General trends
1. People are tired of the Internet and try to limit the time of your stay here . Term describing such behavior of users, was named Digital Detox. Back in 2012 on the resource ReadWrite Web published an article calling for users to go back to real life and periodically arrange a vacation from the internet. Trend escalated in 2013, when people began to actively protest against the collection of personal information, social networks and services, and have been actively delete their accounts with these resources. However, not everything is so simple nowadays among internet users have the opposite problem - Internet addiction. Today this type of mental disorder (so doctors classify this phenomenon) suffers a very large percentage of people.
2. Internet goes mobile . In 2013, significantly increased the number of mobile Internet users. We all have long been accustomed to thinking of mobile devices, tablets and smartphones, but today a similar device can be ranked and laptops. Nowadays created a huge amount of light weight laptops and ultrabooks that you can carry with you everywhere.
Today PC changes shape - it is not a huge ponderous box permanently placed on the user's desktop, and convenient handheld device with Internet access which is available anytime, anywhere. Site owners are obliged to take account of this trend and target its web version resources not only to those who are sitting at home. Moreover, in these days full access to the Internet can be done anywhere!
Do not forget about the motorists who have the latest models of cars, dashboards that integrate personal computers and digital entertainment system and communication. In the coming years, this trend will only grow.
3. Integrates with Internet TV and other mediaservsiami . Today's popularity around the globe have technology Smart TV. For example, today, users can access the Internet in conjunction with television viewing, and thus does not use. Not hard to guess that in this context, users will apply to recreational resources. In addition, integration with media services creates new online trends, for example, today, in order to attract more audience, sites that contain textual content are beginning to publish more files with Rich Media (Rich media). And the question here is not just about advertising.
Trends in blogging
4. Little-known one author blogs like diaries superseded information, thematic and corporate blogs . Today blogs in their original format existence (notes from the life of a particular person, interesting personal observation and recording) - have outlived their usefulness. The most successful and well-read blogs are run by large corporations and well-known brands, and content of their works a professional staff. Eminent corporate blogs and attract attention of traditional media, resources authoritative bloggers are incredibly popular. Themselves owners of thematic blogs, having a long experience of their authority, are recognized experts in their subject areas.
5. The most popular are easy to handle blogohostingom low cost service blog . Tumblr, Squarespace and the good old platform Blogger are now a great alternative complex sites. WordPress platform becomes too burdensome and complicated for ordinary users. At the same time, that WordPress is now increasingly subject to attacks by hackers. Another significant disadvantage platform that WordPress uses to store tables MySQL 5.0 and above. Otherwise, you will not even be able to upgrade the platform.
Thus, many non-professional bloggers who do not pursue the aim to earn money on the internet, prefer simple to handle customized services and platforms.
6. Some paid blogs are quite successful . Nowadays, you can find some well-known examples of successful blogging, aimed solely on earning money online. For example, today is incredibly popular among readers who buy blog The Dish , created by Andrew Sullivan (Andrew Sullivan). Not to be confused with Andrew Danny Sullivan (Danny Sullivan), chief editor of Search Engine Land.
In February this year, Andrew Sullivan announced that he intends to make your blog free of advertising, but in return asked its readers to subscribe for $ 19.99 a year. According to him, this model of online journalism is the "most simple and transparent." Blogging has become incredibly popular in social media and has received a sufficient number of subscribers.
It is possible that in the coming years, this model will become quite popular among influential and widely read bloggers.
7. Blogs with constantly updated content displace news resources .
Another successful example of blogging - The Wirecutter. Monetizing your blog is due to advertising Amazon'a (in fact, his life is an affiliate site). It is important to note that The Wirecutter not a blog in the truest sense of the word. Furthermore, the resource is not even published the latest news in chronological order.
Instead revision resource prefers to focus on product reviews, the best in its category, and should involve the creative authors. Content on the blog pages are constantly updated, which allows pages indexed well and attract a large amount of organic traffic. Result - the resource has become incredibly popular among users and profitable, and a great article about it appeared in the newspaper The New York Times .
8. Not forbidden, some time later, to release old non-news articles character again . As practice shows, the most active users read interesting blog on the first day of publication. In the following days, views and decreases gradually eroding.
However, non-news article content can be given a "second life" by publishing it again in a fundamentally different format. For example, you can collect all of the most interesting articles and form them into a collection for subsequent placement, for example, in the electronic edition.
Trends in web analytics, search and SEO
9. Linkbayting gets a second life . As we all have noticed, the term linkbayting recently used practically ceased. At least, that there are 2 good reasons. One of them is to ensure that everything must be earned links today in an honest way. And the phrase "alignment reference promotion strategy" where euphonious than the dubious concept of "linkbaiting."
The second cause of failure of this concept lies in the fact that today is experiencing a rebirth linkbayting and goes into version 2.0. So, today we can say about the concept of "egobaytinga" or stimulate key industry players to share links to the resource. Similar is the meaning of the term community baiting, suggesting the creation of such content on a page, which would willingly shared between a certain thematic community members.
10. Search engine becomes a black box . The main trend in 2012 was a sharp increase in the number of requests category «Not provided» in search of Google. In the spring of 2012, Google announced its intention to expand the use of SSL-encryption for search queries not only on google.com, but also on the local domains worldwide.
Currently, more than a quarter of search queries hidden from webmasters and there is no hope that Google will change its rules. Moreover, in the near future, the search engine will encrypt all data is user search queries, which takes you to a different site from organic search.
On the one hand, Google initiative was aimed at ensuring safe search for users. On the other hand, some industry experts insist that Google may start selling data about users and their behavior in the search for money - this will allow the Internet Corporation to increase its own profits.
11. Search engine optimization has peaked and may begin to recover after a slight decline.
For a long time the market saw the rise of search engine optimization. Queries that contain wording like [SEO] or [Search Engine Optimization] regularly recorded by Google Trends.
In 2011 SEO peaked in 2012 and is stagnating. At year-end customer interest in this service began to decline as the market of Internet marketing began to appear other types of promotion, aimed at positioning the brand in social media. Originated the concept of "inbound marketing» (Inbound Marketing).
Over the whole year 2012, the concept is spreading rapidly and developed, resulting in the concept of content marketing has been recognized by many industry experts artificially inflated. Thus, in 2013, may occur either return to SEO in the traditional sense, or transition to new concepts and strategies to promote the Internet.
12. Guest blogging is dying.
In the spring of 2013 guest blogging came under attention of Google employees and ceased to be a simple and reliable way to get inbound links. As a result, some people began to avoid publication of the post in the wrong blogs. In turn, representatives of the search throughout the year were actively discussing the topic of guest posts and quality blogging.
Currently watching internet western clear departure from building strategies like promotion - in the course are other techniques linkbildinga. And yet there is no sense to completely abandon promoting blogs: perhaps this technique will not bring traffic resource, but good posts will significantly raise awareness and prestige of the brand.
13. Google flourishing left behind.
Perhaps you have already noticed that today Google does not look like a classy startup with a clean, minimalist interface and better search page in the world extradition. Today, Google has a lot of worthy competitors. For example, in terms of data privacy leading search engine DuckDuckGo, and the least amount of web spam in search results boasts Blekko. Another nearest competitor Google - Bing in September 2012 launched an initiative designed to prove that the quality of Bing search is not inferior to the quality of search Google. Under this program, Bing is constantly improving its issuance. But still quite a large number of people continue to use Google out of habit.
On top of that, Google has decided to become a monopoly in the field of social media by launching its own social network Google+ and integrating it with the majority of its services. It should be noted that not all users had in mind the decision.
In addition, Google is not willing to obey state laws and intends to continue to dispose of the SERP for the benefit of their own services. So, in 2012, the search engine forced retailers to pay for their inclusion of headings in the search service «Google Shopping» (Google Shopping). Moreover, according to some market analysts, proplachennye results are mixed into the main issue of Google. Although representatives themselves search insist that ticks all the paid ads with a special icon. And yet, if the inclusion of paid ads in the issuance takes place, in the long term, Google may lose a certain percentage of users.
Trends in usability, UX and web design
14. Adaptive design attracts mobile users
In the 2012 election has been very successful online campaign U.S. president. Upon its completion, users industry experts learned what truly adaptive design. Typically, a mobile version of the site to be created separately using a separate URL, eg m.example.com and adapt it to the mobile Internet, and search. However, practice has shown that the creation of two versions of the site - and the mobile browser - this is a waste of money and other resources.
The present and responsive design adapted for desktops and for mobile devices. All elements of the site should be easy to adapt to the device's screen and easily loaded - the new standard for our time.
15. HTML5 is becoming an accepted standard
In 2012, HTML5 began to rapidly gain popularity among developers sites. Today, the use of the fifth version of HTML-standard is a kind of standard, because HTML5 is an open platform that provides developers with opportunities.
16. Typography and layout web pages become important
Speaking of typography, you should not have in mind only the graphic design and layout of the text. Here we are talking about the readability of web page text. Many studies show that users' perception of fonts and graphic design of the whole resource affects sales. In addition, more trust from users call sites with a simple and clear design, the pages of a lot of free space. In most cases, people prefer such sites. In many ways, this trend due to the fact that the generation of internet users grows and becomes taken seriously Sites stuffed with various kinds of graphic elements.
17. Fayndabiliti again becomes supercedes
While SEO-industry is facing tough times, some of the concepts previously gone into oblivion, start again revive. Along with the concepts of inbound marketing and content entered into use once-forgotten concept of "fayndabiliti" (ease of finding information on the site) and the design of commercial sites (Web-design for ROI).
Thus, soon seo grow new approaches and solutions.
Optimizing conversion and sales: key trends
18. Knowledge of psychology promotes sales. As you know, the key concepts offline marketing has always meant by an active use of the knowledge of consumer psychology. Centuries of psychological techniques and tricks helped sellers achieve their goals and successfully sell products.
As for the Internet, the situation was somewhat different: in the best case, the target sites were placed buttons (Call to Action), optimized according to the rules of good usability. In this case knowledge of the psychology of the consumer is almost always ignored.
However, recently in internet marketing active development received scientific approaches based on knowledge of consumer psychology. Very soon, this knowledge will be able to firmly enter into life: they will take into account not only in building the sales promotion strategy, brand or service to the consumer, but also in the development of web and mobile interfaces.
19. Prominently in search promotion testing process takes site.
It's amazing what a huge number of non-members can find absolutely any commercial site during testing. The Google Analytics Team has repeatedly published video tutorials on how to improve user satisfaction process of making your online shopping.
In a short time testing the correct operation and further "running" selling sites will take its rightful place in the process of optimizing resource.
20. People began to pay attention to the functional elements of the site. As practice shows, it is very important to the buyer on the site availability of target buttons (Call to Action) - they seem to indicate to the user that he must purchase a product / service, or to perform a desired action right now. However, in most cases, site owners neglect using target buttons. At the same time in 2013, there has been a clear trend of using buttons Call to Action, created by all the requirements of usability.
In addition, owners selling sites is important to focus and elaborate on other functional elements of the resource, such as: the creation of categories of applications forms, placement on the site attractive product images, etc.
21. Marketers have begun to study the lifestyle of its customers
Traditional Internet marketing strategies and SEO is to increase the incoming traffic to the site and increase the number of customers. This phenomenon is relevant to this day, but today the representatives of business largely concentrated on the study of their customers: they seek to create a portrait of the ideal buyer, tend to consider the preferences and lifestyle of its customers. Also today, actively developed strategies to involve customers in the life of the company or the community, formed around selling resource. Today the buyer with his requests, preferences and lifestyle becomes a key figure in the internet marketing. The main goal - to achieve an increase loyalty, because the buyer will be happy to make orders again and again.
22. Popularity Growth Hacking marketing approach is rapidly increasing
Today, from the mouth of the creators of innovative start-ups, internet entrepreneurs and even experts in the field of search engine promotion increasingly heard the term Growth Hacking. Using this method implies the presence of one specialist skills programmer and internet marketer. The main objective of this tool is to achieve a larger audience, using all possible techniques, including hacking techniques.
While the idea is only in its infancy, but many industry experts in the West took her into service and is actively used. It is possible that in the coming years, the concept gain broad popularity.
Trends in Content Management
23. Trash content is not so bad
As you know, today search engines and media company whose business model is directly related to making money at the expense of broadcast content on third-party resources borrowed convince site owners to create "high-quality and original content that is useful to users." However, your site still needs some amount of "garbage" content - and this is no joke. If you think that ideally configured and edited scientific journal articles with authors' popular collection of gossip about the stars, the materials which are virtually unaltered reprint, look at the lucrative resource today BuzzFeed - there you will see a huge number of markers «lol», «wtf» , «omg» opposite is not original material. This suggests that people actually publishing interests, which could be published on the Facebook more than 100,000 times!
Internet has long passed the stage of its inception and today, in the era of social media dominance, the user "like" becomes the main criterion for the quality of your site, and users are not always interesting "smoothed" materials. However, it is important to understand the following: the concept of "garbage content" is not a synonym for "low-quality content." Here there is a difference: trash content is not original, but it is extremely popular among the users. As a rule, such as the content can act reprinted articles about events in the life of celebrities, etc.
24. Storytelling comes to the fore
Another method of creating content, which usually can not be read by users alone - is to use the method of storytelling. Strictly speaking, this technique is familiar to mankind since ancient times: it came into existence long before the written word appeared. We all love stories instructive, because since the dawn of civilization on such truths and build our knowledge of the world.
Similar stories long discussed actively share them with each other. Ideally, every such story should cause people to compassion and empathy - that feeling will make them with a vengeance distribute such content among their acquaintances.
25. Develop technology content curation
Trying to create original stories that will be willing to share with each other users, you can use the so-called advanced techniques for working with content. For example, in order to skillfully build the right pieces together and create their own original material and readable, it is advisable to use the method of curating content.
In practice, the activity content curators are usually limited to drawing up long lists containing links to resources, post a message to a particular topic. No doubt, this reporting format acceptable for publication, because it is inconvenient to users.
That is why today the active development of technology fundamentally got curating content. Subsequently, they can significantly alter the SEO .
26. Availability of content-promotion strategy for the resource becomes a necessity
Until recently, efforts to promote resource content was reduced to a purely mechanical activity: copywriter was the semantic core of the site and in accordance with it create text for filling the resource. However, neither the originality of content, nor its quality not taken into account. After Google launched an algorithm Panda, aimed at identifying low-quality content on the site and a decrease of such resources in search results, the situation changed radically.
To promote domestic resource today is not enough to keep a blog or regularly publish the latest news on the site - it is necessary to generate a completely new and unique content. For example, at certain intervals to publish study results of the survey, the original infographic and cases. Moreover, nowadays, it is important to have a clear strategy for promoting the content of the resource - the only way to propel your life and make it recognizable.
Trends in social networking and media
27. Twitter social plug supplement possible to embed fragments publications tweets
Nowadays, almost every publication surrounded by a large number of social plugins. Some people have even clicked on them, while the majority prefer not to do so.
Not so long ago microblogging service offered to owners of content resources is another solution - the ability to create tweets that contain embedded links to specific pieces of online publications. New feature allows you to select the most valuable phrase in the publication and share her Twitter'e. Using the tool ClicktoTweet or a special addition to customize WordPress publishing posts in Twitter'e, can significantly increase the share of its presence in the microblogging service.
28. Men finally appreciated Pinterest
While social sites specific to Web 2.0, such as:. Digg, Delicious or Flickr become very popular among the male audience - service Pinterest did not cause much sympathy for men and initially seen as a purely female gay.
However, after both men acknowledged the existence of the service Pinterest, they started no less actively use it, creating a whole picture about their hobbies and interests. This was one of the main reasons for the rapid growth of the audience Pinterest.
29. Tumblr peaked
Until 2012 korotkoformatnyh blogging service Tumblr demonstrated very impressive growth of the audience. However, in 2013 this rapid growth has stopped and whether the series will resume on such a scale. In many ways, this phenomenon is associated with fatigue users from publishing content of this format. In addition, the service has experienced a number of problems related to censorship and a violation of copyright, in particular Tumblr already come within the exception of the results of issuing the search leader. After the appearance of Pinterest tensions related to the publication of content escalated. To the author's content from third-party resources hitting the boards Pinterest'a users, social networking service developed and implemented meta tag «nopin». In turn, Tumblr has not attended to the introduction of such a tool to ensure the protection of copyright content. As a result, most of the content contained in Tumblr'e illegally borrowed users with third-party resources. This behavior can be classified as stealing content. Another significant problem Tumblr'a - availability of pornographic content on the resource.
As for Pinterest'a, his slightly older audience and focused on their own interests, so that the issue before the service is not worth so sharply.
30. Using Google+ becomes mandatory
As a rule, we use Facebook, to find and communicate with old friends; Twitter - something to tell the world about yourself; Pinterest, to plan their wedding, etc.. As for Google+, then the purpose of this social network is fundamentally different. For example, representatives of the local business today simply do not have the right to ignore Google+ registration and creation of social networks in the quality of corporate page.
No longer a secret, that sooner or later Google will begin to consider one mark as one of the key signals for ranking resource. In addition, in 2013 the leader of the search literally ordered users Gmail, YouTube and other Google services to register with Google+: when registering for services online giant system automatically created a page in the user's own social network. Creating a corporation own social network has acquired for its vital importance, because Google's social network allows you to increase the residence time of users on the resources of the company, plays a key role in gathering information about users; performs other important functions for search engine companies.
Completing the list of trends, it should be noted that individual observations can be subjective, and others - are an attempt to extrapolate the data and also can not guarantee the absolute accuracy of the predictions. Nevertheless, in 2013 coming to an end, which means that very soon we all will have a chance to test the above hypothesis.
