![]() ![]() Knowing that Driver Solutions targets aspiring truck drivers from all across America, we implemented a pull-based CDN on Amazon Cloudfront to make sure their site visitors would have a lightning-fast experience no matter their location. Implementing a CDNĪ CDN is a content delivery network that takes a website’s static files, such as CSS and images, and delivers them to users from servers that are close to the user’s physical location. PHP 7 provides a much-needed modernization to the language, including a new version of the PHP engine “phpng,” which was written to decrease memory consumption and increase performance. Once we upgraded Driver Solutions to a newer version of ExpressionEngine, we were able to upgrade them to PHP 7. We removed the add-ons that were no longer used, and updated or replaced those that were incompatible with PHP 7. Those updates also included updating the ExpressionEngine “add-ons” (that CMS’s version of “plug-ins”), as outdated add-ons can slow a site’s performance. So our first step in optimizing the site was to update ExpressionEngine to a more recent version that would support PHP 7. When we originally built Driver Solutions’ site in 2013, we used the most modern tools available. ![]() Upgrading the Content Management System and PHP This chart captures some of the ways we optimized the performance of Driver Solutions’ website, specifically the homepage, including the time to first byte, the first contentful paint and first meaningful paint, and the time to start render. There are multiple moments during the load experience that affect whether a user perceives a site as “fast” or “slow”-it’s an experience that no one metric can fully capture. We were able to more than double Driver Solutions’ conversion rate for organic traffic, moving it from 2.69% to 5.57% after deploying performance updates and AMP pages. Since deploying our performance updates and AMP pages, that conversion rate has more than doubled to 5.57%. Before our engagement, Driver Solutions saw a conversion rate of 2.69% for organic traffic. 85 seconds, they were able to increase conversions by 7%, decrease bounce rates by 7%, and increase pages per session by 10%.ĭriver Solutions is seeing similar improvements in conversion rates. And COOK, a frozen meal provider, found that by cutting their average page load time by. These milliseconds may seem minor, but according to research cited by Google, the BBC found they lost 10% of users for every additional second it took for their site to load. Just as impressively, we took the homepage’s speed, according to Google PageSpeed, from an optimization of “medium” (scores of 75/100 on desktop and 79/100 on mobile) to “good,” the best ranking available (84/100 on desktop and an exciting 93/100 on mobile). By the end of our engagement, those numbers sped up to 1.1 and 1.3 seconds respectively. They made sure we were able to make huge strides in the right direction by dramatically improving page load time, in addition to updating our site’s infrastructure.” - Luke Coyle, Marketing Director, Driver Solutionsīefore we started our engagement, it took an average of 1.8 seconds for a mobile user to see the homepage’s first visual response, according to, and a full 2 seconds for the HTML to be fully loaded and parsed. As usual, Sparkbox was on top of the latest trends, particularly in the way of optimizing site speed. “We chose to work with Sparkbox (again) because of the expertise that their team brings to the table. We then put this plan into action iteratively, focusing on improvements that would yield the biggest wins with the least budget, and seeing how small changes could speed up the site and create a better overall user experience. ![]() This meant a renewed focus on performance, which impacts SEO.ĭriver Solutions came to us with a simple question: “How can we make our site faster in order to improve Google search rankings?” Together, we came up with a plan, which included upgrading their content management system, implementing a CDN, adding expires headers, optimizing assets, and building Google AMP templates. The Driver Solutions site, which Sparkbox designed and built in 2013, was attracting the right job-seekers, but Driver Solutions wanted it to capture and convert even more leads. We love building long-term relationships with clients, so when Driver Solutions-which provides truck drivers with CDL training and job opportunities-reached back out to us, we were thrilled. These forward-thinkers often act as consultants where they benefit not just the projects and products, but also their organizations. Developers that are innovative and critical thinkers are demonstrating a consultant mindset. ![]()
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