Akira Studio blog - Web Design London Ontario

As a small business owner, it’s sometimes hard to keep up with the latest trends and fashions, let alone look ahead to what might be hot next year.

Which is precisely why we like Trendwatching* so much.

While the company provide very detailed (and very expensive) reports for global brands on predicted trends in consumer behaviour, they also let us smaller businesses in on the major trends for the year ahead. 

These parent mega-trends (their words, not ours!) are not a ‘must do’ for smaller businesses, but they do give an idea of what the big name brands might be aiming for...

It’s a question that you might well ask if you’re the owner of a very small business serving a local market.

According to a new survey*, 59% of small Canadian businesses do not have a website at all, and 41% of small business owners though their business was just too small to make it worthwhile.

Globally, these figures for very small businesses are about the same.The difference is that 55% of these businesses elsewhere in the world plan to build a website, whereas only 33% of Canadian businesses do.

Here's a statistic to make your eyes boggle - over one billion searches are made on Google every month, and over half of those are made using mobile devices.

That's one billion searches for information or news, but what exactly were people looking for in 2015? 

Here are just some of the top 'trending' searches from 2015 in Canada. (Other countries are available!*)

In their never-ending quest to keep the world of SEO on their toes, (or so it seems) Google have made some major changes to Google + pages.

Google + (Google Plus) has always been a bit of a minefield, but the main reason businesses used it was to ensure their place in local search results.

Your Google Local profile gave you the ability to add crucial information about any bricks and mortar business, such as the correct address, telephone number and company information. The fact that you also got a dedicated Google+ page, a sort of “Facebook light” profile page was a bonus.

But now it's all change again at Google+...

At this time of year, most stores have already set up their Christmas window displays, reminding us that it’s time to buy those special presents for friends and family.

We’re also decorating our homes and putting up the flashing reindeer and icicle lighting on the front porch (or is that just us?!). It reminds us that Christmas is coming and we still haven’t bought the darn turkey.

At the same time, across the world, sci-fi fans are getting very, very excited about the new Star Wars film which opens on December 18th. Wherever you look, there is Star Wars stuff, from toys to t shirts, mini figures to dog costumes (yes, really - see left).

So, three top trending topics this month are #Christmasgifts, #xmaslights and #StarWarstoys. By clever use of blogs and hashtags, your business can become part of the online conversations these trending topics create.