The BIG Problem I Faced And How You Can Avoid It!
Today is the last day of the first month of SAC and I have to say that the SAC has gone off to a pretty good start, despite not having results to show for it.
I have over 40K words written since the start of the first month on April 10th and since I was on vacation, I was only able to publish 19 posts. Although I was able to meet the minimum of 12 posts for the month, my aim is to write a post everyday and unfortunately, I have not been able to do that since I came back.
But this is something that I definitely will work on going into Month 2 of the SAC.
I guess I shouldn't be too hard on myself, and I'm trying not to be, because I found a big problem on my website that I've been trying to rectify at the same time.
If you don't know me, I've been with Wealthy Affiliate since Dec 2017 and my very first website was about the make-money-online niche and promoting Wealthy Affiliate. I'm going onto my 18th month here and my website has been horribly stagnant for a few months, instead of improving.
Although I made money, my big problem is that the number of monthly visitors is not improving. My bounce rate is not getting better. I'm not getting any better rankings as before although I pumped out more content and learned how to optimize my posts.
I had to dig into it to find out what was the problem and I finally did. I found out that the Sitespeed on mobile devices is REALLY bad, like in the RED! It rarely goes over 50 and for that reason, people are not waiting around to see my content, thus the high bounce rate.
When Sitespeed is not up to par and the bounce rate is high (mine are in the 80%), this affects rankings for your whole website, which translates to less visitors and less income.
Digging a little further in, I found this training.
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/turbo-charge-your-site-speed
It turns out that a big portion of this issue is related to images! Yes, although you have the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin, it's not enough! Follow this training and start optimizing your images from early on because there will be a heck of a lot of work for you if you wait.
I now have to optimize 1700 images INDIVIDUALLY for the 250+ posts on my website and that is going to be VERY time-consuming. You don't want to end up like me so take care of image optimization while you still can early on!
So although things have been going well, I still have this to do on my plate.. :( But on the other hand, I'm happy that I found out what the issue was and that it is something that I can rectify. It will take time, maybe a few months, but at least, it's a viable solution.
Thanks for reading everybody and I wish you all the best! All SACers, let's keep strong in Month 2 of the SAC.
Reyhana
Recent Comments
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If you want to try it, the Smush plugin will compress them all for you and you don't have to remove them from your site.
Hey Fran. Thanks but I already have Smush. It does not seem to be doing much. The only thing that has improved is my desktop sitespeed and not my mobile sitespeed.
My theme is mobile-friendly, as per Google and as per Google Sitespeed, the images are still being a big problem. So what I will need to do is to compress those images before filtering them yet again through Smush for optimization.
That's a good thing to know about images. Just beginning to get more, I will follow the process so as not to have to go back later. That seems insurmountable, yet I know you will get it done.
Onto the second month!
Bill
Yes, believe me! Get to it now! Don't wait until later on to fix it. I just didnt know about it, that's why it got to this point. But if you can start early, then do it! It will be less hassle!
Good luck with the second month of the SAC!
Reyhana
Loved the information. I am brand new to WA but not online marketing. I will definitely be doing this from day 1. Thanks for the valuable insight.
Hey Nicole.. Welcome to WA.. :)
Absolutely! It is best to start this procedure from Day 1 so it does not compile and become a lot for you to do later.
Happy learning and earning!
Reyhana
Hi Reyhana, that training was awesome and I have started to fix some issues on my site as well.
I realized and found sitespeed issues related to image optimization. I am glad you figured out what you need to do. I hope you are able to get it fixed faster than you think.
I have started with the posts that have historically gotten more clicks in the past, first. If that helps any.
I wish you the best!
Bob M
Hi Bob.. :) It's great that you discovered this training and have already started implementing the recommendations to make your Sitespeed better.
That makes sense; to start off with the ones that get more clicks. That way, you make those posts faster to get even more visitors to your website. Great idea!
I also wish you the best! I hope we get through it fast!
Reyhana
It’ll take less time for me, as I don’t have very many images in the first place...1700 is a lot.
I wish you well with your process.
Thank you Reyhana for sharing this post much appreciated.
I am having the same challenges with site speed.
I am not sure but is there not another plugin that could solve the image size problem all at once?
congratulations also for completing the first month of the SAC. YAY
Here's to second month and making it happen
Have a great week
Jennifer
You're welcome, Jennifer.. :)
I found Smush and I'm using it in the meantime but it is doing very little to boost my Site Speed. I think it will work better to optimize with Smush AFTER having compressed the image size. That's the biggest issue.
Thanks and congrats on completing the first month of SAC too!
Reyhana
Thank you Reyhana
I am so glad that you mentioned that about the plugin Smush because I was going to install it, but will leave it alone for now.
I hope that you find a solution that works and when you do I would love to know. lol
See you in month 2 of the SAC
Have a great day
Jennifer
Thank you for this post and for giving us this pointer. I have had to spend so many hours tweaking my sites, arranging images and ads also.
I have to look at the training here and make some more tweakings. Wish you all the best.
Hi Reyhana, at least your figured out what was causing the problem. I also spent much of my month, or so it seemed, fixing issues with how my site was displaying on mobile devises. Even though the theme I was using was supposed to have been responsive, it turned out that it wasn't. I have spent too much time trying to get the corrections validated.....
Hopefully next month, we will have fewer technical issues.
Hello Sondra.. :) That's right. I'm happy I figured it out and hopefully it will get done faster than I hope... lol
My theme is mobile friendly and I know it's not the plugins because I went to check my site speed in Google SiteSpeed and for every single post, it told me to optimize my images.
SO there's no way around it.. :(
Yes, hopefully next month will be a little better..
Reyhana.
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Good work and thanks for shring. Wishing you more successes
No worries, Debs.. :) Nice to see you and hear from you! Wish you great continuation here as well!