Automate Online Marketing: The Future of Web Design

Ten years from now will online marketers encourage their web designers to still rely on optimizing their websites for that coveted page rank on Google? For that matter will Google still be the place where millions of internet users go to search for their info? Or will Social Media Optimization (SMO) be the main focus of future webmasters? Unfortunately I don’t have a crystal ball that tells me what the future holds but based on the current infrastructure of the internet, a website (with the exception of the occasional viral leap) needs several thousand tentacles or connections maintained over time to be successful. These connections need to be relevant and informative for a website to maintain its Google standing. The Google page rank algorithm is a moving target and a well-kept secret probably stashed somewhere deep within a vault several miles below the surface of Silicon Valley. Regardless of what Google is doing here are the top 3  web   design  things you should be doing now to stay relevant going into the future.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Considering we have no idea what Google will be doing to rank your website, the best thing you can do is optimize your on and off site content on a daily basis. This means keeping up with internet trends, innovations in  web   design , and constantly keeping your finger on the pulse of your competition. Not too long ago web designers loaded their sites with keywords hoping to attract Google’s spider and then in the late 2000’s Google essentially said, “Hey guys we changed our algorithm and are no longer putting that much emphasis on keywords.” Web designers then began using other tactics to attract that ever elusive Google spider. About the same time Web 2.0 sites were making their debut and your company needed a Facebook page and you had to learn a weird and archaic “Tweet” language to stay relevant. Now in 2014 those same rules apply but as we are witnessing the evolution of SEO we must adapt to change to secure our website’s validity into the future.

2. Social Media Optimization (SMO) – How in the world can your website exist and stay competitive without a Facebook page? The answer is it can’t because the landscape of the internet is increasing in step with Moore’s law of exponential growth. Effective SMO means having a presence in at least the following: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Pintrest, Reddit, Tumblr, Instagram, etc. The point here is that your tentacles (I mentioned earlier) need to increase beyond the horizon just to maintain an effective glideslope of a competitive edge. SMO requires web designers to incorporate links to all their Web 2.0 sites and to keep all these sites up to date with their latest content. For example, if I post a picture on my main website, I also need to post that same picture on all my social sites to maintain continuity amongst my disseminated content. You may be thinking, “Whew, what a never ending task of constantly populating all my sites. The fact is that I also feel the same way which leads me to my number 3.

3. Automation – A website use to sit all by itself because the playing field was a much smaller venue. Now that the internet is an ever increasing behemoth of information, a web designer needs to think about automating the process of keeping his info out in front of the pack. Not too long ago people thought that the earth was the center of the universe. In this same vane, web designers thought their website was the center of their internet universe. However, nowadays there are many companies who get more traffic on their Facebook page than they do at their website. Or more people read company Tweets than visit their website. This thinking would have been blasphemy 10 years ago but is now our internet reality. So how do we adapt to this growing internet blob? We automate our process.