What’s in store for online businesses in 2011? There are several changes on the horizon, but one common thread through them all is the need for flexibility. Your customers are accessing information in more ways than ever, and their expectations are high. To meet them, you’ll need to be nimble.

From mobility to scalability and security, here’s my take on the most important trends influencing online business technology in the coming year and what they could mean for your website.

Mobility
The use of mobile devices will continue to grow. Your customers may be reading your emails and visiting your website on smart phones, netbooks or iPads. Are you meeting their needs?

It’s time to start planning for a mobile rollout for your website. First, identify the types of information your customers want to access on the go. These are likely to include your home and contact pages, but each business is different. Restaurants, for example, may want to consider making their menus and events pages accessible. Online stores may consider a mobile commerce version. If your clients are business customers, you may consider offering support and other resources from a mobile device.

Next, find out which mobile browsers and screen resolutions that visitors are using by analyzing your website traffic data. Use this information to decide on the various options for your mobile version. You’ll generally want to roll it out in phases and make time to test your updates. Eventually your entire website will need to comply with common standards, but tackling the project in phases will help you budget and gain customer feedback.

Scalability
“Scalable” is a techie term for being able to handle increasing volume and add-on features. Your website needs to be built with a scalable technology so it can change with the times. You may not be able to implement all the changes yourself, but it’s a good idea to be able to add new technologies when they become available. For example, many content-management systems have add-ons or plug-ins for mobile or social applications, such as a program that allows visitors to use their saved profile to register with your website rather than creating a new one. If you’re building an online store, be sure that the shopping systems can expand and tack on new features as your customers’ needs change.

Interactivity
You’ll want to give customers more tools for connecting and interacting with you. These features will be different for every company. Options range from integrating more social-media platforms to adding videos. For some businesses, 2011 may be the year to create a mobile application. For example, you may want to create an app that makes it easier to motivate or consult with clients. While ideas vary, the goal is the same: Engage your customers and build greater loyalty.

Security
Websites have become a target for malware through security holes. Even if your site isn’t an online store, it may be vulnerable. Talk to your developer about the recent threats and how to prevent them from harming your site. Just as you run updates on your computer, you need to run updates on your website. Setting permissions on your content management system will not be enough. Online stores also have new security standards to which to adhere called Payment Card Industry compliance. If you have not heard about these standards and you sell online, call your merchant-service provider to discuss the upgrades your site will need.

Fact: Technology is changing.

Fact: How our customers use technology is changing.

Fact: Your website is a marketing tool based on changing technology.

Today we live online and we do it by utilizing many different tools; our smart phones, our ipads, and our computers. Customers expect us to deliver information to them through the tools they use. Looking for more than just text with images on the page. This has made life more exciting and more challenging, but the fact is we all have to change to grow.

In 2011 it’s time to plan for this change but where do you start?

Look at the Data

You can begin to make a plan to change by reviewing your website data. Take some time to review the analytics from your website to see:

• Visitor screen size
• Browser types
• Mobile Devices and Carriers

Each piece of data can be found under Google’s Analytics visitors heading. This can really help you plan. When reviewing this type of data be sure to review it across a longer time frame. Make note of when certain changes occurred, and how they correlate to efforts you had put forward during that timeframe. Pay special attention to the bounce rates and length of time on the site when reviewing these details. Taking the time to review these statistics can help you decided what area to concentrate on first in growing your website.

Use the Social Web

The social web, as I like to call it, can be any area of social media from blogs, to podcasts to twitter. Today businesses can use this not only to market themselves, but to informally survey their customer or potential customers about business issues they face. If you’re planning to grow and want to know what your customers are using for technology – just ask! That’s right tweet it, post it on Facebook, or send an email out on Linked in. Create a blog and post to your website or record a video and share it on your website and other social platforms. To plan you need to know, and who better to tell you what they want than your customers.

Plan It Out with Flair

Now that you’ve done the research and recognized the changes that need to be made to your website, plan out each phase with a date and marketing effort tied to the changes you are implementing. Be creative and don’t forget to ask for feedback. Build-in some time for edits based on your customers. They will feel appreciated and you will have a website your audience feels connected to.

In 2011 you may need to make your website more accessible to larger monitor styles or smaller smart phones, add video or increase content; but no matter what you need to do, plan out your growth and you’ll have less anxiety and greater success.

Running a business online means that your business needs to have an effective website, but often overlooked by businesses is the importance of the Web server. The Web server that houses your website is as important as the look and feel of your website. So how do you choose a web host, and do you need more than just a host?

Consult With Your Developer
Before you decide which hosting service to use, I recommend discussing the details and functionality of your website. Understanding how your website will be developed and how supportive your development firm is will help you decide what hosting firm to use. If you already have a website, discuss with your developer the traffic and bandwidth to understand what you may need for growth. Once you are educated on the type of structure that will be used to build your website or needed to grow your website, you can research the firms recommended by your developer as well as hosts you may already have in mind. You may need to graduate from a shared hosting service, which leads us to looking inward.

Look at Your Business Needs
How much support do you think you will need from your hosting company? If you’re creating the website yourself or hiring a temporary contractor for the project, you may want to look at a host that provides more service support. Every hosting company has a support department, but what they consider support may differ from what you have in mind. If you’re a solopreneur, you may want a firm that can help install applications. This is a task often performed by outside developers, but some hosting companies will provide this level of support — for a price.

Uptime of your website is something most hosting firms market, but what about backups? Backups are not only needed when a site goes down, but also when someone makes an error. I can’t begin to tell you how many people have accidentally renamed or overwritten a file and needed a backup restored. How quick is your host to respond to your needs? Response time can have a huge impact on any business and this is something to consider when reviewing your host. But response time and resolution time are two different things. Be sure to explore both. Don’t get caught up in the marketing message; understand how firms escalate tickets and solve problems.

How Many Sites Do You Have?
It is not uncommon for marketing purposes to have more than one website. If you have more than one website, do you want a separate hosting account per site or a VPS? Virtual private servers can be a great solution to control the management of many websites, and will give you or your developer a root-level connection to handle installing Web services. VPS environments also you provide you with a hybrid of shared and dedicated applications, and, depending on the provider, a different level of support and resources.

Your website location matters both in terms of supporting you as a business owner and delivering a fast experience for your customers. Make sure to choose a quality solution that fits both objectives.