Web development is considered a broad term to mean designing a site for the internet. So it may include things such as web design, content development, client/server scripting, and many others. If you have a website, or planning to host one soon, it’s important that you know what’s currently going on in the industry. We’ve seen trends coming and going, and some have survived for quite long. For instance, there are trends that begun in 2012, and they are still actively being used today. Then there are others that didn’t make it past 2013.

Web development trends that won’t go away

Content development
Sites that receive massive traffic are always concerned with generating quality content, instead of dropping content on a finished website. Content is usually simple and minimalistic to provide visitors with the exact thing they want. So developing a site built around good content is likely to generate traffic and good conversions for the eCommerce websites.

Responsive web design
This trend begun back in 2012, and is here to stay forever. It works around an existing style to make a website responsive when being used on mobile devices. The generation of smartphone and tablets has seen many web developers create their websites in such a way that they can easily be accessed remotely, without the need for users to download special apps.

Metro style
Inspired by the release of Windows 8, many websites are now focusing on content-first design, while keeping it simple. Many web designers now follow a theme similar to that of Windows Metro 8. This style arranges content into grid-style boxes, large icons and roll-over effects. It’s popular with photographers.

Retina display
We first heard about it with iOS devices in 2012. It’s a way of saying that devices display liquid crystal clear content due to extreme high density pixel. The company claims that this technology is so complex that the human eye won’t notice the pixelation when the gadget is held on a typical viewing distance. There’s a segment of web users who browse using these products. In response to this, web developers now use CSS responsive design together with high-quality image resolutions to take advantage of this segment of the market.

Infinite scrolling
Today, popular social media sites use this technique instead of having to subject users to load next page content manually. When you scroll, the page is able to automatically load more content once you reach the bottom. In web development, this is a popular trend because they simply want to improve the user experience instead of forcing them to load pages manually.

There are many ways in which web developers are improving user experience of sites they build. If you have an online business, this is also very important as you want users to stay longer on your site. The assumption is that if the browsing experience is flawless, then they will stay longer. Depending on the nature of business you are conducting on the web, your website needs may also vary. For example, if you are a photographer, your website won’t look like an eCommerce or a gambling website.

It’s not just good for business when you have a large number of customers; it’s really beneficial in terms of analysing a marketing campaign. If you are tracking your customer behaviour, you can see the path they took to become a customer.

You can also see where some visitors lost interest and moved to another website, and that means you’re able to make adjustments to improve the experience you provide. Some individuals will take a while, checking each of you pages before deciding on making a purchase, while others will go straight to the page they’re looking for and make a purchase.

This means that you have to look at audience behaviour carefully, and it’s important to not make any changes that can potentially discourage a large number of visitors from making purchases. Every customer is unique and your website should be able to cater for all of their needs, with plenty of engaging content, a straightforward navigation and accurate product details and prices.

The supermarket chain has worked closely with its online partner, Ocado, at the service, including various features only available on Ocado’s own offering. This includes the power to import their shopping lists from the sites of Tesco, Asda, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Ocado itself.

“By enabling customers with one click to import their favourites we’ll be bringing switching to the web grocery store,” said CEO Dalton Philips, speaking at an event to launch the plans in London, consistent with Reuters.

Customers can also be given one-hour delivery slots and receive a text when the motive force is the way in which that incorporates their name. The web ordering system shall be available on PCs, in addition via a tablet and smartphone app.

Morrisons is creating a late entry into the web grocery market, among the sector’s fastest growing areas. This has dented its profit and market share, with like-for-like sales down 2.4 per cent within the three months to three November, the seventh straight quarter of declines.

The firm inked a tackle Ocado in May, investing £216m in a 25-year agreement. It plans to launch the service in Warwickshire and West Yorkshire in January 2014, before rolling it out to London and South Yorkshire by the summer and bringing it to the North West by the tip of next year, in which time it’ll be available to 50 per cent of UK households.

Morrisons is hoping to lure customers with a focal point on fresh food, which usually generates more cash than other groceries. The supermarket is employing a team to evaluate products and provides them a celebrity rating and offering detailed product information, giving customers more choice in, as an example, selecting the kind and thickness of cut when ordering meat.

The supermarket can be including packaging so that they can help prevent damage to delicate items corresponding to bananas and the possibility for purchasers to evaluate the traditional of goods on delivery and receive money-off vouchers in the event that they aren’t as much as scratch.

Retail analysts IGD said that despite Morrison’s late entry into the net grocery market, that’s “optimistic” concerning the service’s potential.

“Morrisons has developed a proposition that reflects its key strengths. The retailer has also considered learn how to encourage switching – giving shoppers the likelihood to import their favourites from other stores simply and painlessly – removing a key barrier. This may be important in a market during which habits for lots of are engrained and will accelerate progression of the retailer’s multichannel strategy.”

Speaking on the Marketing Society’s Creativity for Commerce conference in London today (21 November), Robertson said that the significance of high street stores, which have been once a large asset for outlets, is at the decline as shoppers increasingly head online.

“High street stores used to secure retailers x amount of sales. But now eyeballs aren’t taking place the high street as frequently and they’re going surfing . i will put a brand like River Island on Asos and that i can put a brand like Needle and Threat, that nobody has heard of, next to them.

“In the customer’s mind the asset that made the emblem big, the high street, isn’t there anymore. That’s great news for smaller fashion labels, not so excellent news for enormous brands and their dominance will begin to reduce.”

Nevertheless, Asos is raring to court the large retail brands, with Robertson claiming that his site can open up a brand new international market to British retailers.

“London is an awesome hotbed of young fast fashion. What ASOS has done is take what the united kingdom is brilliant at, young fast fashion, put all those brands together in a single place, like putting a roof over Oxford Street after which exported it.

“We are helping fashion brands go international at zero cost to them. A brand like River Island, that’s phenomenally successful over here but has no business outside the united kingdom, they arrive with us, and suddenly they’re getting revenues from places they’d never has been ready to get to as a high street retailer,” he said.

One brand that Asos doesn’t have on board is Primark. The high street retailer undertook a really limited trial with Asos earlier in June, but ended it just three months later, insisting it had no further plans to transport into ecommerce.

Robertson suggested the trial wasn’t successful as the two companies couldn’t make the venture profitable.

“We trialled with Primark. We tried to make it work [but] with a free shipping model in the event that they only buy an item from Primark from us we’re probably losing money. We’re attempting to earn money within the process so it only works in the event that they buy something from Primark and two other things in order that the basket is three things. Then we will be able to pretty much do it,” he said.

Robertson also ruled out Asos ever opening a physical store, calling the move “counterintuitive”. He said 30 per cent of the site’s traffic already comes from mobile and its customers buy as much as 80 per cent in their fast fashion online.

The firm does have a presence within the physical world, however, publishing a monthly magazine showcasing the most recent fashion trends and types written by fashion journalists. Robertson said the magazine happened as the best way to take advantage of marketing to symbolize Asos and what the emblem stands for.

“The first pound of selling a web business goes into delivery and returns and we spend £100m a year on making that free. The second one pound goes into how best to symbolize Asos. So we use content: our emails, the trend magazine, the mobile app.

“The convergence between retail and media, here is it. The business model for magazines that was advertising revenues is now clothes sales.”