Last week I setup a newsletter and sent out my first edition. This week I was planning to share the blog more widely, but ended up diving deep into page speed optimization. This was because I noticed the home page has gotten noticeably slower after adding the hero image, IG feed and Substack section. Here’s what I accomplished this week:
Setup
I ran a PageSpeed test and found major issues with image delivery and blocking requests resulting in mobile scores ~30/100 😳. I asked ChatGPT how to improve, and followed what it suggested:
- Compressed the hero image using Squoosh and re-uploaded it.
- Replaced default IG feed widget with the plugin Smash Balloon Instagram Feed, which serves optimized thumbnails instead of originals.
- Installed Jetpack Boost to optimize the CSS, JS, and image delivery.
- The images were still too big with Jetpack image optimization, so I also installed EWWW for extra compression.
- Removed the Substack embed to reduce external scripts.
After all that (and a lot of trial and error), my performance score jumped to around 70/100, which ChatGPT insists is good for an ad-monetized travel blog and that I “do not need to obsess past this point”. I think it got tired of me asking about performance 😂.
Content
Monetization
I noticed that 90% of my traffic comes from mobile, but I’m not currently serving ads on mobile because I’ve only enabled siderail ads. I created an experiment on AdSense to enable bottom anchor ads on mobile to see how it would affect revenue.
UI
- Added a Substack link to the footer since I removed the Substack embeds to improve performance.
Stats
Overall
| Cost | $67 (Hosting $60 + Domain $7) |
| Posts Published | 52 (+5) |
| Views | ~700 (+100) |
| Revenue | $1 (+0) |
| Profit | -$66 |
Search
| Impressions | 37 (+10) |
| Clicks | 11 (+5) |
| Average Position | 2.3 (-0.3) |
IG
| Posts Published | 15 (+3) |
| Followers | 20 (+1) |
| Views | 2000 (+300) |
Substack
| Posts Published | 1 (+0) |
| Subscribers | 13 (+3) |
| Views | 61 (+10) |
High / Lowlights
- ❌ It took awhile to figure out what plugins to use for the optimizations since different plugins support different features and I don’t want multiple plugins doing the same thing.
- ✅ Home page is much faster now! ⚡
- ❌ Still not much new revenue.
Final Thoughts
I didn’t realize how much goes into making a website fast! It’s cool that so many tools exist to help with performance, but figuring out the right combination took time and I wish WordPress or Bluehost handled more of it automatically.
Since I spent most of this week focused on page speed optimization, my plan for next week is the same as my original one for this week:
- Draft more guides and IG posts
- Share blog links in Facebook / Reddit travel communities where people ask for recommendations or tips
Come back next week to find out how much growth I can pull off!
Comments
7 responses
Good that chagpt stopped you from obsessing. :)) The homepage changes are noticeable.
as in it’s noticeably faster?
Yeah yeah
yay
Btw, i noticed the ad on phone. It was a bit distracting (took a lot of real estate), then i closed it. And since it does not show any ads for me. Just wanted to report there may be a bug or loophole.
I think when you close the ad it’s supposed to stay hidden until the rest of the session. It may appear again when you reload
And yeah you are right. It did when i checked today.