Welcome 2024! As we are about to begin another new year, we want to wish all our readers a happy and prosperous 2024. We are thankful for your continued support of our blog. Without you, our amazing community of WordPress users and website creators, we would not be where we are today.
In this post, we will first reflect on the events, updates, and changes we saw across the WordPress landscape in 2023. It was an eventful year with both challenges and innovations that have set the stage for 2024. We’ll briefly recap some of the highlights.
Our goal is to prepare you to start 2024 off right as a WordPress user, equipping you with knowledge and recommendations to make this year your best yet on your WordPress journey. We can’t wait to see what website dreams you turn into reality this year!
2023 Wrap Up For WordPress Users
The year 2023 was filled with major events, releases, updates that impacted the WordPress ecosystem. Let’s recap some of the key highlights.
In March, WordPress 5.9 “Josephine” was released with a sleek new refreshed admin UI providing an improved user experience for managing WordPress sites. This also included full site editing capabilities enabled by default for new sites.
July saw the official launch of WordPress 6.0 “Arturo”, introducing auto-updates allowing one-click updating of WordPress versions. This removed a major pain point site owners faced ensuring systems were updated. The release brought additional enhancements like pathname checks during updates to avoid potential content loss.
Of course we have to mention that in May, Google’s core update sparked major disruptions for content sites leading to drastic drops in organic traffic for many WordPress site owners. This highlighted the importance of staying informed on Google algorithm changes.
The page builder space continues rapidly innovating too. Elementor celebrated 5 years in the market, introducing ideas like dynamic content which allows conditions to display content, helping personalize pages. They also came up with cloud hosting with AI support. Competitor Divi by Elegant Themes launched improvements too like Cascade Transition animations between scrolled sections on long-form landing pages.
In the hosting and infrastructure realm, we saw major hosting providers like 10 Web, Hostinger used the power of AI, allowing site owners to integrate ChatGPT, MidJourney and other AI capabilities to understand content, answer questions and more which could emerge as a growing trend. Several managed hosts like Kinsta enhanced tier offerings for enterprise-grade WordPress needs.
From major WordPress updates to Google algorithm to exciting page builder capabilities and advances in managed WordPress infrastructure – there were no shortage of impactful events across every facet of the WordPress and web creator ecosystem last year. As we enter 2024 many of these innovations, lessons and shifts will no doubt influence priorities and plans in the coming year.
The recap only scratches the surface but hits some of the highlights we wanted to share to set the stage before we dive into recommendations to leverage products and tools to maximize success with WordPress in 2024! Let us know your thoughts on the key events from last year in the comments.
AI Tools You Should Use In Your Website In 2024
Ready to explore top-notch AI plugins for your WordPress site? Check out our favorites and discover why these plugins stand out.
AI Engine
AI Engine, an advanced AI plugin, empowers users to craft personalized chatbots akin to ChatGPT. Unlock a plethora of features, including image and content generation, title suggestions, AI translation, and SEO recommendations. Easily discover synonyms, extend text length, and bid farewell to tedious stock photo searches. Leverage AI Copilot for streamlined post creation by ideation assistance. Utilizing OpenAI's API, the plugin enjoys over 30,000 active installations, offering a cost-free solution for users.
Key Features
- Chatbot customization
- Image and content generation
- Title recommendations
- AI translation
- SEO suggestions
- Synonym discovery
- Text length extension
- AI Copilot for ideation
AI Power
Experience the power of this open-source AI solution that effortlessly creates customizable content, forms, and more. Enjoy key features such as a chat widget, AI training, and seamless WooCommerce integration for optimal online shop performance. Benefit from an audio converter and pre-set prompts when you need inspiration. Say goodbye to toggling between ChatGPT and your WordPress website—AI Power bridges the gap.
Key Features
- Customizable Content
- Chat Widget
- AI Training
- WooCommerce Integration
- Audio Converter
- Ready-to-Use Prompts
- Seamless Integration
- Streamlined Workflow
Rank Math
Rank Math, the WordPress AI plugin designed to simplify your SEO tasks. Whether you're new to optimizing your WP site or a seasoned pro, this plugin offers built-in suggestions and allows you to manage indexable pages. Monitor keyword rankings effortlessly, regardless of your editor preference—classic or Gutenberg. The user-friendly interface ensures compatibility and ease of use.
Key Features
- Seamless SEO
- Built-in Suggestions
- Indexable Pages Control
- Keyword Ranking Tracking
- Editor Compatibility
- User-Friendly
- Ideal for Beginners
- Suitable for Experts
Formidable Forms
Formidable Forms, a longstanding favorite WordPress plugin, has elevated its capabilities by integrating AI. Now more potent than ever, it stands out as an ideal choice for those seeking to integrate AI-powered forms into their WordPress sites. With Formidable Forms AI, you can enable one field to observe user input in other fields. This innovative feature allows seamless integration with ChatGPT, delivering swift responses to user queries.
Key Features
- Rapid Responses
- Seamless Connection
- User Observance
- ChatGPT Integration
- Unique Capabilities
- AI Integration
- Powerful Forms
- Field Interaction
- Display data with Views.
- Dynamic relationships
10 Web AI Assistant
10Web is a WordPress plugin integrating AI to streamline content creation within your WordPress environment. It writes and edits copy in both classic and Gutenberg editors, eliminating the need to copy/paste content across platforms. The easy-to-use dashboard requires no technical skills to manage AI-generated drafts.
Key Features
- AI assistant
- Compatible editors
- Copy writing
- Copy editing
- Dashboard UI
- No copy/paste
- No technical skills
- User friendly
Tidio AI
Tidio integrates live chat and AI-powered chatbots to boost customer experience on WordPress sites. With over 100,000 active installs, it’s a proven plugin to enable seamless conversations, routing each chat to correct teams. The mobile-friendly chat widget ensures consistency across devices.
Key Features
- Live chat
- Chatbots
- AI-powered
- Mobile-friendly
- Popular plugin
- Route chats
- Seamless conversations
- Cross-device consistency
Elementor AI
Elementor AI is an innovative WordPress plugin from leading page builder Elementor that brings the power of artificial intelligence into the hands of everyday users. It aims to put advanced creative capabilities once reserved only for those with coding, graphic design or other technical skills within reach.
The plugin’s suite of AI tools supercharge your Elementor website across multiple facets like automatically generating visuals tailored to your creative direction. It also writes copy, improves existing text and even creates code like HTML, CSS and more based on your needs. This reduces the theme development learning curve allowing realizing unique designs faster.
By handling time-intensive tasks like translating sites into 100+ languages, Elementor AI enables focusing efforts on high-level creative. It essentially puts an AI co-pilot to work alongside you when building in Elementor. The potential is saving huge amounts of effort while unlocking professional visuals and conversions previously requiring expensive developers and creatives. It makes achieving web design excellence more accessible.
Key Features
- Image generation
- Code writing
- Copy writing
- Text enhancement
- Custom CSS
- HTML generation
- Translation tool
- Global reach
WordPress Hostings In 2024
In 2024, leading managed WordPress hosting providers like Bluehost, HostGator, Hostinger and SiteGround are upping their game with new capabilities that promise to streamline launching and running WordPress sites.
Bluehost is integrating automated WordPress migrations to instantly transfer existing sites to Bluehost servers to gain high performance without rebuilding from scratch.
HostGator’s new Advanced WordPress plugin installer will automatically configure optimal settings for premium WP plugins like WooCommerce. Hostinger recently launched free automated website backups to safeguard sites from disasters without manual work or add-on costs.
Meanwhile, SiteGround promises intelligent auto-scaling technology that dynamically allocates hosting resources to prevent overloaded servers even during extreme traffic surges.
With reliable core fundamentals plus expanding automation features on debugging, security, migrations and more - these hosts are poised to capably fuel WordPress success stories in the coming year. Their continued innovation aims to enable creators to focus less on hosting headaches and more on realizing their web visions.
Wrapping Up
As we wrap up our 2023 recap and look ahead to products, trends and technologies to leverage in 2024 as a WordPress user, an overarching theme is emerging – artificial intelligence. From core WordPress itself and major page builders like Elementor baking in AI capabilities to hosts like TMDHosting launching managed AI hosting, it is clear AI will increasingly automate and augment WordPress sites in the coming months.
Between instantly generating visual assets and copywriting to speeding up development and enhancing functionality, AI promises to level the playing field empowering creators of all skill levels to unlock exceptional results. While experts will continue pushing boundaries of what’s possible, AI looks to democratize professional-grade quality for the mainstream.
We hope reviewing highlights from 2023 and glimpsing the innovations ahead gives all our readers inspiration and insights to make 2024 your best year yet on your WordPress journey. Please share your thoughts and hopes for the new year below! And as always, the codewatchers team thanks you for your readership and is wishing you an amazing year of creating awe-inspiring web magic.
