So what does all this mean for a business owner?

Cashing In On the Mobile Marketing Trend
Taking Google Checkout and PayPal as perfect examples of companies who have successfully incorporated payment apps in mobile phones and Amazon hot on their heels also currently developing an app of their own; common sense tells us that mobile use will continue to grow.

Another recent poll taken by Marist reveals that there are 3.8 billion cell phone owners worldwide. This number is even larger than the number of people worldwide who own a computer. For any sharp business owner, this would be an excellent time to tap into the mobile advertising market.

The Advantages of Using Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing does have its pros some of which include:

• Easy To Get Started – Recent advancements in smart phone technology has made mobile marketing more achievable. Standardised formats and more consistent guidelines will help push the growth of the industry skyward.
• Growing User Trust – Consistent regulation and use of anti-spam/opt-in, opt-out practices is making consumers more confident about making purchases straight from their phone.
• More Immediate Results – A study by Knowledge Works found that 60% of mobile phone owners keep their phones with them at all times. Even when they are at home. SMS messages are received almost instantly and are more likely to be immediately opened than say an email message. This makes mobile messaging a very attractive way to promote any business or product.
• Amazing Targeting Capabilities – Using mobile technology to market can also help you gain insight into the demographics and user behaviour of mobile phone users. The targeting capabilities of mobile ads continue to improve. For example, Yahoo Smart Ads can customise ad content based on user behaviour, demographics, time, and in some cases, the local weather.
• Tremendous Response Rates – It could be the newness of this medium, or the feeling of more personal interaction, but the response rates for mobile ads is astounding. Insight Express, a digital marketing firm, says mobile ad response rates are about five times higher than similar traditional online ads. This makes mobile marketing very economical.

As you can see, mobile marketing is fast becoming a major advertising medium and the timing couldn't be better than now for any business owner to get started using this marketing channel. For more information or questions on how to set up your mobile campaigns call us today on 01454 261111.

Return to the top

Should You Be Using A Business Blog?

Having a business blog is quickly becoming an essential element for online business. Both small and large companies are seeing the value of adding a blog to their list of business tools.

A well-planned business blog can help you gain traffic from the search engines, enable you to keep in contact with current customers, and serve as a hub for your social media activities. These are a few of the reasons blogging has become so popular for businesses.

Key Elements To Building A Successful Blog
First off, you must have a plan in place for your blog. What do you hope to accomplish by using it? Do you want more business leads, more newsletter subscribers, increased traffic, or better branding for your business? It will be hard to measure your progress if you aren't sure what you are trying to accomplish.

Another important element to keep in mind is your readers. Who is your target market? What are they looking for? You can't serve their needs if you don't know what those needs are.

Next, you will need to decide who is going to contribute the content for your blog. How often will they post to it? What type of content will be included? How should you decide what topics to include? Many business owners will outsource the creation of blog content to save them valuable time.

Incorporating a blog into your company's main website will give you an opportunity to communicate with your customers in ways you haven't been able to before. You need to be sure the information on the blog is interesting and encourages interaction. What types of content should you utilise to do this? Some possible examples are:

• Your company newsletter
• Videos that showcase your product(s) and how to use them
• Surveys to find out additional products/services the readers have interest in
• Discount coupons
• Links to other helpful sites, articles, etc
• Anything else your readers would find useful

Ideally, your blog should be built on the right technology so that it can continue to serve your needs for a long time to come. There are many excellent blogging platforms available. Whatever blog platform you choose, just be certain it can grow with you as your needs change.

By properly optimsing your blog, you will be able to get organic (unpaid) traffic from the search engines. Once you have the visitors there, if your content is interesting as well as informative they may want to bookmark your site so they can come back or so they can share it with friends.

You can use your blog as the hub for your social media activities. By linking back to your blog from the social sites you participate in can help drive some traffic back to your blog. Be certain you aren't just spamming the social sites with your links. The key is to make thoughtful, helpful social media posts.

Building and maintaining a blog for your business can be helpful in many ways. If you need some expert advice to help you get your blog up and running, please give us a call on 01454 261111.

Return to the top