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General Discussion

Joel Rivera
Joel Rivera
29,401 Points
Posted by Joel Rivera
Joel Rivera
29,401 Points

Website Feedback

Hello everyone,

I wanted to get peoples feedback on a website I designed for a client.

http://www.bronxandwestchesterhomes.com

I'm using WordPress and I incorporated Bootstrap 3 for the responsive flow with a Walker Class for the menu. Just went live today and will be fine tuning it over the week.

The design is a work in progress but I am focusing right now on the functionality of the site.

I am having some issues with the speed of the site. I tried using W3 Total Cache and it destroyed the site. Then I tried Wp Super Cache and it destroyed the site. Finally I am using WP Fastest Cache and the site is doing fine. But the page loads between 2.5 seconds and 3.5 seconds. I would like to get it under 2 seconds.

Note: I am hosting on a VPS. Apache Server. I know people might suggest Nginx but I already paid for the server and will stay till the contract is up. Just wanted to know what I could do to speed this up.

Actions I've already taken:

  1. Calling the bootstrap css & js files from a CDN
  2. I manually minified the style sheet.
  3. Using Smushit for the images.
  4. Using WP Fastest Cache

I know the Live Chat is causing a slight delay but I think this feature benefits the client.

Again, here is the link: http://www.bronxandwestchesterhomes.com

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

UPDATE: I reduced my Page Size from 721 kb to 443.3 kb Still analyzing the Waterfall from pingdom tools to see where I can shave off some time. I highly recommend https://tinypng.com/ for PNG Image Compression.

Still could use feedback. lol

2 Answers

Sarah Bradberry
Sarah Bradberry
7,115 Points
Sarah Bradberry
Sarah Bradberry
7,115 Points

I have my site on a vps and I use google pagespeed and find it works well.

The below are just thoughts. Please ignore at will! :)

The first thing that I noticed is that the text in the top nav bar needs to contrast more with the background. I'd be inclined to go for a lighter text. I'd also include some hover styling so people know they're links.

I'd move the register and log in buttons down a bit so they're in line with the words "Bronx & Westchester" on the left. It's visually more pleasing.

Co-operative doesn't have a capital O after the hyphen

Style-wise (and this is totally just my opinion) I would be inclined to either make the width of the header and footer the same as the content area, or make the content area the same width as the header and footers.

The social sharing buttons came up as blank squares until I hovered over them.

I'd also make the photos and videos on the right the same width.

I really like your little "leave a message" at the bottom. It shows people you're not there to talk to but you think their thoughts are important. Nice.

Now I'm off to redesign my site because it's a mess ;-)

Darren Healy
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Darren Healy
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 23,565 Points
Darren Healy
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Darren Healy
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 23,565 Points

Hi Joel,

I like the site! How did you start off with the form on the right hand side of the page? I would like to do something similar, but could use guidance getting going.