Are .gov or .edu links worth more than other links?

My Web Design Predictions for 2010

Are you still with me? Stay with me as I am near the point.

I believe we will start to see hyper-sites. That is websites that instead of selling one or two types of products or services will provide a whole range of varied goods. Now before I get flamed with comments such as: What do you think Amazon have been doing for the last 10 years or so? Let me clarify. I'm not talking of web sites that sell books, watches, electrical goods etc. But 'Hyper-sites' that will provide the sort of products you see on Amazon plus a whole raft of other services. On top of which you will see pages optimised monetarily using things like PPC (Pay Per Click) and CPA affiliate links. I am not just talking about major corporations but smaller businesses taking advantage of drop-shipping.

There are companies out there who previously have used different domains to sell, usually, associated products. They would then use linking strategies to increase the page rank of these different sites. The web often follows business practices of the high street. This is the direction I see the web going with more of the marketing budget being spent on off site marketing and branding. If I am right then why would you dilute your brand over many sites when you can drive customers to one.

Wikipedia put a great deal of resource into optimising their internal linking structure - to great effect. Traditional retailing relies on impulse purchasing once they have the customer on their premises. Can you see the analogy? The new Hyper-Sites will use the same or similar techniques to drive traffic to sections and tempt you to others. Why spend SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) budgets on dozens of sites when you can spend it to greater effect on one? It's all about 'captive customers', i.e. once you get them there (which is costing more) keep them there!

Am I right, Are there sites like this already in existence that I've missed, or am I talking complete rubbish? Add your comments and let me know.

 

I am hearing reports of web sites that previously had good amounts of traffic suddenly dropping to nearly zero hits. For anyone whose main business is conducted online this can be devasting news. Without traffic you won't get the sales, regardless of how good your product is. Likewise if your online presence is making money from affiliate links or advertising revenue, such as Google's Adsense - without traffic you simply won't get the click throughs.

Whilst I can't be sure of the reason (yet) I think it is a result of google 'updating' its search algorithm. Three to four times each year google updates it algorithm to try and 'deliver the best user experience'. This nearly always results in some websites ranking further down the results and some therefore climbing higher and some even dropping out of the index altogether. The latest update codename: 'Caffeine' is I believe a major update to the algorithm and when the dust settles, which probably won't be until the new year, will result in some major changes to SERPS.

There is also much speculation on the web about some of the possible changes and I have even heard that SEO will be finished. This, in my opinion, is completely wrong. Yes, seo strategies and techniques will have to change. Thay always have in the past and they always will in the future. The rumour mill is rife with some of the possible changes google are making, e.g. page load speed. In other words if you have a slow, clunky web site then you will be ranked less than a much faster loading site. Is this another example of 'delivering the best user experience'? - possibly!

What I would advise anyone who is seeing their visitor figures drop all of a sudden is to try and wait it out until the new year and see if there is any difference then. I know this may be prove very difficult for some, especially if it's your livelyhood. But the risk is that by making changes now may result in you throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Heres another great tool to add to your arsenal of web design software - Kuler by Adobe.

Kuler is an online app that allows you to create colour themes for use in designing your website. Yo can also view colour themes created by others and sort them based on poularity, highest rated and newly added.

You can view the colour values and even insert the hex colour value directly into your code. One very nice touch is the option to use rules:

• Analogous - allows you to choose colours with adjacent hues;
• Monochromatic - pick one colour from the scheme and vary the intesity and lightness;
• Triad - space the colours to create contrast;
• Complementary - using two colours to create a theme;
• Compound - using differing hues;
• Shades - create hues from the base colour; and
• Custom - creative freedom for you to go mad with.

New to web design?