It has advanced entire societies, improved our standard of living and given us 50 different ways to watch Seinfeld. It has also changed the way we do business. But in a world where customers expect new products and services to change as quickly as the seasons, how can we, as entrepreneurs, anticipate current trends?

Here are a few ways to stay ahead of the pack:

 

Allow time for creativity.

First and foremost: think. One of the forefathers of business philosophy, Napoleon Hill, wrote, “It is in the quiet that our best ideas occur to us. Don’t make the mistake of believing that by a frantic kind of dashing around you are being your most effective and efficient self. Don’t assume that you are wasting time when you take time out for thought. Thought is the foundation upon which all else is built by man.”

Become a dedicated trend watcher.

You have to know your market before you change it. Keeping tabs on industry best practices and your competitors’ activities can help you strategize and improvise. Read industry newspapers, magazines and blog posts. Watch webinars and attend conferences. Track trends with Google Trends, Feedly or Mashable. Talk with your clients, friends, customers, competitors and co-workers.
Trend spotters understand that trends have a mood, a unique behavior and a lifespan. Being able to recognize those traits can help you forecast, anticipate changes in trends and maximizes your profit potential.

Think like a customer.

We are all consumers. We all know what we need, like and think is cool. One way to be a trendsetter is to think like a consumer. What products or services would you love to see?
“Creating a customer-focused culture of this nature is a business opportunity that should not be overlooked,” wrote digital marketing executive, “Most businesses are failing when it comes to the customer experience, which is your opportunity to swoop in and enchant those same customers into falling for your company.”        
Some of the best innovation originates from responding proactively to customers’ needs. Never underestimate the relationship you share with your loyal customer base. Their feedback is a reliable (and highly affordable) platform for exploring innovative ideas.
It was Walt Disney who said, “Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.”
In this fast-paced world, being the first to introduce a new product, service or technology can be a “make or break” scenario, especially for a startup company. But if you rely on creativity, invest resources and time in identifying trends, and invite a fresh perspective on what your company provides its customers, you won’t be chasing the current trends; you will be defining them.

 

Well, it would be easy to adapt the change if you can have an idea about them in advance. Knowing in advance that what the upcoming year is bringing for you will not only help you get ready for the changes but will also let you grow your business.
There come a few notable trends that dominate the business industry every year and no matter how successful these trends remain, the new year brings new trends. These new trends can be totally new or can be a modification of the existing ones. In order to keep your business surviving, you need to follow these trends by adapting the change, regardless you like them or not.
As 2018 has already begun, you need to know the trends that will dominate the business industry in the upcoming months and should make strategies to follow those trends. For your convenience, here we are going to through light on the emerging business trends that will dominate in 2018.

Video content will become the king.
Video has already become hot in the content marketing and it will become hotter in 2017. Videos are just perfect to gain the attention of the audience, to address their issues, interact with them and provide them a way of entertainment at the same time. It is the perfect way by which you can provide valuable information to your clients while offering them entertainment at the same time. The high-quality videos that have a right theme and story will help you increase the likelihood that the audience will enjoy your videos, would like and share them leading to the enhanced exposure of your business.

High-value content demand will increase
Though there is a lot of content on the web but it will still be growing in 2017 as the number of businesses will grow. But, rather than focusing on the quantity of the content, the businesses are required to focus on the quality.

So, just creating content will not be enough, try to create the one that will help your business stand out in the crowd. However, you don't need to acquire special skills for that; what you need to do is focusing on the requirements of your audience i.e. the topics of their interest, the writing way they find engaging and more. Once you have a good understanding of that, you will definitely be able to produce high-quality content.

Focus on customer-experience gain  
Businesses have well understood the importance of customer satisfaction and this is the reason that their strategies would be customer-centric along with being business-centric. However, customer experience is not only dependent on the quality of the services or products you offer to them; the way you deal with them, interact with them, ensure support in the hour of need and more.
Good communication and personalized sales approach are the things that will let you develop good relations with your audience. Ensure to make them feel like you are addressing their problems, not like you are selling to them.
These trends are the ones that you need to welcome with the open arms. Do analysis that how these trends can be incorporated into your current business strategies and start implementing them. These are definitely going to help your business grow.

Freelancing will become more popular
The evolving technology of the internet has made the world a global village. No matter in which part of the world you are living, you can offer your services to every corner of the world provided that you have the ability to that. And this ability has resulted in the increase of the number of the freelancers. A survey shows that 35% of the USA workers are freelancers and this percentage will grow to 50% in 2020.
So, you are more likely to seek the services from freelancers, if you haven't yet. Well, this is going to be a good thing as the freelancers not only provide you the dedicated business-centered solutions but also cost less as compared to the permanent hires.

The Hidden Benefits of Facebook 
 
The number of worldwide users on social media will exceed 2.5 billion by the end of 2018. Almost 1/3 of the population is online.
90% of young adults ages 18-29 use social media as well as 35% of those over the age of 65.
This means that you are at a HUGE disadvantage if you are not using Facebook correctly for your business.

Targeted Traffic

Almost everyone is on Facebook, this means that your target audience is probably there as well. By spending on ads, you can laser target the exact people who are interested in your products/services.
Imagine owning a local barbershop and you run ads to target people who live near your shop. Or targeting moms when you are selling baby products. The possibilities are limitless.

Ads are Inexpensive

I highly encourage businesses to spend at least $10 to $15 per day when starting out to test out Facebook ads. Focus on the goals in mind and reverse engineer how Facebook can help you.
When done right, the ROI on social media ads is unbeatable for now because there are no other places you can get such low-cost traffic/conversions. If you tell me you don't wanna spend $300 to $450 on marketing each month, you shouldn't be running a business...

Make Facebook Your Sales Funnel
Research shows that it takes an average of 7 interactions before someone makes a purchase from you. In this case, Facebook is often the 'first point of contact' with your potential customers.
Give your fans great contents, free offers, interesting interactions and you will turn them into raving fans. And we all know that loyal fans = more sales.

Search engine ranking factors are some of the most closely guarded secrets in online business. Google and other search engines don't publish exactly how they rank webpages in search results, because that would lead to massive gaming of the system and produce non-useful results.

Fortunately, you don't have to figure out how Google determines search engine rankings all by yourself. There's an entire industry of professionals who have a good handle on how search engine placement works based on their cumulative experiences.Better still, their collective wisdom has been collected and published by SEOmoz, a SEO consultancy and website. The top 37 search engine optimization (SEO) professionals were asked to sort the 50+ factors that affect a website's search engine placement.

Here are the top 10 factors that positively affect your search engine rankings: (We go over each one in detail below.)

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag
2. Anchor Text of Inbound Links
3. Global Link Popularity of Site
4. Age of Site
5. Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure
6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site
7. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community
8. Keyword Use in Body Text
9. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site
10. Topical Relationship of Linking Page

Here's each of the top 10 search engine ranking factors, with easy-to-understand explanations and actionable tasks you can apply today.

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag

In Laymen's Terms: Include the search keywords you are targeting in your webpage's title tag.

If you have time to do only one SEO action on your site, take the time to create good titles.
- Christine Churchill

The title tag (or "meta title") is the text that appears at the top of your browser window. Think of it as the title for the webpage. The meta title is also what is displayed as a link in search results.In the HTML code, the meta title is the text between the <title> tags. For example, the meta title of this article looks like this in the HTML code:

<title>Improve Search Engine Rankings - Top 10 Tips to Improve Search Engine Rankings</title>

Your Action: Use the search keywords you're targeting in every webpage's title tag. Have a customized title for each page; don't be lazy and use the same title for every page on your site.
If you have a brochureware website designed by a Web designer, when you give the designer your text copy for each page, you should also provide a custom title for each page.
For WordPress users, you can install the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin. It lets you modify the title tag of each blog posts.

2. Anchor Text of Inbound Links

In Laymen's Terms: When other sites link to your webpages, how do they describe the link?

Anchor text of the inbound link is one of the most concise assessments another person can make about what your site/page is 'about'.
- Mike McDonald

The anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a link. (In the last sentence, the words "anchor text" is the anchor text of the link.)
Looking at how other websites link to you (ie., what they use for the anchor text) tells Google how people are describing your content.Your Action: When you email other websites to promote your content, mention your preferred anchor text if they choose to link to your site. You won't always get what you ask for, but it never hurts to ask. And there's a big payoff if you can get other sites to use the search keywords you're targeting when they link to you.
Choose anchor text that helps your website/page rank better for your targeted keywords. For example, if I were to ask for a link to this article, I would ask for anchor text that says something like "Top 10 Search Engine Ranking Factors". That anchor text tells search engines that the link goes to a page about "search engine ranking" -- the search keywords that I would love to have this article rank prominently.
That anchor text is better than "the most awesome article ever written".

While it would be interesting to see which anchor text generates more clicks from human surfers, there is no doubt that the keyword-rich version of the anchor text would help this article's ranking in search results much more than the keyword-less version.

3. Global Link Popularity of Site

In Laymen's Terms: How many other websites are linking to your site?

I am a strong believer that a sites overall link popularity drastically effect rankings.
- Neil Patel

In general, the more inbound links to your website, the better it is for you. Every inbound link is a "vote" for your site. If lots of other websites link to you, search engines conclude that lots of people find your content useful or interesting. That makes your webpage rank higher than a similar page with fewer inbound links.
But remember that quantity is not the whole game. As we continue to look at the top 10 search ranking factors, note that the quality and relevance of those inbound links matter greatly.
Your Action: Make link building -- the practice of getting more inbound links to your site -- a central part of your online marketing strategy.

4. Age of Site

In Laymen's Terms: The older your website, the better.

I believe it's always had some importance and within the past two years, aging has taken on more significance in the ranking factors.
- Scottie Claiborne

Older sites have more weight than newer sites. The age of a website is hard to fake. Plus, search engines figure that if your site has been around for so long, it's probably better than a brand new site.
Your Action: Start today. Be patient. The hard work you put in now to optimize your website may not payoff until next year. The good news is that after next year, you'll have a leg up on new competition.

5. Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure

In Laymen's Terms: How prominent is the webpage within your own site?

Without the proper linking structure, certain pages may not get enough emphasis. For example, ... links directly from the homepage usually do really well.
- Neil Patel

The more prominently you feature a particular page on your site, the more weight search engines will give it.
Your Action: Showcase your best content or the webpage you most want to highlight. Put it in your main navigation menu or link to it from your homepage.

6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site

In Laymen's Terms: Are the sites linking to you related to your topic (and targeted keywords)? The more relevant, the more weight those links are given.

I think, in a perfect algorythm, relevance matters. Whether Google has figured out how to pull it off yet or not, I don't know but I do believe that is the ultimate goal. Whether they get more "weight" or not, relevant links are good business and help with rankings as well.
- Scottie Claiborne

All of your neighbours have a wide variety of thematic inbound link text from a wide variety of topical sites. You have the same anchor text from your unrelated porn/pills/casino link farm. Chances are a search engine can instantly spot you as a 'deviant' from the norm and flag you as having an unnatural inbound linking pattern.
- Lucas Ng (aka shor)

This factor is similar to #2 (anchor text of inbound links). How other sites link to you matter. For example, if you have a site about chessYour Action: Relevance matters. Focus your link building efforts on sites within your topical niche.

7. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community

In Laymen's Terms: How popular is the site that is linking to you?

Especially withing your niche.

A niche site may not have a high quantity of links but a few links from the 'authorities' in the neighbourhood is often enough to rank the site above the authorities for niche-related keywords. The authoritative sites are telling the search engines "Hey, we're voting for this site for these niche (anchor text) keywords".
- Lucas Ng (aka shor)

Your Action: Relevance and authority matter. For #6, we said you should focus your link building efforts on sites within your topical niche. This factor says you should prioritize your link building on getting links from the biggest of the relevant sites.

8. Keyword Use in Body Text

In Laymen's Terms: Within the webpage/article, how often and what keywords being used? How relevant is your article to target keywords?

It is important to use the keyword phrase throughout the page where it makes sense. As engines get more sophisticated, it's not just the targeted keyword phrase that counts, but the mix of all the words on the page that help to determine what the page is about.
- Scottie Claiborne

Your Action: Use the search keywords and phrases you're targeting throughout your page or article.... when it makes sense. Don't cram so many keywords in the article that Google penalizes you for keyword stuffing.

9. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site

In Laymen's Terms: Links from big websites (ie., sites that have lots of inbound links) are worth more than links from smaller sites.

I like links that are linked to by many sites. I think there's a big difference between a PR 6 site with 20,000 links and a PR 6 with 500 inbounds.
- Roger Montti aka martinibuster

Your Action: Focus your marketing efforts on the biggest, most authoritative sites. Think of it this way -- it's better to get one link from a big site (like About.com) than to get 10 links from 10 small sites (like personal blogs).

10. Topical Relationship of Linking Page

In Laymen's Terms: Relevance matters. Links from a webpage that is related to your page's content are worth more than links from random, unrelated sites.

All links help - on topic helps a lot more overall.
- Todd Malicoat

Your Action: Relevance matters (again). Focus your link building efforts on sites within your niche. And if you can help it somehow, try to get links on specific webpages within a site that's even more relevant.

Analyze the Full Survey

Google Search Engine Ranking Factors Survey - SEOMoz
The results of the full survey are very interesting. We've only scratched the surface with our discussion of the top 10 most influential search ranking factors. This survey represents the most authoritative and comprehensive collection of knowledge about Google's search algorithm. (Outside the company, of course.)
Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz:

This document represents the collective wisdom of 37 leaders in the world of organic search engine optimization. Together, they have voted on the various factors that are estimated to comprise Google's ranking algorithm (the method by which the search engine orders results). The result is a resource of incredible value - although not every one of the estimated 200+ ranking elements are included, it is my opinion that 90-95% of the knowledge required about Google's algorithm is contained below.

Generating traffic is the lifeblood of your online business. Without sufficient traffic, your site and blog will never accomplish their purpose. And while there are numerous pay options to generate traffic, there are an equal number of effective and free tools and approaches. Here are some great traffic generators:

1. Free Traffic Source: Forum Marketing

Forum Marketing: Share your expertise with people asking questions about your industry.In return, you’ll get a steady flow of traffic to your site. You will be the expert, after all. To ensure that you get traffic from all the time you spend answering questions, be sure to spend time on your forum marketing signature. Your signature tells other forum members who you are and how to read more about you. As you begin in forum marketing, you will want to watch out for (and completely avoid) these 8 Common Forum Marketing Mistakes.

2. Free Traffic Source: Blog Commenting

Blog Commenting: Very similar to forum marketing, blog commenting only differs in the platform it uses. Instead of being in a public forum, the commenting takes place within an individual blog. The linkback works very simply. In almost all blog platforms (Word Press, Blogger, etc) there is a field to enter your URL (your site address). If your comment catches a readers attention, they’ll click on the link and visit your site.

Be careful not to post comment spam. There is a need for caution when sharing links in the comment itself. Many bloggers don’t take well to this, as it comes across as a blatant attempt to siphon their traffic to your site. Unless the link you are posting directly answers a question, it's best not to do it.The other benefit to blog commenting, even if you don’t get many direct visitors, is that the search engines see the link and your site gets a small boost. If you post enough comments on enough unique blogs (different domains) then you’ll see a significant boost in traffic.

3. Free Traffic Source: Twitter Traffic

Twitter Traffic: When most users first sign up and start using Twitter it can be hard to see how it could ever bring significant traffic. Over time and with regularity Twitter quickly becomes a principal source of traffic. Many blogs use automation tools to feed links and past posts to their Twitter account. A favorite of mine is called Tweet Old Post. It takes past blog posts and tweets the title and URL to your account. Many blogs generate hundreds, even thousands of new visitors every month using this simple WordPress plug-in.

4. Free Traffic Source: eBay

eBay: The concept of using eBay as a sales platform is quite simple. Post a product (often at a loss or at cost) to generate attention and post your URL in the description as a source for more information about the product or the subject. Because of the size and traffic on eBay, you’ll reach thousands of new prospects. Other sales platforms to consider: CraigsList and Amazon.

5. Free Traffic Source: Contest Marketing

Contest Marketing: One of the fastest ways to generate non-purchased traffic is to have a contest. It is a great way to generate hundreds of inbound links, as bloggers love to share relevant contests with their readers, being the one to break the news. Many site owners have found it most effective to give away one very large prize, rather than numerous smaller ones. Everyone loves to dream about that huge trip to Europe, rather than the free song download. Big prizes create big results. In addition to the boost of traffic, be sure to require something of the visitors to enter. Consider requiring a simple newsletter subscription. That way you have their contact information should they win, and you also can keep them informed about new content as you publish.

An example of effective contest marketing was a Galapagos Trip for Two given away by Red Mangrove Galapagos Lodges. Contest period was open for a few months, more than 4500 people entered and the winner was drawn on video.

6. Free Traffic Source: Blog Design Adjustments

Blog Design Adjustments: Tweaking your site just a little can make huge differences to your traffic over time. Effective cross-linking, for example, will help Google to index your content, and help your human readers to see what other relevant content you have. These changes will also make for a better visitor experience and keep your readers on your site longer - which is never a bad thing.

7. Free Traffic Source: Content Aggregators

Content Aggregators: Getting your site (and posts) listed with a top content aggregator can send a flood of traffic. Consider Alltop.com. The benefit of an aggregator (a site that aggregates, or collects blog posts) is that they have a larger and broader readership than you do. By placing links to your content on these popular platforms, you can count on more traffic. But there’s a catch: they don’t accept just any site. While this is great for you when you are accepted, it can be hard to get accepted when your site is still new.

8. Free Traffic Source: Content Syndication

Content Syndication: This is most simply done via an RSS feed. This not only makes it easy for readers to follow your site but also notifies readers immediately upon publishing new content. It's a great way to bring readers back to your site every time you publish a new piece of content. A popular tool to manage RSS feeds is FeedBurner (by Google).

9. Free Traffic Source: Write Great Content

Write Great Content: Nothing will build your traffic better than great content. Regardless of if it is blog posts, video or audio (or a combination of all three) you need to consistently produce great content. Great content encourages visitors to share your posts - via social media and links on their own sites and blogs. This social sharing by your readers has more weight than any purchased ad could ever carry.

10. Free Traffic Source: Build Your Blog Community

Build Your Blog Community: By taking the time to engage individual readers your site will benefit by increased traffic. An engaged community will happily share your content and refer new visitors to your site.

11. Free Traffic Source: Guest Blogging

Guest Blogging: This is a popular one. But how should you do it? First of all, a guest post should only be done on a popular site (more popular than yours). And it should be your best stuff. A mediocre post will bring mediocre results. Post a compelling piece that adds real value to the site you are contributing to. This will help you get another opportunity to post. And give a lot of thought to your bio line. A well-written bio will help motivate readers to click through to your site.
In addition to publishing great guest posts, it’s also important to accept guest posts. This helps widen your base of content and takes some writing pressure off of you. Be sure to publish a clear set of blogging guidelines - this will help reduce the number of low-quality posts that you will receive.

12. Free Traffic Source: Trackbacks

Trackbacks: WordPress (along with many other blogging platforms) has a great feature called trackbacks. What are Trackbacks? When you mention another blog on your site, their blog (if it is also on a supporting platform) will get a notification that they have been mentioned. It creates a linkback for readers to follow. It is an easy and effective way to both share great content and get contextual linkbacks.

13. Free Traffic Source: Video Syndication

Video Syndication: Creating video takes time but is worth the effort. Once the video is created, don’t stop with YouTube. Syndicate your video content with a service like OneLoad (owned by TubeMogul). OneLoad will take your video and share it across numerous platforms. Non-commercial use is free and the next level is $75 per month. Works flawlessly and exposes your message and content to millions more people.

14. Free Traffic Source: Video Tagging

Video Tagging: When you upload your videos, it’s important to take a few minutes to research the best tags for your post. One great way is to check out similar and popular video posts. You can mirror theirs and thus increase the odds of showing up as a related video on theirs. This simple approach can increase video views and site traffic many times over.

15. Free Traffic Source: Cool Site of the Day

Cool Site of the Day: This extremely popular site has the power to send a huge amount of traffic to your site, should it be chosen as the Cool Site of the Day. They accept submissions, so if you have a unique site it’s worth the time to submit. If you are accepted you will see thousands of new vistors in a matter of hours.
You may also consider: Video Responses, Video Embedding, Writing Tutorials and using bookmarking sites as effective ways to generate more traffic. Getting traffic is a critical part of starting your online business.