2024 Web Trends that Predict the Future.
March 7, 2025
CONSUME CREATIVELY
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Just like the other remaining humans on planet earth, us MayeCreaters survived this last year. And we like to think we’re humans who learn from the past and can use it with a heap of diligence and sprinkle old fashioned grit to chart our way forward to better things.
Fortunately, and unfortunately, last year was a little itchy so we learned a lot.
Like how to make stuff load faster and look prettier at the same time. How hackers like to hack things and ways to keep stuff away from those derelicts. And how AI is shaping the way we work, from streamlining processes so we can skip work on Fridays, to offering us another choice on how we use the internet on a daily basis.
Now, not everyone eats, sleeps, lives, and breathes the internet. So, we organized our thoughts, predictions, and lessons learned into this week’s podcast/blog post combo as a present for all non-net-dwellers.
We’re documenting our itchy lessons learned in the hopes of helping you craft your own path forward. Because, let’s be real, you can’t afford to ignore the darn beast. And it’s a big ‘un.
So let’s start with the obvious…
Trend #1: More people are using the internet.
That just blew your mind didn’t it? Nope. We all feel it. And the data supports it —global internet traffic grew by 17.2%. More people are online, and the way they’re using the internet keeps shifting.
Desktop traffic has been pretty consistent on the sites we review, while mobile traffic grows year over year. Which tracks because according to CloudFlare, 41.3% of global traffic now comes from mobile devices in 2024, and mobile traffic is leading in nearly 100 countries. We see it firsthand when reviewing our clients’ websites. Even in B2B industries, mobile traffic often hovers around 40%, with some sites as high as 75%.
What this means for website owners…
You need to check your website on your phone.
Seriously. Pull out your phone right now and make sure your website actually works the way you think it does. Are the important pages visible? Is navigation smooth? Or is it a hot mess?
This shift is a reminder that websites aren’t a “set-it-and-forget-it” deal. Things change constantly—how people use the internet, what they expect from your site, and how technology powers it all. Most business owners aren’t living in “internet land” like we are, so it’s easy to overlook.
But trust us: you need to make a date with your website.
Think of your website like a car.
Regular updates to plugins and software? That’s your oil change. Sure, you can ignore it like Stacy’s uncle did, who never changed his oil and just traded cars every 50,000 miles (don’t be that guy). It did not go well for him. And ignoring your site won’t go well for you either. If you neglect maintenance, you’ll end up needing a whole new website sooner than you’d like.
And here’s the deal: even with regular maintenance, stuff breaks. And the cost to repair those things is not covered by your “oil change fee.” If the tech behind your website evolves, or a coding update changes how things work, you’ll need to fix it. Budget for it—just like you would for surprise car repairs.
Trend #2: Google Bot still reigns supreme but AI search services are gaining traction.
If you’ve used Google search, then you’ve relied on Google Bot, the little crawler that scours the web to deliver search results. It’s been the go-to workhorse for years, and 2024 was no exception. That little Google Bot beastie was responsible for the highest volume of request traffic to Cloudflare.
You know what’s weird though? Many of the websites we review have decreased visits year over year from 2023 to 2024.
Earlier it seemed obvious that internet traffic would be up…but how can it be up when we’re seeing website traffic go down? Well, internet traffic isn’t necessarily just to business websites, it’s to ALL websites – yup. AI is messing with the bot and changing everything.
AI is shaking things up for the bot.
With the rise of tools like AI-driven search assistants, we predict there will be a decline, or at the very least a stabilization, in Google Bot activity in coming years. Why? People are searching differently now, and they like it. Heck, in early 2023 Rolling Stone reported people were frustrated by traditional search results and feeling like their privacy is being invaded.
To be clear, Google is NOT disappearing, but its mandatory usage to find what you need is definitely being challenged. Because now we have an alternative. Instead of “Googling it” we can ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Siri with her new Apple Intelligence, Alexa, or Gemini.
Your Website = Your Control
With all the new platforms and AI tools, it’s like we’re in a website timewarp. People are back to wondering if they even need a website. Even with the rise of AI search and the dominance of big listing platforms like Google and Apple, your website still matters. Those platforms are where people make snap decisions about things like your hours, location, and reviews. But when it’s time for deeper research—like checking inventory or confirming services—they head to your website.
So even though it may be tempting to ditch your site because website traffic is declining and just post on social and listing platforms, remember, you don’t control those platforms OR how they tell your story. The only place where you have complete control is your website. It’s your chance to share exactly what you want people to know about your business. You can’t always control how you’re represented on the rest of the internet, but your website? That’s yours.
So go look at the darn thing on a phone already would ya?
Hokay moving on…
Trend #3: CSS is evolving and has an increasingly popular best bud – SCSS.
CSS, for folks who don’t know, is the language we use to tell things how a website should look. It evolves as fast as the internet and its pal SCSS compiles CSS and makes it even faster to load. If CSS is the base coat of paint, SCSS (Sassy CSS) is the upgraded toolkit that lets developers work smarter.
We’ve been using SCSS to speed up our sites since 2022, but it’s really catching on for others too. It souped-up our base theme by allowing us to use:
- Variables: Set a “nickname” for a color, font, or size (e.g., $blue = #3498db) that can be reused across the site.
- Nested Rules: Group related styles together to keep code organized.
- Compilation: SCSS gets “compiled” into a compressed, browser-friendly CSS file.
Using SCSS, we can build faster loading websites because smaller CSS files mean faster load times. And those sites can also be updated easier because we can change a single variable, and the whole site adjusts automatically.
Look forward to new fancy CSS features this year.
You might hear terms like “CSS 4” or “CSS 5” floating around. Spoiler alert: They’re just marketing labels. CSS doesn’t have official “versions” anymore. Instead, it evolves continuously, with new features rolling out regularly.
This year, you can look forward to features like:
Smarter Typography Styling
Text Wrap Balance: Splits lines evenly for cleaner, more balanced headings.
Text Wrap Pretty: Prevents orphans (single words stuck on a line by themselves) and handles hyphens better.
Combine these with tools like clamp, which lets you set flexible font sizes, and you’ve got a recipe for readable, responsive typography. Which increases readability for users and creates cleaner more flexible layouts for designers.
Container Queries
Media queries have been around for a while, they allow web designers to adjust styles based on screen size (like making text bigger on a phone). But media queries only look at the entire screen size.
Container queries allow for more granular control over design elements as screen sizes adjust. Instead of adjusting based on the screen, we can now adjust styles based on the size of individual containers (like divs, sections, or widgets).
For example: you can tell your site, “if the container div is this wide, then format it this way.” But if the screen starts shrinking, and your container gets smaller, it could tell the CSS to adjust the container size before the media query gets smaller so your site’s adaptive layouts can look more polished on every device even those weird ones that are in between sizes.
Trend #4: Scammers be scammin’ and hackers be hackin’…like alot alot.
*Sigh* First let’s talk about the evil scammers…
According to Malwarebytes, in the second quarter of 2024 there were 1,041,312,601 data breach victims, a 1,170% increase from Q2 2023 (81,958,874 victims). There were some HUGE data breaches responsible for many of those poor exposed humans, but small time scammers are on the rise too.
- There was a 28% increase in phishing emails sent between April 1st and June 30th compared to January 1st to March 31st, 2024.
- Global losses from digital fraud reached over $47.8 billion in 2024, a 15% increase from 2023.
- The US is on track to lose more than $10 billion due to fraud in 2025.
We’re using AI to make things go faster and scammers are doing the same. They’ve upped their game using tools like ChatGPT to increase authenticity and scam more people faster.
Steps to avoid scams.
Over the past year the MayeCreate team had “utility companies” call the office for payments we’ve already made, people asking for financial information to “transfer payments” for goods sold on PoshMark, and one of our own grandmas fooled by fake Bath & Body Works sites. Here are a few tips to make sure those things DON’T happen to you.
Never click suspicious links
Scammers often send texts or emails with fake payment notifications or shipping updates. Instead of clicking the link, visit the official website directly to verify the information.
Double-check URLs
Fake websites often use slight variations of legitimate URLs. For example, a scam site might omit an “s” or replace a letter, making it easy to miss at first glance.
If it sounds too good to be true – it is.
If a sale or discount looks too good to be true, it probably is. Always verify deals through the company’s official website.
Don’t use the same password for every loving thing.
Using a different password for every account is super important, even though it can feel like a hassle. Password managers or even a good old-fashioned password notebook can make it way easier to keep track. This is especially important if you’ve been reusing the same password on multiple accounts—time to mix it up!
Opt-in for 2 factor authentication.
Two-factor authentication (2FA) adds an extra layer of security by requiring not just a password, but also a secondary form of verification, like a text message or app notification. Many popular platforms like Amazon and Netflix already use 2FA, and it’s worth the extra little hassle to keep yourself safe and enable it wherever possible.
The evil hackers be hackin’ just as much.
It SUCKS to get scammed. And it sucks even more when a hacker steals your client data. When you own a website, security isn’t just about keeping your own info safe—it’s about protecting your customers’ data too. If your site collects any personal info, whether it’s through a shopping cart or a contact form, it’s on you to make sure that data stays secure.
A safe website begins with an offensive strategy.
A secure website doesn’t happen by accident—it’s all about being proactive. From adding a privacy policy, to blocking sneaky bots and keeping plugins updated, there are plenty of straightforward steps you can take to protect your site, your data, and your users.
Trend #5: Email got even more complicated – but safer.
The world of email security feels a lot like alphabet soup right now. This year email providers like Google and Microsoft are stepping up to combat those evil scammers and spammers by putting changes in place to keep your email safe. But they come with a catch: if you’re not following the latest rules, your legitimate emails could end up being flagged as spam—or worse, not delivered at all.
If you use an email address with your domain name, like yourname@yourbusiness.com, there are a few must-haves to include in your website’s DNS records to avoid email issues:
- SPF Records: These verify which email providers can send emails on your behalf.
- DKIM Records (DomainKeys Identified Mail): These confirm that your emails haven’t been tampered with.
- DMARC Records: These tell email providers what to do with messages that fail SPF or DKIM checks.
Without these records in place, your emails might be seen as suspicious—even when they’re not.
The tricky(er) part?
Getting all this in place requires a dance recital between you, the human who manages your domain, and your email provider. If you also use email marketing software, like ActiveCampaign or Mailchimp, their information needs to be added too. It’s not a one-person job, but it’s worth the effort—because undelivered emails can mean lost opportunities.
Trend #6: Domain forwarding changed in 2024.
If you have multiple domains (like yourbusiness.com and yourbusiness.org) you used to be able to automatically forward one to another. Now, to avoid security errors, you now need to set up forwarding through your hosting provider so the SSL certificate applies correctly. So, if you’re forwarding a domain and getting an error saying your site isn’t secure, this could be the culprit.
Trend #7: People are all out adopting AI.
AI integration in web design and marketing expanded significantly over the past year and people are looking for it by name with a reported 8,500% increase in searches for AI design tools. It’s everywhere. AI is determining:
- Search Results: How results are ranked and presented (this isn’t new BTW Google has been using AI to do this for YEARS) but those handy summary paragraphs at the top of Google search are new in 2024.
- Ad Placements: What ads you see and where they appear.
- Email Timing and Content: When you receive emails and the text used to communicate with you.
AI creates images now and it’s woven right into our design software.
AI tools are really, really cool when used responsibly. For example, the Adobe suite has new AI options released in 2024 like their InDesign ‘Generative Expand’ feature. Using this feature, you can expand the background of an image to fill a space. Something you used to have to do by opening another program and modifying the image, then saving and reimporting. With Generative Expand, you click and it expands the background (quite well if we do say so ourselves), saves a new version of the image, and relinks it in the document—what?!
AI for answers.
We use Perplexity and ChatGPT to look up documentation and tutorials almost daily. Just the other day while troubleshooting a Shopify site, Perplexity delivered step-by-step instructions with code, showing exactly what file and where to make changes to add a feature our client was looking for. So you can skip the reading of 17 articles to figure it out— just ask AI for what you need.
Here’s the deal though, AI can give you answers, but it’s up to you to decide if they’re right. One reason we like Perplexity is because it provides sources with the output so we can double-check the sources and make sure the information isn’t outdated or inaccurate.
So, as you’re adopting AI into your processes, just be smart. It’s not an all knowing God. It’s a marriage of models and algorithms. It might be smart, but it’s only as functional as the human using it, so hopefully your judgment is still smarter.
TLDR
The internet landscape is ever-evolving—from exploding web traffic and the rise of AI, to essential email practices and website security.
- More people than ever are using the internet, especially on mobile. So check your site on mobile!
- Google Bot still reigns supreme, but AI search services are gaining traction.
- SCSS is speeding up websites and CSS is adding new and improved features so you can have even more control over how your website displays on all devices.
- Scammers be scammin’ and hackers be hackin’…like alot alot. Be smart and follow our guidelines to keep yourself AND your website safe.
- Email got even more complicated – but safer. If you fail to make the proper changes to your domain your email will not be delivered.
- Domain forwarding changed, if you’re getting errors saying your site is not secure, this could be why.
- AI is here to stay. People are crazy for it and software companies are interlacing it into their frameworks.
As the internet continues to change, remember: It’s yours to use however you want. You don’t have to stick to the same old ways—there are always new options, even beyond Google.
And, as always, feel free to reach out and suggest topics you’d like us to cover. Until next time—stay curious, stay secure, and market with purpose!
Who Manifested This Madness?
This fabulous human, that's who.
Monica Maye Pitts
Monica is the creative force and founder of MayeCreate. She has a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture with an emphasis in Economics, Education and Plant Science from the University of Missouri. Monica possesses a rare combination of design savvy and technological know-how. Her clients know this quite well. Her passion for making friends and helping businesses grow gives her the skills she needs to make sure that each client, or friend, gets the attention and service he or she deserves.
