What can WordPress expect in 2020?

WordPress will continue to be the most popular website building tool among all kinds of target groups in 2020. However, that does not mean that the service is standing still. On the contrary: 2020 will be a year full of innovations and developments for WordPress. We take you into the most important trends.

1. Integration with chatbots

Since WordPress supports integration with chatbots, steady growth has been seen in the number of WordPress-built sites that are helping visitors get started with live chat. This growth will continue in 2020 and we will see chatbots added on all kinds of sites. A nice development that is in the interest of the owner of the site as well as its visitor.

2. AI

According to many, the biggest trend of the moment: AI applications. The impact of AI is of course also great on WordPress and in the coming years we will see a lot of AI features reflected in WordPress sites. AI applications make websites more relevant and user-friendly; more than logical, therefore, that developments in this area are followed with suspicion by WordPress.

3. Multi-purpose themes

More and more users opt for a so-called multi-purpose theme in WordPress, for the simple reason that with such a theme you can easily maintain multiple websites with one dataset. This saves a huge amount of work in the field of content management for large companies. In 2020 we will see an explosion in the number of users of this type of theme, and therefore also an explosion in the number of multi-purpose themes.

4. Optimization of voice search

The number of searches via voice (think Alexa or Google voice assistant) is growing steadily and WordPress is going along with that. Now that the share of voice searches in the total number of searches becomes significant, good voice support is crucial to remain relevant and therefore SEO-proof. This is typically a trend that is hugely relevant for both freelancers and large business users of WordPress.

5. Gutenberg editor: Drag and drop

The days when you had to be able to code to build a website are over, but also the drastically simplified website builder of WordPress is far from a cut for some of the users. That is no shame, because if you do not find IT interesting and are just busy with your actual profession, you have other things to do than figuring out how to build a website. The answer is the so-called Gutenberg editor, the new one drag and drop editor in WordPress, which allows you to build websites using the principle of what you see is what you get. In short: all your content is placed in blocks and you can mess around in those blocks. Move a text box, change buttons and adjust illustrations; you do it all in your homepage. Coding is done automatically in the background.

6. More e-commerce

WordPress was once mainly suitable for your blog or to display your portfolio, but will increasingly be used in 2020 to build e-commerce websites. So run direct sales from your WordPress website. There is for that WooCommerce, which also allows you to easily convert your existing WordPress site into an e-commerce platform. Turning your hobby into work has never been easier, you would say.

7. More large companies

All of the above trends have one very nice consequence for WordPress itself: more and more large, influential customers are coming. Now that WordPress supports live chat, has AI applications, offers more multi-purpose themes and can support a good sales platform, it is interesting for more and more large enterprises to use WordPress as the basis for their own website. A compliment for WordPress, but also good news for the smaller user: the more large customers, the faster the developments on the platform will follow each other. And of course everyone benefits from that.

Just curious about alternatives to WordPress in 2020? Read on here.