Last year I made about 30 predictions on Web trends for 2009. Many of them came true, others, of course, did not. Still even in those cases the ideas from the Web trends list were useful. Even those trends that disappeared from the radar or haven’t got main stream yet should be watched closely as they might pop up again sooner or later.

So I decided to make a new Web trends list, this time for 2010.

I started from scratch and asked my followers on Twitter to contribute. Most of the Web trends to watch in 2010 can be seen already on the Web so I’m really no prophet I just compiled a list. OK, also I chose those trends that I consider worth watching in 2010 and left out others. I think the following aspects of the Internet will have a major impact next year and beyond.

I divided the upcoming trends into several sections:

social media
business
mobile
marketing
search
SEO
web design & development
software
Social Media

Twitter integration and apps were king in 2009 and are here to stay. Either you integrate or you perish
Tumblr is successful and growing in the shadow of Twitter, when Twitter finally loses steam will Tumblr be the new darling?
Market consolidation in social media leaving only a few major players on the scene: Twitter, Facebook and who else?
Social news (Digg, Reddit) and bookmarking (Delicious) will become obsolete. Already the first wave of social media that is social news and bookmarking lose against Twitter.
Social browsing (StumbleUpon etc.) is already dead. There were more than a dozen of social browsing services in 2008. Most of them are dead or on hiatus already. More to follow.

Business

We’ll witness a demise or hiatus of most startups without critical mass of users as the money runs out
We can expect a proliferation of premium and freemium business models as venture capital stays scarce
Companies and brands will have to develop a social media strategy in 2010 to stay afloat
With business accounts and data access selling like hotcakes and additional revenue sources Twitter will become profitable in 2010 already

Mobile

We’ll see a smartphone systems death match as the market isn’t big enough for all the often incompatible systems we have right now.
Apple will be losing market share. The iPhone still looks like years ago. They don’t even have a netbook yet. They can’t rely on cult tactics forever.
Phones and calls for free thanks Google: Google prepares the real Google Phone combining Google Voice and Gizmo5 VoIP to offer free calls.

Marketing

We’ll see less bullshit and more substance in the online marketing field. As the Web matures more and more people become too savvy to get fooled.
Advertising replaced on the Web by “ad content” that is non promotional content about the brand, company or products: Less banners more reports.

Search

Real time search will go prime time for everyone, not just the search geeks and early adopters
Google and Bing will keep on copying each other in order to capitalize on the search advertising market
Advanced personalization will lead to your own personal search results for most people rendering ranking checks useless

SEO

SEO is becoming ubiquitous, everybody does it (BBC etc.) and in 2010 those who don’t will fail to compete
More SEO experts will return underground again inspite of ubiquitous SEO due to wide spread prejudice of the ignorant against the trade
Like it or not but we’ll see more jQuery pop ups due to their high conversion rate. Thanks to @rhyswynne for the suggestion
Web Design & Development

Mobile apps will continue to boom and optimized web pages for mobile use will become common place finally
HTML5 and CSS3 will allow web designers to offer extra features possible backed by graceful degradation in oder to support for older browsers
YouTube censorship spawns an open source and DIY video embedding counter movement. We already witness it but in 2010 you’ll look like a noob using YouTube on your site

Blogging

Blogs get even more authoritative and accepted, becoming the “old media” of the Web
Quick and clean miniblogging (Tumblr, Posterous etc.) establish a lively sphere between Twitter-like microblogging and blogging. @richardbaxter of SEOGadget agrees about Posterous continuous growth
Video content finally gets the importance we expected for years now with growing band width etc.

Software

There will be more cloud computing and web based software or rather webware around and people will use it more often.
Most notably Google Docs will convince more users of the Microsoft Office desktop edition to switch.
At the same time Google Chrome OS will be competing successfully with Windows at least on netbooks

Basically, we follow many in the industry and listen to their comments, we participate everyday in forums and webinars on these subjects and most importantly we study their growth and how it will apply to our clients business. Do your research and let;s talk about what you find..

Saludos:
Jerry/CMT

The difference between great teams and good teams is execution of the basics here are simple things that pay dividends:

Create a site with valuable content, products or services.

Yeah, it just sounds a bit too basic. But hold on for a second. Do you really have targeted, VALUABLE content for your visitors  or are you just trying to sell them your stuff ? Even if it an E-commerce website – write quality content for it. Research what your visitors are looking for and give them answers. Go for quality and people will love you. They will link to your website because of the good content (great for SEO) and talk about your website (great for promotion).

Place primary and secondary keywords within the first 25 words in your page content and spread them evenly throughout the document

Don’t overdo it though. Too many keywords will do more harm than good for your website. Mention your keyword in title and 2 – 4 times on the page. Make sure it still reads nicely

Research and use the right keywords/phrases to attract your target customers.

That is the most important part before you even start a website. Target wrong keywords and you will fail. Go to Google’s Keyword Tool and enter your main keywords. You will get a list of related searches and approximate number of searches per month. Go for long tail keywords that have the most number of searches. Then, do a search for them in Google by putting them in quotes (for example, “green widgets”). Check the number of results you will get – you will get an idea about how competitive it is. Usually everything under 20.000 is pretty easy to beat. Another good indicator for a good keyword that converts is to check if there are any Google Adword ads for this search (without quotes)

Use your keywords in the right fields and references within your web page. Like Title, META tags, Headers, etc.

Yeah, if you don’t did that already – do it NOW!

Keep your site design simple so that your customers can navigate easily between web pages, find what they want and buy products and services.

Navigation is VERY important. Make sure you interlink the main parts of your website. Link the relevant keywords to related content within your site. Keep the design as simple and lightweight as possible and make sure the site loads fast. People are coming to see your content and not that cool 500 kb Java-script clock

Submit your web pages i.e. every web page and not just the home page, to the most popular search engines and directory services. Hire someone to do so, if required. Be sure this is a manual submission. Do not engage an automated submission service.

Keep track of changes in search engine algorithms and processes and accordingly modify your web pages so your search engine ranking remains high. Use online tools and utilities to keep track of how your website is doing.

Monitor your competitors and the top ranked websites to see what they are doing right in the way of design, navigation, content, keywords, etc.

Oldie, but goldie -go to www.alltheweb.com and enter link:www.yourcompetitor.com. See who link to them. Try to get links to your website form these pages

Use reports and logs from your web hosting company to see where your traffic is coming from. Analyze your visitor location and their incoming sources whether search engines or links from other sites and the keywords they used to find you.

There is gold in the referrer logs. Watch closely what your visitors are looking for. They look for “cool green widgets” and are landing on your website about “cool widgets”? Write a dedicated page about cool green widgets and rank on the first page for it

Make your customer visit easy and give them plenty of ways to remember you in the form of newsletters, free reports, reduction coupons etc.

Demonstrate your industry and product or service expertise by writing and submitting articles for your website or for article banks so you are perceived as an expert in your field.

When selling products online, use simple payment and shipment methods to make your customer’s experience fast and easy.

When not sure, hire professionals. Though it may seem costly, but it is a lot less expensive than spending your money on a website which no one visits.

Don’t look at your website as a static brochure. Treat it as a dynamic, ever-changing sales tool and location, just like your real store to which your customers with the same seriousness.

Enjoy the Holiday!
Saludos
Jerry/CMT

Mike is resource that understands the value of sharing and community. His work and his business are built around “social” sharing which is good for everyone! Thanks Mike keep up the good work! Our comment is #39!

http://www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com/blog/thoughts-from-the-entrepreneurs-spouse

Saludos:
Jerry/CMT

1. Create a website that allows people to find what they are looking for quickly.
Avoid the use of splash pages, place more creative effort into videos or slideshows
as apposed to having a complex website. Simplicity and speed are key.
2. Invest in the future, learn local optimization website tips and make sure your
new website is coded to be search engine friendly. Sometimes planning a SEO
campaign while planning for your new website can save time and money.
3. Don’t contact a web developer until you know what you want, how many pages
the website will have etc. Going as far as drawing out an ideal website with a pencil
and paper can save time and money when making final tweaks with a developer.
4. WordPress offers the opportunity to build a simple
business website that you manage yourself and make
changes as needed. It’s a fraction of the cost of
hiring a developer but it has it’s limitations.
There are even built in SEO features and it’s
very user friendly like using Microsoft word.
4. Consider using WordPress to build your small business website. With
WordPress you can quickly set up a professional looking website that
you can update yourself, for a fraction of the cost of hiring a designer
and building a website from scratch. WordPress also has built in SEO
features and its very user friendly.

Don’t waste precious resources CMT not only builds and develops your project but we incorporate multi-media channels into a precise in depth marketing plan and we have fun doing it.

Saludos
Jerry/CMT

Email Marketing to your clients is still a very viable means to communicate . The science is deliverability with pertinent content. Our experience has taught us that the subject line carry a lot of weight so we put together a small list of suggested subject lines that have worked in the past and continue to work today:

With a business-to-business offering, you might be trying to get your customers to sign up for a free trial, get them to an event, a webinar or give them information on how to be better at something or use your products or services better. Here are a few examples of some great B2B subject lines I dug up that you can test out for your business today.

How to Leverage [your product] in Your Business

Save Money and Look Like a Star to Your Boss

How to Impress Your Cranky CFO – Save $1000

Increase Your ROI by [xx]%, Guaranteed

How to make it onto your buyer’s short list

Complimentary Webinar: [insert webinar name]

Now you can do even more with your [xxxx]

Should your company outsource [insert thing to outsource here]?

Breakfast & Secrets for How to [insert problem you solve or product you sell]

Success Tip: 5 Ways to a Better [xxxx]

Register Today: [inert name of event] Nov. 5 2009

Entry deadline fast approaching

New White Paper: Best Practices for [Insert problem and solution here]

Success Tip #1: [Insert Tip Headline Here]

A gift employees and clients will love: [Insert gift name here]

Extended for a Day: Get Free Shipping Through Friday

Your Weekly Alert: [insert topic here]

Hear Exclusive Research Presented on [insert what your event is about] – Register Now!

Inside: [hot topic in your newsletter you think will get the most opens]

5 Ways to Maximize Holiday Sales

Save $200: [insert event here] Early Bird Registration Ends [insert date here]

Specific ones I think are good and why:

Marketing on a Tight Budget – Part 1 – Hits a pain point and makes it seem like there is even more information to help me, on its way.

Countdown to the Awards Gala: Reason #5 to Attend – This company did a series of 7 email campaigns in a row, to get people excited.

The Venture Capitalist Industry Isn’t Broken: VatorNewsletter – Here they started with the hot topic in the front of the subject line and it was somewhat controversial.

Secure Your SaaS Application (White paper Included) – I like that they tell you there is something tangible in it for you right in the subject line.

Cognos Training: 50% Discount – Year-End Budget – I LOVE the way they use Year End Budget because in many companies if you don’t spend the budget you have this year, you won’t get it again next year. This also works well with “Quarter-End Budget”

Thank You From Dice – This was just a nice thank you for your business with a huge discount to get customers coming back.

Get a $30 Gift Card for 30 Minutes of Your Time – It was to take a demo of a new product.

Frustrated with Graphics in Microsoft Office? – This company sells a product to make it all better and they got to a real pain point for people.

Subject lines are so important since it’s the reason your recipients are going to look to that to decide if they want to open your email. If you’ve got some B2B subject lines that have worked for you in the past, comment on the post, we’d love to know them.

Email this • Twit This! • Share on Facebook • Save to del.icio.us • Stumble It! • Digg This! • Submit to Reddit • Add to Mixx! • Technorati Links

Saludos
Jerry/CMT

Useful Tips for Effective Web Design

Here are some essential web design tips that every web site should follow. Design your web site by following these tips and I guarantee that visitors will have a great first impression of your site.

Fast Loading web site designs – This is the number 1 tip that every web designer should follow. You might design a web site that looks fantastic but few people are going to see it if it takes a long time to load. Your designs should be optimized for the web and should not take more than 15 seconds to load. Remember, you might have a great design but very few people are going to see it if it takes a long time to load. Click here to for 10 tips to fast-loading web pages.

Clear Navigation – Once a visitor has come to your site you need to make them go through your site. To do this you need to have clear navigation. Make sure all your important links are at prominent places. Preferably right on top – that’s usually where a visitor first looks. Make use of menus on the right and the left. Try to link to as many pages of your site. Let your information be accessible from all parts of the site. You never know what a visitor may be interested in. Try to also use the footer for your important links. Click here for navigation tips.

All Resolutions – Today, there are computers with all kinds of resolution. They range from 640 x 480 to 1024 x 768 and go even higher. Your job is to design your site for all these resolutions. The best way to do this is to design your site in terms of percentage and not pixels.

Browser Compatibility – Make sure your site is browser compatible. Your web site should look good in Netscape as well as in Internet Explorer. Don’t stop designing your site as soon as you find that it looks great on IE. Usually Netscape gives some problems, especially when you try doing complicated HTML designs. But don’t give up too soon, usually with patience these problems can be easily fixed.

Readable and professional looking fonts – Don’t ask me how many times I’ve clicked out of a site just because the font is in Comic Sans and the color is a bright pink or green. Just by looking at the font you feel that the site is not a professional site. Don’t use Comic Sans and other fancy fonts that may not be available on most computers. If the font you use is not available in a visitors computer the web site will use the default font of your computer which is much worse. So try to keep to common and professional web fonts. The fonts that I always stick to are Arial and Verdana.

Minimize the use of images – I believe that sometimes simple designs are the most effective for the web. Keep your site simple but neat. Don’t clutter your page with big, bulky images that take ages to load. Instead use tables creatively and design eye – catching icons that will draw a visitor’s attention to a particular section of your site. Tip – Visitors are usually more interested in content than in design.

Use of white space – Try not to clutter up your page with too many images, backgrounds and colorful fonts. Again use the Keep It Simple principle by minimizing the use of graphics and using a lot of white space. White space gives a sense of spaciousness and overall neatness to a site. Notice the white space in our site.

Check for broken links – Always check for broken links within a site before uploading it to your web server. In Dreamweaver you can check for broken links by right clicking on any file in the Site Files Window and then clicking on Check links – Entire Site. If you don’t have this facility you need to upload your site and then check it using online tools like Net Mechanic.

Design and development have changed and everything we do must be branded across all mediums. Websites are a moving target therefore it’s no longer design it and move on rather its a development process that needs your constant attention.

CMT has developed applications that help streamline the process while offering full service creative and strategic platforms for business;s that are information rich and time poor. Did you enjoy this article, let us know!

Saludos
Jerry/CMT

Many of us have been guilty of the following scenario: it’s 4pm on a Friday, and you need to send out an important document. You seem to be out of letterheads, so you grab any old JPG of your logo and place it electronically.

Or perhaps instead, you have to put a quick presentation together. You’re unable to find the right template, so you start from scratch.

I hope that in the back of your mind, alarm bells are sounding! Nothing screams amateur more than a plethora of different logo treatments, inconsistent colors, typefaces that change with each business card, and the like.

You should always aim for consistency, irrespective of whether you’re a solo operator or multinational organization. Maintaining uniformity across all your materials — online and offline — ensures that you build brand recognition while cultivating a more professional look.

There are five areas of design you need to consider when working towards a uniform message. They are:

   1. Logo
   2. Typefaces
   3. Supporting Graphics
   4. Use of Color
   5. Writing style

Keeping your logo consistent is easy enough. You should start by reviewing all your existing materials, such as your web site, electronic files, business cards, signage, and so on; ensure that the colors are right, the logo is exactly the same in every application, and that it all looks cohesive.

I strongly suggest having various versions of your logo in an easy-to-access location, ready to send when a supplier or employee requires them. As a minimum, always have a PDF, EPS, TIF, and low resolution JPG of any logo image. The PDF should show the logo at various sizes, as well as contain a few basic information panels; for example, CMYK and RGB values of each color making up the logo, and typefaces used.

Ever need your logo in reverse, or as a mono version? Have your designer create these in all formats as well, so there’s no confusion as to which way it’s used. Now, every time your logo is required, you can provide the same files to everyone, eliminating any misrepresentation of your brand.

The same applies to typefaces. List all your common typefaces, as well as the weight, line heights, kerning, and any custom alterations per face. Remember though, that most commercial typefaces require you to avoid arbitrarily sharing these typeface files with others!

Supporting graphics and color should be treated the same way also: have various file types and all the information ready when you need it.

Consider creating a Brand Guidelines document that details how your identity and graphics are treated.

Saludos:
Jerry/CMT

It’s always good to have the opportunity to see and experience how business is done in other parts of the country and world. Our business moves in real time but it’s still based on some very tried and true principles such as:

1. business is build on relationships establishing trust earning trust then doing everything you can to maintain this truth you were lucky enough to earn.
2. listen to your client they will generally tell you where there pain is, you and your client know your smart so do not seek to impress rather seek to deliver on your promise
3. we are all human so that being said just do your best, be original and keep focused.

I enjoy hearing from you your comments provoke engagement and that’s why we are here! Below is some information that should be useful:
REMEMBER: Cell Phone  Numbers Go Public this month. REMINDER…..  all cell phone numbers are being released to  telemarketing companies and you will start to  receive sales calls.

…. YOU WILL BE  CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS

To prevent  this, call the following number from your cell  phone: 1-888-382-1222  .
It  is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only  take a minute of your time.
It blocks your  number for five (5) years..
You  must call from the cell phone number you want to  have blocked….  You  cannot call  from a different phone number.

HELP  OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON .. It takes about 20  seconds 

Saludos!
Jerry/CMT