Reasons Why Revamp Agency, Based in New York, Switched from WordPress Shop to Jamstack [First Half]

In the fall of 2017, James Weis, founder and lead developer of Revamp Agency, was searching for ways to speed up client website loading times. In July of the same year, Google announced that site loading times and overall speed would officially be included as factors in ranking decisions for Google search engine results pages on mobile devices.

 

At Revamp, we have already implemented various plugins and server-side optimizations, such as LightHouse and Google's proprietary PageSpeed report, to improve the loading speed of our clients' websites. However, we found that this was not enough.

 

"I wanted our clients' website to load faster than our competitors," explains Weis. No one wants it any other way, but there was a reason why the website I was in charge of didn't load instantly, but rather in 1-2 seconds.

 

James Weis

Founder and Lead Developer of Revamp Agency

 

The reason for this is because Weis and his team mainly handle small and medium-sized businesses. While most are BtoB, there are also some BtoC, but all websites managed by Revamp, even those with integration with e-commerce and storefronts, are basically very similar and very simple.

 

Revamp Co. has been using WordPress for several years now, and both our team and clients have been satisfied with the service. However, we have recently discovered, through the efforts of Weis and his team, that no matter how many plugins we use or how much we optimize the front-end, the site's loading speed just won't improve as we had hoped.

 

Even when utilizing CDN and optimizing server-side functions, it was still inefficient. In dynamic WordPress sites like this, no matter how simple and easy-to-understand the content may be, there seemed to be limitations in loading speed.

 

Unable to find a way to reduce loading time, Weis and his team decided to think beyond the framework of the previous WordPress ecosystem. They began searching for alternative platforms to build and manage client websites.

 

Fortunately, they had completely new options.

①Reasons why WordPress couldn't be used with Revamp

The reason why Revamp Co. considered options other than WordPress for the client's website was not just because of loading speed.

 

"As the number of our clients' websites increases, we have found ourselves spending more and more time monitoring plugin updates to ensure they are up-to-date and secure. To be honest, it was taking up hours every month and it didn't make sense for our company financially," says Weis.

 

In addition, we have been increasingly troubled by legacy client sites. Many of Revamp's clients have been using the site for years, and while the front end has been revamped, the back end has become more complex, making it difficult for new account managers and junior marketers to navigate when publishing new content.

 

This task has become an even bigger challenge for clients who need their own access to the CMS, whether it is legacy or not, and regularly update it themselves. Client training and support has been time-consuming and frustrating for both the Revamp account manager and the client, including cases where the client accidentally turned off plugins or broke modules.

 

In addition, many of these sites are based on templates, and Weis felt unnecessary restrictions on the designer's ability to update the appearance and atmosphere of the site for clients. Clients may get bored with templates that are everywhere, but they may resist redesigning and rebuilding the design.

 

Weis struggled to find a way to write new code without slowing down the site's speed while updating existing templates and creating a fresh new look with customizations.

 

"There is a reason why WordPress has taken over the world of CMS platforms and website design. However, for customers who are looking to improve their bounce rates and conversions through continuous design updates and an easy-to-use interface, WordPress has become too complicated," says Weis.

 

In conclusion, the main issues that Revamp Agency faced with WordPress are as follows:

 

• Unsatisfactory page loading speed
• Legacy site using outdated backend solutions
• Support for training customers to access the CMS themselves
• Boring and obviously template-like design

②Solution for Jamstack and React-based Gatsby

So, last fall, Weis, who was burdened with these things, learned about the existence of a new React-based static site generator called "Gatsby" and released version 2 of the software in June 2018.

 

Gatsby is a static site generator with React and GraphQL. In other words, it includes the best features of React's JavaScript library, GraphQL, and a completely new front-end web development experience. It is built on the Jamstack, including JavaScript, APIs, and markup, and can easily scale with minimal overhead costs for developers.