1. Google Local Search

If you sell local specifically this is critical.  Not going to be helpful for those targeting internationally though.

2 Webpage Load Time

There have been some hints from Google’s Matt Cutts that how fast a website takes to load may affect its ranking.  In other words the faster a site loads the better the chance of getting a decent rank for your niche keywords.  Some things about Google really get my goat.  For small companies server load time can be extremely hard to manage.  Mostly because the majority of small ISV’s are on either VPS’ on overloaded networks, shared hosting or a little dedicated box hidden in the water closet of a datacenter somewhere in downtown Dallas.

However them’s the breaks.  Looks like this could get important with the theory being concocted that fast loading websites are delivered by a “reputable web host and fast internet connection.”  Which says quite a bit about the hosting industry. 

3. Social Media

As the world grapples with the social and moral implications of “social media” you don’t need to be Nostrildamus <misspelling intentional> to see it’s the new shiny thing for 2010, as it was in 2009.  In theory social media has become an essential tool to reach out, communicate, build trust and build relationships with consumers.  It’s also a phenomenal time sink waiting to suck in the unwary into futile exchanges.  Use it carefully – but use it.  Facebook and Twitter in particular are proving so far to be worthwhile sources for secondary results in the engines.  Buzz words emerging = “Micro Targeting” and “Personalization”.

4. Mobile Users

Mobile communications is a still growing market that’s already significant.  Despite Apple’s marketing destroying the definition of the industries abbreviation “App” for application – I’m already meeting consumers correcting me in conversations for saying I’m writing an “app” – “For the iPhone!!”, they shout enthused.  When  I answer “no , for the PC”  they declare “…if it’s not  for an iPhone it’s not an “app”".  Grrrrrrr!

You are going to have to make sure your site loads cleanly at 800×600.  Just as 22” widescreen becomes almost entry level some ning nong shrinks our real estate again.  Some folks seem to be opting for a compromise here and getting and using a sub domain like mobile.xyz.com and sticking something friendly in there.  If you’re running an RSS driven site this is easy – but be careful of duplicate data lest the Google Police get on your case.

5 Analytically

I’m not a fan of Google Analytics as such – mostly because I cringe at the idea of Google having my data and the EULA they wrote to accompany it.  But Google isn’t the only player in town and if you’re like me and hate external data collection of your logs then you can take a look at PIWIK   – Click Here to investigate – It’s free, open source and it runs on your own server.  Adds a load to your MySQL databases and CPU but if you’ve got the resources available it’s quite a good tool (I run it in conjunction with standard Apache logs and some WordPress stats programs).

The idea of analytic tools is to answer the “how” as opposed to the “why”.  What that means is you can see how many and who visited a page on your site but it won’t necessarily tell you why they didn’t actually buy anything.  Don’t hold your breath while waiting for the latter tool. 

Dissecting your data is however, jokes aside, a powerful way of understanding visitor reactions to websites and pages.  Things such as trends, stickiness of a site and geo-location to name but a few can go a long way towards helping us understand our customers.  From this we can improve and test – or rinse and repeat if you like – and improve the visitors experience and with diligence increase sales.

6  www vs. http

Here’s an odd one from the people who brought you “WordPress”.  WordPress MU doesn’t support “www”.  It will redirect you to “http” without the “www” every time.  Sure you can hack the PHP but next update it’ll change back again as your hacks are overwritten.  This doesn’t seem to have surfaced in the single site/blog edition of standard WordPress yet – but as the code is now merged it’s probably only a matter of time.

Why?  Security?  Big Internet wide bug?  Nope.  Because “www” is unnecessary according the FOS Unix-head developers at Automatic.  I love WordPress, don’t get me wrong and have a lot of respect for the team who produce it – but come on!  Why redefine a web convention for the hell of it.  Because it’s “unnecessary” is not a reason.  It’s dunderheaded and bubble headed and an instance of the worst kind of geeky arrogance.

The point of raising this is that if it becomes mainstream in CMS’ such as WordPress it’s going to mess your Google XML sitemaps up as Google gets narky about addresses that redirect.  That means telling Google for every site you run that the site “name” has changed.  For one site it’s not a big deal if you generate your XML sitemap automatically.  It’s a bloody nightmare if you do them by hand or run many sites.

7. Organic Search

Some folks are tipping organic search will become less important as some of the item points above – which only scratch the surface of “emerging” things to watch and do.  Personally I disagree.  Given there are indications of Google, Bing and Yahoo using bits of meta tags in pages again – not like the 90’s, but not ignoring them either, as they told us they were not that long ago – and the proclivity for consumers to gradually become inured to advertising due to seeing Google ads at every other site they visit, it’d be nutty to ignore organic search, in fact, it might just be an edge for some folks.

8. Download Sites

If you’re still trying to use these to “optimize” the engines for your product and, as most do, slack off on the SEO and social networking then you’re going to be overtaken in many instances by those who don’t bother with the download sites and have moved on.  Get over it – the engines recognize these sites for what they are – it’s time we all did too.

Scott Kane

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“A man was running late for  the office one day, so he was exceeding the speed limit along the freeway.

The next thing he knows his wife rings up & says that she’s just seen on the TV that there’s a maniac speeding down the wrong side of the freeway.

The man replies:

“It’s not just one, it’s all of them!!”

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One of the things I love about Australia is our unique wildlife.  One of the things I hate about Australia are mega venomous spiders – and Bull Ants!!

I mean – check out the sucker on the left – the ant, not the guy holding the slide – I grew up with these sods.  I learnt very early on that you don’t stick fire crackers down Bull Ant nests for a laugh.  It’s painful and terrifying as these guys are rated as one of the biggest, most primitive, dumbest, most  aggressive species on the planet!  In fact – if you see one – go immediately the other way.  Of course, if it sees you, expect to be chased by it.  It lives to bite.  After a Wildfire, and all the other forest creatures are deceased, bank on the Bull Ants to survive.  In the extreme survivalist stakes Bull Ants have one over cockroaches – an intact standing army!

The “Fight or Flight” mechanism exists in most Earth creatures.

Except Bull Ants.  When they took the course on behavioural science they only got as far as “Fight!” – and then flunked out of school.

In a moment I’ll get to the Social Media Bull Ant syndrome, but here’s a breif explanation on what a Bull Ant actually is.

Bull ants are large with long, straight, powerful jaws and a potent venom-loaded sting. Many species of bull ants have bright red or orange colours on the head or abdomen. There are about 90 species of bull ants in Australia with diverse behaviours and life cycles. Nine bull ant species have been recorded in Sydney, but there may be more as yet undiscovered.

As far as I know there is only one species locally in Melbourne, where I am, to be truly terrified of.  The big bugger illustrated to the left.  Probably has a scientific name of BiteYourAss MegaPainfulless.  I can personally attest to the pain issue.  On our 3/4 of an acre block there are numerous nests.

These ants can deliver painful stings and are aggressive. An ice pack or commercially available spray may be used to relieve the pain of the sting.

Enough With The Wildlife Doco – What’s A Social Media Bull Ant?

These days we live in a world of Social Media.  Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.  It goes on.  Social media has it’s own native fauna that run around, with out the “flight” mechanism, with large pincers to grip their prey, carrying venom sacks with which to inject us with.  Like the Australian Bull Ant this is a primitive species that first appeared millions of bytes ago – on UseNet.  While primitive it’s an adaptable survivor.  It’s survived the age of the NTTP server, the Dot Bomb Ice Age and is thriving deep in this modern inter-web era of RSS.

It’s a ferocious consumer that will “follow” you and attack if you get to near or if it sees you first.  Dropping a firecracker in a nest of them is devastating – to you! Attempting to squash them underfoot will result in a painful bite that may need more than an ice pack.  There is no commercially available spray for treatment.

Negative comments, ad hominem attacks just for the sake of it.  Welcome to Bull Ant 2.0!

All is not lost however.  Just like in the Australian bush (or my backyard) a lot can be done to avoid these encounters for both ourselves, our families and our software businesses.

1. Try To Avoid Negative People And Don’t Encourage Them.

To often we find ourselves obsessed with what is said about us or to us online.  Too many people don’t “unsubscribe” either the negative person or the service in extreme cases simply because they “gotta see”.  This is akin to walking up to a Bull Ant nest and poking a stick in.  Out they swarm – right on queue – ready to bite your butt.

2. Don’t Talk Religion

With the possible exception of Priests, Nuns, Rabbis, Imams and other career professionals who are generally more robust and better able to take idiotic insults from the Web 2.0 Bull Ant. Take it from an ex UseNet moderator of three Big 8 newsgroups with over a decades experience .

1. People will not change their beliefs no matter how well or logically you argued your point.
2. Don’t assume others around you hold the same beliefs as you do.
3. Religion includes debates on Creation vs. Evolution with both sides being capable of being zealots.
4. Keep in mind that people KILL over religious issues.

3. Don’t Talk Politics

With the caveat of “unless you are directly involved in politics.”

I do this – but I am directly involved and like it or not Social Media = Political Campaigning now.

But for the average Jack and Jill – and most software companies – it’s an absolute EPIC FAIL almost on the level of point 2 above.

Most people don’t truly understand politics.  Those that think they do are often the worst Web 2.0 Bull Ants.  Take for example Australia’s Preferential Voting system.  Try and get the average person on the street to understand how a rank outsider can get elected on preferences alone – and not primary votes.  Don’t get me started on the Australian media’s trend of covering elections like Presidential elections USA style – people think they are voting for the Prime Minister, but they’re not – it’s the party at the end of the day, parties elect Prime Ministers – and replace them, regularly.  We have the West Minister system here and the only similarity to the USA is in the name alone of “Senate” rather than “House Of Lords” as in the United Kingdom (that and we’ve always elected Senators, it’s not a birthright like the House of Lords used to be).

With the basics obfuscated it’s small wonder people get narky debating politics.  Stay clear.  From a distance carefully watch the political types (and politicians) screw up on Social networking sites.  Believe me – you aint seen anything yet!

4. Don’t Collect “Followers” Like “Beanie Babies”.

So many people collect “followers” as some kind of competition.  Totally in opposition to the core concept of social networking.  Be selective, follow or be followed by people who are on the same wave length as you, interested in the same topic as you.  Try to apply the same rules to Social Media and networking as you’d apply in real life.  A sane person who believes in religion doesn’t walk into a university paleoanthropology class and argue the origins of man.  Likewise a person subscribing to evolution doesn’t walk into a church service and do the same.  If you hate Lego and think Meccano sets ROCK then concentrate on people who like Meccano – and so on.

5. This blogs comments section is a classic example of what not to do!

Yep.  I have a small cabal of angry Usenet users, all developers, who for a variety of reasons took umbrage to being moderated.  Some are from the Business Of Software forums.  Some are simply people who crawl out from under rocks around the Internet.  While there are some great people who comment here I see a lot of negative numbskulls who post meaningless, unsupported negativity frequently.  That kind of person is a Social Media Bull Ant 2.0.   Most bloggers delete these kind of comments, but I’m fascinated by human psychology and let many of them through.

A final point.  Companies – and probably customers – are using social networking to “check you out”.  What will they find?  A decent citizen or a Social Networking Bull Ant?

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Thanks to the Australian Museum for the Bull Ant quotes.

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Scott Kane