Since the first website launched in 1983, digital marketing has continued to evolve. Today it’s hard to find a company that doesn’t have a web presence or leverage digital media to attract customers and establish their brand. How do you stay ahead of the curve and make sure your company is making the most of the available technology? Looking for web development trends and taking advantage of them are one way to stay current and support your company’s web efforts.
Today, we will look at a handful of trends that we’re seeing in the web development universe.
1. The power of WordPress and other low-code and no-code tools
WordPress continues to innovate, updating the features and functionality of its CMS and making it even more user-friendly. Powering over 40% of websites, this open-source platform has block themes that allow you to edit and customize all components of a site, without ever needing to change the theme. And the improvements just keep coming with the latest 6.2 version enhancements continuing to roll out a more intuitive experience for site creators.
Other low-code and no-code tools also continue to serve a web development need. If you work for a smaller company that doesn’t have technical team members, these simple yet powerful tools can help more quickly develop and design websites, web applications, and even workflows.
2. Accessibility improvements
Differently-abled visitors to your website need to be able to engage with the content, yet the vast majority of websites are not fully accessible. Designers should be aware of various considerations including color contrast, closed caption screen reading, ALT text attributions, and more. Developers can use plugins to help comply with various digital content accessibility regulations and guidelines.
There are added benefits of upping your company’s accessibility game and ensuring that every internet user can consume content on the portal. An accessible site improves the reputation of your website, increases your audience, and elevates SEO ranking.
3. Responsive design
Today’s websites need to be capable of being viewed on a variety of devices. In fact, these days more people are seeing your site on a mobile device than on a desktop computer making mobile-first web development increasingly important. Web pages that automatically scale and adjust to the size and resolution of the user’s device provide an optimal viewing experience for reading and navigation.
Mobile-friendly design also delivers better marketing and branding by providing seamless user experiences, enabling easy engagement, and optimally presenting design elements. With Google set to launch its mobile first index this year, responsive design can also help increase site ranking.
4. Performance improvements
Website optimization is all about speed, meaning how quickly the pages of your website display in the browser. Adhering to new standards like Google Core Web Vitals improves site performance and boosts organic search engine rankings on Google.
Elevating performance has other benefits. Fast-loading, visually stable, responsive sites improve the presentation of your brand. Rapid load speed translates to a better start of a customer journey, laying the foundation for quicker engagement, longer visits, and more conversion.
5. Front-end CSS plus JavaScript frameworks
CSS frameworks are a design construct that is supported by HTML, the underlying structure of a webpage. These frameworks deliver speed, depth, design, and functionality, and have become the simplest way to effectively design a website. Add in a painless learning process, task automation, and cross-browser compatibility and it’s easy to see why developers and designers rely on them.
JavaScript is the most popular software development language, and these frameworks are programming libraries that contain pre-written code for use in standard programming tasks. JavaScript frameworks support the creation of reusable components, as well as manage application states, and handle routing and navigation.
Combining front-end CSS with JavaScript frameworks makes the magic happen—with each component contributing to more efficient, robust website development.
As web development trends continue to evolve and companies have to find the best way to take advantage of any of these trends, agencies like 3 Media Web are here to help. 3 Media Web’s team of experts is changing the way businesses succeed online—and your business could be next.
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