10.19.2011 By Lara Swanson
Web Development Best Practices: What’s An Ideal Page Weight?
I recently came across an interesting poll on CSS-Tricks about the ideal page weight/size for today’s modern web design. We worked really hard at optimizing the front end of this very site for page load time, using asynchronous assets, CSS sprites and tons of other things to create a happy user experience, but I’d never thought about the total page size ’til now!
So I opened Firebug to check out Dyn.com, which clocked in at 195.9K and could change a few kilobytes per day depending on the featured images we have on our homepage. Chris Coyier suggests that very few sites today come in at under 200K which “used to be a common goal”.
Used to be? Why can’t it still be?
Read More08.22.2011 By Lara Swanson
How We Improved Page Speed By Cleaning CSS, HTML and Images
Page load time is a big part of the user experience.
Site speed can make or break conversion rates and impact your site’s revenue, so keep your page load time low by writing code semantically, use best practices and routinely cleaning up your CSS, HTML and images.
The root issue of heavy page load is typically poor planning at the beginning of a project or poor planning for routine site updates. For example: if a developer didn’t realize a block of content would be reused on another page, additional classes and ID’s may be added to “make it work” in the additional design. If a designer hasn’t created a master style guide for a site, tons of different hexadecimal color codes or RGB values may be used for the same purpose throughout the main CSS stylesheet. If pages involving unique designs are removed, their originally well-coded CSS may be left behind for all visitors to continue to download.
Page load time will increase as a site ages or as more hands are involved. Page size creep is a natural part of site growth, so we need to make this routine cleaning a natural part of the workflow to ensure a positive user experience.
Let’s get started!
Read More08.03.2011 By Lara Swanson
Welcome To The New Dyn.com!
It’s a big day for celebration here at Dyn as we officially unify DynDNS.com and Dyn.com!
You’ll notice some major changes in the design and content of the site as we’ve worked hard to make it even easier to learn about what we offer and how our products will be the solution that you’re looking for.
We’ve also been careful about retaining the DynDNS user experience: Sign In and Cart are still in the top right, while the Checkout process and account management still live on DynDNS.com. However, you’ll find that some old DynDNS pages are now being redirected to their new siblings on Dyn.com.
Read More06.16.2011 By Lara Swanson
How Dyn Launched A Page That Earned A Surprising 6x Anticipated Revenue
A few months ago, we launched a new page on our site. I’ll be honest that it’s not something that I thought would have a huge effect and I didn’t think that people would ever notice it.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The new page is performing incredibly well, earning six times as much revenue as I initially guessed. This project is a testament to how important it is to remind your customers how much you appreciate them and how imperative it is to take risks.
Read More05.25.2011 By Lara Swanson
How To Track Website Errors And Use Them To Improve Your Site
We’re slowly building out a brand-new checkout process for DynDNS.com for which we have several main goals: increase conversion rate from each step of the process, encourage more sales using upsell text and other incentives and ultimately make the whole process more user-friendly and efficient.
It’s a pretty simple checkout process and one that an average user will already be familiar with. However, we still see that users encounter some problems and get stuck or leave in the middle!
The main issues we wanted to overcome were:
- Exit rate from checkout pages
- Number of errors on checkout pages
The exit rate is pretty easy to see using Google Analytics, but we didn’t have any solid error tracking that was measuring the Javascript validation errors that people saw on each page; we were only tracking big card declines and similar issues. So how do we go about figuring out the size of the problem?
Read More04.15.2011 By John Norton
Why jQuery.queue Should Be Your New Best Friend
As the web matures and evolves, I find that more and more websites are embracing JavaScript libraries to do their dirty work. Whether it be an AJAX call or a simple slide animation, building those calls from scratch is not a quick task. Why continue to reinvent the wheel when so many people have already done it and are willing to give it away for free?
But with so many wheels out there, you are best picking one to roll with to avoid compatibility issues. It’s no secret that my favorite JavaScript library is jQuery and it’s no coincidence that it’s the library of choice with our SmartMTA email delivery application.
For me, jQuery goes above and beyond to integrate smoothly with any web application, saving hours of time. When you can save time without sacrificing quality, it’s definitely a win-win.
Read More02.15.2011 By Lara Swanson
How We Got DynDNS.com To Load Faster And How You Can Learn From It
We’re focused on engineering excellence here at Dyn and are routinely brainstorming ways to continue to improve user experience. As attendees of the Velocity Conference and notorious nitpickers of page load time, we were proud of how fast DynDNS.com loaded…but knew we could do even better.
Why care about load times? Page speed has an impact on sales and conversions and is a big part of the user experience. I dug through our front-end files, cleaning and optimizing our site until we’d sliced our page load time in half!
Here are some tips on how to make some major improvements to your site’s speed:
Read More10.19.2010 By Kyle York
10 Ways to Optimize Your Website and Increase Customer Conversion
Earlier today I had the pleasure of presenting with Andy Piggott, Managing Director at Incutio Limited at the E Commerce Expo in Olympia, London. Dyn Inc. and Incutio both have the same obsession in life — making websites faster because we know what it means for the bottom line of a business; improved conversion, more satisfied customers and generally lower operational costs.
Read More