Top WordPress Trends of 2021

You probably know that WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS) around the world. It is actually powering 34% of all existing websites on the internet.

The exciting popularity of WordPress is the main reason why its trends are so decisive. In other words, everything that is important for WordPress is automatically crucial for the main part of all websites in the world.

Let us explore the main trends of WordPress in 2021 to understand the big picture of web development, internet marketing, and social media management of the modern world.

Drag-n-Drop Page Builders and Modular Themes

The main advantage of the WordPress platform has always been presented by the ease of template creation and customization for web administrators without special knowledge and skills in web development and design. It means that drag-n-drop page and website builder have always been around for WordPress admins.

However, the corona pandemic has made online business even more lucrative. The number of startups grows every year, and most of them use WordPress as the most convenient and simple platform for website creation and customization. This happens because literally anyone can build a website with a drag-n-drop page builder.

Keeping in mind the simplicity of WordPress, we need to mention its variety too. In other words, even the basic tools like drag-n-drop page builders are presented by different developers within WordPress. The magic of WordPress is in the fact that you can choose any free or premium product that responds to the challenges of your project.

Modular Themes represent another option for inexperienced WordPress website owners. These are actually ready-to-use blocks created for various business purposes. With these blocks, website creation and customization have become even easier.

Increase in eCommerce Functionality

WooCommerce (the most popular eCommerce platform for WordPress websites) has a share of 22% within the top 1 million websites around the world. These numbers show the importance of the eCommerce sector for WordPress administrators.

The main reason for the eCommerce segment nowadays is the pandemic. Even those types of businesses that would never think about going online are forced to create their websites nowadays. The trend shows how bad things can result in motivated development and how a crisis creates opportunities for smart business owners.

WordPress and WooCommerce continue to develop by the rules of the growing eCommerce segment of websites. New eCommerce tools appear every day — everything to make online platforms more convenient and versatile both for customers and website owners.

Chatbots

As the eCommerce sector grows and prospers, it gets more and more customers to deal with. Modern customers have got used to being served personally and require a lot of attention. Unfortunately, most small businesses are unable to provide such a level of service to each customer as their numbers start to grow.

That is why chatbots are so useful for modern online stores and services. Although a chatbot cannot replace a human being, it can significantly reduce the number of calls and tickets each manager or support operator needs to process.

Chatbots are able to answer the frequently asked questions in a way that customers find the most convenient. There is very little chance that a customer will read the whole FAQ you can provide about your product or service. However, they would eagerly read the answers of a chatbot that searches for answers to their questions within the same FAQ.

Modern machine learning technologies open new opportunities for chatbots. They can now support customers even better and within deeper questions. With the development of AI, chatbots will become more and more clever. You can already evaluate the features and opportunities of chatbots by means of various free and premium WordPress plugins.

Accessibility

Accessibility has become one of the main topics among web developers in 2021. Although web development tools for extensive accessibility have been available for years, they were mostly ignored both by website owners and web developers. Nowadays, the situation changes in favor of people with disabilities who get more convenient tools to interact with modern websites/

Accessibility begins its way to be a mandatory feature of any website on the internet. New WordPress plugins and themes include this feature in their kits. However, there still are lots of old projects that would like to improve their interface to make it accessible for people with disabilities. There are special WordPress tools for such projects too.

Social Media Integration

Social media tools have also become a top priority for WordPress projects over the past few years. Not only eCommerce projects but also other types of WordPress websites advertise themselves within social networks and integrate social activities within their pages.

Social walls are one of the essential tools for branding, marketing, and community engagement. With modern social media integration tools like Flow-Flow Social Stream or Grace Instagram Feed, you can create social streams of any public content.

Moreover, modern social streaming tools give you full control over social wall customization and moderation. It means that you can choose not only the design of your social streams but also their contents, even if you use the public account of any other person or organization.

Free and premium versions of social streaming plugins often differ with the set of available features. Still, you can evaluate the main functionality of these enormously essential tools for free within the WordPress platform. After seeing all the horizons of these plugins, you would probably decide to upgrade on your own.