“Joshua at Rystedt Creative was beyond helpful when we ran into technical issues with our website. His extensive WordPress and Woocommerce knowledge helped to answer all of our web development questions. He was always available with a friendly demeanor and ready to talk us through our questions and what needed to be edited or changed on the website, and even showed us via screen-share the exact steps necessary. We greatly enjoyed working with Joshua and would recommend him to anyone!”
– Mallory Olson, Rocket Active Gear and Elk Creek Designs
Rystedt Creative recently assisted with the launch of rocketactivegear.com. Rocket Active Gear sells active gear such as camping, cycling, and hiking products through their WordPress powered store. Like Rystedt Creative, Rocket Active Gear is based in Maryland. Upon running into some roadblocks that they were unable to solve or were spending too much time attempting to puzzle out Rocket Active Gear asked Rystedt Creative to assist them in launching the site.
Part of our time was spent researching possible causes of problems they were experiencing, providing recommendations for possible solutions, and demoing those solutions.
We also assisted Rocket Active Gear by…
Building a custom product category navigation menu
The theme powered product category navigation they were attempting to use was not compatible with some of the other software powering the site and caused numerous bugs that complicated the navigation of the site. We disabled the offending navigation software, built a category navigation menu, implemented it, and thoroughly tested it.
Now Rocket Active Gear is easy to navigate.
Installing recommended solution to bundle a free gift with a customer’s purchase
Rocket Active Gear wanted an option to offer a free downloadable gift when customers purchase certain items. We researched solutions, made some recommendations, demoed some software, and finally installed one of those solutions on their site for future use.
Generating an XML sitemap
When we began working with Rocket Active Gear the site lacked an XML sitemap. Such sitemaps assist search engines in properly indexing a website. In order to not lose out on the search traffic benefits of having an XML sitemap we generated one for Rocket Active Gear.
Making speed optimizations
Rocket Active Gear is a beautiful site (due to the theme they are using and the work carried out by their own team). Yet it was slow. We worked with their current site to improve page download speeds without breaking any functionality. We minified HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; compressed >19,000 images by ~10%; added page cacheing options; and generated HTML cached pages. By our tests we achieved an 81% improvement on average page download speeds.
Changing some colors on the homepage using CSS
One section on the Rocket Active Gear homepage had some colors that the team wanted changed but was having difficulty doing so. We modified the CSS code for that section to match their color specifications. Now things match and look great!
Restoring the site after a plugin conflict crashed it
WordPress plugins are part of what makes WP such a powerful and extensible content management system. Yet sometimes plugins conflict with one another and cause serious errors. We encountered this with Rocket Active Gear when WP Super Cache conflicted with some of the security software on the site. The entire site (including admin panel) was down with only an error report showing at the domain. WP Super Cache is excellent cacheing software and is maintained by the good folks at Automattic yet it isn’t compatible with every WP security solution – especially if some files (like htaccess) are locked down. To restore rocketactivegear.com we accessed the server, deleted the lines WP Super Cache added to wp-config, and deleted the WP Super Cache plugin. One call to us and Rocket Active Gear was back online.
Installing Google Analytics
Rocket Active Gear had already registered for a Google Analytics account but had yet to add the tracking code to their WP site. We installed Google Analytics for them and now they’re compiling the valuable analytics data they need.
Building new product pages
Rocket Active Gear recently began selling the Mozzie hoverboards and needed new product pages on their website. We used the content they provided to build detailed sales and product pages for the Mozzie hoverboards.
Providing a page by page evaluation of the site
Finally, we provided them with a page by page site evaluation. We evaluated functionality, appearance, technologies, and SEO factors. Some of this data helped Rocket Active Gear and Rystedt Creative resolve possible issues prior to the site launch rather than catching them afterwards.
Check out Rocket Active Gear for all of your active lifestyle needs.
Are you also wrestling with unresolved issues on your website? Contact Rystedt Creative for a free website evaluation and consultation.
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