Founded in 1935, Roto-Rooter is the largest provider of plumbing, drain cleaning and water cleanup services in North America.
As of July 2018, Google started using page speed times as a ranking factor for its mobile search. This meant that fast page speeds were rewarded with higher SEO rankings while slow page speeds dropped.
Reducing the page load time and improve the overall user experience for this leading North American home services company.
The Challenge
We were approached by Rotorooter to enhance the performance of their website and the experience for their customers. With a large percentage of their customers visiting via mobile and the importance of mobile speed in relation to SEO and conversion, it was high. Our mandate was to decrease load time and enhance their overall Lighthouse score.
The Solution
To meet the overall objective of optimizing page speed and increasing conversion, we first conducted a UX audit of the client’s website. From the assessment, we determined a series of enhancements that would make improvements to their page speed and developed a prioritized roadmap to deliver on the overall objectives.
Four main Web Page Test metrics were employed as a guideline to ensure we measured against Google standards. These included load time, speed index, bytes-in, and the number of server requests. Examples of some of the optimizations we implemented to improve these metrics were:
Key User Experience and Design Considerations
Standardized and reduced the number of fonts loaded on the site
Optimized and converted images to webP, a next-generation image format
Reduced the number of requests to the server while also reducing the load time
Designing a responsive experience that Increases mobile traffic and conversions
Using a design system to create reusable components to reduce number of server calls
Increase in lighthouse & accessibility score
The Results
As a result, we were able to reduce the client’s page load time by 54%. Optimizing the page speed with rigorous testing against industry standards resulted in significant advancements as the client has seen great improvements in customer experience and conversion.
A designs system that is used organization wide and by external vendors to uphold a consistent brand standard.