Understanding Key Trends that Will Impact the Web Development Industry

The web development world is set for significant changes in the coming years.  AI-infused software development applications and dynamic platforms like WordPress, Drupal, and Sitecore will continue to expand as organizations increasingly rely on advanced web development to broaden their digital presence. Every single brand is focusing on putting more emphasis on building solid online credibility while doing business. With this, it becomes crucial for brands to have the best knowledge of web development trends to achieve business goals.

Let's take a look at the top technologies that will transform the realm of web development.

Top Technologies That Will Reshape Web Development

With 2 billion websites worldwide, the web development industry has critical demands to fulfill, such as better user interference and experience, scalability, performance, and security. Not every technology can live up to such needs of web development. To keep up with the latest trends, brands are building high-performing websites with the help of expert developers.

Staying abreast of the latest web development trends is the first step toward maintaining websites with brand-new technology. Today's dynamic technologies are known for catering to an increasingly demanding customer base. Some of them are listed below:

Artificial Intelligence as a Radical Solution

Over the years, AI has proved its brilliance in web development by fulfilling requirements. AI is helping developers work on challenges related to user experience, coding, quality analysis, security, and much more. Global brands benefit from this innovative and dynamic technology that provides developers with dependent solutions for security testing.

The adoption of AI will start helping in several ways, such as completing predictive analysis of the data captured from web and system metrics, providing hyper-customized experiences to users.

AI can bridge the gaps while creating an impeccable customer journey; for example, Amdocs and Opun Ltd. have made the most of the AI solution to speed up their business. Amdocs, one of the top software companies, utilized AI and ML to create an intelligent Personalization Engine known as Amdocs Academy. This suite of tools enabled the clients to upskill their employees via immersive learning & language understanding features.

Similarly, Opun Ltd. incorporated AI to build upon a system where a virtual assistant will help a homeowner hire trustworthy and capable professionals for their home improvement requirements. This AI-infused solution has helped Opun overcome customer handling challenges by bringing transparency into the entire journey.

Accelerated Mobile Page

The next era is all about faster processing and loading speeds. Also, mobile internet usage has crossed the desktop internet usage rate globally in the past few years. This preference for using mobile devices and a demand for faster processing gave rise to a technology named Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP); the most in-demand trend and technique to target quicker processing and web page loading time.

AMP is an open-source project that helps boost the loading and performance of website pages on mobile and tablet devices since users have now started using mobiles as their primary means to access the internet. The project enables the development of such lightweight pages through compact and restricted versions of HTML, JS, and CSS that load much faster (approximately in less than a second) than a typical desktop page. This compact version of HTML tags only works for mobile devices and not on PCs. In accelerated mobile pages, images and other content only load when the user scrolls and reaches that part of the page. Google then caches the data, so it assists in a faster page loading time in Google search.

Node.js to Deploy Better Performance and Scalability

Web developers' adoption data over the past years shows that Node.js is the developer favorite with staying power, especially in backend development. With over 30 million+ websites with Node.js, there is no question about its immense popularity.

Nowadays, all web applications need some backend to connect with other external services and databases. Node js enables developers to use JavaScript to create dynamic web page content and backend web applications before they are sent to the user's web browser. Scalability is one of the important reasons why businesses love to use Node.js. It is a super-fast, high-performing framework with astounding programming to execute multiple actions simultaneously.

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to Level-Up the Website Functionality

There are approximately 20 million developers that use application programming interfaces in their development experience out of ~22 million overall developers worldwide. These website developers making use of APIs in a vast capacity in recent years is a sign of how fundamental and advanced API technology has become with the potential to accelerate the functionality and processing of your web operations.

On top of that, APIs allow you to fetch real-time data from databases and servers such as Twitter API, Reddit API, and much more. This data-capturing feature of API enables developers to update specific portions of the page for the audiences' needs. This live data fetching and displaying greatly impacts your audience as it enhances brand authenticity, thus resulting in more leads. 

When you see a YouTube video that's embedded onto a website page, that's YouTube API in action, fetching data from the content uploaded on YouTube and displaying it on the website page.

Sitecore – Perfect Solution for Enterprise Web Development

Sitecore is a host of advanced features like AI-powered capabilities, social media integration, and e-commerce readiness. It also comes with built-in machine learning capability powered by Sitecore Cortex.

In a nutshell, Sitecore has all the essential tools to impact web development significantly.

• xDB - This powerful marketing platform is equipped with futuristic features like xDB that help in truly knowing about your customers to create a Buyer Persona, also known as Experience Profile.
• Personalization - Sitecore enables unpredicted personalization features for site visitors to deliver the right content at the right time to the right audience. This results in an increased percentage of engagement and visitors' loyalty.

Progressive Web Applications for Higher Engagement

Businesses looking forward to higher engagement and conversion rates should now join the Progressive Web App (PWA) movement. Initially suggested by Google in 2015, PWA has already garnered a lot of attention because of the instant wins for the mobile web. Brands with a solid presence on both mobile and web will appreciate the benefits that PWA offers.

For instance, leading beauty brand Lancôme's conversion rate dropped due to significant obstacles in their web experience. After introducing PWA to build upon a fast-loading and immersive web experience, the brand noticed a 17% increase in conversion rates.

From a user's perspective, PWAs are providing an ideal web experience by -

1. Not needing to download or store any app
2. Sharing links easily
3. Decreasing page loading time

Known as one of the web development solutions, PWA combines the web's scalability and reach with an app's engagement. These web apps use emerging APIs and feature to provide a native app-like user experience. Several brands use PWAs as their preferred marketing tool.

Revamp Your Web Development Experience 

Websites are the cornerstone of brands and businesses across the world. Yet, having a website is much more than creating an online presence. It is about highlighting the best your brand has to offer. An unresponsive site can put off users instantly, which is why incorporating impactful technology for web development is essential in this modern age. This will ensure a long-lasting impression on your audience and achieve tangible business results.

If you're looking to deep dive into finding the perfect web development technologies for your organization, connect with our development consultants today. Explore Icreon's web development services.