Cloudflare Archives - Marlow FIVE-0

WordPress. The Most Respected Content Management System in the World.

Posted on April 4, 2022June 23, 2023

Did you know WordPress powers 39.5% of all websites (up from powering 35% of sites in 2020)?

CMS	Market Share (2021)
WordPress	65%
Shopify	6.5%
Wix	3.4%
SquareSpace	3.0%
Joomla	2.5%
Drupal	1.9%

2021 stats according to W3 Techs

Lytle Enterprises contacted our team in October 2021 with accessibility, SEO and usability concerns for their aging website. Our goals included:

To refresh and modernize the website based on the organization’s existing brand identity;
To improve ease of use – including content management, information architecture, readability, and site maintenance;
To improve conformance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) level AA – including keyboard-navigable navigation, skip-to-content links, semantic HTML, site search; and high color contrast [> 4.5:1 and > 3.5:1 for large text];
To improve site performance and security;
To improve search engine visibility and optimization.

The final benchmark results were impressive …

Performance Metric	Old website (November 2021)	New Website (April 2022)
Google Lighthouse: Accessibility	96/100	100/100
Google Lighthouse: Best Practices	67/100	100/100
Google Lighthouse: Mobile Speed	59/100	86/100
Google Lighthouse: Desktop Speed	71/100	98/100
Google Lighthouse: Search Engine Optimization	71/100	93/100
WebPageTest Speed Index	5.845	2.116
Total Homepage File Size	377 Kb (201 Kb Images + 172 Kb Scripts + 13 Kb CSS + 40 Kb Fonts + 19 Kb HTML)	383 Kb (231 Kb Images + 4 Kb Scripts + 41 Kb CSS + 107 Kb Fonts + 8 Kb HTML)
Total Web Server Requests	25 (3 Images +13 Scripts + 5 CSS + 2 Font + 5 HTML)	20 (6 Images + 2 Scripts + 8 CSS + 3 Fonts + 1 HTML)
Total Homepage Load Time	~5.8 seconds	~2.1 seconds

WebPage Test Speed Index: median = ~3.591; top 10% = <1.388
In 2021, the average page size = ~2.4 Mb and median page size = ~2.1 Mb.
Database-driven websites, like WordPress, are more performance optimized when server requests are < 40 – 60.

Web Design + Development Team

Visual Design: Erik Fadiman
WordPress Theme Development: Scott Marlow

WordPress Child Themes at Work

Posted on October 18, 2021June 23, 2023

supply chain and logistics company website — Twenty Twenty-One is a blank canvas for your ideas. It makes the block editor your best brush. See how Twenty Twenty-One elevates your portfolio, business website, or personal blog.

WordPress’ TwentyTwenty-One template theme turned into a turn-key landing page solution for Solmark International – a global supply chain and logistics company.

Before & After Twenty Twenty-One Theme CSS Customization

Scope of Work

brand discovery
project management
content strategy
copywriting
creative strategy
art direction
color palette development
front-end web development
performance optimization
security hardening
visual design
WordPress training and consulting

Benchmark	Score
Google Lighthouse: Mobile Performance	87/100
Google Lighthouse: Desktop Performance	100/100
Google Lighthouse: Accessibility	100/100
Google Lighthouse: Best Practices	100/100
Google Lighthouse: SEO	93/100
WebPageTest Speed Index	2.116
Total Homepage File Size	1.56 Mb
Total Web Server Requests	22

WebPage Test Speed Index: median = ~3.591; top 10% = <1.388
In 2020, the average page size = ~2.4 Mb and median page size = ~2.1 Mb.
Database-driven websites, like WordPress, are more performance optimized when server requests are < 40 – 60.

Team

Branding, Visual Design and Content Strategy by: Gravity Communications
WordPress Theming and Consulting by: Scott Marlow

What Would WordPress Do?

Posted on February 1, 2021June 23, 2023

WordPress is the most popular Content Management System in the world. WordPress powers 42% of all websites; and 62% of CMS-powered sites.

But not all WordPress sites are created equal.

One of my favorite tasks is showing clients the benefits of open source technology. In particular, I enjoy demonstrating Core Web Vitals for open source WordPress Themes vs. cheap, popular paid commercial themes from vendors like ThemeForest. I primarily use Google Lighthouse to evaluate sites, but I also rely on Pingdom, WebPageTest and other benchmarking tools.

This latest nonprofit project for PenMet Parks in Gig Harbor involved rebuilding a commercial theme-powered WordPress site with my favorite Theme, _Underscores.

The client’s previous page load speed was atrocious, and the website crashed on a regular basis. Worse, content contributors could not even use the CMS to make the most basic content edits due to bloated Theme and Plugin features.

By following better WordPress and web standards, web server requests were reduced 69% and page size was reduced 73%. As a result of better web development practices, page load speed improved 78%. And the parks organization can now easily, intuitively edit all of their site content.

Scope of Work

accessibility testing
brand discovery
project management
content migration
copywriting
creative strategy
art direction
color palette development
front-end web development
performance optimization
security hardening
search engine optimization
visual design
WordPress training and consulting

Site Statistics

Performance Metric	Old Website	New Website
Google Lighthouse: Mobile Performance	3/100	67/100
Google Lighthouse: Desktop Performance	12/100	92/100
Google Lighthouse: Accessibility		97/100
Google Lighthouse: Best Practices		93/100
WebPageTest Speed Index	7.176	1.831
Total Homepage File Size (In 2020, average page size was ~2.4 Mb; median size was ~2.1 Mb)	4.5 Mb	1.2 Mb
Total Web Server Requests	194	61
Estimated Mobile Homepage Load Time	~7 seconds	~1.8 seconds