Thursday Buzz: Every Second Counts on Your Site

When it comes to building a fast website, you may not have the resources of The Washington Post—a noted speed demon, of course—but you can still keep your site working pretty fast.

Recently, Trusted Media Brands, the publisher of Reader’s Digest and other magazine and digital brands, upgraded its web platform with a focus on speed, according to Digiday  (opens in a new tab).

A page that once took 3.5 seconds to load now takes 2 seconds. Maybe a second and a half doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a nearly 50 percent improvement, and for heavy surfers, that’s a noticeable difference.

So how’d they do it? A new CMS had a lot to do with it. Previously a longtime user of TeamSite, the company moved to WordPress earlier this year, and the move allowed the team to upload content more easily, improve image compression, and boost caching.

Removing code from outdated ad campaigns also helped a lot, Nick Contardo, Trusted Media’s VP of product and technology, told DigiDay. “We had a lot of really old code on the site,” he said. “You save a few milliseconds off of [eliminating] each of those calls.”

The result was a better experience for the Reader’s Digest audience. It’s a good example that associations can definitely borrow from.

LearN From a For-Profit Event Pro

Ever wonder what HubSpot’s event #marketing  (opens in a new tab) strategy looks like? Here’s a secret look: https://t.co/rNY95uoCoi  (opens in a new tab) #eventprofs  (opens in a new tab) #assnchat  (opens in a new tab)

— Bizzabo (@Bizzabo) September 14, 2017  (opens in a new tab)

Events are an important strategy for for-profit companies looking to generate leads and boost sales. The inbound marketing company HubSpot is a great example.

So how does HubSpot use events to fuel its business? A new piece on the Bizzabo blog  (opens in a new tab) featuring Roberta Ocampo, event marketing manager of HubSpot’s Asia Pacific arm, breaks things down.

Other Links of Note

What should you make of the “notch” on top of the iPhone X? According to The Verge  (opens in a new tab), it’s all about branding.

The latest piece on Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog is worth reading for the headline alone: “6 Ideas to Freshen Up That Busted Blog of Yours  (opens in a new tab).”

Feeling distracted? Maybe you need to think about the distraction differently. This Lifehacker post based on a quote from Marcus Aurelius  (opens in a new tab) will give you a lot to ponder.

(acilo/Getty Images Plus)