Quality Assurance Audit of Roofing Company WordPress Website
%
Reduction in Page Load Time
%
Decrease in Bounce Rate
%
Increase in Organic Traffic
The number of identified security vulnerabilities decreased by 80% due to plugin and theme updates and enhanced login protection.
Broken links were reduced to less than 0.5% of the total internal links.
The form submission error rate was reduced by 70%, leading to a smoother user experience.
The site achieved 100% compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA standards, improving accessibility for users with disabilities.
Client Overview
The client, a well-established U.S.-based roofing and solar solutions provider, required a comprehensive Quality Assurance (QA) audit for its WordPress-based website. The goal was to identify and resolve any technical issues, enhance user experience (UX), improve website performance, and ensure that the website met industry standards for security and accessibility.
Challenge
The Fintech company faced several challenges due to gaps in their QA processes:
Performance Issues
- Large uncompressed images, excessive HTTP requests, and outdated JavaScript contributed to slow loading times.
- The website had a high bounce rate on mobile devices due to slow performance and unresponsive design.
- Load time was found to be 7.5 seconds, compared to the industry standard of 2-3 seconds.
Security Vulnerabilities
- Several outdated plugins and themes were found, posing security risks.
- The website lacked proper login protection and had weak password policies.
Usability Issues
- Some internal links were broken, leading to 404 errors (about 3% of total internal links).
- Certain forms failed to submit or returned an error after submission.
- The search functionality did not filter results correctly, leading to poor user experience.
Accessibility Concerns
- The site had low color contrast in certain areas, making it difficult for users with visual impairments to navigate.
- A lack of ARIA labels for dynamic content elements such as buttons and forms.
- The site was not compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA standards, with 50% of the site failing to meet accessibility guidelines.
SEO Issues
- Missing alt text for several images, with 25% of images lacking proper alt tags.
- Some pages were not indexed due to the improper use of noindex tags (about 5% of the total pages).
Solution
Performance Optimization
- Compress images and optimize them using modern formats like WebP, resulting in an expected reduction of 50-60% in image file sizes.
- Minimize HTTP requests by combining CSS and JavaScript files and deferring non-essential scripts, leading to an estimated 40-50% improvement in page load time.
- Implemented browser caching and CDN for faster content delivery, reducing latency by 30%.
Security Improvements
- Update all outdated plugins and themes to their latest versions.
- Implement stronger password policies and introduce multi-factor authentication (MFA) for admin access.
Usability Enhancements
- Fix broken links and improve the form submission process, leading to a 25% reduction in user complaints about form issues.
- Redesign the search functionality to display relevant results, improving user interaction by 15-20%.
Accessibility Upgrades
- Enhance color contrast throughout the website to meet WCAG guidelines, ensuring 100% compliance.
- Add ARIA labels to dynamic elements to improve screen reader compatibility, improving accessibility score by 40%.
SEO Enhancements
- Implement alt-texts for all images and optimize page meta descriptions for better indexing, which could improve organic traffic by 15-25%.
- Ensure proper use of schema markup and fix any broken internal links, enhancing SEO rankings by 10-15%.
Impact
Metric
Page Load Time
Mobile Bounce Rate
Broken Internal Links
Accessability Compliance
Before
7.5 seconds
45%
30%
50%
After
2.8 seconds
30%
100%
Technologies
Google PageSpeed Insights
Used to analyze the website’s speed and provide suggestions for improving load time.
WPScan
A WordPress-specific security scanner that was used to identify vulnerabilities in plugins, themes, and core files.
Moz Pro
Provided SEO metrics, including keyword analysis, indexing issues, and domain authority.
Ahrefs
Used to check for SEO issues such as backlinks, missing alt texts, and page rankings.
Conclusion
By addressing these issues, the client’s website not only improved in performance and user experience but also enhanced its security, accessibility, and SEO ranking, ultimately contributing to greater customer satisfaction and better online visibility in the competitive roofing and solar industry.