One trend I have noticed in 2008, particularly in the second half of a turbulent year, has been very strong interest from businesses needing SEO, eMarketing and generally wanting their Web sites to deliver something tangible.

It seems that people are waking up to the potential in their under-used and under-valued Web sites as one cost effective means of surviving the harsh economic climate by generating new business and getting more out of existing customers.

Purely frivolous Web sites will become harder to justify, but this could be a good thing as new creative energy gets channeled into more productive and results-driven Internet activities.

I expect SEO, eMarketing and Usability to finally rise up the agenda as businesses look to achieve measurable results. All aspects of the design and development process need to work in harmony, right from the business case, creative concept, through design, build and usability to content development and marketing. It ALL has to be right.

Developers will also need to be more agile, designing maintainable future-proof Web sites, while cutting development time by making more use of open source, pre-written and proven code, development frameworks, CMS products and online services.

Every year brings plenty of change and 2009 will focus attention not only on new ideas and technological advancements, but also on hard business and genuine Web site effectiveness.