The Challenge
Increase traffic, user performance and monetisation of Gay Times’ mobile WordPress website
The Result
192% increase in mobile traffic and significant improvement across all Google Performance metrics
Gay Times is a LGBTQ-friendly magazine title that publishes monthly print editions containing celebrity interviews, fashion, music, travel and more, as well as a variety of content across web and social platforms.
Launched in 1984, Gay Times has grown to become a vital resource for the LGBTQ community, distributing to over 80 countries to a readership of over 130 000. In 2019, they published their 500th issue, one of only a small number of international titles to have achieved this feat.
Gay Times first approached Publisher’s Toolbox in early-2019. They were frustrated by the levels of mobile traffic to their WordPress website. They were looking at a leading European-based PWA solution but were not satisfied it provided all the advertising options they required and found the inflexibility of the mobile template an issue.
We offered our powerful, highly-configurable PWA WordPress plugin to address mobile usability, performance and concerns over advertising real estate.
Our Strategy
Our PWA Plugin was relatively new to the market when we started our working relationship with Gay Times.
With so many services providers and role players involved in the project – including ad partners, developers, hosting providers and SEO strategists – we assigned decisions to key business stakeholders so we could get approval on project artifacts and feedback on deliverables quickly.
We worked closely with their team to ensure the following requirements were met:
Ad slots
Flexible and configurable ad slots in high-performance screen areas
Preview look and feel
A preview feature in the PWA plugin to allow the Gay Times team to safely view changes before publishing them to the live website
Performance
We tested our PWA plugin against Google’s performance auditing tool – LightHouse – and after implementing feedback were able to significantly improve across all metrics – performance, PWA, accessibility, best practices and SEO.
We stressed the need for regular calls to avoid miscommunication and review our progress with the client. Through consistent delivery and our supportive stance on the GayTimes business we have been able to build trust from afar and deliver a highly effective mobile web solution
The Outcome
Once the Publisher’s Toolbox PWA plugin was in place, mobile traffic significantly increased over a number of weeks – by 192%. This was due to higher engagement on the mobile friendly template and much smaller page sizes, resulting in faster page loads.
In addition, the Publisher’s Toolbox PWA plugin boosted ad revenue on mobile due to strategically placed ads and more page views than before.
