Booming Top-Notch Trends of WordPress Technology in 2022

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Over the years, WordPress has remained one of the most robust website creation platforms, building more than 500 websites every day across the globe. As a result, WordPress technology is always the topmost priority in web development within the web developers community. Its utmost features, such as easy-to-use drag-and-drop functionalities, a vast library of ready-to-use and fully customizable themes and plugins, are one of the primary reasons why WordPress Development services are booming in the market, making this web development platform the most preferred one among others. Furthermore, with the changing web designing trends, WordPress developers also try to keep up with those trends. Trends include rich typography, WordPress page builder over manual coding, different layouts like a grid, simple navigation bars, smooth textured colors, and other things. Currently, designers are using low code or no-code tools to complete the design faster than spending more time coding and debugging. In this article, we’ll cover the top-notch trends of WordPress Technology 2022.

Top-Notch Trends of WordPress Development in 2022

WordPress Trends For E-Commerce

WordPress is a boon web development platform for most developers, as it helps develop feature-rich E-commerce websites and web applications. However, the WooCommerce WordPress plugin is the true asset that allows you to quickly bring your envisioned E-commerce website to reality in no time.

Along with website development, WooCommerce also assists you in making your E-Commerce website SEO-friendly. The outstanding features like effortless payment gateways, smooth inventory management, various marketing elements, etc., have prioritized the WooCommerce-based websites when developing E-Commerce websites. Hence, having the best-in-class features of WooCommerce, WordPress is still one of the first choices for online store development.

Chatbot Integration

With the advancement of technology, the demand for user-friendly websites and web applications has emerged expeditiously. Therefore, chatbots with Artificial Intelligence or virtual assistant have become essential to any website. Moreover, it continues to develop and simplifies how we complete our duties. For instance, tasks that took hours or even days to finish can now be done in minutes. In short, AI does tedious work for us.

Above all, the most advanced chatbot will help you to record and solve user queries with predefined FAQs. WordPress plugins like Tidio or Chatbot allow you to use multiple functionalities such as live chat, chatbot, email integration, and messenger. In addition, it can be programmed to record the answer to common questions regarding a specific service.

Progressive Web Application (PWA)

One of the most emerging trends in WordPress development for 2022 is PWA (Progressive Web Application) – a website that performs and looks like a mobile application. Designed to leverage native smartphone capabilities without forcing the end-user to enter an app store, make a payment, or download software directly. You can go for this trend if you are an online service provider with no native mobile app. Above all, if you want to develop PWA apps manually, it will ask for knowledge of standard web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and other similar technologies. However, WordPress allows you to easily create such applications through ready-to-use WordPress plug-ins like Super Progressive Web Apps.

Voice Search Optimization

The recent web development trends emphasize the importance of voice search. In response to the growing demand, Amazon, Apple, and Google introduced intelligent speakers. In addition, web developers strive to create websites that are entirely accessible to those with hearing and vision difficulties. Moreover, due to the popularity of Siri, Google Assistant, and other voice-activated virtual assistants, voice search has become a trend since 2020. It is followed by many big companies, mainly E-commerce websites like Flipkart and Amazon. Worldwide, it is anticipated that the demand for smart speakers will expand by 21% to 163 million devices in 2022.

Parallax Scrolling

In early 2020, the parallax effect or scrolling saw the light of the day and is still shining. Parallax scrolling – a crazy technique is a visual effect where a web page’s background stays still while the foreground shifts vertically or horizontally. The technique adds visual interest to a website and engages users as they scroll through a web page. In simple terms, it is a computer graphics technique used by web designers to create a faux-3D effect. 

Blockchain Technology

In today’s era, the maximum population globally is crazy about the newest technology in the market – blockchain and cryptocurrency. For instance, if you are operating an E-commerce store, there are possibilities that you may face the issue of payment acceptance mode in some countries or territories. Here is where blockchain technology is a boon that lets you resolve such issues quickly and efficiently. Most countries have started adopting the cryptocurrency concept to remove all hindrances one might face when accepting online payments. Therefore, with the rise in demand for this technology, many WordPress plugins assist you with payment acceptance through cryptocurrency.

Hence, web designs trends continuously change as time passes and mostly get updated every 5 to 6 years. Each era increases competition in the digital market, and the best way for web designers is to stay informed and updated about these constant and rapid changes. So, suppose you want to develop your business website on WordPress or switch to WordPress from other web development platforms. In that case, you are at the right place, as we are the best custom website development services offering various WordPress solutions under a single roof. 

GDPR | What you may want to know

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You may have been noticing a slew of privacy notifications on your favorite software and social media platforms. This is timely as of the recent testimony by Mark Zuckerberg on Capitol Hill. The buzzword of the month is Privacy. You may also be noticing quite a bit of conversation regarding new regulations in the EU that affects how data is collected on the web. While this conversation is fairly new, it is becoming one that will need to be addressed. While we are by no means experts in this yet, AS recognizes the need to quickly learn about how to address some of the questions and help clients stay appropriately informed and help provide corrective measures where necessary. Here is a very high level overview of some items concerning GDPR.

 

 

What is GDPR? (General Data Protection Regulation) is a new law in the EU that will be enacted in May 2018

 

  • This law is being enacted as a way to allow citizens of the EU more control over their privacy and data on the web
  • If you are a company or organization that has an international website reach and/or users, this will apply to you.
  • In order to enforce this, Supervisory Authorities will be working to ensure compliance. Fines can be steep if corrective measures are not taken.
  • Many Large US Companies are already investing in how to better comply in this space.

 

Some main things to consider on your website:

  1. Types of Plugins being Used
  2. Security
  3. Collecting Data
  4. Notification of Breaches

 

While this regulation is being enacted into law in the EU currently, we wholly expect the US to follow suit in the future.

Please connect with us if you’d like to discuss.

 

AMS/CRM Offering CMS? Watch out for the Golden Handcuffs!

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Is your AMS or CRM company offering to provide you a fully integrated CMS as part of the package once you sign up with them? In theory this sounds great, but please don’t fall for the Golden Handcuffs!

Web Design and Development is not their main speciality; their software is. It’s advantageous to have organizations on the software companies CMS because it makes it that much harder to leave the software company because all their eggs are in one basket.

How many times has your boss/board come to you with a new web initiative which has required you to search for outside partners to help execute? You should be able to build functionality into your website with relative ease. Most software CMS systems have very strict parameters and don’t allow much customization. Thus organizations can’t easily reach their goals without creating a web of outside vendors.

If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is. If you’re a shoemaker, stick to making shoes. If you’re a software company, don’t get into the website business! Truly innovative software companies are recognizing the need for interconnectivity and are working at better integration with WordPress and other open source CMS systems. Don’t get trapped in the Golden Handcuffs! Keep software separate from your CMS, but focus on seamless integration.

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A Word About Content

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When doing a redesign, some organizations choose to simply pull their existing copy over from their old website into the new one. They may change some of their historical data, but overall they are more concerned with the look and feel and/or they feel they don’t have the internal resources to make wholesale changes to their content. Here are some concepts that might be helpful while doing due diligence in regards to a content strategy and also the burden on both your time and finances.

Content Migration: Any firm worth their weight in salt should include migration of your content as part of the project. Don’t think you are saving $$ by offering to do this on your own. The internal pull on your resources will cost more in the long run. What takes you 10 min, will take a web firm 1 min.

Content Curation: A more strategic firm should be able to help guide your existing content in a more intuitive way. You know your organization better than most and your content likely reflects that. Intuitively appropriating where that content should live or not live on your site is the main proposal in content curation. This seems to be a popular direction, as it addresses a more strategic need, while not costing an arm and a leg.

Content Creation: Brace yourself!! This is not cheap, nor should it be an expectation in a redesign. However, if it is, look at it as an additional line item. This requires a much deeper dive and should be autonomous to a certain extent. Website goals, audience, & site traffic should be the guide. Effective content creation, should be done in tandem with curation, but in some cases requires two different mindsets as one is more reliant on design.

There are strong cases for all three of these approaches, and ultimately your organizations needs will dictate the direction. Better to start with less and make changes over time. Content Management Systems are built for this. Test and Iterate! Test and Iterate! Test and Iterate!

 

If you have any questions, please reach out to us!

 

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The Democratization of the Internet, Virality for Good, and Duke Lacrosse

The Democratization of the Internet, Virality for Good, and Duke Lacrosse

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Several months back, my wife and I watched the 30 for 30 ESPN Documentary “Fantastic Lies” about the Duke Lacrosse story. We really didn’t know much about the story, however we associated Duke Lacrosse with a rape case involving Duke Lacrosse players. Upon watching this documentary I was stunned by how much damage had been created by the media surrounding this case. The irreparable damage had been done, and I was a victim of contempt prior to investigation. I thought poorly about those student athletes without understanding the facts. The facts of this case were grossly misled by then District Attorney, Mike Nifong in an attempt for him to gain politically. Media grabbed onto a false story and ran with it. The implications of this bad information led to campus outrage and awful press towards Duke and its Men’s Lacrosse team, singling out a handful of players.

If you were paying attention to only the headlines like I was, Duke students were guilty! However, when the dust settled, Nifong was forced to resign and ultimately disbarred and jailed for his misconduct and the students were all exonerated. Media did a poor job at correcting the bad information, and have likely put a bad taste in the mouth of many people concerning Duke Lacrosse to this day. The Democratization of Press is guaranteed under the constitution. The responsibility of the Press, should be to recognize its mistakes and mend them rather than sweeping them under the rug. They will never be able to fully right the Duke Lacrosse story.

The Internet is ever-growing. In 2006 it seemed more finite. Today, it’s hard to even comprehend its expanse. Our mobile generation has created trending virality and news can be generated so quickly, it’s hard to keep up with everything. A lot of the news is still sensationalized and can reach people very quickly. People can write about anything and just like printed press, a lot of bad information gets put on the internet. I look at the virality of information today, and how quickly information can get out. I wonder how the Duke case would have looked if Twitter and Facebook had been more prevalent during this case. Would we have received more information regarding the problematic parts of this case rather than just the sensational headlines? Would we have received the truth?

The internet affords the same constitutional guarantees or free speech and press, and the virality allows for a reach that is far beyond TV or printed media. So much of today’s media is divisive and depressing. I think the focus should be to use the virality of the internet and the ability to speak our minds to correct misleading bad information. Doing good should be the focus. Don’t let people live in ignorance, based on bad information.