The Code Company Pty Ltd

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder of Bike EXIF

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Bike EXIF is one of the world's largest powersports websites, and the biggest in the world that focuses on custom and classic motorcycles.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Code Company Pty Ltd to accomplish?

• Manage the WordPress digital publishing platform for a high growth niche publisher
• Ensure the image-heavy site remained stable as traffic grew
• Free up my time to focus on creating content

SOLUTION

How did you find The Code Company Pty Ltd?

Referral

Why did you select The Code Company Pty Ltd over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me

How many teammates from The Code Company Pty Ltd were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

I engaged Ben and his team because our website had become slow and unstable as our audience grew. 

We were expanding rapidly but managing the site was becoming a headache, with server errors multiplying and load times slowing down. Bursts of traffic coming from high-profile links or articles going viral on social media were frequently knocking the site out. 

Attempting to fix issues and add functionality via an unwieldy suite of plugins was compounding the problem. We needed a partner who could understand the technical debt and the editorial workflow. And of course the risk of making changes to a high-traffic site that relied on display advertising for monetization. 

Ben and his team diagnosed the issues and fixed the codebase. That removed the errors, reduced the server load, and allowed us to get rid of several bloated plugins. 

Over the years the team handled our WordPress development and performance work and although we were getting well over a million page views a month by that point, there were remarkably few glitches. Communication was direct and easy and issues were fixed quickly. 

Having a stable and scalable platform meant that I could focus on the editorial and advertising sides of the business, without worrying about the server going down at 2am or readers complaining about spinning wheels in their browsers. 

I’d say that the Code Company is an excellent fit for digital publishers who rely on WordPress. Their coding skills are first rate, they understand the platform inside out, and their approach is both pragmatic and proactive. 

Highly recommended.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Site speed was measurably better than any competitor. 
Code was clean and effective and the enormous media library was manageable.
Traffic grew from around 100k monthly page views to 1.3M, with no decline in site performance. 

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Always on time, always responsive. Quick and efficient.

What was your primary form of communication with The Code Company Pty Ltd?

Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Knowing that whatever problem needed to be fixed would be sorted out quickly and efficiently and would be unlikely to occur again. I basically did not need to worry about the technical side of the site. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Code Company Pty Ltd could have done differently?

Not in my experience. They had everything I needed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the former CEO and co-founder of a website and event business for the media marketing industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with The Code Company Pty Ltd?

We launched a blog-style website in 2008 using WordPress. However, we didn’t like the design or layout of the website because it was outdated. It was also starting to impact us commercially as well because media buyers outside of Australia only had our website to go off of and it wasn’t leaving a good impression. The website also wasn’t mobile-friendly. 

In addition, our events each had their own websites, but we wanted them to all be under the same URL.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They made a more modern website that was curatable and had better ad slots. They also integrated all of our event websites into the main site. The new website was also made to be mobile-friendly. During their development, they helped keep the old website up so that our current clients could still get information. 

What is the team composition?

We had two primary points of contact, and we also worked with a designer. 

How did you come to work with The Code Company Pty Ltd?

We originally brought them on to help prevent our website from crashing by moving it to a new server. I believe that we received a recommendation for them. 

How much have you invested in them?

We invested about $100,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We first spoke with them about building a new website in late-2015. However, we didn’t officially engage them for this project until the beginning of 2016. Our website launched in May of that same year. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We use Google Analytics to track the traffic on the website. We now have over 1 million page impressions per month which is a significant increase from our old website. We’ve also seen faster load times and more mobile traffic. 

In addition, our ad revenue has also increased as a result. We’re able to serve better ad slots, and we can serve ads on mobile devices now as well. 

How did The Code Company Pty Ltd perform from a project management standpoint?

Any problems with time management were likely a result of our internal team. We could’ve gotten back to them more quickly so that they could keep moving forward with their development. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re geniuses with WordPress. They build customized plugins to make things work as best as possible. I’ll continue to work with them in the future. In addition, they can help clients define their strategy and layout the best tactics for achieving that strategy. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only issue they have currently is with scaling because finding great developers isn’t easy. Their current team is excellent, but I’d love to see them expand their team and hire more developers. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

It’s beneficial to get their feedback on what the best way is to achieve your goals.