WordPress is one of the world’s most prolific platforms for building websites. Approximately 75,000,000 websites are powered by WordPress. It’s easy to use and features massive libraries of themes and plugins, making it easy for developers to create customized websites. All WordPress websites are responsive and SEO-friendly as well.

Houston Web Design uses WordPress exclusively, so you could say we know the platform well. We strive to provide clients with the latest and greatest when it comes to web design, and WordPress is known for driving new trends. Last year, we saw an increased trend in the use of video. WordPress 4.8 provided new and improved widgets for adding videos, images, and audio to websites.

When it comes to WordPress trends for 2018, we can also look at the different types of themes and plugins available. In 2017, we saw a rise in “drag-and-drop” themes. Plugins for Facebook Live also became popular, due to the increased interest in live streaming video. Here’s what we can expect for WordPress trends in 2018:

WordPress 4.9

The latest version of WordPress is in beta and expected to be released soon. WordPress 4.9 includes fixes and improvements to the last release. Users will see improvements in editing code, managing themes, managing plugins, and customizations. These improvements will help developers and website administrators alike. One of the most important reasons we use WordPress is ease-of-use for our customers, so we hope these updates will further empower business owners to easily make changes to their website.

Video and Virtual Reality

Video and virtual reality will be huge trends in web design this year and WordPress is already leading the way. The platform fully supports video, virtual reality content, and 360° videos and images. There are already quite a few themes and plugins for web designers and developers to use and we can expect to see more as the technology improves. Check out these examples:

WordPress Themes Featuring Video

  • Bento – Bento is a versatile theme that makes it easy to include video backgrounds and headers on your web pages.
  • Peak – Peak is a feature-rich, multi-purpose theme. It includes many options for adding visuals to your website, including video backgrounds.
  • Lore – Tell your story using Lore, a theme that features multiple templates that support video headers and backgrounds.

WordPress Plugins for VR and 360° Content

  • WP-VR View – WP-VR View allows you to display PhotoSphere images and 360° video on your WordPress site. Smartphone users can even get the virtual reality experience using Google Cardboard with this awesome plugin!
  • MomentoPress – MomentoPress is a free plugin that allows users to display 360° photos and videos.
  • 360° Panoramic Image Viewer – The 360° Panoramic Image Viewer plugin allows you to add “hotspots” to static images, creating an immersive, augmented reality experience for your visitors.

A Better Ecommerce Experience

According to SellwithWP, there are approximately 505,409 WordPress sites with ecommerce plugins. That’s a lot of online stores! It’s important for WordPress to keep up with ecommerce trends such as mobile shopping, subscription-based services, and personalized shopping experiences. These new themes and plugins enhance the online shopping experience and we can expect to see more in 2018.

  • Magic 360 – Magic 360 lets ecommerce websites get in on the virtual reality trend. This plugin allows users to create and upload 360° images to product pages.
  • Uncode – Uncode is an incredibly versatile ecommerce theme that loads quickly and is responsive, making it ideal for mobile shopping.
  • WooCommerce 360 Image – WooCommerce powers most WordPress ecommerce websites and it offers a slew of add-ons. The WooCommerce 360 Image enhances your product pages by adding a responsive 360º image rotation to your products.

Dynamic Drag-and-Drop Themes

WordPress offers many basic layout themes for free, but custom websites that make use of the expansive theme library are well worth the investment. Themes range from simple to complex at various price points to account for any kind of business. “Drag-and-drop” themes allow users to create and customize websites without writing any code. These are particularly appealing to non-coders, but since these types of themes are becoming more dynamic, developers are also taking advantage of them. Drag-and-drop makes experimenting with different plugins and layouts easy. Want to experiment with 360° images? Simply drag and drop a 360° widget and see if it increases sales of a particular product! Here are a few examples of dynamic drag-and-drop WordPress themes:

  • Divi – Divi is an all-inclusive WordPress theme that has a visual builder and 46 content elements to completely customize your website.
  • KALLYAS – KALLYAS is a dream for ecommerce website owners. This drag-and-drop theme is responsive, lightweight, and includes over 100 elements to build your website.
  • X – X is an easy-to-use drag-and-drop theme that is constantly adding new elements for you to add to your website.

Are You Making the Most of Your WordPress Website?

At Houston Web Design Agency, we are committed to helping our customers create well-optimized and highly-converting WordPress websites for their businesses. Our Houston WordPress web developers always keep up with the latest web design trends and are here to help you! Give us a call at 281-764-9070 or click here to schedule a consultation.