Websites are rapidly evolving and getting complex, the trends are ever-changing and new things are being introduced to the market every year. We and other website development experts can predict the upcoming trends due to our experience and knowledge of the technology. In this blog, we will not only discuss the website development trends for 2021 but we will also try to list down the best practices to upgrade or revamp your websites. Websites earlier were just a product, businesses went to a website development agency in Dubai, UAE and ask them to design and develop a website for them. Once done, both the website development company and the customers close the project, only if occasional maintenance or some change occurs the customer would ask the website development agency to do that. Nothing so special.
But nowadays, this has changed, the rise of smartphones, social media and online domain has completely changed the marketing landscape. In the modern world, a website has become a powerful marketing tool rather than an online version of your company brochure. This makes them crucial in the business’s success in the online domain. It is always beneficial if you follow the current website trends and keep updating your websites.
Here are the website development trends of 2021 and the best practices to follow those trends:
Dynamic Website Development
Dynamic website development is a website with a content management system. The content management system of CMS is a powerful software tool, which runs on the backend of the websites and allows the customers or website manager to quickly update the websites, such as the content, text, images, blogs, news, etc. Earlier there were static websites and still, some businesses are using static websites. The biggest drawback of a static website is that only a skilled website developer or programmer can update the web pages, their content, text, photos, images, etc. And the biggest advantage of dynamic website development is that it provides you a simple tool to update the website content, which only requires basic computer knowledge or short training to make the website manager or businesses to update their website without any additional cost or dependency.
Responsive Website Development
Responsive website development is comparatively a new term, it means that the website is developed in a way that it has an ability to adjust and rearrange its content such as pictures, buttons, text, and design structure as per the size of the screen it is being opened at. Until the year 2020 was over, the mobile phone searches have already surpassed the laptop or desktop searches. This new trend shows that the general public prefers to search in their smartphones or mobile devices rather than the laptop or desktop PC. So your website should be developed with the tools and codes to automatically detect the mobile devices and screen sizes and then rearrange its content and everything according to that screen size. This is what we call responsive website development. These days this is almost an industry standard for website development and all new websites are by default built on this principle.
Cross-Platform Compatibility
As technology has been advancing more and more platforms are emerging. For example, in case of computers we have Windows Computer, Linux Computers, and MAC by Apple, in case of browsers we have Internet Edge, Google Chrome, Safari, Mozilla Firefox and a lot of others. Each and every operating system, the browser and in some cases the browser version too cause the website code to render differently under different circumstances. For example, if we are using Chrome browser on a Windows Laptop, the latest available version would be let say, for example, Version 21, if we compare it to the MAC Book Laptop, for the same Chrome Browser the latest version might be Version 15. Although to a general user this means nothing and most of the time we don’t even know what version we are running at, for the programming, coding and website development, this could completely change the user experience or in some cases, it could distort the look and feel. The website development team should have to overcome this problem by introducing cross-platform compatibility codes and tools in the website which will ensure a unified user experience on all platforms. Whether you are opening the website from Windows in Chrome or from MAC in Safari, each and every design structure should remain the same, every button and interaction should remain the same, every input field or click should respond the same, this is what we call cross-platform compatibility and it is very important and it will be more crucial in 2021 as the market is expecting to have more new platforms.
Rise of Cloud Computing and Progressive Web Apps (PWA) Development
The cloud computing and progressive web app or PWA development is gaining popularity and will definitely dominate the year 2021 in website development domain, and also coming years. As cloud computing is becoming more powerful and cheaper, it is more accessible for medium and smaller enterprises and businesses. The automated web services or AWS is also gaining popularity the website developers and website administrators/managers don’t have to worry about the server management, its architecture and the availability issues. The CSP or cloud service provider will manage the servers and relevant products and the website developer will only have to take care of their website or web app which will make the website development easier and less costly. This will open up new horizons for the PWA or progressive web apps. These applications can do minor tasks, such as user interface manipulation and major tasks such as a full-fledge software application with all features and functionalities. Businesses and organizations can utilize these platform to offer digital services or an extremely convenient user journey, these tools can take the user experience to the next level. Happy customers always mean more business.
Online Web Portals
Online web portals are although not a new thing in the website development industry, but in the year 2021, a huge number of businesses and organizations will adopt such tools. Online web portals are mainly used for various services and communication purposes. The purpose of these web portals is to provide all the information online, allow the customer to sign-up online, automate the process, reduce the service delivery time and reduce the customer visits to offices, service centres and other facilities. This will make your customers happy by providing your services with convenience and ease. Here is some web portal that is expected to gain popularity in the year 2021:
- Customer Portal
- B2B – Business to Business
- B2C – Business to Consumer
- Employee Portal
- Intranet Portal
- eCommerce Portal
- Real-estate Portal
- Job Portal
- Student Portal
- Patient Portal
These are different examples of online portals that are being used and are expected to gain more popularity in the year 2021. The one main reason is the year 2020, as we all know the last year had shifted the focus of the public and businesses from physical to online domain. Of course, the physical business and its presence are as important as it was ever before, but the online presence and online services have risen in the popularity. Especially the communication, registration, business proposals, online services, online appointments, online queue management systems, and a lot many online services are being delivered through online mediums such as websites via online web portals.
Multimedia Content and Interactive User Interfaces
The multimedia content and interactive user interfaces are gaining popularity due to the recent advancements in the website development tools and programming tools. In the year 2021, the websites will be more interactive, animated, and loaded with multimedia content. As broadband or high-speed internet is available to everyone in UAE, having multimedia content is not an issue at all. The website development based on cookies and cache is also reducing the load-time the new hosting technologies are also paving the way for heavy multimedia content. The computers and smartphones are also becoming more powerful and the platforms are also evolving, which is also supporting the website developers to include multimedia content and interactive parts in their web designs.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Schema, Structured Data
Although the search engine optimization (SEO), schema and structured data are a bit technical it is important for the business, organizations and website development companies to have the basic know-how of these things. The search engine optimization or SEO is to develop your website in a manner that the automated tools who index web pages should be able to absorb as much of the information as possible from your web pages. This will raise your ranks in the search engine results which means if people are searching for something relevant to your business, products or services, your website will appear in the search results and you can get a huge number of traffic flow to your website and it will be absolutely free.
The schema and structured data are also for machines and not for human users, they also help search engines, social media platforms and other data miners to index your website which could eventually result in more free traffic to your website. Not only that the integration of Artificial Intelligence-based tools, such as translation, voice to text or text to voice, autoresponders, online chatbots, and much more can be introduced for your customers in the website if the website development is done by a professional website development agency.
Integration and Security
The website development has evolved a lot in the last decade, the websites have become a necessity, rather than having a dead static web page with text and some photos which have never been updated in ages, the websites have become more dynamic, ever refreshing, continuously updated channel of communication with a huge audience and your customers. This sometimes requires integration with other systems, data centres, information banks, payment gateways, and much more. All these integrations are being achieved through opening up a secure communication channel between the website and the system who is hosting the information. Such integration can be achieved through secure web services or APIs, which enables two systems to communicate with each other and allow them to fetch or send data between each other.
This requires security, and in the year 2021 the internet security, privacy and data protection will become a huge problem for the businesses and organizations all around the world. Website development has to be capable of preventing all known security threats. This requires a highly professional and skilful website development team who particularly have experience in such website and web applications. At RSI Concepts, we are specialized in such trades and have vast experience in serving large corporations, local businesses, banks, government departments, healthcare, hospitality and other sectors of the industry.
Conclusion
The year 2021 will definitely going to change a lot many traditional website development practices and will take the customer experience to the next level. The integration, web applications, interactive UX/UI, internet security and online portals will definitely provide businesses with an edge over their competition. As the general public is leaning towards the online domains, it is very crucial for businesses to be prepared and ready to serve their customers in the online domain. Your online presence will establish an online brand identity for your business or organization which will impact your business and growth. It is very important to meet the expectations of your customers and prospects. Your website would be your brand’s first impression on millions of visitors, which could make or break your business. It is extremely important to pay more attention to your website development in 2021 and try to keep up with the ongoing industry trends. RSI Concepts, a leading website development agency in Dubai, UAE can help you achieve your goals for the year 2021. Feel free to contact us through the comment box below or get in touch with our sales team from our Contact Us page.
Check this out: Expected web designs trends for 2021