Poor Core Web Vitals scores are a common reason publishers first contact The Code Company. Developed by Google to help rank sites, the metrics prioritise a visitor’s experience on-site, regardless of their location or device. As web technologies became more complicated, so too did Google’s measurement of a site’s “performance”. The result is a sometimes confusing and confounding experience trying to diagnose why a site’s scores are low, and how to fix them.

Core Web Vitals can be affected by everything from a website’s front end to its hosting provider, and can sometimes feel like a black box that can have a significant effect on a publisher’s business. 

It’s for this reason publishers often come to us feeling defeated. They fear that their scores will never get in the green, or the only way to get there is to sacrifice core elements of their business such as comprehensive analytics, AdTech, or rich media. This is not always the case, and it’s possible to maintain these technologies while maintaining and even improving Core Web Vitals scores. 

In this article, we’ll break down the three specific measurements that make up Core Web Vitals in simple terms, and the practical ways we and others have improved them. 

Three specific factors that Google considers essential in a webpage’s overall user experience are:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
• First Input Delay (FID) 
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). 

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

LCP measures the time it takes for the largest content element on screen to fully load for a user. This is important because it’s the biggest influence on a user’s perception of how quickly a page loads. If the main image or headline on a page takes too long to load, the user may perceive the site as slow, even if other elements load quickly. LCP is often the most difficult of the three Core Web Vitals scores to fix, because it has so many things that contribute to it, from server load times to asset sizes, and it can take several weeks for a fix to result in an improved score.

An excellent LCP score is 2.5 seconds or less.

How to optimise your LCP score:

1. Optimise your images

 This is one of the low-hanging fruits when it comes to LCP. Images often represent the largest elements on a page, so ensuring they are as small as possible without compromising quality will improve loading speed. This can involve using next-gen formats like WebP, compressing images, and ensuring the dimensions are correct. Much of this optimisation can be done with WordPress settings and purpose-built WordPress plugins, but also with features in some managed hosting solutions. Mobile designs can also be optimised to use smaller images that represent less screen space, which can help.

2. Upgrade your web host

 This can be a more complicated endeavour, especially if migrating to or from a managed hosting provider. A sluggish server response time can make every element on your site slow to render, significantly affecting your LCP score. A fast, reliable web host with server-side caching is ideal, but LCP scores can also be improved with the use of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) such as Cloudflare. A CDN’s global network of servers increases the chances users have a fast experience no matter where they are in the world.

3. Implement lazy loading and preloading

 Lazy loading is when objects on a page don’t load until they are onscreen or about to be onscreen for a user. For any object, but especially images, waiting until it’s needed by a user can significantly improve your initial page load times. Preloading core assets (like header images) allows a modern browser to start downloading these files early, so when the page is ready to display, the assets are already downloaded.

4. Minimise CSS

Developers don’t always have control over the size of files needed for 3rd-party AdTech or WordPress plugins, but can optimise things such as unnecessary or redundant CSS. For example, by prioritising the loading of CSS used to render the above-the-fold content, you can improve the speed at which this content becomes visible to users.

First Input Delay (FID)

FID measures the time from when a user first interacts with your page (like clicking a link or button) to the time the browser responds to that interaction. For example, if a user clicks on a menu item and it takes a while for the site to respond. A good FID score is less than 100 milliseconds.

Google is set to replace FID with Interaction to Next Paint in March 2024.

How to enhance your FID score:

1. Minimise (or defer) JavaScript

Browsers load JavaScript in a single queue, or “thread”, which means a heavy JS execution can delay a browser’s response to a user interaction. (You may have experienced this, when it takes half a second for a popup to load before you can click anywhere on a page.) Minimising the amount of JavaScript on your pages, or deferring non-critical JavaScript until after the page has loaded, can speed up how quickly your site responds to user interactions. There are tools, even those built into Chrome, to help you identify where the biggest blocks are happening with your JS thread. 

2. Leverage browser caching

Browser caching stores copies of your site’s files in the user’s browser. When a repeat visitor navigates to your site, these files can be retrieved from the cache rather than being downloaded again, which is much quicker and improves FID.

3. Eliminate unnecessary third-party scripts

Each third-party script your site uses has to be downloaded, parsed, and executed. This could be AdTech, analytics software, or bloated WordPress plugin code, and can significantly slow down your site and negatively impact your FID. Review your third-party scripts and remove any that are not necessary to the functioning of your site.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

In its simplest terms, CLS measures the sum total of all unexpected shifts to a page’s layout while it’s being viewed. A common example is the frustrating experience where you’re about to click a button and an ad loads at the last minute, pushing the button down.

A good CLS score is less than 0.1.

How to  improve your CLS score:

1. Specify size attributes for media

When your site doesn’t know how much space an element will occupy, it can cause a layout shift as it adjusts to accommodate it. Specifying the width and height attributes for images, videos, and other media such as social embeds and iframes ensures the browser knows exactly how much space to allocate, preventing layout shifts. 

2. Reserve space for ad elements

Ads that dynamically inject into your page without a reserved space can cause significant layout shifts. This can be a common issue with programmatic ads and can get complicated when accounting for the different ad sizes depending on the variety of devices readers are using (mobile, tablet, desktop etc). The key is assigning space for the largest ad slot for each device.

3. Insert new UI elements below the fold

Adding UI elements above the fold can push content down, causing a layout shift. To avoid this, add new elements below the fold, where they won’t disrupt the user’s experience.

4. Be conscious of fonts and how they are loaded for users

In the time between when a browser loads text and the web font is available, browsers can render a fallback font. You can sometimes see this when text flickers somewhat when the browser switches fonts. If the two fonts differ significantly, it can result in a layout shift. The key is working out how specific fonts are rendered to minimise shift when the desired font is loaded. 

Conclusion 

People can often be sceptical of how companies such as Google rank content, but Core Web Vitals have important priorities. They preference fast, efficient websites that have good UX. They are beneficial to users, to businesses who see higher engagement, and to the infrastructure of the web.  

Unfortunately, Core Web Vitals optimisation is not a case of set-and-forget. As you add new features to your site and web technologies change, consistently hitting benchmarks requires continuous monitoring and optimisation. It’s much easier and quicker to have technical experts diagnose and fix issues in real-time, rather than letting things get out of hand. 

The post Demystifying Core Web Vitals for publishers appeared first on The Code Company.

Speed matters, but for many digital publishers, site speed is the be-all-end-all. It’s their number one priority. This is understandable as a slow website can impact your website’s rankings, user experience, and conversion and bounce rates.

But too often, site speed, measured by Google’s Page Speed Insights, is prioritised over more important measurements: Core Web Vitals and the Page Experience tab in Google Search Console.  These offer a more complete and accurate depiction of real-world page performance (and the capacity to improve traffic) far more than page speed alone. You will get more bang for your bucks focussing on moving these numbers than you will from any incremental increase in speed.

The fact is that many business critical products such as ad tech and analytics, can significantly hit site speed. But this can be palatable as long as they don’t hurt your Core Web Vitals and Page Experience metrics.

The complex nature of measuring page performance

In the realm of digital media, the all encompassing idea of a page’s “performance” extends far beyond speed, which is essentially how long a site takes to load. In comparison, Google’s Core Web Vitals and Page Experience measurements, while taking load times into account, also considers more nuanced measurements of user experience such as interactivity and visual stability.

They measure parameters like:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): the time it takes for the largest content element in the viewport to fully load.
• First Input Delay (FID): the time from when a user first interacts with your page
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): gauges if a site unexpectedly shifts its layout.

These measurements reflect the actual user experience more accurately, providing a more nuanced understanding of a site’s performance.

Surprisingly, it’s entirely possible for a site to exhibit good site speed but still perform poorly when evaluated through the lens of Core Web Vitals. 

Google’s page experience algorithm  

Quite often, the terms Core Web Vitals and Page Experience are used interchangeably. However the reality is that Core Web Vitals are just a component of Page Experience.

In addition to the three Core Web Vitals parameters detailed above, Page Experience looks for things like a sites mobile-friendliness, that it runs on a secure site (yes – still in 2023) and that intrusive user interfaces/pop-ups, aren’t impacting a users experience on the site. Google then measures this against real-world traffic data based on how your users are actually experiencing your site. Conversely, site speed is measured only using a simulated environment. 

Read more about how Google views a good page experience.

The impact of ad tech and analytics

Most modern media companies rely heavily on a number of layers running on their sites. From ad tech to various analytics platforms – all of these business-critical functions can diminish a site’s performance. 

Quite often in the development phase of new projects, our team will build what we commonly refer to as a bloat kill switch. This is a flag that we pass into the URL which disables all ad tech and analytics to provide our clients real-world, side-by-side comparisons of the same product – just with all the extra layers disabled. 

External tools like this do impact site performance scores, due to the size of the libraries and frameworks being loaded in. However, most of them are able to be implemented or integrated in such a way that they don’t impact meaningful metrics like Core Web Vitals. 

Diminishing returns of single-minded site speed optimisation

The pursuit of site speed optimisation can often be a game of diminishing returns. There comes a point where investing additional resources into enhancing site speed yields progressively smaller increases in performance. 

For instance, shaving off milliseconds from an already fast-loading page that passes all Core Web Vitals targets, may require significant technical effort and resources, but the perceptible benefit to the end user and your overall performance, is minimal.

Moreover, this single-minded obsession with site speed can inadvertently lead to the neglect of other crucial aspects of page performance. A publishing website might be lightning-fast, but suffer from issues like ads that jump around the page or delays in when a visitor is able to click or input their email address. Which of these is more important to audiences?

Instead of chasing the site speed, development resources are often better utilised in making sure your tech stack is hitting everything it needs to in Google Search Console. Or doing important maintenance such as getting your URL permutations in order.

How to get the balance right with site performance 

Identifying the best areas to devote development resources and budget can be a tricky balancing act for publishers. Too often speed can be prioritised over other important metrics. If you need help working out where you can move the needle the most efficiently, reach out to The Code Company. 

The post Why digital media companies shouldn’t obsess over site speed alone appeared first on The Code Company.

One of the challenging concepts for someone like me to reconcile with Substack, is like with any hosted platform, you’re forfeiting a large amount of control and ownership in your livelihood. This is in contrast to The Code Company’s philosophy of using open source software like WordPress to power your digital products. 

But the immense simplicity of Substack is what makes it so popular, and for the vast majority of its users, it’s the ideal product for their needs. With no up-front costs, and a revenue share model (currently 10%), it’s a pretty good value proposition for most.

I spoke last year at WordCamp US – the largest WordPress conference – about the challenges WordPress has to solve to make it more creator-friendly. If the WordPress project was ever going to compete with simple SaaS tools like Substack, there’s a long way to go.

The Code Company founder Ben May speaking at WordCamp US 2022 ‘Where is WordPress’ Place in the Website Creator Economy?’

Common reasons to migrate from Substack to WordPress

There are a few central motivations that could lead someone to move away from a SaaS product.

1. Cost saving: Reducing the amount of revenue you have to share with a platform.
2. Bespoke functionality: Platforms inevitably are more one-size-fits all. 
3. Advanced acquisition & reporting: Platforms like Substack are limited in how you acquire subscribers and the data you can collect.

Leaving Substack to save costs

For most people, leaving Substack will not result in saving money in the long term. 

While the concept of an unlimited rev-share feels daunting or unfair, the reality is that for the average writer, the tools provided by Substack would cost much more if created custom by an agency or freelancer.

For a moderately successful writer on Substack who might be grossing $100,000 per year, they’re paying Substack $10,000 in fees. In contrast, the cost of developing a WordPress (or other bespoke) site and having comparable features is rarely going to be less than six figures. 

For a more successful venture on Substack – say, doing $1,000,000 in gross subscription revenue – that equates to $100,000 in fees every year. 

The hidden costs of migrating away from Substack 

There’s no denying that, when looking purely at the transactional costs for subscriptions, migrating away from Substack can result in cost savings for successful creators. But what’s often overlooked is that you’re now responsible for many functions that many people don’t have either the time, expertise or budget to outsource. 

Below are some of the most common benefits a writer is getting with Substack that they’re potentially not considering when evaluating the costs:

Product Development

Product development is the name given to the process of devising features for your site, along with the engineering needed to create them. This can include anything from optimising the images for email clients, to adding a new reply button on the comment section.

While using Substack, users benefit from Substack’s inhouse team of product managers, software engineers, testers and more. These roles are aligned with Substack’s own corporate goals, and any individual customer. This is always a risk to manage as you don’t have any say in feature development. 

When building your own publishing stack, development of features can rarely be outsourced entirely, as it requires people with intimate internal knowledge of the business to shape and define features goals and use cases. 

Product development time can be easy to de-prioritise, which can result in engineers lacking clear directions, an inconsistent product roadmap, and ultimately an inefficient use of resources.

Having a dedicated resource to manage product development, or even ensuring it’s a clear part of someone’s role, will result in more targeted features that can either help grow & retain subscribers or unlock new revenue streams. 

Subscriber Acquisition 

Substack has a number of built-in features that help writers acquire new subscribers. Whether or not you think the current features are effective, the fact remains that Substack is actively managing and constantly thinking of new ways to build its acquisition function.. It shouldn’t be underestimated the amount of work that is required to fully manage this process in-house. 

There are clear benefits to taking full control of subscriber acquisition yourself, including greater control over the audiences you target, and increasing the chances of acquiring higher quality subscribers. However at a small scale, and if ignored, it could have a significant impact on the growth of a subscription business. 

Ongoing Maintenance

Part of the expense of moving from a SaaS product to a custom solution is the ongoing cost. Constantly maintaining and updating your technology is the only way to ensure it works well in the long term and your investment is protected. For technical products, it’s ensuring things like security, external APIs, constantly-changing SEO requirements and innumerable other factors are kept in line. Going with a SaaS platform means those ongoing maintenance costs along with operational costs such as hosting, CDNs and ESPs are all taken care of.

When do you move away from Substack to WordPress?

There’s fundamentally three criteria to consider for a move from Substack to WordPress: 

• Does your business really need the custom functionality that only an open source solution can provide?

• Are you generating so much subscription revenue that Substack’s product doesn’t justify its yearly cut? 

• Are you comfortable with the product obligations you are taking on, and will you make the time required to make it work? 

For Substackers who meet the above criteria and truly want to grow from a “Substack” to a “Media Company”, migrating from Substack to WordPress is a no-brainer. 

For the vast majority, Substack is an ideal home. For the few willing to make the commitment of serious time and resources, migrating to WordPress and going to the next step is a challenging but worthwhile endeavour. 

Having been involved in some of the most complex Subtack to WordPress migrations, we’re happy to talk about how The Code Company can be your partner in that journey.

The post When to migrate from Substack to WordPress appeared first on The Code Company.

An important technical consideration for publishers is the management of URL permutations and malformed URLs being indexed by platforms such as Google. Malformed URLs impact Google’s impression of your website’s general standing, and more importantly, they can waste your crawl budget.

This article will cover:

What is crawl budget?

Crawl budget is the number of pages (URLs) that Google’s web crawler will crawl from a website within a specific time period.

Crawl Budget is the amount of resources that Google allocates to a website for crawling and indexing its pages. The budget is determined by factors such as the site’s size, overall relevance, and the number of external links pointing to the site.

Having a well-optimised site with high-quality content can help to increase a site’s crawl budget, allowing more pages to be crawled and potentially improving the site’s visibility in search results.

What are WordPress permalinks & URLs?

WordPress comes with a number of out-of-the box permalinks / URLs. And while you may not use them, Google is usually pretty smart enough to find them.

Take, for example, a simple WordPress site with 17 pages of content. This might include things like a home page, about page, contact page and a series of blog posts.

While a user can navigate around the site and access these 17 pages quite easily, WordPress will still generate a number of URLs/pages. These URLs may not have any menu links, yet they are still accessible if you know where to look, or are a smart search engine spider, like Google.

Examples of these URLs can be:

• A page for each author on your website (the user that writes the page/post)
• A page for each category / tag used in your blog 
• A page for each item in your media gallery (even if it’s not used on the site)
• Any embed objects on a page 
• Paginated results for your blog (e.g. Page 2 of 3)
• WordPress’ native search engine results page for any argument passed to it
• WordPress’ various RSS feeds it generates out of the box 
• WordPress’ REST API responses 

What are WordPress URL permutations?

In a strictly mathematical sense, a permutation is when items in a URL are rearranged or added to. 

As a simple example, on a paginated home page, the expected URL permutations could look like this:

mysite.com

mysite.com/page/2/

mysite.com/page/3/

mysite.com/page/100/

This means that WordPress needs to understand how to interpret any variation and either display the content, or show an error to say there isn’t any content. 

Managing URL permutations is critically important on large sites that have complex taxonomy structures or leverage custom data structures.

When managing a website with hundreds of thousands of content items, and tens of thousands taxonomy terms, there is no manual way to test every possible combination of URL that could get generated programmatically.

What is the problem with malformed URL permutations?

Content management systems like WordPress are very flexible so they can accommodate all the various requirements a site might have. The problem with this extensive flexibility is that it’s possible to end up with URLs that appear to be valid to a search engine, but are in fact duplicate content or spammy.

In more technical terms, WordPress can accept a wide variety of different URLs, and rather than return a distinct error, returns a successful “200 OK” header. This tells a robot that the page is valid, even though it may then have the robots meta tag declaring not to index the page. 

This results in confusion as to whether the search engine should index or noindex that URL.

Common issues with URLs in WordPress and how to resolve them

While every site is unique, there’s usually some common themes or resolutions that can tighten up a search engine spiders’ view of your WordPress site. 

1. Ensure empty result pages return hard 404 headers

There are a lot of different ways that spam bots can inject spam into your website. This is usually dependent on the overall tech stack, and how the WordPress theme is developed. A common spam attack will look something like this:

mysite.com/?s=Some+Spam+Link+HTML+here

Many sites will still render a full search template page, with an error saying that there were no results, but then still output the spam. Search engines can get confused and believe that this is in fact a valid URL but may see a robots header to noindex the page, even though it appears to be valid. 

2. Excessive URL permutations and manipulations

Another common pattern is Google is appending a query string to a URL and attempting to understand if it is unique content or junk. 

mysite.com/author/some-author-name/page/10/?from=sitefrom%3Dsite

The above example is another where WordPress can render out a valid page which would be identical to:

mysite.com/author/some-author-name/page/10/

And while any good template should manage this by using the canonical html tags, it can be ambiguous or deceptive. The manipulated URL above should result in a hard 404 header code and no HTML rendered to the screen as there’s no way a legitimate user could access that page. 

3. Common WordPress endpoints

Frustratingly, WordPress ships with a number of endpoints that if not reigned in, can result in needless SEO wastage. Examples of this can include:

mysite.com/post-url/embed

mysite.com/post-url/feed

mysite.com/an-attachment-url/

mysite.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

mysite.com/category/news/feed

As with most digital publishers and media sites powered by WordPress, there are likely to be hundreds of thousands of articles and media attachments. Multiply the above WordPress endpoints that are created for every single article, and you’re talking about an enormous footprint. 

Fortunately, major SEO plugins like Yoast are now investing in functionality that allows you to easily turn off all these questionable default features within WordPress. 

How to monitor in Search Console

The following report in Google Search Console (GSC) indicates the amount of content that the site has indexed that is either erroneous or duplicative.

Each reason can be clicked to see the URLs that Google is discovering. This gives you the ability to spot test and understand what’s happening with the CMS. You can also export these as a CSV file to perform deeper analysis in Excel or Google Sheets.

How long does it take to improve Google Search Console?

Unfortunately, the turnaround time for Google to recognise when spammy URLs are no longer present can be quite drawn out. 

After making adjustments to your site architecture and backend, and setting error codes correctly, it can take months for Google to reflect these changes. However, it will eventually start to detect the pattern of indexed vs non-indexable content, as seen in the chart above. 

In summary

URL permutations and malformations should not be ignored as they can have a significant impact on SEO and your crawl budget. Fortunately, there are some efficient ways to stay on top of your URLs and reduce the risk of your tech stack holding back the growth of your business.

The post How URLs affect technical SEO on large publishing sites appeared first on The Code Company.

Editorial creators often start off using SaaS platforms, such as Substack and beehiiv to publish newsletters, or open-source software like Ghost to share blog posts, because these can often be the easiest entry points in the publishing space.

These creator platforms are an affordable and easy way to start earning from content. However, there comes a point when platforms’ one-size-fits-all approach can stifle growth and limit the ability of successful bloggers and publications to diversify revenue.

While not traditionally associated with the buzz of the creator economy, WordPress can in fact be a great tool for creators in the publishing space to take their business to the next level. 

This article will discuss the challenges and trade-offs of common creator platforms, and share how WordPress can be adapted to address creators’ needs.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Editorial creators: What do they need?

What do creator platforms offer?

Why use WordPress

How to make WordPress more creator-friendly

Final thoughts: Why use WordPress as a creator

These ideas are based on a presentation I delivered at WordCamp US in 2022 .

Editorial creators: What do they need?

When it comes down to it, there are typically only a few things creators in the publishing space need from their technology. They need tech that allows them to:

• Publish written, audio, video, and visual content
• Run advertising for sponsors / commercial partners
• Sell digital products such as ebooks and courses
• Sell and manage subscriptions
• Build and support communities (through comments and forums)
• Reach a wider audience with search engine optimisation (SEO) and social media 

What do creator platforms offer?

Creator platforms such as Substack can be a great choice if you want to publish quickly and save on the infrastructure, security, and maintenance costs of a fully owned-and-operated tech stack.

Creator platforms can be user-friendly since they are often only designed for a specific workflow (in Substack’s case, sending newsletters). Often all you need to do is sign up for an account to begin creating content and start earning with the platforms’ low or no cost revenue sharing model.

In contrast, setting up a standalone WordPress stack with these features can require much more work. For a fully owned-and-operated WordPress build, you might need to take care of:

• Signing up and configuring domains and web hosting services
• Buying or building a WordPress theme — and plugins — and configuring it to your needs
• Researching, installing, and configuring membership and billing solutions 
• Integrating newsletter or other distribution services you may want to offer

And the list goes on. 

Once your website is up, you must also deal with regular maintenance, backups, and updates. 

So, why would you go with WordPress? 

Why should creators use WordPress?

WordPress supports more functionality compared to the often-inflexible creator platforms. You can start with the basics and grow along the way. Put simply, more effort and investment at the start can pay off down the track.  

Here are some advantages of WordPress in the creator space:

• Flexibility and customisation: WordPress simply gives you more freedom. There are thousands of plugins built for any type of publishing functionality you might want. This means you never have to worry about compatibility with your base CMS. It’s the freedom to have your tech meet your specific business needs and the customisation to stand out in a crowded market.

• Ownership and control: Using software like WordPress means you can own your stack and your data and control how they are used in the future. There are too many cautionary tales of publishers building their businesses on a third-party platform and hitting problems when those platforms pivot. You don’t want to build on rented land!
• Scalability: WordPress works for websites of all sizes, from personal blogs to multinational billion-dollar publishers. You can start small and grow into an enterprise-sized business without spiralling costs. 

Conversely, SaaS platforms often have diminishing returns as you grow. Once you reach a certain threshold, the cost of the limitations of a SaaS product can start to greatly outweigh the benefits.

ALT: Lifecycle of SaaS platforms (Taken from Ben May’s WCUS 2022 presentation)

How to make WordPress more creator-friendly

The key to making WordPress more creator-friendly is making it feel more like a platform. The idea of a “WordPress Lite” has been floating around for a while. The question is how do you build a really tight distribution of WordPress that makes it as simple as possible to start publishing and earning?

Leverage WordPress’ no-code functionality 

A key to the success of creator platforms is they are built for non-technical operators, meaning you don’t have to know how to code to customise your product. It’s a direction WordPress has also been moving in for years — with the addition of drag-and-drop Gutenberg blocks, Full Site Editing (FSE), and page builders like Beaver Builder. 

Allowing creators to do more in the browser without relying on an engineer helps address one of the appeals of the more inflexible creator platforms. 

Clean up the WordPress admin

The default WordPress admin menu is overwhelming at the best of times, and the visual hierarchy is anything but user-friendly. The features you need there when setting up the website are rarely the same as in the day-to-day running of it. 

A good rule of thumb when optimising a build for a creator is to strip back the admin post-launch to only items editorial teams need, such as Posts and Comments. Pushing everything else out of the screen can clean it up, make it feel less clunky, and be less intimidating for creators used to more streamlined dashboards.

Make WordPress plugins feel more native

Making plugins feel more native can help your WordPress setup feel more like a unified platform. There are not many easy ways to do this, but we’ve built plugin solutions that make for a more seamless user experience. 

While WordPress has a fairly consistent design pattern around its core features — like its admin or block editor — commonly used plugins such as Yoast and Newsletter Glue use their own design, icons, and tabs. It can feel like you have three or four different programs running in the same place. 

Rather than trying to fiddle with the styling or aesthetic qualities, one way to streamline the process is to create hooks between plugins to avoid the duplication of steps. 

For example, we built a plugin integration that handled all of the different site functionality around paid subscriptions — paid web content and paid newsletters. The result was a seamless process where an editor didn’t have to mark content as paid across several different plugins.

Leverage SaaS integrations for payments

When processing payments on a WordPress website, for anything from subscriptions to products, you have a choice between handling that natively in WordPress — with WooCommerce — or with a SaaS integration such as Memberful, Chargify or Piano. 

In the interest of having a tech stack built for non-technical practitioners, we recommend moving as much complex functionality out of WordPress as possible. Especially when it’s as mission-critical to the business as payments, we err on going with SaaS integrations.

In exchange for the SaaS fees, usually a revenue share, they handle important functions such as security, PCI compliance, and reporting and analytics. When you’re publishing at scale, outsourcing as much of that as possible is an effective way to de-risk your stack.

Final thoughts: Why use WordPress as a creator 

WordPress is far from perfect when it comes to being a creator tool. There’s a reason creator platforms such as Substack, Ghost and beehiiv have focussed on simplicity over flexibility. Often that’s all creators want. 

But if you want to build an owned-and-operated tech stack where you have full control, you can’t find a better base than WordPress.

What’s been the foundation for institutional publications can still be moulded to satisfy the needs of creators if you’re conscious of how it’s implemented. It does take some upfront investment of budget and time.

The post How to make WordPress more creator-friendly appeared first on The Code Company.

As new technology and frameworks emerge and the needs of digital publishers — from editorial teams to the business side — evolve, your tech footprint can become incredibly complex, very quickly. 

This can result in a spaghetti infrastructure with complicated integrations and interactions, which presents huge business risks because over-engineered tech stacks: 

• Are costly and time-consuming to maintain
• Are more likely to break or fail at their core purposes
• Can be a deterrent to key talent you’re trying to attract 

The Code Company talk a lot internally and with clients about our “anti-complexity” mindset and minimalist approach to building publishing stacks. It’s a pretty basic concept that comes down to focusing on what’s really important for a business and choosing technology that will have the largest return on investment. 

Even sophisticated and diverse business needs do not necessarily require complex tech. Too often, we see digital publishers trying to build a Ferrari for a milk run. 

With that in mind, we’ve put together five practical examples of how you can simplify your digital publishing technology using common tools. 

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• Google Tag Manager with a data layer
• Automated data visualisation dashboards
• Centralised workflow inside CMS
• 15-minute newsletters
• Subscription platforms
  

Google Tag Manager with a data layer

Google Tag Manager (GTM) and data layers are pretty quick and easy to implement and have a long tail of benefits.

At its simplest, GTM is a copy & paste job and allows a wider range of users to manage scripts and tags on your website — Google Analytics (GA), Facebook retargeting pixels, etc. — without needing a developer.

GTM’s value can greatly enhanced by ensuring your content management system (CMS) builds a data layer. This means that when the page loads, important context and article attributes such as taxonomies, comments, authors etc. are load too. Additional user attributes, such as login or membership status can also be piped in.

The result of adding a data layer in GTM is that you can produce more advanced reporting. For example, telling GA the post author of every page view means you can easily build reports that group page views by authors. Another example could be finding out the average time on site for paying subscribers vs. free subscribers. 

All of this impactful data can be gathered without the need, or expense, of developers.

Automated data visualisation dashboards

You no longer need engineers or specialist database experts to build custom dashboards or sophisticated reporting visualisations.  

Rather than manually updating spreadsheets, you can now plug data sources like Google Analytics into no/low code tools such as Google Data Studio, Mixpanel, Supermetrics, or Klipfolio. 

The reality is that data lives in many places in most tech stacks, but building a data lake or data warehouse can be a significant investment both in upfront costs and ongoing maintenance. As an alternative, we’ve seen tools such as Google Sheets set up to act as databases.

A recent example we came across pumped data from GA and Google Ad Manager. With some simple automation between these services, it allowed for near real-time updating and unique reporting without needing a data specialist to set it up.

Centralised workflow inside CMS

Editorial teams commonly struggle with clunky processes and often use a myriad of tools — Google Docs, Trello, calendars — to handle the editorial process. 

What’s often overlooked is that most CMSs offer pretty easy ways to extend the default out-of-the-box workflows, meaning you can use the CMS for approval flows, calendering, and internal editorial comments across articles. This can cut down on the cost of running several different platforms and reduce the risk of human error or data loss. 

One example of where the effort was made to bring as much of the editorial process into a CMS was Nine Australia’s INK CMS project, which was built on top of WordPress. INK moved everything from editing to legal approvals and Slack alerts into the CMS, streamlining day-to-day processes considerably.  

15-minute newsletters

It’s incredibly common to see someone with the unfortunate job of having to copy and paste content out of a CMS into an ESP such as Mailchimp or Campaign Monitor. Not only does it take forever, but there’s also a heightened risk of sending out the wrong link unless you intensely review every send.

Moving the composing of a newsletter into the CMS is actually pretty straightforward. 

At the simple end of the spectrum, there are plugins like Newsletter Glue for WordPress that let you plug and play with a dozen mainstream ESPs.

READ MORE: How to turbocharge your newsletter process using WordPress

If simple plugins like that don’t offer enough flexibility or custom workflows, most of these ESPs have APIs that can be plugged into your CMS and have newsletters pushed straight into people’s inboxes. 

This is one of those features where we see drastic returns on investment, with the average time to compose and send a newsletter dropping to less than 15 minutes. Because the CMS is generating the images and links etc., there’s little chance someone will forget to update a hyperlink or send out the wrong story. 

Subscription platforms

We often meet publishers who believe their subscription needs require a custom-made system that’s built from scratch. Tools like Stripe’s API make it seem like a custom subscription solution would be simple to set up –– and for less expense than SaaS subscription platforms.

But sorting out all of the peripheral requirements to run a subscription service is more complicated that it appears. You need to identify solutions for email automation, collection systems for failed payments, and reporting. 

That’s why we generally recommend leaning on SaaS tools to handle all these business-critical functions and find they are usually well worth a revenue share with the developers. On the simpler end, tools like Memberful are often a quick way to build out a proof-of-concept subscription product that will scale and relieve headaches in the short term.

If you want to offer group subscriptions or the option to bundle, more sophisticated subscription products like Recurrly, Chargify, or Chargebee offer much more flexibility – but can be pricey. Enterprise subscription tools like Zuora or Piano are also available for higher-end solutions.

We recently moved California Sun off a custom subscription platform onto Memberful:

Final Thoughts

It can be an uncomfortable truth that many technology requirements for media and publishing platforms are actually pretty simple.

It’s disheartening when internal or agency teams sell over complex tech that eventually fails to do what it originally set out to achieve. 

Some helpful questions to ask when greenlighting projects or proposals for new digital publishing technology: 

• Are there any other ways we could build this feature?
• If we had 50% of the time or budget, would we approach it differently?
• Are we using industry-standard / highly-used modules/plugins/libraries, or is this feature being built with some experimental tech or run by a single developer who may abandon something critical?

• Does this approach require additional overheads? (e.g. Additional AWS resources, SaaS subscriptions, etc.)

• Do we need different talent and skill sets than we currently have to operate or develop in this?

Asking these questions at the start can avoid tech debt that will cost a lot of headaches, and money, down the line. 

This article is based on a workshop presented by The Code Company’s Ben May at the 2022 Mumbrella Publish Awards in Sydney. The full presentation can be viewed on Mumbrella Pro, which offers a free 7-day trial.

The post The Minimalist Publisher: How to publish better with less appeared first on The Code Company.

When your website grows to a certain size, a basic hosting solution can’t support all your business needs and custom requirements. That’s when you should consider a managed hosting solution such as WordPress VIP. Managed hosting ensures your website is fast and secure and takes care of updates, backups, and more. 

READ MORE: Managed vs. Self-Hosted Infrastructure for Publishers

How do you migrate to managed WordPress hosting?

Is it as easy as lift-and-shift ? Unfortunately not.

And when your website is your business, you need to be well prepared. Let’s explore how to migrate to WordPress VIP and how best to prepare for it. 

This article features insights from a WordPress VIP migration webinar in which our founder and Managing Director, Ben May, participated with other migration experts.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What is WordPress VIP?
• How to prepare for a WordPress VIP migration
• Where to get help with your website migration

What is WordPress VIP?

WordPress VIP (WPVIP) is a managed hosting service offered by Automattic. Unlike WordPress.com’s shared hosting that’s built for small websites, WordPress VIP caters to demanding, high-traffic enterprise websites with complex security requirements. 

WordPress VIP serves large digital publishers like the New York Post, VentureBeat, and Al Jazeera, who use features such as:

• Fully managed hosting: WPVIP’s plans include speed optimisation tools like built-in content delivery networks (CDNs), code minification, and image optimisation. You also don’t have to worry about updates and backups.

• Security features: Besides typical security features like SSL certificates, anti-spam, and DDoS protection, WPVIP automatically scans plugins and themes to detect potential security concerns. It also conducts regular security and penetration testing to spot vulnerabilities in your website.
• User-friendly dashboard: WPVIP comes with a customisable dashboard that lets you optimise your workflows whether you’ve got a WordPress multisite or a single site installation. 

• Technical support: WPVIP lets you do migrations even without a full DevOps team. It comes with a technical support team that helps you run your website smoothly.

Why should existing WordPress publishers migrate to WordPress VIP?

If you already have a WordPress website, a WordPress VIP migration will make the transition smoother. It will decrease downtime and reduce the chances of lost functionality. 

Some downtime or issues with functions is inevitable when it comes to enterprise-sized businesses with large content libraries and comprehensive workflows. However, you should be able to keep your critical and priority features without major headaches. 

Preparing for WordPress VIP migration

The migration process is often more daunting than starting a new site since migrations can fail for various reasons. But fortunately you can prepare ahead to mitigate risks. 

Here’s what WordPress migration experts recommend for a successful WordPress VIP migration.

1. Audit your existing platform. 

Before migrating to a new platform, take stock of the functionality and features you have on the current platform. This helps you decide what to look for in the new platform.

But it’s important to remember that no two hosting platforms are alike. 

Be willing to give up on a few features when choosing a new platform. Prepare to manage what happens before and after — whether it be a loss or change of functionality.

2. Get buy-in from departments.

Migrations force different departments that usually don’t collaborate to come together. With multiple stakeholders involved, there’s bound to be miscommunication or lost details along the way, so get together to discuss goals and concerns.

Ensure everyone is on the same page regarding the reason for migration, project scale, and proposed project timeline.

To make the migration easier to digest, break down your project into manageable chunks. 

Before leaving the meeting, each department should know:

• Their roles and responsibilities
• Deadlines and timelines
• Required approvals

When getting buy-in, make sure your developers believe in the platform you’re migrating to. Otherwise, they may come with conflicting ideas in the future and cause delays.

3. Identify issues at every step.

Any large migration rarely goes off without a hitch. You can’t get rid of all the possible issues, but you can minimise them. The best way to do so is to identify them and their possible impact at every step. 

From there, think of solutions.

For example, it could be discovered just before launch, that a reverse proxy may be required for the desired architecture. This has the potential to delay a project weeks if not more. The earlier these issues can be identified, the sooner they can be considered.

4. Manage technical debt.

Technical debt occurs when IT teams cut corners due to deadlines and use legacy code or outdated frameworks.

There are two ways to manage technical debt: preventing it and repaying it. A website migration is a good time to do both.

For instance, repaying technical debt involves prioritising and refactoring features. 

Your migration team may find old features buried by code and notice that several features and functions have become interconnected. With a WordPress migration underway, you can choose which features to prioritise and repay the debt.

Once your team has addressed the technical debt piled up, you can prevent it from happening by making sure your team follows up-to-date coding standards. 

Migrating to the WordPress VIP platform helps as well since WPVIP reviews your code to ensure your IT team follows WPVIP’s coding standards.
 

Final thoughts — WordPress VIP: How to migrate to managed WordPress hosting

Migrating your enterprise website to managed hosting is transformative for many publishers. But it’s a project that can quickly balloon if you don’t have experience in migrations. Accounting for every feature difference and managing technical debt can become time-consuming. Not to mention, you may have to hire extra personnel qualified for the task. 

If you know you’ll need assistance with the migration, this is a great time to contact a WordPress VIP agency such as The Code Company.

The post WordPress VIP migrations: How to prepare for a successful project appeared first on The Code Company.

Real-time traffic data can be used to automate these widgets, but without the right setup, it can slow down your site.

Here’s how a custom WordPress integration using WP-Cron gets around that. 

What automation options do publishers have for promoting content?

Google Analytics is the usual source of truth for content popularity data. And it’s possible to automate content promotion by simply connecting your widget to the Google Analytics API on every page load. But if you’re publishing a high volume of articles, this will slow down your site on uncached pages. 

READ MORE: Fast & Easy: 7 Ways to Boost Website Performance

More often, publishers opt for a plugin like Jetpack’s Top Posts and Pages. This is a reasonable solution if you have more basic content promotion needs. It allows you to display your most liked posts, or up to ten posts that have received the most traffic in the past 48 hours. 

However, like most out-of-the-box tools, your customisation options are limited. Because results are selected purely on popularity, it’s possible for old and out-of-date content to surface in your feed  if it’s re-shared to a large audience or for some reason goes viral.

READ MORE: Ad tech: Should you build  a custom integration or use an ad management plugin?

How to automate the ‘Top Stories’ widget using Google Analytics API and cron 

For faster automation it’s better to use Cron.

Cron is the most efficient way to automate repetitive or scheduled tasks and serves as a ‘helper code’ working in tandem with Google Analytics’ existing code without impact site speed.

Here’s how we build a custom Google Analytics integration using Cron:

1. Use the Google PHP Client Library to access the Google Analytics API.

Using a client library reduces the amount of code you need to write and is more accurate than making raw requests.

Google recently launched a new ‘next generation’ version of Google Analytics (GA4), which uses events instead of session-based data. If you’re still using Universal Analytics, you have until 1st July 2023 to migrate to GA4. 

These are the libraries we’re currently using for digital publishing clients:

Google Analytics Data for PHP

Google APIs Client Library for PHP

2. Determine clear and precise parameters for your Top Stories widget.

For example, do you want to promote stories with the highest traffic regardless of publication date? Or do you want to restrict the selection to stories published in the last 7 days, 24 hours, 3 hours etc?

3. Set up a cron task

Pass the URLs of all published content through the API library at your desired cadence. Google has rate limits and the shortest interval available is 60 seconds. However,  we typically advise publishers to schedule cron runs for hourly, 30 or 15 minute intervals.   

4. Power your content with real-time traffic data

Use this Google Analytics automation throughout your owned media to increase the reach and exposure of popular content.

Examples of data-powered content promotion

While this method of automation requires some custom development work, the payoff of a more lightweight, faster site is well worth the extra effort. 

The Code Company has  used the Cron method of Google Analytics integration to engineer automated content promotion solutions for numerous digital publishers. 

Data-driven newsletters

Aside from basic ‘trending stories’ widgets, publishers can use popularity data to determine which stories feature in emails.

Our team developed a custom admin panel using Cron that collates the top 20 most viewed articles, ordered by popularity.  The editor can then easily select which 7 articles to publish in the newsletter by clicking the ‘Add Article’ button.

The newsletter can then be sent directly from WordPress to their email service provider (ESP).

Many use popularity metrics, but Google Analytics can also be engineered to promote content based on activity metrics such as comments, shares or conversions.

Final thoughts on data integration

“

Powering widgets with real-time data is a great way to efficiently automate your promotion efforts. But it shouldn’t come at the cost of your site performance.

Given the limitations of ‘Top Posts’ plugins, a custom integration with the Google Analytics API and Cron is your best option.

The post How to set up your top stories widget without hitting site speed appeared first on The Code Company.

If you’re like many of the publishers we meet, site search is often way down your priority list (if you’ve even thought about it at all).

But what if we asked you this question…

How long do you spend thinking about audience engagement, user experience and first-party data?

Our guess is that these are on your mind 24/7. 

And that is exactly why it’s so important to find the right search tool for your business (and your audience needs). If you can help audiences find what they’re looking for, they’ll stick around longer – and are more likely to convert from a reader into a subscriber. 

So how do you ensure that audiences get an optimal search experience on your website?

Common misconceptions about site search on WordPress

Digital publishers often assume that all site search tools work in a similar way: a user types in a search term and the search tool scans your website for matches. Almost like a Ctrl-F.

In reality, this approach is used only in the default WordPress search, which as you’re about to discover, has many limitations. 

While WordPress’ database structure is incredibly flexible and allows for a lot of customisation and rapid development, it comes at the expense of being able to do any kind of advanced and fast site search.

As WordPress sites increase in size and complexity, the default search search will increasingly return poor results and often incredibly slowly. 

This is where specialist WordPress plugins and or SaaS tools like Elasticsearch come into play. 

What site search options do publishers have?

Default WordPress Search:

At the bottom end of the site search spectrum is the default WordPress Search functionality, which can be easily added to your website by customising the Header in the Primary Menu. However, if you’re publishing more than a simple blog, the logic of out-of-the-box WordPress Search will likely be too rudimentary.  All it allows users to do is search for exact terms in titles and body content. If they write a question or if there’s a typo in their search request, no matches will be found. 

In many cases, it’s more effective to perform a site search using Google than the default WordPress search – which is hardly an optimal user experience. 

WordPress Site Search Plugins:

The next tier of site search tools are plugins – and there is a plethora to choose from (both free and paid). Choosing the right search plugin for your media business ultimately depends on your revenue model, the size of your website and the volume of content you publish.

But here are some of the key functionality to look for in site search plugins:

• Full site scanning: This means it searches all indexable content (custom post types, taxonomies, excerpts, pdfs, shortcodes, comments etc.) not just the body copy.
• Search relevance customisation: If you want to set search priorities, score search terms, and determine how search results are organised and displayed then customisation is an essential function for a site search plugin.
• Author search: This is particularly important for digital publishers as audiences often follow a particular writer
• Filtering options:  This allows audiences to select specific content types, topics, dates etc.
• Search suggestion/corrections: Misspellings are common in search requests. This feature suggests relevant results based on semantics, user behaviour and natural language 
• Multisite compatibility:You’ll need this if you’re a publisher with have multiple verticals
• Integration with e-commerce platform: If your current (or revenue strategy) may feature include e-commerce, you need to ensure your chosen search tool and sales platform are compatible.

Examples of site search WordPress plugins include Relevanssi and SearchWP. These both have solid logic and deliver the level of relevancy required by most small-to-medium sized publishers. Even if you opt for the free version, you’ll be streets ahead of default WordPress search.

Specialised SaaS Site Search Engines:  

If you’re publishing a high volume of content, require complex search functionality, or you simply want lightning fast results, you can’t do better than a site search engine like Elasticsearch.  

Unlike WordPress plugins, which run on your site’s server, Elasticsearch is a purpose-built search tool that’s hosted on separate infrastructure. This means it can query millions of records and multiple data types (structured, unstructured, geo, metric) with no negative impact on site performance.

Unsurprisingly, Elasticsearch comes at a cost. The exact price can change depending on how many records are in the search index, what type of provider you use (There’s plain Elasticsearch, and there’s more advanced tools like Algolia that compliment their Elastic Search product with AI and more advanced tooling).

Hosting platforms such as WordPress VIP bundle this kind of functionality into their platform which avoids needing a separate subscription for an Elasticsearch provider.

Alternatively, you can opt for a self-managed service whereby you set up and configure Elasticsearch independently on tools like AWS, Google Cloud or Digital Ocean. 

How site search can lead to more revenue

A site search tool has the potential to do so much more than help visitors find what they need. With the right setup it can also be a brilliant source of first-party data.

READ MORE: How to increase publishing revenue with better first-party-data

Search data provides so much insight into the content interests of audiences, that it’s an invaluable resource when it comes to deciding editorial and product development strategy.

As audience demands continue to increase, having an optimised search function will only get more important. And with such low risk vs. potential reward, these simple additions to your tech stack could well be the engagement solution you’ve been searching for.

The post Why you should be thinking more about site search appeared first on The Code Company.

While the quality of your editorial content will always be a defining factor in audience engagement, your website also plays a huge role in determining who bounces or sticks around for more.

This article will explore the 5 most common technical issues that stand in the way of deeper content engagement:

1. Slow loading times

Site performance is arguably the most critical of all metrics for publishers to master. If your website takes too long to load, audiences are likely to become frustrated and move on to something else.

Unfortunately one of the biggest contributors to poor load times, is also one of one of the biggest sources of audience engagement. Rich media content ( especially video) can add precious seconds to your page load speed, and provide a lousy UX if not properly optimised.

How can publishers produce engaging content without damaging website performance?

Firstly, offload your video to a 3rd party to a hosting platform like YouTube or Vimeo. You can remove 3rd party branding and embed the video so that it looks like a native part of your site and you don’t lose users.

Just ensure you turn off montetisation options unless you’re happy with  a pre-roll ad appearing on your homepage.

Live streaming is a slightly different story to pre-recorded video, particularly if you expect large audiences. In this case, an enterprise streaming solution that’s designed to scale for high traffic volume might be a better option. Tools like Cloudflare Stream come with access controls so that live content can be gated and made available only to subscribers. WP Engine have a plugin Cloudflare Stream Video Plugin for WordPress that makes it easy to upload and stream video on WordPress sites.

Image optimisation is also crucial, particularly if your website has multiple variations and sizes. Luckily,  there are specialist tools that resize, crop and process images automatically. As a WordPress VIP agency, The Code Company is most familiar with WordPress VIP’s built-in Image Transformation Tool, which allows publishers to dynamically optimise images based on device type. 

Choosing the best content technology is one part of the site speed equation but performance optimisation is no simple task. There are many considerations which go way beyond just Time to First Byte (TTFB). We’ve written at length about the many metrics of website performance that should be on publishers’ radar. 

The list is long, which is why many choose to partner with a specialist technical agency that can continually optimise their website against all of these metrics.

READ MORE: How FreightWaves increases page views by 35% and boosted site performance by 266%.

2. Not using audience data

Insight is everything. How can you create engaging content without a thorough understanding of what inspires and motivates your readers?

With the disappearance of third-party cookies, publishers must now rely on first-party data to track audience behaviour. And in our experience, some key opportunities are often missed.

The introduction of GA4 makes it easier to create data-led content solutions because it allows you to track all user interactions as events. Just turn on ‘Enhanced Measurement’ and select which interactions you want to track (scroll depth, downloads, site search, video engagement etc.)

Our team  recently built a content promotion system for a publisher that wanted to experiment with more advanced data than simple page views.  We ran a custom algorithm that weights content based on: page views, engagement, time on page and age of article. This setup means that a post’s score gradually declines over time but if there’s a sudden surge in page views, the score increases – and so does its exposure on the site.

Read More: How to set up top stories widget without hitting site speed

Outside of content promotion, here are some other ideas for saving audience data at various touch points along the audience journey.

• Track categories of content clicked on in newsletters/emails: This will help you to build trends around audience interests and/or test new content categories
• Only allow registered users to comment: And ask them a few questions about their shopping habits, interests or challenges or as part of the registration process. 
• Own your data: Use less third-party tools that control what data you can access and manipulate. Where possible, keep data within your owned infrastructure.

3. Ineffective content personalisation

Personalisation is an interesting subject for publishers. Everyone wants to be doing it, some aren’t doing it at all and others are way over complicating it and failing to see any meaningful ROI.

In our experience, the most successful personalisation efforts come to those that keep it simple. In fact, effective personalisation can be achieved without the need for complex automation. For example, our team recently developed an innovative Filer by Feels feature for Selena Gomez’s publishing startup Wondermind that suggests content based on readers’ emotional state.

Our team also created the eBay Audience Finder Functionality to help advertisers identify their best campaign option.

It’s generally easier to delve into personalisation efforts with a marketing automation tool like Campaign Monitor or Active Campaign. These integrate with your website, enabling you to create personalised email content using user behaviour data”.

Here are some simple ways to get started with content personalisation:

• Include the reader’s name. It’s the fastest way to increase open rates, click-thru rates and conversion.
• Segment audiences: Use your newly acquired first-party data to create targeted content for different audience segments. This might be based on information they have volunteered e.g. interests or based on user behaviour.
• Recommend content: Increase recirculation by following in Netflix’s footsteps and suggest content based on audiences’ viewing history.

4. Broken links

Nothing destroys engagement faster than a 404 message. Don’t let this happen. Ensure your team is properly resourced to identify and fix technical errors as they happen. 

What are the main causes of broken links?

Broken links most often occur when articles or product pages are deleted,  so make sure you always set up a redirect when cleaning up old content. WordPress plugins like Redirection or Yoast Premium, detect when users land on broken pages and either notify you or automatically redirect.

Replatforming to a new CMS can also cause broken links and 404s if the process isn’t tightly managed and URLS mapped correctly. That’s why it’s vital to work with a website migration agency that understands the complexities of data migration and enterprise web development. 

5. Painful registration process

Ease of interaction is critical to successful engagement – and it starts with the sign-up process. If subscribing to a newsletter is difficult or time-consuming, readers won’t bother. 

One way to simplify the sign-up process is to leverage html5 autofill capabilities. Autofill is a feature that allows users to save their personal information, such as name, email address, and phone number, in their browser or device. When a user encounters a sign-up form, their browser or device can automatically fill in the required fields with their saved information.Be sure to use the proper naming conventions when creating a form.

Another way to simplify the sign-up process is to simplify the form itself. As much as you want to gather audience data, limit questions to one or two and use these UX tips for improving online forms.

Once your form is built, ensure people can see it. Embed the form on your homepage – ideally above the fold – and on all articles and landing pages. 

6. Poor accessibility

Audiences can’t engage with content if they’re unable to consume it, so it’s vital that your website is accessible to people with disabilities. In its simplest form, this means using alt text for images, providing closed captions for videos, and ensuring that your site is compatible with assistive technologies.

However, to be confident your content is truly accessible to all, you may want to consider Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) certification. This is awarded to websites that meet specific design principles.

When building a new publishing platform it’s important to include accessibility as part of the initial brief as it’s harder to adapt an existing site that’s been built without these key principles in mind.

In conclusion 

Content engagement is an important metric because it affects all aspects of publishing success. By avoiding the most common technical pitfalls you can increase loyal readership, increase recirculation and reap the revenue rewards of having an engaged and active audience.

The post Overcoming the 5 biggest technical barriers to engagement appeared first on The Code Company.