They are, but you need to create them with SEO in mind to get the full benefit.  

But acheiving this can be a frustratingly elusive goal for many business owners.

Fortunately I'm here to tell you there are proven tactics to work toward acheiving it and some of them are contained in this post.

And sadly, “build it and they will come” only works in the movies.

It takes work, sometimes quite hard word, to get more people to visit your website.  But to make it easier - we're giving you a dozen ways to do it.

So as not to miss out, this year we've made a few of our own.

When it comes to digital or online marketing, and in fact business in general, predictions are often stated almost as fact - although few are backed up by any evidence, nor are they given any context for when, where or for whom they are most likely to apply. We prefer to make recommendations rather than predictions, and base them on what we actually see happening, statistics (nothing like hard evidence!) and our 15 years experience in the web business.

Given most of our customers are small-medium service and location based businesses here in Auckland, our predictions are skewed to be more relevant to these. So they won't apply to everyone, everywhere – but here they are.

1. We'll finally move on from 'mobile is taking over the world'

There is no denying that your audience is now using mobile devices to access the internet.

However, mobile doesn’t just mean smart phones. Don't sucked into getting a single solution for smart phones without thinking about about your whole audience and all the devices they're using. Look at what they are doing, when and where are they doing it.

Over the last year or so we've seen sites clearly designed for smartphones. On which they probably look very nice, but fail on other factors including use on those old school devices – desktop PCs, and of more concern – SEO. (Conversely we're also seeing the rise of video and large image page backgrounds which may not be so good for mobile).

From our Google analytics statistics, we can see that for those clients that target consumers then the use of smartphones is definitely a factor. But for B2B customers, the percentage of visitors averages around 10% (although this has increased over the last 12 months).

The highest use of mobile devices (tablet and smartphones) for any of our client's websites is 36%. And although this client has a responsive site, visitors are still more likely to make a purchase using a desktop device. And it means that 64% are using desktop devices.

Yes – go mobile. But don't take the headlines that mobile use is overtaking desktop use at face value – it's more complex than this.

One prediction said “business are playing catchup in mobile marketing”. I'd agree with this – but just adding 'mobile friendly' to your wish list is only the start. What we see emerging is the trend for multiple device use – in other words, people haven't necessarily replaced PC's with mobile's yet - they are adding mobile devices into the mix (although we suspect the younger the user, the more likely it is that it is their only device).

Once you have moved to a site that is responsive to the needs of different devices, you need to look at all devices and experiences in a more holistic manner. Are they doing something different when on a mobile device? Looking for something different? What experience do we need to create on a mobile vs desktop? What do we need to do differently? How do we utilise location information as part of this ?

And don't ignore desktop PCs and laptops.

The Takeaway: If you haven't got a mobile friendly site, plan to do it in 2015.  Go responsive rather than a seperate mobile site first, unless you have a good reason to do so.  Then use your site analytics to start customising content and experience for different audiences as required.

2. You still won't be able to get away from creating great content

Content is not king – it's the grand, all powerful high emperor.

People have become numb to infographics, funny cat photo's and spun articles at a time when content is even more important than ever – especially for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

Create content relevant to your business that informs, guides and yes occasionally even entertains. Do it as often as you can in response to questions, new products and industry news.

Not sure what to say? You'd be surprised just how much information is right there at your fingertips in terms of the knowledge you and your staff have that your target audience would love access to.

Consideration of content length will also become more important. While short forms (tweets and vine length video) containing short messages are on the increase, longer blog posts and articles are more likely to be shared and are more valuable for SEO. So start thinking about 2000 word blog posts like this one ;)

To get better return on this effort, leverage and diversify to appeal to different tastes and different ways of getting content out there, particularly via the social networks. Convert text into slides, video and images. And content can also be in the form of small apps and software.

Of course, don't forget that good content on your website helps convert visitors to customers because it demonstrates expertise, helps solve problems (and therefore demonstrates willingness to serve) and builds trust.

Sadly the quality of content in all it's forms washing around the internet probably won't improve much as shallow, repetitive content continues to be churned out by the lazy, brigade. At least try and stand out a bit.

The Takeaway: Good content will be really, really, really, really important. Really.

3. Social gets harder for some

Social networking sites have become critical for getting content out and connecting with audiences – but what content, for who and where?

Attention challenged audiences are becoming increasingly picky about which social platforms they use and how they use them – and mobile now plays a very large part.

The main contenders – Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter are still here but increasing irritation with commercial drivers (ads, promoted posts etc.) along with concerns about privacy and use of personal data is driving uptake of alternatives. Pinterest, Instagram and Flickr for image sharing, Vine for short video. The 'anti-Facebook' site 'Ello'.

Google+ continues to battle, with some calling it 'walking dead' and others still maintaining it is critical for SEO. What is true is that not as many people use it, but include it if local SEO is important.

If buying Facebook likes and Twitter followers hasn't already died it will do so soon as businesses realise it's a waste of time because theses fake followers don't engage and certainly don't buy. Embedding social buttons on your website pages still won't work unless the content is good enough to share, so just adding them to your website design wish list is a waste of time.

Shameless self promotion might work for celebrities but business will need to be more saavy and share engaging, easily digestible content if they want to connect. But easily digestible doesn't mean short and shallow. Ironically, business will need to be more social, to be social.

There is a lot of commentary around video becoming the medium of choice, but this will be hard for a lot of small businesses with limited budgets so think this one will only apply to bigger brands. Micro-video (via the likes of Vine) maybe a solution.

Brands will also become more sophisticated in their use of social media to drive conversions and not just chatter, to justify their investment.

For those that aren't yet embracing social media in some form, entering the game will be harder than it was a few years ago when it was newer and there were fewer choices.

As always the advice is to pick the platform that suits your business and is most relevant for your audience. Think about what resources you have available to put into it so that if you are going to do it, you do it properly.

The Takeaway: If there ever was a time to incorporate social media into your marketing - it's now. But you'll need to do it properly.  Social is something you are, not something you do.

4. SEO won't get any easier either, but maybe that's a good thing

SEO is certainly not dead but it is becoming harder to make work as a stand-alone strategy.  Having said that, it is as important as ever that you are found by the right people looking for what you have to offer.

Google continues the fight against those that want to hijack search rankings or take the easy route and as a result SEO has become more integrated into and reliant on the overall marketing strategy.

Quality content creation targeting individual audience segment needs and social signals are part of this. There is still a lot of debate about social signals and search rankings – Google says it doesn't take it into account but we're not convinced. Site performance has been important for a while and mobile friendliness now counts as well.

Old fashioned link building is in (i.e. earned links) and we certainly hope to see more progress on Google's algorithm changes that does not reward sites with a high rank purely because of an exact match domain or link farming.

Google is the dominant search engine in New Zealand but we are also starting to see Yahoo and Bing feature in some websites visitor statistics. This could increase in 2015 – last year we noticed Google became full of off-shore (and therefore often meaningless) search results. This was likely due to the 'Pigeon' update which was supposed to improve local searching, but appeared to have the complete opposite effect (see point below).

Following from this, it also means 'local' SEO is more relevant for businesses that operate out of a single location (eg Auckland). Location information (physical address information) and optimising content for local area search terms play a key part.

Targeting single keyword phrases took a radical jump onto the cease-and-desist list last year. Longer keyword phrases in the form of questions and inclusions of context (particularly location) are more powerful and drive more visitors than single search words. This is one reason why content in the form of blog posts, FAQs and articles is so important.

We'd love to see low quality SEO tactics stop working and dodgy SEO offers disappear. Sadly that probably won't happen.

The Takeaway: SEO is no longer something you should buy off a random telemarketer that offers cheap SEO services if you want it to pay off in the long run - or work at all.

5. Analytics will matter more than ever

To get the kind of insight you need to make decisions from a complex mix of SEO, conversion rates social interactions and mobile - you need good information.

Many predictions for 2014-2015 talk about needing to make data driven decisions, although these tend to focus on using that data to personalise messages, segment audiences, monitor market penetration and get customer insights.

At a more basic level, we've always maintained that you need to understand what is happening on your website. Where are people coming from, how did they get there? What device are they using and what are mobile users doing differently than desktop users?

With more devices and channels than ever before, taking action based on verifiable data ensures the best use of resources and budget.  You'll also be able to measure specific campaigns and tactics to see which ones work.

The Takeaway: If you don't know how people find your website and what they do there, chances are the site is ineffective.

6. Hackers will be more determined than ever

While not a marketing consideration per se, your website and it's associated data is a critical marketing asset that needs to be protected.

As recent, high profile breaches of the likes of Sony Entertainment or Barnes and Noble show, no one is too big to be a target. At the same time, small business are just (if not more) likely to be attacked if security is ignored.

Security specialists Kaspersky reported an upsurge in malware incidents and predicts Mac's have come to the attention of cyber-criminals. Vulnerabilities in virtual payment systems will come to the fore, and cloud storage systems may increase due to their popularity.

A compromised website doesn't necessarily mean the hacker will leave a notice saying 'you are hacked' but may be secretly using your site to send out spam or have stolen personal customer information or business intelligence. Malware developers are becoming sneakier and harder to detect.

Last year we also saw a frustrating increase in DDOS (denial of service) attacks - which basically means overloading a web server and preventing anyone accessing a website.

Fortunately, a lot of the attacks on small business websites are trying to pick off the low hanging fruit – i.e. those that have no security practices in place. But don't let that lull you into a thinking you'll slip under cyber-criminals radar.

When it comes to website security – it's a case of when it happens not if.

So in addition to website security hardening and ongoing monitoring, you should have a business continuity plan in place. Education staff on best practise like password standards, locking smartphones and looking out for social phishing attempts should be part of it too.

The Takeway: The longer you assume your web designer and/or hosting provider is taking care of security, the more likely it is your site has already been compromised.  The cost of rebuilding a website will far outweigh the cost of good website security practises.

7. Web design trends will .....continue

Web design trends are often that – design trends. They often have nothing to do with how well a site functions.

This is a big topic so we won't actually be covering it in this post, but design trends we see include:

• More pressure on a mobile-first design
• Continuation of the single page – no more 'above the fold'
• Parallax scrolling (images sitting behind the content) goes away - we hope
• 'Flat' visuals continue to rule
• Large image backgrounds and headers become almost a default
• No header or background images are used to compete with the above
• Bigger, hidden navigation and super sized menus help users get around
• More of the big, more interesting typography – i.e. big, mixed font text, often over large images

We pretty much see the recent design trends continuing from 2014 into 2015, with businesses playing catch up with implementation of responsive and mobile friendly designs.

The Takeaway: Don't confuse a design trend with what is necessarily right or effective for your business.  And success in digital marketing takes a lot more than good design.

Is that all?

So – those are our thoughts about website and digital marketing in 2015.

We recommend business use these to help identify priorities for 2015. This means that this time next year we can look back and see if we were right!

But there is a right way and a wrong way. And sadly the wrong way is all too common.

It's also a good chance that you've had someone promise they will get your website on the first page of Google. It's like the gold standard promise. But there is an argument for not being there – in fact that it may not serve your business all that well.

So now all you have to do is to sit back and wait the phone calls to come rolling on it - right?  Sadly, no.

In many ways the hard work has only just begun. Unless you've got someone else who is responsible for carrying out website management activities, you'll have to devote some time to your new site.

Before you start - it's not about you

One fundamental thing to understand, is that for someone to come and visit your website, they need to have a reason.  So you need to understand what needs and motivations your audience have, in order to meet them (and therefore, get paid!). 

This should have been incorporated into the design, but if not, you may be able to improve the content over time to better meet their needs.  Even if they want an electrician right away, they will still need something from you before they decide to give you a call.  This will be information -  where are you, what services you offer.  But you also have to persuade them to ring you and not your competitors.

If you haven't sat down and thought about how to meet your audience's need to find you, find out about you, find out if you can help them, find out if they want you to help them and finally decide if they want to get in touch - then do it now.  It will make the next steps a lot easier.

Ok now - where to start

Here's some things you can do straight away:

• Make sure the website address is on business cards, email signatures, pens and t-shirts
• Tell everyone on your contact list about the new site
• Whoever is going to do updates should get familiar with the content management system
• Similarly, familiarity with Google Analytics or whatever reporting system the site has will allow you to gain more insight into what your website visitors are doing once numbers build

Your first priority will likely be - building up visitor numbers

For most new websites, time has been put into the content and structure during the design process, so building visitor numbers - ie promoting the site (and therefore your business), will be the priority first up.

If you do nothing at all, the visitors to your website will likely be people who already know you looking for your phone number.

Ways to get more people to visit your website

1. If you haven't already done it, think about creating some content so that you can say to people "Visit our website to view xyz" or "download abc".  Use something on your site - a free tool, an e-book or a particularly in-depth blog article, to give people a reason to go to the site.  Tell everyone about it at any networking or communication opportunity.  Of course, if you haven't got anything like this - now's the time to get it written.
2. You can use paid methods of generating traffic, such as Google Adwords, radio advertising or similar.  With paid advertising you generally will need something to promote like a sale, a new product or other offering.  You can use it to drum up business without one, but I've only seen it work well for consumer services like plumbers and products like furniture, travel etc.
3. Think about creating a brochure to promote your business and do a mail-drop in selected areas - again, you will need something to promote or something to say to people.  Since brochures have limited space, give people a little bit of information and provide the rest on the website.
4. Search Engine Optimisation is a way of attracting people to your site by making sure your site come up in search results.  This is by no means a simple task, especially if you have any competition at all.  SEO is a marathon, not a sprint and we have several posts about it on this site.  If you haven't started, now is the time.
5. List in all the online directories you can find – eg NZS.com, Finda, Yellow Pages etc.  While from a backlink and referral source these online directories aren't going to add tremendous value, it's worth doing anyway.
6. Create new content - if it wasn't part of your site design planning, come up with a list of new content to add to your site. This can include:

• News - including industry news and news about your business
• Blogs - a great way to add content that is easy to generate
• FAQs
• Completed projects
• Case studies
• Customers testimonials
• How to guides

And to help out, here's 15 ideas for website content

Of course the end game is  not just to have lots of people visiting your site, the goal is to get some of these people interested in what you have to offer.  So there is no use attracting people from India for your local lawnmowing business.  It has to be 'good' traffic.

Once you've got these things under control - time to get social

You can set up a Facebook page and/or Twitter account for your business during your website project, but if not - do it now.

But - and it's a big but - if your business does not have the resources to be actively social, or if you don't have a plan for how to do it - you're almost better off not start until you do.  If you think it is important, here are some articles that may be of help:

• What does social sharing mean for small business
• 12 of the biggest, most used social networks and platforms
• Ten myths of social media marketing

And then, it's back to the site to improve it's performance

Once you are starting to get a steady flow of visitors, the next step is usually to look at what those visitors are doing and work out if you can get more of them to do the things you want them to.

This can include:

• Visit a certain page - preferrably your main offer
• Fill out a form
• Download an e-book
• Watch a video
• Buy something
• Contact you

If you haven't already, set up goals in Google Analytics to measure interactions or whatever activity is an indicator of success on the site.

• Look at the pages on your site that have high bounce rates or low interaction - what can you do to make it more appealing?  The  article Using AIDA to improve website conversion rates might help
• Are there any search phrases that are bringing visitors to the site but aren't all that well served once they get there - do you need to create a page or more content for them?
• Where are your visitors coming from, and is this the right geolocated audience for you
• Are you getting visitors but no nibbles - if yes, maybe your site is turning them off rather than on:
  • Web Content vs. Web Copy – what’s the difference and which is the best for your website?
  • Is your content trashing your conversion potential
  • 12 ways your website is destroying trust in your business

It's never to late to...

If you didn't do it as part of the planning phase of your website design project:

• Prepare a content calendar or schedule for items to be created and published over time. Tips and advice, news, product reviews - that type of thing works well
• Refine your keyword phrases.  Google Webmaster Tools now provides you a list of the phrases that are bringing visitors to your site
• Check out your competition for ideas on what more you could do. Don't just look local - look at national and international organisations who are in the same business.

So with all this work to do, there is no time like the present.  Pick one thing and start from there.

We know it's a lot, that's why we offer website management for businesses.

Google uses the phrase 'Zero Moment of Truth' (or ZMOT) to refer to the online decision-making moment.

I use the phrase 'moments of truth' to refer to the small almost instantaneous and sometimes unconscious decisions that a person makes that contribute to the big overall decision.

The overall decision (or ZMOT) is of course whether they will buy from you, talk to you, sign up for something you offer or contact you in some form.

These small moments of truth are influenced by the experience that person has on your website. If they are positive it builds to a positive outcome. If they are negative, it means that the visitor is less and less likely to do what you want.

What makes for these moments of truth?

On a website these moments of truth are influenced by:

• The overall feel of the site – is it cheesy, cheap and obscure or professional, impressive and inspiring?
• The images – do they resonate with the visitor? Do they illustrate a point or are they just for decoration? Are they good quality or out of focus, low quality images that you took with your iPhone?
• The font – is it too big or too small? Quirky, formal or relaxed?
• The design – is it easy to find out what to do?
• The content – is it easy to read and does it contain all the information they need? Is it compelling or is it incomplete and obscure? Does it contain grammatical problems or spelling mistakes?
• Jargon – every time you make a visitor wonder what a word of phrase means they experience a negative moment of truth
• Functionality – does the site work as expected? Are there broken links, do the buttons and forms work?
• Do your social links make it easy to share good content or are they just there for decoration?
• Do you provide enough information about who you are to prove you authentic and can be trusted, or are you hiding behind feel good vision statements and unsubstantiated promises?
• Are you just trying to be clever – this usually leaves people confused and frustrated.

I'm not suggesting that businesses agonise over every word or pixel. We are (sometimes painfully) aware of how hard it is to get it right. We don't always understand what those moments of truth are for different visitors. Sometimes you have to test out things and be ready to make a change if it doesn't work.

And of course everyone makes mistakes. We are after all, only human.

What I wish businesses would do

I'd like it if businesses understood that they should care about these moments of truth.

That a good website will make the difference between someone doing business with them – and choosing a competitor instead.

I'd like people not to make decisions about their website based on what's easier for them or who can do a year's hosting in Uzbekistan for $3.50 a year and a free set of steak knives. It should be about what will be easier for their customers.

I'd like people to appreciate that good web designers and developers are worth the money because they know how to create positive moments of truth – and they're worth the investment.

I'd like people to realise that the cheap website slung together with little care by the inexperienced and uncaring will hurt their business.

So it means instead of having www.yourcompany.co.nz you could have www.yourcompany.nz.

The media's coverage have led some businesses to believe that they had to act immediately - but this isn't the case.

And we think it will take some time for NZ businesses to move to .nz exclusively – if in fact it happens at all. The launch of .co and .kiwi domain names did not see a large migration to these domains, so it may not happen with .nz either.  But it is important that you make a decision at some point.

What does it mean for you?

You need to decide if you want to register the .nz version of your existing domain name.  In the same way you might choose to register the .com version so that you have greater ownership of your brand name.

It also means you have the opportunity to get a completely new .nz domain name.

 But you do have time to make this decision – so don't panic!  You have six months to decide to register the .nz version of any domain you own.

Should I do it?

It's entirely up to you. If your company name is important, we recommend getting the .nz version of your existing domain name.

If you already have several domain names, you'll need to decide if it's worth getting .nz versions of all of them, because at a certain point they become hard to keep track of!

If for some reason you couldn't get your preferred .co.nz domain name at any time in the past, you might have the opportunity of getting the .nz version now. But it's not garanteed because the person that has the .co.nz you wanted may want the .nz version as well and they have first dibs.

Once it's been registered – then what?

You can reserve the domain name for up to two years while you decide what to do with it. During this time, no one else will be able to register it.

You can choose to redirect the .nz version to your .co.nz version, but if you already have several domains pointing to a main one, it may not be as simple as you think, because your hosting could have limits on how many domain alias' you can have.

What if someone takes the .nz version of my .co.nz domain name?

For the first six months, you can register or reserve the .nz version of your name before anyone else – as long as you are eligible for Preferential Registration Eligibility (PRR).  Up until March 2015 no one can reserve the .nz version of any domain that you own. (Note – you do have to own it – it can't just be one you want or think you should own!)

After that time, it's open to anyone to register a domain – even if it is the .nz version of your .co.nz

If you go to www.anyname.nz and enter your domain name, it will tell you what status your domain name is - it could be 'available', 'conflicted' or PRR - preferential registration.

What is this Preferential Registration Eligibility thing?

There are some limitations on you getting preferred registration depending on various factors. To find out what yours is, go to www.anyname.nz and enter your existing domain name (without the .co.nz). It will tell you what the status of the shortened domain. If it says status 'PPR' then you can register it (if you have the .co.nz already).

What if the status says 'conflicted'

This means that there is more than one domain owner who might be eligible for the .nz version. This could be one person who has www.name.co.nz and another who has www.name.org.nz or www.name.geek.nz In this case you will need to go through a process to resolve this conflict. Even if you own both these domains, you will still need to go through this process.

What about my .co.nz version?

 If you have an existing .co.nz domain name, we don't recommend shifting your website to a .nz one straight away. It involves a bit of work and you will lose any search ranking you currently have. But you can have the .nz version redirected to your .co.nz so you can use it in any marketing material.

If you are about to launch a new website you may choose to use the .nz version at that point.

Should I release my .co.nz domain name?

We wouldn't recommend it - particularly if you've built up some search rankings for that site.

And not if your brand name is important to you.

I'm still confused.

You can find out more information and the status of your domain at www.anyname.nz.