2018 Top trends in eCommerce, Web Design, SEO and Social Media to prepare for.

What will your website need in 2018 to remain in the game? With Amazon’s arrival in Australia, the retail and eCommerce industry and is about to see some significant shifts as announced through our latest blog post. To help you stay ahead of the competition, we’ve gathered a collection of the top predictions for 2018.

Predictions for the year ahead are a hot topic online - so if you’re starting your search on Google, you’ll find an overwhelming amount of articles. So where do you start? Who do you listen to? Who do you trust? Which trend do you believe? If you’re not a specialist in eCommerce or Web Design or Digital Marketing, chances are you could be missing out on trustworthy information. So let's the content already out there! 

2018 eCommerce trends.

Our preferred article and most reliable predictions currently are from Ometria. “Built specifically for retailers, Ometria’s AI-powered platform collects and aggregates data from all customer touch points in real-time, and uses machine learning to profile and send the most effective marketing messages to each individual across all channels.” The company is also known for publishing some valuable content online. This year, they put together an eBook “eCommerce marketing trends 2018” which is a Fuel's favourite!

Personalisation, Artificial intelligence, Influencer marketing, Marketing technology (MarTech), Content marketing, Cross-channel personalisation, GDPR, ePrivacy, Video marketing - 15 topics explored by experts in their domain. We highly recommend you get your copy - plus it’s free!

Then there’s ‘Virtual Reality’ which we believe, will impact the online retail industry just as much as the retail industry. Check out this article from the Entrepreneur.com: “3 Ways Facebook Spaces Could Revolutionize the Business World”. “It is easily one of the most anticipated technological breakthroughs of the last decade. [...] As it stands right now, one thing is becoming clear in the business world: brick and mortar retail stores are on the way out. [...] Once Spaces begins to hit its stride and a full-on alternative VR universe presents itself, “brick and mortar” stores could take on a whole new meaning.”

Our bet is it won’t take long until you’ll do most of your shopping virtually.

2018 Web Design trends.

With the rise in Customer Experience, Web Design is becoming more intertwined with User Interface Design. Slickplan - an online tool we use for sitemap creation, recently published a sensible article, in our opinion: “8 Emerging User Interface Designs to Watch for in 2018”.

The author explains “In 2017, designers were tasked with creating designs that were more time-saving and personalized while delivering deeper metrics than ever before” it is becoming evident online stores are about creating experiences and not just selling. As a result, it becomes easier to predict the design trends that will gain popularity in 2018: long-form content, full-screen videos, gradients, typography, illustrations, cards are to expect.

Most importantly, Slickplan reveals ”The drive for metrics will also involve marketers in the creation of websites more than ever before.” That is also our assumption although when it’s THAT obvious, can it be an assumption?...

2018 SEO trends.

Keeping up with search engines’ algorithm updates have been as challenging as ‘keeping up with the Kardashians!’. 2018 will be no different than the previous years with another wave of changes on the horizon.

“As search engines strive to improve the quality of search results, some ranking factors shift shapes, others fall into oblivion, and completely new ones arise out of nowhere. To help you stay ahead of the game” Search Engine Land has aggregated “a list of the most prominent trends that are gaining momentum, with tips on how you can prepare for each.”

Optimizing for voice search, relevance, structured data, SERP features, inevitable mobile searches, ‘Linkless’ backlinks - if these sound like unfamiliar terms, we encourage you to start a conversation with an “ethical” SEO expert like ClickThrough. Why ethical? Because if some SEO specialists were able to offer the ranking skylight in the past, it is going to be much harder to “trick the system”. Our recommendation: find a partner that will play by the rules or you could risk losing it all.

2018 Social Media trends.

Our top pick: Social Media Marketing trends 2018 from Smart Insights - the UK-based publisher and learning platform co-founded by Dr Dave Chaffey, Content Director and bestselling author of books on digital marketing and eCommerce. Chatbot and Augmented Reality growth, more ephemeral content, increasing regulation around influencer marketing, and an apparent preference for video content - five top trends backed by ten experts who shared their vision of the 2018 Social Media landscape.

However, it is worth adding to your reading list “10 Social-Media Trends to Prepare for in 2018”, an article published on the Entrepreneur.com. Three other factors can’t be neglected: a compelling focus on the Generation Z, the surge of Virtual reality and the intensification of Fake News filtering.

Additionally, Instagram is gaining further momentum as seen already in 2017. “Instagram is indubitably a top superpower amongst rival social networks LinkedIn, Twitter and even IG’s own parent company, Facebook. As of April 2017, Instagram currently has over 700 million monthly active users. To put this into perspective, that’s over double the monthly active users of Twitter and three times as much for monthly active users on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.”

Even for boring B2B businesses, the platform makes it easier to get noticed as everyone can share beautiful imagery or inspiring quotes, coupled with a targeted hashtags strategy.

Conclusion.

The bottom line is we’re not fortune-tellers and none of these experts are. However, our experience in the industry leads us to believe 2018 will be a pivotal year - expect to see some fundamental changes in eCommerce, retail and digital marketing. Digital marketing and Tech is moving at an unprecedented pace, which ultimately, will influence a shift in consumer behaviour - there’s no doubt an even faster future is ahead of us. The truth is it is going to be harder and harder to keep up and adjust your business strategy either online or in the real world.

Make sure you give us a call if you’d like to explore how to stay on the right track for 2018.

GET IN TOUCH WITH FUEL TO BOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION