5 Hottest Web Development Trends in 2019

We’re well into 2019 now, and the web development world is in many ways different from the 2018 edition. While all of the front-end technologies and practices that piqued people’s excitement in the last twelve months or so are still here, new trends are gradually cropping up.

The key principle that all web developers, including the Site Slinger experts, strive to follow, though, remains unchanged. It’s the need to engage users and personalize their digital experience. We’ve prepared a rundown of the most notable web development trends in 2019 that focus on these goals exactly.

Progressive Web Apps Versus Responsive Websites: Meet the Winner

First, there were static websites with just HTML and not much else. Then came CSS, Javascript, and other technologies that made websites more dynamic and responsive. These days, however, responsiveness has transformed into a much broader notion.

Just a responsive website is no longer enough to meet the users’ growing demands in 2019. On certain devices, it may not look as attractive as you might expect. That limitation gave rise to an alternative solution: Progressive Web Apps (PWA).

A PWA is a website that perfectly adapts to the specifics of the device where it gets displayed: screen resolution and size, browser, and hardware features. As a result, it’s almost impossible to notice any differences between a PWA and a native app.

Here are the key benefits that PWAs give web developers and users:

Since they can access the device’s hardware, you can use PWAs offline.
They’re fast, even on outdated or poor-quality devices with a weak signal.
They’re a step up in security compared with responsive websites
They are cost-effective and less time-consuming to create.

Your main takeaway? Lower bounce and higher conversion rates.

“How may I help you?” — AI and Chatbots

According to a recent report from Gartner, 37% of organizations have implemented Artificial Intelligence in various forms, and this trend is going to continue in the foreseeable future.

Almost every business website uses a live chat as a permanent point of connection with consumers. Now, this feature has become more sophisticated. No more need to hire a human support agent waiting for a customer to text a question at 3 a.m.

Just get a chatbot made and keep it running day and night. Thanks to the breakthrough in Natural Language Processing, chatbots no longer resemble mechanically speaking toys. They’re now able to answer typical questions from the Q&A page in a much more meaningful way and even solve simple issues that users may encounter.

So, expect chatbot development to remain in high demand in 2019 and years to come.

Push Notifications: Everywhere, Anywhere

Email newsletters are still a popular way to inform consumers of new services or update them on company news. However, they are slowly but steadily being replaced by push notifications.

In the past, these unobtrusive messages used to be limited to mobile devices. In 2019, an increasing number of website owners regard push notifications as a more valuable tool to stay in touch with their users.

Which is better: the inbox drowned in hundreds of newsletters or a tiny notification icon on the toolbar? We would choose the latter. You can add the push notification feature to a website by subscribing to a service like PushWoosh. WordPress website owners can also take advantage of various dedicated plugins like PushEngage.

The Site Slinger has implemented thousands of WordPress projects over the years. We are providers of all the services related to this most popular CMS in the world, including theming, customizing existing or building custom plugins from scratch.

No More Coding! Use Blocks

New versions of content management systems provide more powerful features to their users than ever before. Know nothing about CSS rules or HTML tags? It’s OK. You can still put together a sleek web page just like a professional web designer does (well, almost).

Simply take ready-made blocks or modules and mix them together. The website module building is only expected to grow in popularity in 2019 and beyond. That’s particularly true for WordPress users, who can use Gutenberg to “make adding rich content to WordPress simple and enjoyable.”

Smooth Website Navigation: Motion UI

Websites with visually appealing and simple navigation elements are likely to hold users’ attention for a longer span. When they know where to go and find surfing a website enjoyable, they will keep returning to it.

Creating smooth and straightforward navigation by using CSS animations/transitions is a trend that shows no signs of stopping in 2019. Motion UI is one of the best web development libraries for that purpose, flexible and customizable.

The Site Slinger web developers are skilled in creating dynamic and modern-looking interfaces by using a range of cutting-edge tools and libraries.

Concluding Thoughts

There’s no doubt: the web development industry is going to keep on flourishing. Websites and web apps are going to be faster, more secure, interactive, and AI-wise. Whatever modern technologies you select for your website, the top-of-the-line developers from The Site Slinger are always at your service.

7 Tips on Making Your WordPress Site Hack-Proof Without Changing a Line of Code

According to the latest statistical data, the number of WordPress-based websites in the United States is over 9.6 million. WordPress is the most popular open-source platform in the world, boasting a share of over 50%. It powers numerous types of websites, starting from blogs and job boards and ending with business directories and Q&A websites.

Such tremendous popularity, though, comes at a cost. Cybercriminals of all kinds try to break into WordPress-powered websites and, unfortunately, succeed far too often. The WPScan Vulnerability Database currently lists over 16,700 WordPress core, plugin, and theme vulnerabilities—enough for any hacker to feel hopeful.

The WordPress Security Team

That said, the WordPress Security Team is very strong. It includes 50 top professionals who constantly monitor the WordPress security shield and eliminate any weak spots in it. Watch this video to learn more about the Security Team’s working process.

Over the years, WordPress has become more stable and secure. However, making the system’s core less vulnerable to attacks is only part of the solution. The Security Team’s duties don’t include checking the themes or plugins available at wordpress.org. Anyone who’s willing and has enough time can review those. As a result, security breaches through plugins and themes are quite frequent.

The Most Common Threats to a WP Site from Hackers

Installing malicious software. Cybercriminals implant their code into a WordPress site’s files and use it to collect confidential data secretly.
Cross-site scripting. A hacker tricks a WordPress site user into loading pages with JavaScript code. The code steals private data from the site user’s browser and sends it to the hacker over the Internet.
Injecting SQL code. Once a criminal breaks into a WP site’s database, they can inject SQL code for creating a new user. Then, they can log in at any time and use the site’s files in any way they want without the owner suspecting anything.
Including PHP files. PHP is the programming language that allows WordPress to do all the great stuff it does. A hacker can find a way to upload their PHP scripts into a WP site’s directories and use those for their criminal purposes. This is the most common method of taking control of the crucial WP file wp-config.php
Brute force attacks. These mean bombarding the login screen with millions of nickname/password combinations in order to stumble upon the right credentials. What’s sad — this savage approach often yields positive results for the hacker.

While cybercriminals’ tricks may seem too clever for a layman to counteract, you can prevent many of them by applying 8 simple techniques we’ve described below. No knowledge of coding is required.

Essential Tips on Protecting a WordPress Site from Intrusion

1. Avoid Using a Weak Password

Let’s start with the essential measures to avoid brute force attacks. We can’t stress enough the importance of a good, hard-to-guess password. A password that only includes 6 random digits or characters is the surest way to losing your valuable data sooner rather than later. With powerful modern technologies, any hacker will be able to crack a password like that in no time.

A strong password means a well-mixed combination of digits, letters in lower and upper case, and special characters. View Google’s recommendations, for example.

Make your password unique and as unrelated to your life as possible. Avoid including your apartment number, spouse’s name, child’s birthday, or any similar information. Many people prefer coining a lengthy phrase instead of an arbitrary array of characters or numbers to make a hacker’s task more difficult.

Does coming up with a strong password seem an excessively challenging task? Then, use one of the numerous password generators like this one. Find it hard to remember passwords? Then, take advantage of this free tool to store them securely.

Finally, a password is not something carved in stone. Depending on how sensitive your data is, consider changing your password weekly or monthly.

2. Bring the Number of Login Attempts to a Minimum

Another way to protect your site against brute force attacks is to allow users to make just a few login attempts in a row. By default, WordPress doesn’t restrict users in the number of times they may try to sign in. Hackers adore this feature, as they can enter a multitude of username/password pairs into the login form in the hope of breaking inside.

Leaving one login attempt is not enough. Sometimes users forget to press the Shift key when necessary or enter a hyphen instead of an underscore. So give your users a chance to try to log in three-four times. If they fail, block them for a certain period.

How can you achieve that? Install the Limit Login Attempts Reloaded plugin. Then, go to Settings, select the plugin, and change the values in the fields under the Lockout category. You can increase the lockout time if more unsuccessful attempts are made after the first time a possible hacker has been blocked.

3. Select a Hosting Provider with a Strong Security Mechanism

When it comes to hosting, any business faces a big dilemma: pay less but get fewer features and weaker security, or pay more and get more features and stronger protection. If your budget allows it, we highly recommend spending more money on hosting that offers several security layers.

Otherwise, you’re running a risk of losing your data or letting crooks redirect your traffic to other sites. High-quality hosting companies perform daily scans for malware and monitor any attempts to gain unauthorized access to the hosted sites.

4. Implement an SSL Certificate

Transmitting data from a server to a browser over the Internet without an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Certificate is like leaving your personal diary in a public place for everyone to read. An SSL certificate, on the other hand, allows you to encrypt all your data, making it impossible for cybercriminals to decipher.
There are two ways you can get an SSL certificate:

Purchase it from a provider.
Use the free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate offered by your hosting company.

The paid option is preferable if you have enough financial resources. To get a better insight into the difference between a paid and free SSL certificates, read this post.

Installing an SSL certificate not only makes your WP site more secure but also improves its search engine visibility. Google considers ‘https://’ at the beginning of a URL an important factor and ranks the site higher.

5. Make Regular Backups of Your Site

Hackers are very inventive. Whatever measures you take to protect your WordPress site, there’s always a potential crack in the armor through which a criminal can get inside. So, it’s advisable to have a working copy of the website safely stored in a place where no one can get hold of it, like an external hard drive.

How often do you need to make backups? It depends on the scale of your business activities. For small and medium-sized companies, a monthly backup is probably sufficient. The sensitivity of information is also important in this respect.

There are some excellent backup plugins that make copying a site’s files easy and fast. One of them is BackWPup. It’s simple in operation and comes with a series of training videos to get you up to speed. You can plan and schedule backup jobs and push backup archives to an external storage service if you don’t want to store them on the same server.

6. Keep Everything Up to Date

Have a look at the long list of WordPress versions that have been released since 2003. Every new version added something to the core functionality of the CMS including security patches.

That’s the reason why updating the WordPress core as well as its plugins and themes is so important. It helps you avoid dangerous security breaches. In the same video about the WordPress Security team, Aaron Campbell says that the Team postpones the announcements about new security improvements closer to release dates so that hackers couldn’t use that information to their advantage.

While WordPress automatically performs minor updates, dealing with major ones is the user’s responsibility. So, keep track of the WordPress versions and update plugins and themes. To do this, go to the Plugins page and click the Update Now link next to a specific plugin if this link is available.

7. Monitor Your Website for Malware with a Security Plugin

Finally, installing a security plugin to monitor your website for any malicious software installation is a must. A person who’s not versed in coding may not even understand that a hacker has infected their WordPress site with bad code. A plugin, on the other hand, is capable of analyzing the files and detecting any code injected by hackers.

In our opinion, one of the best plugins for this purpose is iThemes Security. It has been installed on more than 900,000 sites and performs a wide range of functions. It blocks bad users, monitors the site and reports suspicious changes to the file system and database, hides common security vulnerabilities (e.g., changes the URLs for WordPress dashboard areas, including login and admin), regularly updates the WP database, and does other useful things.

Conclusion

The security of a WordPress website is not something to be taken lightly. Cybercriminals are always searching for new loopholes and trying to exploit them. The techniques we’ve listed above are essential for the health and safety of your site.

To make your WP site even more secure, tweaking its code is necessary. That job should be left to professionals. The Site Slinger’s highly skilled and experienced WP developers can help you with many WP-related tasks such as PSD to WordPress conversion. Tell us what you need and we’ll get it done.

Best Resources for Learning WordPress Development

Odds are, if you’re a web developer, learning WordPress is either on your todo list or something that you’ve already committed yourself to. Learning to build WordPress themes is an excellent professional move that will open you to a wealth of new clients and personal opportunities.

To follow up our article last week on tutorials for learning web design, below is a list of books and free tutorials specifically targeted at learning to develop for WordPress. Whether you’ve never heard of WordPress or are just looking to update your current WordPress skill set, there are plenty of resources below to get you on your way.

Free Tutorials

If you’re on a budget and need to learn quick, free tutorials provide a great way to get started and provide just enough information to help you pick up WordPress without bogging you down with too much unnecessary extras.

WordPress 3.0: Ultimate Guide to New Features (Six Revisions)

Many of the articles below are for older versions of WordPress so I wanted to begin by pointing out this guide to WordPress 3.0. The older articles still have plenty of solid information and relevant examples, just be sure to keep the newest version of WordPress in mind when reading them.

How to Create a WordPress Theme from Scratch: NetTuts

“Following on from the recent article on “PSD to HTML”, this tutorial will look at taking a HTML/CSS template and turning it into a functioning WordPress theme. There is so much you can do when creating your own theme we couldn’t nearly cover it all. So, we’re going to look at how themes are structured, creation of the core files and splitting up that index.html file.”

Designing for WordPress: CSS Tricks

“Over the last few weeks, I have been been doing a video screencast series on Designing for WordPress. It is a three-part series which covers downloading and installing WordPress on a server all the way to a completed theme.”

Premium WordPress Theme Design: Design Reviver

“This time you’ll learn how to slice the design and convert it into XHTML + CSS, then I’ll show you how to use the css files to mock-up a WordPress template.”

WordPress Theme Development Checklist: divtodesign

“As you might know, I have been diving into WordPress theme development and I’ve learned many tips and tricks along the way. I noticed I was forgetting about some small issues all the time. That’s why I decided to make a WordPress Theme Development Checklist. ”

How To Create WordPress Themes From Scratch: ThemeTation

“I’m going to show you how to create a wordpress theme from scratch in these 3 parts of tutorial series. I will cover from Structuring, designing in Photoshop, slicing, coding into fully css based html, and finally wordpress implementation.”

Creating WordPress Themes: Introduction

“This new series will begin with the basics and then I’ll proceed to more advanced techniques. I will also be incorporating different techniques that I’ve picked up from other developers that I’ve found to be extremely handy, and I’ll be providing links and credits to that info as I go along.”

Developing a WordPress Theme: Dezinerfolio

“Instead of coming up with some more themes, we decided to write a tutorial on how to develop a wordpress theme which we are sure will help a lot of you to design as you wish and bring them out into wordpress. We are not too advanced wordpress developers but still we are sure the below tutorial will help you successfully develop a wordpress theme. Below you will learn to convert your xHTML CSS site into a Compact WordPress Theme (final output is same as the normal theme but here code is shorter and easier to understand).”

How to Build a Custom WordPress Theme from Scratch: SpoonGraphics

“If you’re confident with your CSS and HTML, it’s not hard at all to step up to the challenge of building a custom WordPress theme. This overview shows the process of how my latest custom WordPress theme was built from design concept through to completed theme. See how the static design is split up into the various WordPress theme files, and discover how the simple PHP snippets can add that dynamic functionality of a blog.”

Creating A Quality WordPress Theme: 12 Points to Consider (Noupe)

“But what exactly makes a WordPress theme great? How does one go about creating a quality theme? In fact, it’s not that difficult. You can do a few simple things while developing your theme—from the planning stage right through coding—to make it stand out from the legions of average (and below-average) themes out there.”

Customize Your Own WordPress Theme: Vandelay Design

“An increasing number of businesses and website owners are using blogs as a means of communication with their customers and website visitors. If your business already has a website it is possible to have a blog that matches the look and feel of your existing website without doing a complete re-design and without paying thousands of dollars to have the blog developed. Using WordPress you can tailor an already existing blog theme to seamlessly flow with the rest of your website.”

Designing and Coding a WordPress Theme From Scratch: DeveloperTutorials

“In this multi-part series I’ll detail how to create and design a WordPress theme from nothing more than your imagination using Photoshop, CSS, XHTML and PHP.”

So you want to create WordPress themes huh?

“Creating a WordPress theme from scratch is not hard. I’ll hold your hand through it. Tutorials on this topic have been written before and the WordPress website also has guides for you to follow. But are those tutorials and guides really helpful to you when you don’t understand the lingo? Even I got lost while reading the WordPress guides.”

Create Your Own WordPress Theme from an HTML Template

“In this article, I’ll show you how to take an existing HTML and CSS site template and convert it into a theme for WordPress. Of course, WordPress theming is much too vast a topic to cover entirely in a single article, so I’ll provide you with some resources at the end to further your learning. It’s hoped, though, that this article will serve as a good introduction and give you a solid foundation to start learning about creating your own WordPress themes.”

How To Create a WordPress Theme: The Ultimate WordPress Theme Tutorial (ThemeShaper)

“In Only 11 Individual Lessons this WordPress Theme Tutorial is going to show you how to build a powerful, up-to-date, WordPress Theme from scratch. As we go along I’ll explain what’s happening including (for better or worse) my thinking on certain techniques and why I’m choosing one path over another. Essentially, I’ll be teaching you everything you need to know about WordPress Theme development.”

Building Custom WordPress Theme

“This chapter will show you how to build a custom WordPress theme. Although the Codex site provides very good documentations on how to create a theme, but I find it too complicated for a beginner. In this tutorial, I will explain the basics of how WordPress theme works and show you how to convert a static HTML template into a theme. No PHP skill is required, but you need Photoshop and CSS skills to create your own design.”

Books on WordPress

If you’re serious about becoming a professional WordPress developer, it’s time to pick up a good book on the subject. These are usually far more in-depth than free tutorials and really cover the material you need to know inside and out.

Below are a few great books to consider in your search. Some are physical books that you can purchase on Amazon, others downloadable PDFs.

Rockstar WordPress Designer: $29

“During the course of the book you’ll build THREE WordPress themes, a blog, a portfolio site and a general site with menus and submenus. Each theme demonstrates different aspects of WordPress theming and all three are packaged in with the book so you’ll have Photoshop, HTML, CSS and WordPress PHP files to refer to.”

Beginning WordPress 3: $26.99

“WordPress is one of the most popular blogging and content management web templating platforms—it easily allows you and your business to make a statement about yourself and what you do. WordPress is also quite cost-effective, as it’s free for just about anyone to use. WordPress is colorful and flexible, and includes a variety of themes, templates, and plug-ins for you to explore and use. Beginning WordPress 3 aims to address these for the beginner who wants to start using and developing with WordPress.”

WordPress For Dummies: $16.49

“The bestselling guide to WordPress, fully updated for newest version of WordPress. WordPress, the popular, free blogging platform, has been updated with new features and improvements. Bloggers who are new to WordPress will learn to take full advantage of its flexibility and usability with the advice in this friendly guide.”

Smashing WordPress: Beyond the Blog: $29.69

“Smashing WordPress shows you how to utilize the power of the WordPress platform, and provides a creative spark to help you build WordPress-powered sites that go beyond the obvious. You will learn the core concepts used to build just about anything in WordPress, resulting in fast deployments and greater design flexibility. Inside, WordPress expert Thord Daniel Hedengren takes you beyond the blog and shows you how WordPress can serve as a CMS, a photo gallery, an e-commerce site, and more.”

Professional WordPress: $29.69

“An in-depth look at the internals of the WordPress system. As the most popular blogging and content management platform available today, WordPress is a powerful tool. This exciting book goes beyond the basics and delves into the heart of the WordPress system, offering overviews of the functional aspects of WordPress as well as plug-in and theme development.”

WordPress: Visual QuickStart Guide

“This book gives readers the tools they need to create beautiful, functional WordPress-powered sites with minimal hassle. Using the WordPress user interface as a baseline, authors Jessica Neuman Beck and Matt Beck walk new users through the installation and setup process while providing valuable tips and tricks for more experienced users. With no other resource but this guide, readers can set up a fully-functional and well-designed WordPress site that takes advantage of all the features WordPress has to offer.”

Using WordPress: $16.49

“WordPress has grown into the #1 blogging tool in its category: several million bloggers have downloaded this powerful open source software, and millions more are using WordPress.com’s hosted services. Thirty-two of Technorati’s Top 100 blogs now use WordPress. Using WordPress is a customized, media-rich learning experience designed to help new users master WordPress quickly, and get the most out of it, fast! It starts with a concise, friendly, straight-to-the-point guide to WordPress. This exceptional book is fully integrated with an unprecedented collection of online learning resources: online video, screencasts, podcasts, and additional web content, all designed to reinforce key concepts and help users achieve real mastery. The book and online content work together to teach everything mainstream Wordpess users need to know.”

Head First WordPress: A Brain-Friendly Guide to Creating Your Own Custom WordPress Blog ($23.09)

“Whether you’re promoting your business or writing about your travel adventures, Head First WordPress will teach you not only how to make your blog look unique and attention-grabbing, but also how to take advantage of WordPress platform’s more complex features to make your website work well, too. You’ll learn how to move beyond the standard WordPress look and feel by customizing your blog with your own URL, templates, plugin functionality, and more. As you learn, you’ll be working with real WordPress files: The book’s website provides pre-fab WordPress themes to download and work with as you follow along with the text.”

Closing Thoughts

I hope the resources provide the catalyst you need to begin your journey as a WordPress developer. In closing, I want to remind you that the official WordPress codex is definitely on of the best resources out there for all things WordPress.

Let us know in the comments below if we left out any of your favorite tutorials or books for learning WordPress.