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Future-Proof Your Website: Accessibility, Privacy Policies, Hosting, and more…

By Gravity Forms Published July 23, 2020

WordPress is currently the leading CMS, powering more than 37% of websites worldwide. This advanced software enables users to build custom sites, and it’s supported by its own ecosystem of products, services, and developers. So if you’ve chosen to build your website with WordPress, you’re on the right track.

However, although your website might be functioning perfectly right now, you never know what may be round the corner. By staying ahead of the game, anticipating problems, and adapting to changing trends, you will be able to keep your website up-and-running whatever the future brings – continuing to cater to the needs of your audience, and ensuring that your business doesn’t get left behind.

In this article, we look at four strategies that you can implement now to ensure your website is fully future-proofed. These include…

• Using Extendible Plugins
• Choosing a Flexible Hosting Provider
• Keeping Up-to-Date with Accessibility Standards
• Adhering to Privacy Laws

Ready to find out more?

Use Extendible Plugins

Great news if you’re using WordPress – there’s a plugin for almost any feature that you want to add to your website. However, when choosing a plugin, it’s vital that you think about your future needs as well as your current requirements and then pick your plugins accordingly.

For example, today you might want to launch your website with a basic contact form. In this situation, you could choose from the countless free contact form plugins for WordPress. However, if you think ahead, there might be a point in the not too distant future where you want to take payments on your website or integrate your contact forms with a third party CRM or email marketing solution.

If that is the case you need to make sure you choose a plugin that either includes the relevant features or can be extended by installing add-ons. Gravity Forms is an example of such a plugin. It has a Basic license, which is more than enough to get started with, and above that there are two further plans which can add even more functionality to your website.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, there’s a large ecosystem of add-ons that have been created by third-party developers that enable your forms to be connected with almost any system and let you create forms for almost any purpose.

So when choosing a plugin, don’t just think about what you need now – look for extendible plugins that will future-proof your website. Doing so will prevent you from having to migrate to a new system which can be a waste of time and resources, while also being confusing for your users.

Choose a Flexible Hosting Provider

Having the right hosting for your website is crucial – a good hosting company ensures that your site loads quickly and keeps downtime to a minimum. This can help SEO, improve user experience on your site, and ultimately boost conversions.

However, the hosting needs of your website will change over time. Therefore, you need to choose a hosting solution that will scale as your business grows. When considering a host, don’t just look at the plan you need now, instead look multiple steps down the road and see if that hosting provider has a plan for those scenarios.

Convesio is a good example of a hosting company that has high-quality yet affordable entry-level plans, as well as more well-resourced options for bigger businesses.

Not only that, but if your website suddenly starts requiring extra resources your site’s performance won’t suffer. Convesio’s impressive auto-scaling feature will detect what resources your website needs and automatically allocate them in order to deliver an uninterrupted and smooth user experience.

Keep Up-to-Date with Accessibility Standards

As we’ve seen, it’s vital to think of the future when creating your website and building its infrastructure. However, you also need to keep up-to-date with the latest accessibility standards.

It’s not enough to deliver a fast loading and feature-rich website. You must also make sure that everyone is able to access your website regardless of disability, technology, location, or other factors.

On average 20% of traffic to all websites will have trouble accessing content. The reasons for this may vary, but it is your responsibility as a website owner to accommodate that 20% and their needs. To do this, it is vital that you not only choose software, themes, and plugins that are built to the latest accessibility standards, but that you also follow the best practices for accessibility each time you publish content on your site.

The laws on web accessibility are evolving, so by staying informed you will be able to ensure your website is accessible to all as well as protect your business from lawsuits.

Gravity Forms is committed to accessibility and the upcoming release of v2.5 is focused on solidifying its position as the most accessible form builder on the market. 2.5 is currently available as a beta and for Gravity Forms users it can be downloaded from within your Gravity Forms dashboard. For more information on 2.5 and the beta period, check out the docs.

Adhere to Privacy Laws

Like accessibility laws, the laws on privacy are also constantly changing, but on a much broader and faster scale. Data collection, and the handling of data, has become a global concern, with many countries, and in fact numerous states, all implementing their own privacy laws to protect consumers.

Already it is vital that your website has a privacy policy, but with laws ever-changing, you need to ensure that your policies remain in-date as we move forward. Termageddon is an impressive service that generates and then auto-updates privacy policies for websites or agencies of any size.

By embedding an auto-updating privacy policy on your website, that updates as the laws around the globe change, you are ensuring that your website is protected from privacy-related lawsuits – at present and in the future.

Interested in what Termageddon has to offer? Use promo code GRAVITY for 10% off your first order.

Final Thoughts on How to Future-Proof Your Website

The online sphere is constantly changing, so implementing strategies to future-proof your WordPress website is a must. By considering the long game, and choosing plugins and services that will help your site adapt and grow, you will ensure your website stays ahead of the game and remains successful and profitable.

Interested in Convesio hosting? Start your free trial today.

This article has been contributed by the editorial team from Ellipsis Marketing Agency.

If you are interested in writing for Gravity Forms, please check out our Guest Writing for Gravity Forms page.