Topic · 12 articles

Website Performance

Speed, conversion and the unglamorous site work that earns revenue.

Stick-figure cartoon contrasting a stressed founder slamming one big LAUNCH lever versus a calm founder staging a test site before flipping the main domain Website Performance

The Partial Launch That Saved a Full Website Rebuild

Everyone celebrates the big launch-day post. The smartest website launches are the ones nobody announces. How a quiet partial launch on a second domain protected a client's SEO and traffic, and turned a terrifying domain switch into a series of boring, reversible moves.

 Stick-figure comic contrasting blaming ad spend versus fixing a broken measurement and tracking setup. Business Strategy

Before You Blame Your Ads, Blame Your Measurement Story

When ad performance drops, the channel is the easy villain. The real one is usually a measurement story you stopped trusting. Here is the calm triage to run before you pause anything.

 Stick-figure comic: a product page sorted by popularity buries the new item at the bottom; sorting by recent lifts it to the top. Business Strategy

The Setting That Was Quietly Burying Her Best Work

A bridal brand's newest gowns were nearly invisible on their own site because of one sort-order default. Why small UX and ops choices decide whether your best work gets seen, plus the exact audit checklist we use.

 Stick-figure comic: a confused phone user with a hidden carousel versus a calm user with all options stacked and visible Website Performance

That "Cool" Mobile Design Is Quietly Killing Your Conversion Rate

A carousel-versus-stack decision on a real product page, plus a five-item mobile audit you can run on your own site in fifteen minutes. Boring but obvious beats polished but hidden.

 Stick-figure cartoon: a neglected unplugged REVIEWS machine on the left, the same machine plugged in and feeding five-star cards to a product page on the right. Business Strategy

Your Review App Isn't a Widget. It's a Retention Engine.

Most Shopify stores treat reviews as a star-rating widget. Set up right, a review app is the quietest retention engine you own: timed requests, the right proof on the right page, and customer language for marketing. Here's the 10-minute audit we run in Delivery.

 Two homepage layouts side by side. Left: a museum-style page with a board photo and tiny donate button. Right: a donor-journey page with a large GIVE NOW button and impact stat. Business Strategy

Your Homepage Is Talking About You, Not To The Donor: A Donor-First Redesign Playbook For Nonprofits

Most nonprofit homepages are a museum of accomplishments. The ones that grow donor revenue read like a donor journey. Here is the sitemap shift, the two-hero A/B test, the Ways to Support hub, and the 5-minute audit you can run on your own homepage today.

 Stick-figure illustration: two agencies handle the same address-update ticket. One ships in 1 hour. One leaves it on a dusty pile for 3 days. Business Strategy

The "Minor" Support Ticket That Protects Lifetime Value

Most churn doesn't start with a big outage. It starts with a "minor change" request that feels ignored. The four-step response pattern that protects six figures of LTV in 40 minutes.

 Hand-drawn stick figure of a sponsor scanning a generic website on her phone while a founder waves a 28-page sponsorship deck across an empty gap. Business Strategy

Your Leadership Network's Website Is Your 24/7 Sponsorship Pitch (And Most Aren't Pitching)

A corporate sponsor pulled up the website on her phone during the call. She was polite, and she did not write a check. The pattern: real community, real board, real outcomes, a website that hides all three. What sponsor leads scan for, and the seven elements a sponsorship-ready homepage contains.

 Stick figure confused by SEO jargon vs. one with a simple checklist: What 'Foundational SEO' Actually Means in Plain English Business Strategy

What "Foundational SEO" Actually Means: A Plain-English Guide for B2B Service Firm Founders

A B2B founder emailed me asking what "foundational SEO" actually covers. Two agencies in three years had failed to explain it without acronyms. Here is the long reply: foundational SEO in plain English, the five things, and the 60-minute test for any SEO proposal.

 Hand-drawn xkcd-style illustration: a stick figure holding a clipboard with a 7-row scorecard showing a 38/100 score, next to a website mockup with seven numbered annotations Business Strategy

The 7-Signal, 8-Minute Pipeline Diagnostic for Your B2B Homepage (With My Own 38/100 Score)

I ran the diagnostic on chykalophia.com last Sunday. We scored 38 out of 100. Here is the seven-signal framework, the pass/partial/fail criteria, the scoring bands, and the breakdown of where we lost the points. 8 minutes, no tools, no signup.

 Your B2B Hero Has One Job. Most Don't Do It. Vague homepage hero leaking $42K/month at $5M revenue Business Strategy

Your B2B Hero's One Job (And the $42K Per Month It Costs When the Hero Doesn't Do It)

What it costs at $5M revenue to keep a polite-handshake hero alive on your homepage.

 Stick-figure comic: marketing money leaking from a hidden hole in a budget bucket on the left, the leak patched on the right. Business Strategy

Your Marketing Budget Has a Leak (And It's Not Where You Think)

Your marketing team is optimizing campaigns while your website quietly bleeds conversions. Here's the infrastructure checklist that could save your next quarter.