A new year is upon us, and like any other business, yours will face new challenges. This post will give you some ideas as to what to focus on in the digital landscape and help you stay ahead of the trends!

1. Website Security

You hear more and more stories weekly about the latest big hack into Sony, Apple or Linkedin’s networks, compromised passwords, stolen financial information etc. So Google has taken the step to give more power to the sites operating on a secure network. This affects you regardless of whether you have thousands of transactions through your site a day, or if you just have a few people signing up to your mailing list weekly.

SSL Certificate

As a small business, you can implement an SSL Cert onto your network, protecting any exchange of information between you and your potential customers! These are cheap, and easy to implement (We’ll do it for you in an hour or two for as little as €60!). They give you a much more secure network, ensure your audience that your site is safe which helps conversion rates, and gives your site more SEO power with respect to Google’s ranking algorithms.

2. Mobile Payments

2015 will be the year of the mobile payment! With all high end smart phones coming equipped with NFC connectivity and Apple’s iPay scheduled for wide rollout in the coming months, you can see why. Do not limit your business with restricting payment options! Set yourself up with the ability to accept mobile payments (get in touch with us for more help with this), and advertise it! I can almost guarantee you, someone with their new shiny iPhone 6 received for Christmas, will love to check it out and see how easy it is to pay with mobile!

One more thing to encourage mobile payment use is that two brothers from Ireland’s very own Limerick are at the head of the queue to take advantage of this technology. The Collison brothers set up Stripe some years back, and they are now the technology Apple are using for iPay. So in a way, you setting up mobile payments for your business, is helping Irish tech business!

3. SEO SEO SEO!

Those 3 scary letters that just wont go away, but do not be afraid! SEO is becoming more and more relative to the regular user. Google is now judging your site, not based on who has the best SEO guy developing links and meta expertise, but more so whose content is the best!

Creating great content is actually enjoyable! It reflects really well on your brand, and establishes your business as a leader in the community. What’s not to like there? Creating good content is not difficult, but it does require time and the right information. Know what your user is searching for, and give it to them! It’s as easy as that at the end of the day.

4. Snapchat

Snapchat is really establishing itself as a major player in the social community these days. It gives your brand the full opportunity to engage with your audience in a fun and visual way.

Snapchat’s advertising platform still needs some work (those annoying purple titled Snapchat stories you don’t want in your inbox). However, there is no reason why your brand can’t build its own following and put it to good use today. Snapchat was the fastest growing social app of 2014, but it’s in 2015 where users will really get their head around how they want to use it to talk to brands. So get on board now and be ahead of the curve! Do it now! Take your phone out of your pocket and download it, set up your business account and GET SNAPPING NOW!

5. Drone Technology

Okay this might seem a little far-fetched for some business owners, but I can not think of one industry that could not benefit from the use of Drone video, drone delivery or drone technology as a whole.

The drone space is there for the taking in this country! Imagine the PR storm your business could cause, doing deliveries by Drone, or Drone footage of all your events? We at Grow It are hugely enthusiastic about this technology, and have buffing up on our drone video recording skills over Christmas to be able to implement it better in our business. Stay tuned to our blog for more coverage on Drone technology and detailed examples of how it can be used for your business.

Eoin Casey is Company Director at Grow It, Dublin based marketing, media & design agency. Grow It specialise in immersive content marketing, graphic design and marketing consultancy. If you’d like to get in touch please see the Grow It contact page here, or connect with Eoin here on Linkedin.