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Success story: Econos.green

STRAIGHTVISIONS worked closely with Econos and played a key role in the technical relaunch of their WordPress website. Thanks to this collaboration, Econos was able to realize a rapid time-to-market, supported by a robust and stable platform. This process underlines STRAIGHTVISIONS’ efficiency and expertise in the digital field.

About Econos

Econos offers access to alternative, sustainable asset classes.straightvisions supports the startup with the initial launch and technical relaunch of the website as well as the development of scalable web services.

Specifications

Startup Econos worked in collaboration with a WordPress agency on the inital release of the website.

Two weeks before the planned launch, the commissioned agency switched to another project without continuing to support Econos until the completion and go-live of the website in this critical phase.

After a short meeting, Econos decided to commission straightvisions to complete the remaining tasks. Thanks to short decision-making processes at Econos, straightvisions was able to get started immediately.

Challenges

Despite the lack of documentation, a handover or other support from the previous agency, the implementation had to be ensured at short notice within 2 weeks.

Solution

STRAIGHTVISIONS

  • took over the project at short notice
  • ensured the release within the 2-week period
  • advises, accompanies and develops the website on a permanent basis

After the launch is before the launch

After the on-schedule go live was ensured, the technical limitations of the website developed by the previous agency became more and more apparent.

STRAIGHTVISIONS

  • checked the future viability of the current website
  • captured the paint points and possible solutions
  • Created a concept for a sustainable and scalable web solution

Testing Technical Concept

Technology Selection

Advanced Custom Fields allows you to create input masks quickly and flexibly and offers a very good interface for data retrieval.

While this can make perfect sense for individual functions, the excessive use leads to high development efforts and a deteriorated performance when calling the website due to the high number of database queries.

The editing of complex subpages with a lot of content and elements leads to very long and multi-nested input forms, the effort for the adaptation of content increases.

PageSpeed

Solve Performance Blocker

The possibilities of PageSpeed optimization were limited by the architectural decisions of the previous agency.

Although some of the values could be subsequently optimized by straightvisions, permanently high values could not be achieved.

However, it became clear that the individual WordPress theme of the previous agency must be exchanged for the PageSpeed 100 theme from straightvisions to ensure a permanently high PageSpeed.

Pain Points

Outdated editor

  • Layout was created entirely by the plugin Advanced Custom Fields and individual templates
  • only programmers could make layout changes or create new pages
  • unnecessary loss of time and avoidable efforts in the creation of new content

Slow PageSpeed

  • monolithic theme structure
  • Use of CSS and Javascript frameworks
  • no module output of styles and scripts
  • many functions cannot be optimized with regard to PageSpeed

Bad code

  • Code structure not optimal
  • complex dependencies
  • Code changes sometimes led to unexpected results
  • High development, testing and maintenance costs

Solution

STRAIGHTVISIONS solved the problems recorded by relaunching the website.

PageSpeed 100

Thanks to our PageSpeed 100 technologies, we were not only able to raise the PageSpeed to top values, but also offer space for higher quality content: An automatically playing header video in the background is no problem and offers a higher quality user experience.

The top values can also be maintained in the future. If we detect a lower PageSpeed, the cause is easier to identify and fix. In this way, a PageSpeed 90+ can be reliably and permanently guaranteed, an important limit from which a website loading time is considered fast for Google.

Workflow

Basically, we have made ourselves a bit unemployed – because layout changes are now possible at any time for the Econos employees autonomously.

Instead of typing texts into a rigid and heavily nested form, the WordPress Block Editor (Gutenberg) impresses with infinite combination possibilities and a rapid implementation speed for layouting.

Through workshops and individual HowTo videos, we give the Econos team in-depth knowledge about the handling of the new editor. The in-house knowledge at Econos is continuously being expanded in order to facilitate self-sufficient processing of the website content. For more complex style requirements, our team supports if necessary.

Clean Code

We work intensively with Git repositories and version our code to be able to restore a previous development version at any time.

Due to the modular structure together with our SV Core, we can guarantee an overview even for the most complex projects. In this way, we enable parallel work by several developers in order to achieve a high implementation speed.

Regular and fast deployments on the live environment are no challenge for us and enable Econos to test new functions directly on the market quickly and agilely in a weekly rhythm.

Sky is the Limit

Unlike Software as a Service or other ready-made solutions, the website can now be adapted to Econos’ needs at any time – quickly and efficiently.

The system remains controllable and neatly structured at all times. New functions or processes can be implemented at short notice. Efforts are easier to calculate and even the most complex extensions can be implemented without hurdles.

This is the result of the ideal mix of technology sovereignty through the products of straightvisions in combination with proven third-party software. If a module proves to be a hurdle, it can easily be replaced by a better alternative.

Numbers, data, facts

Results

The relaunch not only led to greatly improved workflows in editorial and development. The load time and page size could be improved drastically – before the measured PageSpeed was synthetically good – now it is in real terms. The CO2 footprint of the website was also noticeably reduced.

52%

Page Speed

100%
60%

CO2 Score

91%

1.9 sec

Loading

0.9 sec

2.3 Mbyte

Page

0.25 Mbyte

The decisive factor here was the cooperation of the customer Econos.green, who as digital natives have no fear of contact with agile methods or technical challenges. The result is a technically excellent website with optimal processes for the team.

Matthias Bathke, CEO @ STRAIGHTVISIONS

If technology creates hurdles, then the causes must be eliminated. Technical errors are first of all a gain in knowledge, provided that they are recognized. If these findings are successfully converted into sustainable solutions, all stakeholders benefit. We are enthusiastic about the successful cooperation with Econos and look forward to future joint projects.

Dennis Heiden, CEO @ STRAIGHTVISIONS

We are pleased to have found a web agency in straightvisions that actively supports us in our growth as a young, online-focused startup. For us, it is crucial to evaluate and implement innovations and new functions at short notice. Thanks to the flexible capacity and the agile methods, this works very reliably with straightvisions. The high implementation quality, responsiveness and accessibility across all channels make the difference for us.

Lars Leinen, Product & Tech @ Econos

In the management, I depend on a team that understands the corporate vision and implements it optimally. Within a very short time, the processes between our internal tech team and straightvisions were established. Thanks to the flexible cooperation, we can do justice to the high pace of implementation of our start-up. We are pleased to have found a strong technical service provider in straightvisions.

Theresa Hauck, Co-Founder and Managing Director @ Econos