The challenge of a poorly optimised website backend
Unless you live in 1994, you will understand having a website is essential for businesses. However, as this case study demonstrates, even a sleek and professional website can struggle to attract organic search traffic if its website’s technical backend is poorly optimised.
While it’s easy to assume this issue will soon disappear as AI transforms SEO, it’s unlikely Chatbots will replace search engines like Google. Consequently, websites will continue to be crucial for online visibility.
Using RAADfest—the world’s largest annual gathering dedicated to super-longevity—as an example, we explore how technical shortcomings can hurt search rankings and revenue.
We also examine how the online ecosystem will become more complex, and optimising your website’s technical backend will be crucial. Future online visibility will increasingly depend on optimising for multiple channels, including Answer Engines, which thrive on good technical backends for websites.
RAADfest visitors increase, but its website’s technical backend holds it back.
RAADfest, founded in 2016, has grown into a major event, attracting over 1,000 attendees in its first year and steadily expanding. The event covers topics such as brain health, mobility, and longevity science; the festival’s website is a crucial tool for ticket sales and community engagement.
However, despite its visually appealing design, the site faces significant issues with its website’s technical backend that limits its organic visibility.
Antlerzz insights reveal a performance score of just 32 out of 100, with problems such as a Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) time of 12.3 seconds and a Total Blocking Time (TBT) of 2,860 ms. Additionally, third-party code blocked the main thread for nearly 3 seconds, significantly delaying the user experience.
This is having an impact. For instance, there has been a rapid increase in interest online in longevity topics such as NMN and cold-water therapy. Yet, RAADfest gets less than 300 organic visitors per month – a poor outcome for an event like this.
While RAADfests website’s technical backend is not its only issue, these technical barriers hinder search engine rankings.
Why your website’s technical backend matters
From a commercial perspective, RAADfest can easily dismiss the need to improve its website’s technical backend.
RAADfest’s popularity is on the rise. It features renowned public speakers and receives recognition from prominent outlets like the BBC and The Guardian.
Pre-registration for its annual events begins at $577, a pricing strategy that seems to work well as its community and reputation grow.
Moreover, generating significant traffic to your website can be done relatively quickly by paying for ads or securing media coverage. Yet, unless you are already an established brand with strong media connections, these approaches come at a high cost.
Yet, a more time-consuming but worthwhile strategy is to invest the effort needed to generate organic search traffic over time. This results in consistent monthly traffic that many dream of and strengthens your brand with each step.
However, for RAADfest, this will be difficult unless they change their website’s technical backend.
The challenge lies with how search engines like Google rank websites. Automated crawlers analyse a site’s backend to assess loading speed, mobile responsiveness, and security.
In simple terms, proficient back-end coding enhances Google’s understanding of your site. All these factors collectively contribute to your website’s visibility by affecting organic search traffic from Google’s search results.
Yet RAADfest’s inefficient third-party scripts, excessive script evaluation times, and speed of 10.4 seconds illustrate why technical precision is critical.
Moreover, mobile-first indexing has become the standard, penalising websites that fail to optimise for mobile devices. Fixing these issues isn’t just about short-term gains; it’s also critical for adapting to emerging AI-driven trends in SEO.
Why technical SEO is crucial for the future of AI and search
The future of search will see multichannel presence become a critical ranking factor. This comes as search engines continue to understand better what constitutes authority for ranking placement.
Consequently, users must have a coherent strategy that covers platforms from social media to AI Overviews. Moreover, the emergence of AI search engines is expected to disperse online traffic across several platforms.
Yet, for RAADfest, this may prove difficult if they do not improve their website’s technical backend.
Technical SEO is vital in how websites are featured in AI chatbots and search engines. These systems depend on clean and well-structured data to fetch relevant answers efficiently.
Websites that meet technical requirements, such as optimised loading speeds, proper schema markup, and crawlable structures, are more likely to be prioritised by AI chatbots when responding to user queries.
For RAADfest, improving its website’s technical backend can ensure it gains visibility in the AI-powered search systems of the future as well as traditional search rankings.
No easy fixes
Creating a website or optimising a website’s technical backend is now simpler than ever. In the past, only those who knew how to code could do it.
Platforms like Wix and Squarespace promise AI-assisted website creation, allowing users to generate websites automatically and quickly using drag-and-drop features.
The advancement of AI has further streamlined the process, leading many companies to believe they can save money by building their websites themselves. A few weeks later, they expect their site to attract organic search traffic by magically appearing on the front page of Google.
The hype around AI and the promise of instant wealth if you follow one magic trick further fuels this belief. Unfortunately, no magic trick exists.
While these platforms, along with tools like ChatGPT, can provide coding assistance, these tools often produce bloated code, as seen in RAADfest’s reliance on third-party providers.
This inefficiency underscores why having a strong technical foundation is indispensable.
For RAADfest, this means balancing automation with human oversight to improve performance and align with evolving SEO standards. For instance, optimising images and reducing JavaScript evaluation times would significantly enhance performance metrics like LCP and TBT.
A Path Forward for RAADfest
Addressing RAADfest’s technical shortcomings is, therefore, not just a matter of fixing what’s broken but of preparing for the future. Simplifying code, reducing reliance on third-party scripts, and prioritising mobile-first design are foundational steps.
For example, reducing main-thread work, which currently takes 7.2 seconds, and minimising third-party script impact could improve user experience and search rankings.
At the same time, integrating AI-assisted tools for content structuring and adopting a multi-channel strategy will ensure the site remains competitive. By tackling these issues, RAADfest can boost ticket sales and establish itself as a leader in the longevity space.
0 Comments