At Mogul, it’s our business to keep up to date with all that’s happening in the world of web development and online marketing so we can continue to provide you with the best mix of products and solutions for your unique business.
And 2010 looks like it’s going to be a cracker.
There are a number of major online trends gaining force this year, as we see increased bandwidth and new coding standards allowing a richer online experience, social media applications gaining critical mass, and advances in mobile technology putting the full power of the web in smartphone handsets.
1. social media
2010 is the year that social media becomes truly mainstream. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn have become essential tools for a large proportion of businesses and organisations. If you’re not using at least 2 of these services, your competitors are leaving you in the dust.
2. mobile
Smartphones like the iPhone and Blackberry are rapidly becoming the norm for mobile professionals. Make sure you choose a web provider who understands the opportunities (and limitations) inherent in these smartphone platforms.
3. marketing
Faced with the problem of “banner blindness”, savvy web advertisers are turning to ‘advertorial’ content for promotion, such as reports, white papers, and surveys, and contributing regularly to social media outlets such as our own local Fruitbowl for PR. Make sure you join Fruitbowl today if you’re not already a member.
4. search engine optimisation
Traditional search engine optimisation techniques are just as relevant as ever, but real-time search is becoming a major priority for Google, Bing and Yahoo, so it’s imperative that you consistently produce fresh content using blogs and Twitter to push your brand to the top of the search results.
5. web design and development
The introduction of HTML5 and CSS3 is allowing innovative web designers and developers to create websites more quickly and with extra features. Internet Explorer 6 usage will continue to decline as the web becomes increasingly unusable for this obsolete and insecure browser. If you’re still on IE6, upgrade now! You can upgrade to the latest version, Internet Explorer 8. There are also Firefox, Chrome , Safari, Opera, and many others. These are all free and provide a far more secure and enjoyable web browing experience.
6. blogging
Blogs will become a more mainstream, authoritative, and respectable source of news and opinion as online newspapers, led by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and The Wall Street Journal, move towards a paid subscription model (losing mindshare in the process). Blogging is easy and fun. Talk to us today about starting your own blog.
7. software
Expect to see more software applications move from the desktop to the Cloud (i.e. web-based services).
For example:
- bookkeeping is moving from MYOB on your PC to Xero in your web browser
- time billing and invoicing made easy with Workflowmax
- customer relationship management (CRM) software will become dominated by web-based applications (Salesforce, Highrise, CapsuleCRM)
The benefits of cloud computing can include reduced setup costs, greater reliability and security, easier maintenance, and even improved sustainability. Our good friends at CodeBlue can help you get your IT out of the office and into the Cloud.
8. email newsletters
We highly recommend email newsletters and they remain a tremendously cost-effective marketing tool.
Our e-newsletter system:
- offers tremendous ‘bang for your buck’ when communicating directly with your clients. You save on time, printing and mailing costs.
- enhances your company’s reputation and increases lead generation.
- provides instantaneous trackable results, unlike offline advertising methods.
- allows your visitors to easily and immediately interact with you and for you to promote dialog with your clients.
- quickly identifies undeliverables so you can correct them and resend them immediately.
- increases the lifetime value of your clients.