I made it possible for WA to scale their Gatsby website to over 270 pages.
The site passes Google's real world Core Web Vitals test with great scores using real user data.
Even when the amount of pages increases, the content editing experience does not get worse.
The project
WA.nl needed a solution that would be SEO optimized and scalable. I decided to build the site using Gatsby, as the site does not need any server side functionality, which makes Gatsby with its fully static builds a great solution. I chose Storyblok as I knew the site would be growing large, making the live preview a very powerful feature. Netlify is reliable, fast, and offers its automatic form submission functionality, so it was a very clear hosting solution for me.
The results
Optimized for Core Web Vitals and technical SEO.
As you can see on the image, WA passes Google's own Core Web Vitals test very easily with real world user data.
This means that WA provides a great real user experience by being fast to load, quick interactivity, and having no layout shift (no parts of the site moving after the site has loaded).
Outside of Core Web Vitals I made sure to have the greatest technical SEO, which included structured data schemas, proper semantics, screenreader accessibility and optimized page structures.
Scaling to over 270+ pages
It is no secret that static sites are not equal: the more pages your site has, the longer fully static build times will take. If you do a small change on the site, you will have to wait a minute or two for the site to update just so you can see if you like the change or not. That doesn't sound fun, does it?
I solved this by utilizing Storyblok's instant live preview feature. You no longer need to do any build steps to see your changes, instead you can utilize React to see changes in real-time! When you are happy with the changes, only then you will need to do a build to update the production site.
My live editor preview implementation lets content editors see changes instantly without waiting for a build.
Jere's communication is great and smooth. Considering we are both performance junkies, we're always on the same page – and that is what I love about our partnerships. I will be working with him for years to come. Considering I have lots of experience in the SEO world, I know it's not easy to find a good partner, so Jere comes highly recommended.
– R. de Waard