Red Kite Creative

slow website

New WordPress Performance Project

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BedTimes Magazine Performance ResultsMy long-time WP Minder client BedTimes Magazine came to me with a quandary – their newly-redesigned website was very slowly. Could I help? Of course I could.

Looking for the low-hanging fruit, I made some performance tweaks designed to get the best load time reduction with the least input per my client’s request. While there were many third-party scripts in play on the site, which we couldn’t do anything about, there were definitely areas I could improve fairly easily.

We wound up with a load time reduction of about 58% – it’s not the fastest site, but the goal of performance optimization is to get the fastest site possible without requiring a rebuild. And, the project constraints required a quick fix, not an in-depth operation. Work with what you have and make it do the best it can.

Click the infographic to see the results.

Weekly Links Roundup – Slow Sites, Black Friday, Improving Conversions, Google Reviews, Blogging

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The top website and online marketing links of the week.

Think your slow-as-a-turtle website isn’t hurting your business? Think again. Google has been looking at page load time since back in 2010, and they use this information when ranking websites. A study from 2016 showed that over 50% of mobile users would abandon a site if it took more than 3 seconds to load. Do you think they’ve gotten more patient since then? Nope. Learn how a slow site impacts your business. And then take a look at our performance optimization service. We can help you stop frustrating your users!

Having a great big sale on Black Friday? It’s time to start sending emails to customers now – like, today. Learn some handy (and timely) email marketing techniques for the big day.

And speaking of the 2018 holiday shopping season… learn how to tweak your landing pages for more conversions. What’s a conversion? That’s an action you want a user to take. It usually includes things like: making a purchase; submitting a contact form; or clicking a contact link. Top tip for this season: chatbots (when done well) can be a big help to your business for both shopping assistance and customer support.

Google Reviews. You know how important they are – and how a bad review can turn your day upside down. But don’t worry… you can respond to bad Google reviews in a meaningful and effective way, and often turn them around to demonstrate how well your business responds under pressure. Hint: you should also respond to positive reviews to show you’re paying attention. The fewer reviews you have, the more important this is.

Finally… does your blog content play it safe? Is it boring? Or do you stretch your boundaries and get out of your comfort zone from time to time? If you think you’re not that kind of writer, maybe you should learn to be. How to avoid creating safe content. This is good advice for all bloggers.

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