Five Major Trends That Are Changing The Web Industry

The web world is always moving and changing. Most of us are tied to the web, whether we use it for our own personal use or for work, which is why it's important to know what's changing on the web, how it's changing and how it might affect us. If you haven't been keeping up-to-date with the latest changes, here's a quick overview of the biggest modifications in the web industry right now.

Responsive Design

As the web market continues to grow, the demand for responsive website design intensifies. You need to think of your lay-out, design and code to plan a responsive website; one that provides an optimal viewing experience for users on all devices (whether that be a laptop, Ipad or android phone). Right now, we’re facing a sea change in the web design world - bigger than anything since the Web 2.0 revolution nearly ten years ago. Sites without a responsive component are a step behind. It's an integral component of any web strategy, so take a look at your current website, compare it to the best and ask yourself: how does it compare?

Mobile Domination

Last year, CNN cited the presence of five billion mobile users on the planet - a huge percentage of the world’s population toting mobile gadgets, which further represents a gigantic demand for mobile information. Mobiles hence demand the attention of designers, programmers, developers, writers, marketers, and anyone else whose life is touched by the web; basically everyone.

Online Shopping

A large portion of us is an online shopping junkie. We buy sofas, clothes and even food online. More people are climbing on board online shopping, meaning the more online shoppers there are, the more and bigger online stores become, resulting in a heightened demand for the tightened integration of CMS, CXM, and CRM.

The Decline of SEO

SEO is still important, and it's most definitely going to stick around for a while, but it will no longer have the immense clout that it once had. There are two major reasons for this; both reasons are rooted in search engine algorithms. First, search engines are becoming prescient. They know what words you’re going to type in the search bar before you do, and have the ability to anticipate searches based on your search history, geographical locale, demographic, and other features. Anticipated searches and user-specific results mean that SEO is getting weaker by the minute. Second, the algorithms are adept at weeding out junk pages, content farms, spam sites and irrelevant information. Rankings have less value when a search engine acts more like a human than a search bot. And that’s what we’re dealing with now — search algorithms with humanoid complexity. Yes, SEO is declining, yet his is not the decade-old declaration that “SEO is dead!” Nobody’s dead yet. SEO is just changing just like everything else in the web world, shifting in style and approach, and therefore its influence is waning.

The Rise of Personal Influence

We all know that Web 2.0 is an intensely personal and interactive web experience. With personal blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other social media overkill there is no longer any reason to feel like the web is an impersonal entity. But the social trend is coming to maturity. Personal influence matters more and more; a single tweet from one individual can create a massive ripple in the Twitter pool. Likewise, the more prolific and skilled a blogger, the more you’ll see his smiling mug in the search results of Google. The Internet is full of people writing information, people selling goods, people selling services, people sharing their lives, people uploading photos, people communicating with other people. Internet equals people. Therefore, it is no wonder that the web will ride on the wave of personal influence. If you think that these trends are just changing the web - you're wrong. They’re changing the world. Although this article doesn't chase down the various ramifications of these changes, you’ll probably want to do some thinking about how to respond in your own unique situation. Change is happening. We must learn to accept it, embrace it, and thrive.