Predictions Blog

 

Our Predictions For Online Marketing In 2015

It’s that time of year again when you reflect on 2014 and look towards the coming year with anticipation.

After careful consideration, here’s our lowdown on what we think you can expect from the year ahead and ideas as to what to focus your efforts and budget on.

    • If there is one area to spend budget on this year it has to be to make sure your website is mobile optimised.  Websites which resolve to suit smaller screens will be crucial.  This was a keen focus in 2014 (and one of our predictions last year!) now this will become a necessity. Mobile will overtake desktop usage so if your website is not ready for this key milestone you will be missing out.

 

    • In 2015 phones are set to become primary devices to browse the internet, they will become larger, thinner, lighter and more powerful phones or ‘phablets’ (a cross between and phone and a tablet).  High resolution phone screens are being developed with 4K resolutions (in contrast to the 2K we have at the moment).  One billion people are expected to access the internet purely through their smartphones in 2015, hence the need to adapt your site and content to suit this medium.  The development of plastic Oled (Organic Light Emitting Diode) will mean handset phones should be able to be twisted or even folded in half.  Buying multiple devices will become a thing of the past.

 

    • We have seen some huge fundamental changes in the function of SEO in the past two years with link building being penalised by Google and numerous algorithm changes aimed to ensure only high quality, reputable techniques will lead to your website being rewarded with high organic rankings.  It is critical to have your SEO foundations in place and to measure traffic and conversions.  Content is king across your website and will work hand-in-hand with other channels such as online PR and social media.

 

    • The biggest focus for every marketer at the moment should be engaging content.  We heard it throughout 2013/4 and it remains top of agendas.  Businesses will need to focus extra time and budget on creating great, sharable content.  Blogging, meaningful interactions with customers and informative, timely updates will all be essential in 2015.  This should include short form content, easily readable on mobile devices.  We predict that in 2015 social media for businesses will mainly become a means to promote and market new content.

 

    • Paid Advertising is on the increase as businesses are seeing positive results from their investment in search and social media advertising, including increased exposure and traffic.  Twitter’s new advertising options are set to soar in our opinion.  Excellent for small and medium sized businesses, payments are objective based such as for click or conversions for example – great as you pay for results not just increased brand awareness.

 

    • Promoted posts and ads on Facebook are set to continue rising as Facebook limits organic post reach.

 

    • Promoted Pins are likely to improve in popularity in 2015 on Pinterest as they have only just been rolled out to all advertisers.  The platform has high engagement, lots of traffic and it’s great for B2C – big ad opportunities this year.
    • More Twitter URL’s and Hashtags will appear in search results pages.  Twitter renewed their SEO focus in 2014 .  Google’s indexation of Twitter will see this trend massively increasing in 2015 according to Search Engine Land.

 

    • Watch this space – what will happen to Google+?  Vic Gundotra who created and headed up the G+ platform for 8 years left Google in 2014.  Could this be the slow decline of Google+?  Perhaps it will become just a means to integrate into other Google features such as map and business listings etc.

 

    • Email Marketing will merge with Content Marketing.  As social networks make it increasingly hard for businesses to expand their visibility on these platforms and search algorithms become more complex, businesses are likely to revert to the one thing they do have – their email database.  However, with the emphasis now on creative, useful content email marketing will become a means to share this or tempt newsletter opt-in’s with downloadable PDF’s.

 

We are set to see some phenomenal changes in mobile technology and how it is used in 2015.  This will drive changes in online marketing which will evolve at a spiralling pace, it’s an exhilarating roller coaster – we’re ready for it and will give you the heads up as we hear it throughout the year.