Did you know that there are approximately 8 months and 2 weeks till January 2014? What?! 2014 already? You might think that’s still too far away but in reality, big businesses usually have 2-year, 3-year, and 5-year plans already pencilled in place. It’s not unusual for them to think beyond today and they probably already have activities and processes scheduled even beyond that time frame.

So what’s our fearless forecast for 2014? Is it too early to tell? Let’s take a few “wild” but calculated guesses on what we think is to come.

Mobile – The Handheld and Portable Desktop

This forecast is not new and developments in the past 2 years or so have all been pointing to this direction. Smartphones, tablets, androids, iOs devices are more and more in stiff competition with each other as people rely more and more on their devices to get everything done. As this trend continues, WordPress theme authors and developers need to think of ways, as early as now, not just adapt to the move but perhaps innovate something revolutionary that will inspire a fresh way of doing things. The move towards drag, drop, click one button, one size fits all types of themes is great but could always be better – more personalized, easier to customize and brand, and perhaps an easy to maneuver app-like admin panel – especially on a tiny 3.5” inch display using a tiny unwieldy touch keyboard.

Retina Display

Manufacturers of LCD, LED, HD and all the other display devices are probably well into production already filled with orders for the Christmas season and early next year and we bet that retina display is high up in one of their specs somewhere. What to do? WordPress authors and developers need to update, create, and optimize themes in anticipation of that. Apple is already set to require retina display in their iOS apps which means all current apps need to be updated and all future apps need to be designed with this in mind. Android phones are probably not too far behind. Mobile versions of WordPress themes need to anticipate this as well.

User Friendly Analytics

As Google continues to purge the SERPS from “spammy” and over “optimized” websites, perhaps more simple and built-in tools to help provide the average WordPress user the statistics needed to analyze and improve key aspects of his or her website. There are numerous plugins that add functionalities like performance and analytics to determine site speed, word frequencies, user interactivity, analytics and all those wonderful tools but it would be nice to have all these capabilities, in simple user friendly format, already built into the theme to reduce risks of compatibility issues.

Design

Simple and minimalistic designs will continue on till the next year with designs becoming more and more intuitive eliminating a lot of code fear and analysis on the part of the user. Features will still be consumer driven but will eventually be trimmed down to the essentials as more and more WordPress users become more educated and less “awed” by multiple sliders and 1000+ ways to change colors and backgrounds.

More Social

Social networking through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and other similar websites have made it so simple for people to connect with each other. WordPress themes need features like these that make it as simple and as easy for the website owner to encourage more user interactivity within his website and his other social media networks. The flow from website to social networks needs to be seamless and streamlined to encourage more interconnectivity, engagement, and exchange. It’s part of the high quality ranking site Google equation.

Of course, nothing is carved in stone and anything can happen between now and then. These are fearless or fearful forecasts, you might say. It does help to understand how businesses move – whether they are aggressive or conservative in their strategies, and to keep abreast of what is going on in the whole web design industry in general. That way, your efforts as a WordPress professional will be more strategic and more deliberate.

Great content is at the mercy of site speed. No matter how wonderful your content is, taking more than 4 seconds to load can mean significant loss of traffic and loss of potential income for your website. Why? People hate slow websites. The slower it takes for your page to load, the faster people leave it. Patience is not a virtue when it comes to the internet. That is why site speed is important.

Google is obsessed with site speed and has incorporated it as one of the signals for determining search rankings. In a previous article on determining a website’s quality score , we learned that user experience is now a major element and part of the equation in determining and improving your site’s ranking. A fast site creates satisfied users, improves user experience, and improves overall site quality and performance.

If your website is taking longer to load than necessary, it’s time to take stock and audit the elements causing the delay. Here’s a checklist of some of the things you need to consider as you work on improving your site’s performance:

• Use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to load heavy scripts and images and to lighten the load on your server.
• Optimize caching – Browser caching stores cached versions of static resources. This speeds up page speed tremendously and reduces server lag.
• Remove/Reduce/Compress large images, videos, and other content. Resize and optimize images for web use. Specify image dimensions and use the right image format.
• Minify JavaScript and remove unused CSS files. Reduce HTTP loading requests for CSS style sheets, scripts, images, and HTML
• Remove/Reduce/Deactivate unnecessary or unused widgets or plugins. Plugins and widgets are bandwidth thieves. Try deactivating all of your plugins to test your speed. Activate a widget or a plugin one at a time to see which one is the speed culprit.
• Check the loading time of your ads or affiliate codes to see how they affect page speed.
• Check your WordPress theme for compatibility issues with your WordPress version or your browsers.
• Choose a good web host or switch to a better one with a proven uptime track record if necessary.

Here are some of the tools you can use to help you analyze your site’s performance:

Page Speed

Page Speed evaluates performance from the client point of view, typically measured as the page load time. This is the lapsed time between the moment a user requests a new page and the moment the page is fully rendered by the browser.

Yahoo! YSlow

Firefox/Firebug Add-on that analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance, based on a set of rules for high performance web pages.

Google Analytics Plugin by Yoast

Google Analytics for WordPress plugin allows you to track your blog easily and with lots of metadata: views per author & category, automatic tracking of outbound clicks and page views.

Pingdom Website Speed Test

Pingdom offers cost-effective and reliable server, network and website monitoring. They use a global network of servers to monitor customers’ sites 24/7, all year long. The service includes statistics for uptime and response time, and can send out alerts via SMS, email, and more.

W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is designed to improve user experience and page speed of your site by increasing server performance, reducing the download times and providing transparent content delivery network (CDN) integration.

In conclusion, as far as website essentials go, the adage “less is more” is best. Sticking to only what’s necessary and throwing away what is not needed will help your website float to the top. The faster your website loads, the better your site performs and the experience your users have will be more pleasant, favorable, and hopefully more memorable, making them want to come back for more.