Joomla

WordPress Consulting for Private Companies and Nonprofit Organizations

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Environmental Services firm website screenshot

A website conversion from Joomla into WordPress for SoundEarth Strategies, a professional services firm that provides environmental and engineering consulting services in the Pacific Northwest. The marcom staff wanted to clone the existing Joomla website into a more intuitive, user-friendly WordPress CMS, already in use by a subsidiary.

Like WordPress, Joomla is a PHP-based open source Content Management System. With an estimated 2.5% share of market – it is estimated to be the fifth most popular CMS after WordPress (65% market share), Shopify (6.5%), Wix (3.4%) and Squarespace (3%). There are approximately 6,000 extensions available for Joomla vs. over 60,000 for WordPress.

Scope of Work

  • Accessibility Consulting
  • Database Content Migration
  • Performance Optimization
  • WordPress Theme Development

WebPageTest Speed Index shows a 62% improvement in mobile page load speed by reducing web server requests almost 20% and reducing page size from 3 Mb to 2 Mb.

Google Lighthouse accessibility benchmarks also improved markedly from 79 to 98/100. This is important for federal contractors who
must legally follow Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) level AA under the American Disabilities Act. Improvements included accessible form fields, increased font sizes, and higher color contrast ratios.

Before & After Performance Comparison

Performance Metric Old Joomla Homepage
 New WordPress Homepage
Google Lighthouse: Accessibility 79/100 98/100
Google Lighthouse: Best Practices 92/100 92/100
Google Lighthouse: Mobile Speed 62/100 87/100
Google Lighthouse: Desktop Speed 89/100 87/100
Google Lighthouse: Search Engine Optimization 84/100 93/100
WebPageTest Speed Index 6.767 2.588
Total Homepage File Size 2.99 Mb (2.5 Mb Images + 295 Kb Scripts + 119 Kb CSS + 117 Kb Fonts + HTML) 1.98 Mb (1.05 Mb Images + 776 Kb Scripts + 86 Kb CSS + 39 Kb Fonts + 31 Kb Other + 34 Kb HTML)
Total Web Server Requests 50 (9 Images + 19 Scripts + 17 CSS + 4 Other + 1 HTML) 41 (7 Images + 12 Scripts + 8 CSS + 8 Other + 1 Font +5 HTML)
Estimated Mobile Homepage Load Time ~6.8 seconds ~2.6 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.

WordPress Theme Development: Scott Marlow

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

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

CMSMarket Share (2021)
WordPress65%
Shopify6.5%
Wix3.4%
SquareSpace3.0%
Joomla2.5%
Drupal1.9%
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:

  1. To refresh and modernize the website based on the organization’s existing brand identity;
  2. To improve ease of use – including content management, information architecture, readability, and site maintenance;
  3. 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];
  4. To improve site performance and security;
  5. To improve search engine visibility and optimization.

The final benchmark results were impressive …

Performance MetricOld website (November 2021)New Website (April 2022)
Google Lighthouse: Accessibility96/100100/100
Google Lighthouse: Best Practices67/100100/100
Google Lighthouse: Mobile Speed59/10086/100
Google Lighthouse: Desktop Speed71/10098/100
Google Lighthouse: Search Engine Optimization71/10093/100
WebPageTest Speed Index5.8452.116
Total Homepage File Size377 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 Requests25
(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

Campaign CMS Conversion

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WordPress website for Campaign for Equal Justice

Graphic Design: Dean Driskell
WordPress mobile responsive development: Scott Marlow

A mobile responsive website conversion from Joomla to WordPress for Law Fund’s Campaign for Equal Justice.

We are so delighted that we found Scott to help us build a new website for the Campaign for Equal Justice. Scott was an ideal web developer for us — flexible, very responsive, and an expert at what he does. He did a great job collaborating with our designer to make sure our site looks beautiful and professional without sacrificing speed and mobile responsiveness. We had our new site up and running in no time, all to positive reviews.

We will use Scott again in the future, and we highly recommend him to anyone looking for a good developer!
Erica Peterson, development communications manager

The Campaign for Equal Justice is Washington’s annual fundraising drive for civil legal aid.

In 2014, over 1,000,000 people in Washington state will need legal help they cannot afford.

The new site includes a refreshed logo and color palette. The information architecture was greatly simplified. And staff now find it easier to manage content with WordPress.

A co-branded, companion endowment site was launched simultaneously to promote planned giving.