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!

It was very interesting, and it prompted a quick check of The Body Language Company website, which then inspired this post.

Website's have 'body language'?

Just like your body language, your website reveals your philosophy and approach to your business in ways you may not realise.

Even if visitors find what they want easily they will be affected by these visual cues, which in turn will affect what they think of your business.

The Body Language Company's website for example, feels quite cool due to the predominantly white, blue and grey colour scheme. There are red headlines and a random collection of images and buttons scattered down the page. At the top of the page, the images are of mixed style and quality.

Overall I felt a certain lack of cohesion, with a lack of attention to small details around quality and consistency. Does this reflect the professionalism of the business or quality of their services? Quite possibly not, and when speaking on TV, Suzanne came across as knowledgeable, warm and friendly.

While body language reveals an individual's 'true' nature, a business website may not always reflect the actual experience a customer will have. But it will communicate something about the business. As a business owner, that 'something' might not be what you want it to be!

Website 'body language' mistakes and what they say about your business

• Out of date content = this business isn't committed so they won't be committed to their customers
• Disorganised layout or message = a disorganised business who will miss commitments
• Ugly design = this is very subjective, but ugly can imply lack of competence when communicating or a lack of sophistication.
• A focus on pretty pictures without substance = will talk the talk but won't deliver the goods
• Very little content = not customer focused
• Poor quality images = poor quality products or services
• Mixture of variable styles and visuals = a confused business lacking a single vision and purpose
• Cheap design = cheap, low value products and services
• No website at all = not customer focused, hard to deal with

What is your website body language saying?

And is it what you want?

Image by Steve Ford courtesy of stock.xchng

While images do create an ambiance and set the visual mood and tone, images for purely decorative purposes should be avoided in favour of quality images that serve a specific purpose.

The most frequent example of images used purely for aesthetic purposes, is when you see images of happy smiling people. But who are these people and how do they relate to what you do? Just because an image is attractive does not mean it will be effective.

Free image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Here's are some pointers that can turn your images from drab to fab:

1. Use images that have a purpose

Images should either:

• Convey information or a message
• Illustrate a point, like charts and product shots
• Encourage interaction or help navigation by directing attention

Images can be used to convey information that is difficult to do using text, such as trends, data or concepts.

If you have a product, you definitely need good, close up images of the products.

If you provide an intangible service and want to provide images that show how happy you make people, thinking about adding captions that can provide some kind of context for the image.

People like doing business with people, so for this reason include a photo of you, your staff or a team shot. Don't go using models – you're not fooling anyone!

2. Consider image placement and direction

Where you put an image on a page matters a lot.

Research has shown that we will look at an image before we read headlines or copy so when using images on articles, put them above the headline.

There is a lot of debate about whether images should be on the left hand side of the page because doing so disrupts the 'left hand margin' and therefore the flow.

However, this will work well for images you want people to take notice of – like calls to action.

Take care of sight lines in images.

These are created by the direction a person might be looking or pointing, the straight lines of a road, roof or building etc.

People will follow this sight line and you want them to follow it to something important (like a call to action) or deeper into an article – not off the side of the page!

3. Use Captions

Captions under images are read on average 300% more than body copy* so not including captions can mean missing an opportunity to engage a visitor.

Captions are also useful if you need to explain the image such as "Roof before repair".

4. Use high quality images

The quality of images must be high which means make sure the subject is in focus and easy to see (no grainy shots!)

Images should be consistent in style, which means if you use black and white on one page, then you should keep the theme going. If you use cartoons then stick with those. And they should be in line with your brand identity.

There are many people who will say not to use stock images, but stock images can be beautiful and entirely appropriate. They are also much better than out of focus, low saturation images taken by an employee!

5. Optimise your images.

To keep image file sizes as small as possible, resize the images to the desired size before uploading them to your site. Quick loading pages are important from a user perspective, and Google takes notice of load times as part of 'scoring' your site for SEO.

To give a small helping hand to your SEO efforts you should also:

• Include a descriptive ALT text that includes keywords
• Include keywords in the image file name
• Makes sure they are optimised so they don't slow the page donw

Ask Yourself

For each image on your website:
Does this image communicate anything about the content
Is the image appropriate to the message
Does it fit with the style and organisation of the page

 * Source: kissmetrics

Sure.  Why not.  If you (or they) have the time, the skills and the motivation.

It's a bit like asking whether you should build your own house.  Or your own boat.  Or make your own clothes.

Some people have the time or aptitude for it, some don't. Most people are comfortable changing a tap washer, but not plumbing a whole building - it's the same thing.

For the same reason, don't get 'a young person who know's this stuff' to do it either unless:

• You really don't have the money for a professional
• You aren't confident in doing it yourself
• They actually do it for real - like a proper job.  For money.

Otherwise, the result may not be what you hoped for. 

You are more likely to end up with something (at best) quite pretty, but absolutely useless at generating leads or revenue.

Building a website - as a core marketing tool for your business - is no longer the playground for confident do-it-yourselfers or I-can-have-a-goers.  It hasn't been for a long time.

Ok, but we'll have to update it ourselves, right?

Sure.  Why not.  If you or someone in your organisation has the time, the skills and the motivation. 

If developing content for your website and using it to market your business is what you are supposed ot be doing all day, then yes of course.

But if not? Then in the same way you need a professional to build your website, you will also need help once the site is launched. 

How much help depends on you and your business.

If you don't plan on developing expertise in web design and marketing not to mention the occasional hosting, security and technical challenge - then get someone who has the knowledge to help.

Just like you would ask your accountant. Or your lawyer.  You get the picture.

The factors that will have the greatest impact on project duration are:

• Your time - client availability for meetings, response to questions, providing sign off designs and providing the content.
• The developers availabilty and capacity - it is likely that a designer or developer will already have work on, and won't always be able to start work on your project immediately.
• Complexity - the more functionality, the longer it takes to install, setup and test

Some sites can take months and even years to develop!

We would be able to give you an estimate of how long it will take based on your particular site.

But it is very hard to build a website for nothing, put no work into it and have it make you a lot of money.

But you may just want a cheap foot in the door. Almost all the free website designs require you to pay for the hosting so you can expect to incur some costs along the way. You will have to pay to register a domain name and features such as search optimisation elements are frequently only available with paid versions.

What these services do give you is a reasonable looking, basic site without the cost of a designer or developer setting it up for you. So if you have a lot of the know-how already and can do the work and put the time in yourself - go for it.

While building a simple website is not that hard, building an effective business website takes knowledge, skill and hard work.

One thing for sure - the skills of experienced, capable web strategists, designers and marketers are valuable and you won't get them free or even cheap so dial down your expectations accordingly.

Free Web Design or Build Services

Disclaimer: We have not tried all of these services, and have based the list on a consensus of review sites and our own experience. We've played around with some of them, and some of them make quite nice looking sites. But we've never tried to build a business and make money using them so buyer beware! Most of these are hosted outside of NZ so your search engine optimisation will take a hit from the geolocation factor.

For more reviews on website builders including the ones above, go see Websitetooltester.com or Website-builder-reviews.co.uk

This is because people know that a lot of sites are rubbish, and they are performing a kind of triage where they quickly decide whether your site is worth their precious time and attention.

But if they don’t leave immediately, there is still a high chance that they will leave in the subsequent 10 - 20 seconds.

But if you can interest them long enough to stay for 30 seconds or more, the research showed there is a much higher chance they will stay for several minutes.

So in the first ten seconds:

• Tell them clearly the problem you will solve for them
• Convey professionalism and trust

In the first twenty seconds:

• Make it obvious how to get what they want
• Make it easy to get what they want

After that:

• Describe in more detail what you offer and the benefits
• Include testimonials and case studies that reinforce trust
• Provide useful content that improves their day in some way – guides, tips, FAQs etc
• Make the purchase, signup or enquiry process easy so they don’t abandon the process
• Provide information about you, your company, your return policies etc
• Makes sure your site works well – loads fast, no broken links etc

Take a look at your site and take the 10 and 20 second test.

Why the rule?

Supposedly, if they can't they will get frustrated and leave. This seems a sensible idea, and comes up often in conversations about web design.

In fact it can lead to navigation structures that don't make sense because content is squeezed into this three click limit. You can end up with over-crowded pages and crazy-long menus.

The idea behind this 3 click rule is that internet users have very short attention spans so if they can't get what they want quickly they will go somewhere else.

If you think about e-commerce, it takes more than three clicks to buy something. But it isn't often the number of clicks that make visitors abandon a purchase.

What matters is how easily they can decide where to go next.

Usability Testing shows otherwise.

Usability tests have shown that the number of clicks needed to access the desired information affects neither user satisfaction or success rate.

Opponents of the three click rule will point to this research to say users don't care how many clicks.

In our experience this is over-stating it a bit.

If they can't find what they are looking for, users will leave, but the point at which they do that depends on the task at hand and the experience of the user. As long as they feel like they are getting where they want to go, users don't mind clicking.

So it's quality and ease of navigation that matters more than the amount of clicks.

Quality navigation is what matters.

To make your site as easy to get around as possible:

• Use meaningful words on buttons and in link titles. No 'mystery meat' navigation
• Avoid unnecessary distractions that obscure a page's true purpose and content
• Include breadcrumb navigation, particularly for large sites, so users know where they are and can back-track
• Prioritise content on a page – keep the most important stuff above the fold, but don't worry if users have to scroll down for more
• Group content together in logical sections
• Include links to information of general relevance eg Contact Us, in global navigation
• Include search functionality if you have a big site, archived articles, or sell products

Rule or Myth?

The three click rule shouldn't be thrown out altogether, as it's a useful shorthand for "don't make them jump through too many hoops". But barriers such as poorly written, obscure and vague content or annoying distractions are more likely to lead to visitors abandoning your site than one more click.

Don't.

Wordpress is a wonderful platform and for people who want a DIY site for their new small business, hobby, or club it's a great place to start. For a content/blogging based site it's perfect.

And it's free.

The Wordpress platform comes at such a low cost (other than your domain name and hosting), it's tempting to carry on and download one of the 1000's of free templates out there.

This article Why You Should Never Search For Free WordPress Themes in Google or Anywhere Else explains in detail why this is a very bad idea.

Complete with screen shots of dodgy code, if you want to skip to the bottom the article writer found that 8 out of the top 10 search results had free templates that contained dodgy if not down right malicious code.

The idea that there is no such thing as a free lunch still stands.

While you can get lots of good advice and there's a few free tools that are worthwhile (Google Analytics being an example), most of the time there is either an ulterior motive such as some of the sites mentioned above or they have severe limitations.