The production cycle of a web project in 2024 no longer resembles that of two years ago. Regulatory constraints, changes in search engines, and front-end performance requirements are reshaping technical priorities from the initial framing stage. Here, we detail the key factors that truly determine the success of a project, far from generic trend lists.
Web Accessibility and RGAA Compliance: The Regulatory Constraint Restructuring Your Projects
The European Accessibility Act mandates compliance for new digital services brought to market, with a transitional period until June 28, 2030, for existing services. Any web project launched in the affected sectors must now integrate accessibility as a regulatory constraint from the outset, under penalty of financial sanctions that can reach several hundred thousand euros.
In practical terms, this means that an audit according to the RGAA and the EN 301 549 standard is no longer an optional deliverable at the end of the project. It structures the design system, the choice of front-end components, and the writing of content. Public organizations and large companies must publish an accessibility statement on each site, a multi-year plan over three years, and an annual action plan.
For development teams, this implies revisiting testing practices. An interactive component that is not keyboard navigable or insufficient contrast is no longer a “nice to have” but a documented non-compliance. We recommend integrating RGAA criteria into the “done” definitions of each sprint, rather than reviewing the entire site at the end of the cycle.
Several detailed technical analyses are regularly published on Talk Geeky To Me!’s web articles and allow tracking the evolution of these normative requirements applied to concrete projects.
SEO Strategy and Content in Light of Google’s Evolutions
Natural referencing in 2024 requires a fine understanding of what Google values in its results pages. The proliferation of rich results, featured snippets, and AI-generated answers at the top of the SERP changes the way organic traffic is distributed.
Content must address a specific search intent, not just skim the surface of a topic. An article of 3,000 words that touches on ten sub-themes performs worse than content of 1,200 words that explores a single angle in depth with factual data.
The keyword strategy is no longer limited to density: it includes semantic linking, structuring Hn tags, and coherence between the title, meta description, and the actual content of the page.
On the technical side, redesigning a site without a 301 redirect plan remains the most costly mistake in terms of SEO. We still observe projects of creation or redesign where SEO migration is treated as a secondary task, whereas it conditions the retention of acquired traffic.
Internal Linking and Page Architecture
A site with a flat architecture, with all pages one click away from the homepage, dilutes the crawl budget. Conversely, a tree structure that is too deep buries strategic content. The arbitration depends on the volume of pages and the theme, but a few principles remain stable:
- Group content by thematic silo to strengthen the semantic authority of each page cluster
- Limit navigation depth to three levels for target pages in natural referencing
- Regularly audit broken internal links or orphan pages that Google cannot discover
Front-End Performance and Core Web Vitals: The Technical Foundation of the Project
A site that takes more than 2.5 seconds to display its main content loses traffic and positions. The Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) are not just comfort metrics: they contribute to ranking in Google search results.
The choice of framework or CMS has a direct impact. A project based on a WordPress theme overloaded with unoptimized plugins will start with a measurable handicap. In contrast, a lightweight stack with server-side rendering (SSR) or static generation allows achieving high performance scores without sacrificing user experience.
Asset Optimization and Lazy Loading
The weight of images remains the primary factor of slowness on most sites. The WebP or AVIF format, adaptive sizing via srcset, and native browser lazy loading are technical gains that every project should implement by default.
- Systematically convert visuals to WebP with JPEG fallback for older browsers
- Defer loading of third-party scripts (analytics, widgets, marketing pixels) after the initial render
- Minify and combine CSS and JavaScript files to reduce the number of HTTP requests
- Test performance on mobile with a simulated 3G connection, not just on Wi-Fi
Web Eco-Design and GDPR Cookie Management: Two Underestimated Angles
Eco-design is not a marketing label. Reducing page weight, limiting server requests, and choosing energy-efficient hosting are architectural decisions made at the project’s start, not during the testing phase.
An uncompliant cookie banner exposes you to sanctions from the CNIL. Consent must be free, informed, and revocable. The placement of cookies before explicit acceptance, still common, constitutes an infringement. Compliance involves auditing the third-party scripts loaded on each page and granularly configuring the consent manager.
These two topics, eco-design and cookie compliance, share a common point: they require questioning every loaded resource. An unused tracking pixel, a duplicate analytics script, a Google Fonts font called from an external CDN when it could be self-hosted – every superfluous element degrades both performance, environmental footprint, and legal compliance of the site.
The success of a web project in 2024 relies less on the choice of a design trend than on the rigor of technical framing. Standardized accessibility, integrated SEO strategy from the design phase, measured front-end performance, and regulatory compliance form the foundation. Teams that treat these four areas as prerequisites, rather than options, deliver sites that stand the test of time.
