Autodesk
About
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California. They provide specialized software products and services across multiple industries including architecture, engineering, construction, and media. With offices worldwide, including major locations in the U.S. and Canada, Autodesk is a leader in technological solutions for a diverse set of professional fields.
The Challenge
Autodesk’s Construction blog, built on WordPress, was struggling with slow page load times and overall poor performance, which compromised its SEO. Lacking crucial technical SEO elements and failing Google's Core Web Vitals, the blog's inefficiencies were identified by the internal SEO team. Consequently, Autodesk commissioned our agency to perform a comprehensive rebuild to enhance its speed and meet SEO standards.
Goals
The primary objective was to completely rebuild Autodesk's Construction blog on WordPress, focusing on restructuring its technical SEO implementation and significantly reducing site load times. This effort was aimed at ensuring full compliance with Google's Core Web Vitals, with a particular emphasis on enhancing user experience by improving site speed and making the blog more responsive and accessible to users.
According to research, the probability of a user leaving a website (bounce rate) increased by 32% when it took 1-3 seconds to load a page, by 90% when it took 1-5 seconds, and by 123% when it took more than 10 seconds to load a page.
Page Load Time
Results
A Complete Overhaul
We successfully implemented a complete rebuild of Autodesk's Construction blog using a themeless structure, significantly streamlining the site by reducing the number of plugins from 30 to 17. This reduction not only decluttered the backend but also contributed to enhancing overall site performance.
Site Load Time
The rebuild had a dramatic impact on the blog's performance. Previously, the site fully loaded in 15 seconds, but with the new optimizations and streamlined structure, the fully loaded time was reduced to just 918 milliseconds. This significant improvement, marking a 93.88% reduction in load time, greatly enhances the user experience by providing faster access to content.
Google Web Core Vitals
Performance
Previously - 53
Accessibility
Previously - 80
Best Practices
Previously - 83
SEO
Previously - 86
Google Core Web Vitals
Overall, the project marked a significant success in terms of compliance with Google's standards. The previous site failed to meet Core Web Vitals, significantly impacting its performance metrics. However, after the rebuild, the new site now passes Google Core Web Vitals in all crucial areas, ensuring better search engine rankings and a smoother user experience.
I inherited Group6 as a vendor from acquisition and wasn’t sure they’d be able to fit the needs of the new direction, but they have stepped up and over-delivered at every opportunity. Their WordPress savvy helped us rebuild a blog and get huge performance improvements to let our content team more effectively reach their SEO goals.
The team is responsive, skilled, honest, and fun. I’ve been super impressed with Group6 and would recommend them to anyone looking for a trustworthy and experienced web development agency.
Sarah Lee
Senior Manager, Global Marketing Programs
