Case Study - Revamping Arageek

Overview

Arageek, a well-established magazine and digital media platform, was originally built using WordPress with Elementor. While the platform successfully managed a vast content library, it struggled with responsiveness issues, slow loading times, and an outdated UI.

Our team at FJ Software Studio stepped in to modernize the platform while preserving the WordPress backend. The goal was clear: improve performance, enhance user experience, and ensure seamless content management.

Challenges

• Performance Issues: Elementor’s heavy frontend contributed to slow page speeds.
• Responsiveness Problems: Inconsistent layouts across different screen sizes.
• Content Migration Complexity: The site housed over 60,000 articles, which needed to be converted from TinyMCE to Gutenberg blocks.
• Outdated UI: A need for a fresh, modern design to improve user engagement.

Our Approach

1. Migrating to Next.js for the Frontend

• We decoupled the frontend from WordPress and built a new, highly optimized Next.js application.
• Implemented server-side rendering (SSR) and static generation (SSG) for a balance of speed and flexibility.

2. Optimizing Content Management

• Converted 60,000+ articles from TinyMCE to Gutenberg blocks, enabling a modern and structured content experience.
• Ensured seamless content synchronization between WordPress and the new frontend.

3. Performance Enhancements

• Reduced load times by eliminating Elementor’s heavy frontend dependencies.
• Implemented lazy loading, image optimizations, and caching strategies.
• Improved Google Lighthouse scores, leading to faster page speeds and better Core Web Vitals metrics.

4. Redesigning the User Interface

• Developed a modern, responsive UI that offers a seamless experience across all devices.
• Focused on readability, intuitive navigation, and engaging visuals.

What we did