General Web Development Trends
Ecosystems and platforms
Digital ecosystems and platforms are now at the peak of popularity. What is their difference? Platforms bring together different companies “under one roof”, providing them with a technological foundation for business development. This is how AWS, the cloud platform from Amazon, works. This marketplace is used by millions of users from all over the world.
Digital ecosystems allow the services of one web app development company to function in a single space. This relationship allows you to effectively interact with the client and sell him additional services in conjunction with the main product. In this case, the ecosystem user receives a single account for all services. A classic example of a digital ecosystem in Russia is SBER.
Omnichannel
Omnichannel has been actively developing for several years, but in 2023 it will become a real trend. Of course, because users have become more demanding. A high level of service and customer focus is what all companies need to develop. Omnichannel will help with this – a marketing model that allows you to combine different communication channels into one system. In other words, you can interact with customers on different platforms and collect data about them.
This system allows you to work out in detail the acquisition channels for each individual user. For example, a person came to the site from search advertising but decided not to leave his contacts. It would seem that the potential client is lost, but we begin to show him banner advertising. We often flash before our eyes using retargeting on social networks, video advertising, etc. When the user leaves contacts, the sales and messaging departments come into play. This approach will help bring user loyalty and brand awareness.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality (AR) allows you to add digital objects to the physical world. This trend helps increase sales for online stores. For example, thanks to augmented reality, a user can see whether a new sofa will fit into his interior by simply downloading a special web application development to his smartphone.
Information Security
In Russia, according to Roskomnadzor, 150 major data leaks were recorded in 2022. The names, phone numbers, emails and addresses of millions of people were leaked online. Therefore, the trend towards information security in 2023 appeared for a reason. Due to data leaks, not only users suffer, but also the companies themselves, because in this case they lose their reputation and millions of rubles.
However, data leakage is far from the only threat to cybersecurity. There are at least two more types of hacker attacks:
- Cross-site scraping (XSS, DOM XSS attacks help attackers find vulnerabilities on a website and steal user credentials)
- SQL injection (it is injected into the page code, which gives hackers the opportunity to gain access to databases where data about all users is stored. In addition, this method allows hackers to inject malware into the site code).
Voice search
According to a Microsoft report, 72% of users search for information on the Internet using a voice assistant. If voice search is not yet configured on your website, then you are losing potential customers.
We have prepared some tips on how to optimize your website for voice search:
- Use colloquial words when describing products
- Structure keywords around questions and answers
- Provide a wide range of keywords and phrases that cover all relevant queries, but still use loose, colloquial terminology.
For example, a keyword phrase for a regular search query would be “Restaurants nearby.” For voice search, this request must be reformulated: “Where is the nearest restaurant.”
Trending technologies in website creation
PWA – Progressive Web Application
A current trend that allows you to download a website to any device and use it offline. This application is lightweight and allows users to download their favorite sites directly to the home page of their smartphone. And site owners now do not have to create separate applications on Android and IOS, because it is enough to use PWA and maintain the functionality of the web page.
AMP – Accelerated Mobile Apps
AMP – Accelerated Mobile Apps
Accelerated Mobile Apps is a technology that allows you to speed up mobile pages. This happens by cutting down the main content of the site. In its accelerated version, only the main elements remain. For example, such pages will not have a block with advertising and various widgets. Moreover, it is an open-source platform. Anyone can use AMP for free.
Despite the fact that Google announced this technology back in 2015, it is still at the peak of popularity. Why? It’s simple, because the search engine actively encourages sites that use AMP; Google brings them to higher positions in search results.
Artificial intelligence and neural networks come to the rescue
Every year, artificial intelligence simplifies the lives of developers more and more, allowing them to optimize all processes. For example, YouTube already makes full use of natural language processing to create subtitles for videos, and Google Analytics uses machine learning to understand the behavior of site users. Many chatbots are also based on artificial intelligence technologies. In addition, AI is now capable of creating texts and graphics based on keywords. Think about what business processes you can delegate to artificial intelligence to free your employees from routine work.
WebAR – augmented reality directly in the browser
How is WebAR different from the AR we talked about earlier? It’s simple. Web-AR is a technology that allows you to implement augmented reality directly into the browser, without using separate applications. All it takes is a custom URL that opens in the browser and asks permission to open the camera.
Serverless architecture
The real trend in web application development is serverless architecture. In other words, it is a technology solution that allows developers to focus on building the product without having to worry about managing or maintaining servers or management environments. Essentially, the management of these servers is taken over by a service with a cloud computing technology model, such as AWS (Amazon Web Services).