WordPress is the leading CMS used across the world and powers around 35% of the world’s websites. Since its inception in 2003, the self-hosted platform has gone through a lot of improvement. Initially designed to host only a blogging website, WordPress has evolved its way and now is a full-fledged solution to build business websites, eCommerce websites, and any kind of website you can think of.
WordPress Development:
has grown in popularity over the years due to its free and open-source nature. It is important to understand the latest trends that are followed in WordPress in 2021. Maybe you are a student–learning web development or a web developer or own a WordPress website, these latest trends will help you upgrade your website and provide the best user experience to your end-user.
Let’s get started.
Progressive Web App (PWA)
The progressive web app is gaining popularity in the webspace as it brings the native app-like user experience to web applications. This allows users to add a shortcut to their mobile home screen and access the website with a single tap.
PWA app also can display the website content while offline and send push notifications even if the user not browsing the website.
Few Benefits of the Progressive web app:
- Offline Browsing
- Receive Push Notification
- Faster loading time
- Better user experience
- More flexibility
- Higher security as it works using HTTPS only
The progressive web app is the next big thing in the web development industry. It will save a considerable amount of time and memory space by reducing browsing websites through a browser or downloading the mobile app.
WordPress websites are all ready to convert into Progressive Web App. There are a lot of plugins in the market that will convert your website to a Progressive Web App. Some popular PWA plugins are – PWA, PWA for WP & AMP, Super Progressive Web App, WP-Appkit, Progressive WordPress (PWA), Website PWA, etc.
Chatbots
Chatbots are extensively used nowadays in most of the website. It makes the website lively and enhances customer support. It does work 24/7, gathering information, chatting with humans, responding to messages. The chatbots are getting smarter day by day.
Due to Artificial Intelligence, chatbots are becoming more ‘human-like and user-friendly delivering seamless customer support. Almost 85% of companies will start implementing Chatbots for their businesses in the upcoming years.
Therefore, including a chatbots in the WordPress website is very much essential and will benefit you in the long run. Some of the advantages of using Chatbots:
- Live chat with visitor 24/7, even while you sleep
- Monitor and track user impression and clicks
- Automate customer support and gather required information
- Enhance user experience and improves productivity
There are a lot of plugins available to integrate chatbots into your website. Some of them are IBM Watson, Collect. chat, Tidio, etc.
Augmented/Virtual Reality in e-Commerce Development
Online shopping has become an integral part of our day-to-day life. People love their products get delivered to their doorsteps. So, the eCommerce market is booming as more and more start-ups are entering this industry. Due to the huge competition, start-ups are always on the hunt for innovation in this sector. Here where Augmented / Virtual Reality comes into action
As we all know we can develop a fully functional eCommerce website using WooCommerce. But here we are going to discuss how to enhance and extend WooCommerce functionality and create an out-of-the-box experience.
With Augmented / Virtual Reality in WooCommerce, we can explore the possibility of virtually viewing the products in the real environment before purchasing. Users will be able to view the product in 360 degrees, place the product in the real world. With a plugin, “CartMagician Augmented Reality for WooCommerce AR (iOS)”, this is very much a reality. Though it is only available for iOS users, we can surely expect it for android shortly.
One more interesting feature is using integrating WooCommerce products into a virtual reality tour to create an incredible shopping experience. This can transform a brick-and-mortar store into a digital store. Users can preview the products from the virtual image (360-degree image of a store with a product) and able to add them to the cart. This can be done by placing a hotspot on the coordinate and adding the product details to that coordinate. When a user clicks on the product, he/she will be able to see the product’s detail, pricing and have the option to add it to the cart. This can be achieved using a plugin called WPVR.
Although fewer solutions are available in this sector, we can hope that it will trend in 2021 and gain more popularity.
Drag and drop website builder
Nowadays every business may be a small shop or a start-up or a big organization that needs a website. The challenge for small businesses and start-ups is hiring a developer to develop their website due to financial constraints. This is where drag and drop website builder has become a boon for business owners.
Using drag and drop builders like Elementor, Divi, and Beaver business owners can develop a professional and responsive website with a minimal learning curve and without any coding knowledge. A website can be built within 10 mins once you get used to the tools. This trend is expected to grow significantly in 2021 as it allows the start-up to build and maintain their website without any coding knowledge and spending much on resources and technologies.
Artificial Intelligence
Developing a website can be an easy task today but making it successful is a huge challenge. Crafting meaningful content, enhancing user experience, and improving Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of the website can be a tough job.
Artificial intelligence can help you manage your site easier by streamlining some of these tasks. With the help of AI, you can improve your content quality, boost SEO to improve site visibility, increase sales through automated customer service and show personalized content to the visitors.
AI has been the most awaited technology and will be one of the top trending technologies in WordPress in 2021. Plugins like WordLift, Jetpack, Landbot.io, my curator are already using AI to improve your website content and conversion.
WordLift:
WordLift uses AI to optimize your content by tagging content, publishing meta descriptions, organizing posts, point out the related article to link, and cc images to enhance your post.
JetPack Proofreading Feature
This plugin uses AI to correct your spelling, grammar, and choice of words to enhance your content
Landbot.io
With landbot.io, you will be able to create a conversational landing page and also can use it as a popup chatbot
MyCurator
MyCurator is an AI-based content curation tool. It creates curated content for any topic you choose and add excerpts, images, and attribution.
Voice Search Features
Voice search is going to be revolutionary in the e-commerce industry. Searching a product on a website using voice search is much more convenient than the traditional search. Additionally, it can also boost your SEO and will soon become an essential feature regardless of the industry.
Right now, very few plugins are available for voice search – Universal Voice Search, voice search. But the future is bright for this feature and it will be sure a trending feature in 2021.
Accessibility – The right way to build a website
Website accessibility for people with disabilities has become an integral part of website development, and this trend is expected to continue through 2021. Smart speakers with voice capabilities have greatly improved access to online content, like subtitle media, simplifying navigation, and increasingly accurate voice search technology. As the world increasingly relies on the internet and connected devices for work, school, entertainment, commerce, and socializing, it is more important than ever to maintain and improve accessibility for people with disabilities.
Conclusion
WordPress is an ever-changing platform and 2021 is going to be an exciting year for WordPress users. Due to its open-source nature, we may see more development and innovation to help WordPress look and function better. Already big brands like BBC America, Sony, Microsoft news, Walt Disney, etc are using WordPress websites for their business. We can expect more and more companies to adopt WordPress in the future.
