It's that time of year. The time when predictions are made and last year's are picked over to see if they came true and if not, the justifications made for why not.

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!