Valentina is a full stack developer with 5 years of experience, she is a passionate Drupal developer. Valentina has experience working with back-end programming languages as PHP and Ruby, and front-end languages as HTML5, CSS3, SASS, Compass, Javascript, and frameworks as Bootstrap, jQuery, and Angular.js. 
Valentina is focused on results and deadlines. She would rather work overtime than miss a deadline or deliver an unfinished project. Valentina has had plenty of clients and she has verifiable experience as a full-stack developer and as a team developer.

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And What You Can Do About It

Have you ever gone to load a webpage, clicked a link, and just thought...this is taking too long! We all have. Sometimes the fault is your internet connection, but more often the issue is the design of the web page itself. 
At Jobsity, webpage speed is one of the most consistent issues we face when building, running, or working to improve web properties. It isn’t something to take lightly: according to Dreamhost, a website hosting platform, an additional 2 seconds of loading time can increase your site’s bounce rate (or percentage of people who leave your site before fully interacting with it) by 103%. And it’s not just seconds of wait that can affect your bottom line: even 100 milliseconds of extra time can cause a 7% decline in conversion rate. 
To understand what issues might be slowing down your websites, and what you might be able to do about it (and when it might be necessary to call in a developer to help out!), we sat down with Jobsity’s VP of Technology, Cristian Fierro, for a chat.
Thanks for joining us Cristian. Tell us a bit about what you do as VP of Technology at Jobsity.
Certainly. My role is basically to provide support for the CTO in the IT department. I am the technical project manager and also the scrum master. This means I am in charge of the projects inside the Intellectual Property Area, and I get assignments from other depts to build out our internal operations. 
 
What does that mean exactly, since you’re a nearshore firm?
 
Normally, IT departments are in charge of day-to-day operations for a whole company, help desk, service help, giving everyone computers, access, credentials, etc -- all the infrastructure. But because we’re a staff augmentation company, we do it a bit differently. We try to implement and innovate processes in the company, to help other departments of the company build processes or infrastructure to work more effectively. So we work in all parts of the company to support all aspects of the work, all our teams, and consequently all of our clients as well.
 
So in your experience working in this varied role, what is keeping the internet slow?
 
It’s an interesting question. But let’s be clear: it isn’t only about the Internet. It’s about the new tech and innovations that we develop every year. 
Today, we have a more complex environment -- for example, now everyone is using mobile. According to recent reports, 77% of internet use is on mobile. So most of the sites you build will be accessed via mobile-first, so we have to build with mobile in mind. Yet mobile takes longer to load; the average mobile page takes 27.3 seconds, in comparison to 10.3 seconds on desktop. It may not be about the internet being slow, so much as your perception, since you're now using your phone to search the internet. If you see what I mean.
To make the internet “fast,” we have to innovate and be on top of these changes. We have to use good practices to avoid having a slow site.
 
Tell us about some of these practices. 
Well, before the internet boom, people just used HTML and simple Javascript to write websites. But now we have complex frameworks that themselves take longer to render sites and longer to load, so when you’re designing a web page we need to consider: what is the purpose of the website? If it’s going to handle a lot of people visiting the site, we need to implement a good web host, a strong CDN, compressed images, and be aware of the plugins and packages you are using -- each will cause the site to be slower. Be careful with these. Also, you can use a cache system to make the user feel that they’re seeing the website very quickly when it’s the cache system behind it creating this feeling. But it helps...
 
How do you work with developers at Jobsity to ensure they are designing fast web pages?
 
In terms of coding, every part of the code needs to be compressed and minified. This is common with React and Angular; if it’s implemented correctly it’ll use the smallest amount of loading time possible. Next, as I mentioned, I always recommend using a Content Delivery Network (CDN). If you publish your assets (images, etc), it will make your content available to the user via several servers, so the closest server will be nearer to where the user is. (If your site is only hosted in one place, and you don’t have a CDN, it’ll take longer to load the site from far away.) 
Next, I always recommend a cache system. With big queries to the database, if you do one every time a user visits the site it will slow it down greatly. Also about image compression, a common error is to use bigger images than needed, for example, say you need a logo image for a 200px width space, but you use a 800px width image, that's a real waste of time for the user because it will take longer to load the 800px image than the 200px... It’ll take longer, and especially on mobile. You have to be careful with these things.
 
This is helpful to keep in mind. Is there a way that non-developers can measure web page speed, to help us decide if we need to hire developers to make our pages faster, or if they are ”fast enough”?
 
Definitely. Several sites help you measure site speed. One really common one is <a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/">Google PageSpeeds Insights</a>. The site is really helpful for measuring how long it takes your site to load. It’ll give you metrics that you can study and see what recommendations Google gives. For example, avoid multiple redirects, etc. They will give you many tips to help you make your site less slow. Developers tend to use lots of libraries, but they need to be conscious that every package they use will slow down your site. You have to be careful which plug-ins you use. 
I’ve seen developers create a WordPress site with a lot of plugins, but they don’t even use half of them or understand the purpose of using them all. Maybe they load jQuery or a Javascript library -- when you first load this site it’ll load a lot of things, and if you keep it activated when you aren’t using it, you are only making your site slow. So you have to keep a balance between what you need and what you are using. If you have a plugin for a simple feature, maybe you can implement the same feature but with vanilla javascript. If you are using React, Angular or other framework, maybe you have a package that brings a lot of utilities for your code and you are using just one, maybe you can implement that utility or function instead of loading the entire package.
The question is: do you need that package or can you include something simple if it’s a simple feature?
 
What is your “ideal” for a fast, efficient web that your developers have created?
It depends on the site. I try to make it as fast as possible for the uses required. An example: Jobsity once designed a site for the Olympics. It was going to be visited by people from every part of the whole world. We built in Drupal and we had to build a lot of systems and use a robust server on the site. It pushed us to our limits; we followed all the guidelines above and made sure it didn’t crash, it loaded fast, and it worked well. In the end, it was a great experience. 
Sometimes on a marketing site, for specific people, perhaps it’s less important. But no matter what, you will lose clients if they don’t see the site in the first milliseconds!
--
If you want to stay up to date with all the new content we publish on our blog, share your email and hit the <a href="https://www.jobsity.com/blog">subscribe</a> button.
Also, feel free to browse through the other sections of the blog where you can find many other amazing articles on: <a href="https://www.jobsity.com/blog/category/tutorials">Programming</a>, <a href="https://www.jobsity.com/blog/category/it">IT</a>, <a href="https://www.jobsity.com/blog/category/outsourcing">Outsourcing</a>, and even <a href="https://www.jobsity.com/blog/category/management">Management</a>.
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What Is Making Your Website Slow?

<h2>Should the Nearshore Website Developer You Hire Use Drupal or WordPress?</h2>
Today, many companies are hiring nearshore teams to help supplement website and software development, and those that do choose that route because of the maximum flexibility it offers for staffing needs. When it comes to website development itself, we’re going to let you in on a little secret: flexibility is still king. For some, using Drupal as the backbone for a website can give the nearshore developer you hire a great advantage when it comes to that same virtue. For others, it’s WordPress that has the edge. In this article, we discuss the pros and cons for each.
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<h3>What are Drupal and WordPress?</h3>
In basic terms, Drupal and WordPress are a website publishing platforms. They are both platforms that allow you to build, scale, and publish websites, and allow you to do so without having to write your website in raw code. They are both based on a content management system model -- or CMS -- which is literally that: a system that helps you manage your content, be it video, photo, text, or interactive forms. 
With Drupal, as with WordPress, you’re given a simple, intuitive platform which allows you to navigate, create, and iterate on existing web design models, so you and the nearshore web developer you hire can bring your website to the world with speed, ease, and efficacy, with a range of different coding knowledge and even when located in different locales around the world.
<h3>What’s Up with WordPress?</h3>
WordPress isn’t the oldest website CMS, but its first version was created way back in 2003. Today, it remains the most popular, reportedly accounting for the back-end of 34% of the world’s websites -- including whitehouse.gov and thenewyorker.com.
<h3>What’s Up with Drupal?</h3>
Despite being older than WordPress, Drupal (introduced to the world in 2000) only serves as the foundation for 2.3% of the world’s webpages. But don’t be deterred by that number: that’s still plenty, as there are a lot of web pages in the world. Some Drupal sites include big players such as Nasa.gov and economist.com.
<h3>What Do they Share?</h3>
When working with a freelance web developer or a nearshore team, it’s important to note that both Drupal and WordPress are excellent systems, with millions of happy users, fans, experts, and vibrant support communities. With either, you and your nearshore team should have no problem troubleshooting problems, finding resources to help you through rough spots, or plugging into various advances being made by the best and brightest to optimize the web development experience. Likewise, both systems are open source, so there’s no fees involved in using either CMS on the base level.
<h3>What are the Differences?</h3>
The first difference you may notice between Drupal and WordPress is the learning curve: most experts agree that WordPress is “beginner friendly” and Drupal is not. In other words, an in-house teammate might be able to set the beginning stages of your WordPress site, before an expert nearshore developer is brought on to complete the job. However, with Drupal, enough technical knowhow is required to get the project off the ground that a website built with Drupal should likely be built in partnership with, or by, your nearshore team from the get-go.
The second difference is in customizability and function. Both systems offer a wide range of options in terms of making your website your own. However, they achieve this in different ways. For WordPress, customization means over 5,000 free “themes” (basic website designs) and over 53,000 “plugins” (website features, like a store or newsfeed). In contrast, Drupal only offers over 2,500 themes and 39,000 plugins (they call them “modules”). So on the face, WordPress offers more front-end variation, though Drupal isn’t far behind.
When it comes to function, however, one advantage does go to Drupal: security and flexibility of users. More than WordPress, Drupal is built to handle complex websites, multi-thematic projects, large amounts of data and content, and to offer these all tighter online security. This is because Drupal can be made more functional and diverse in terms of who can access which part of the site, who has editing function, when, and how. With Drupal, multiple admins, content editors, and multiple stakeholders with diverse needs can be accounted for, and invited to work side-by-side securely. WordPress just does not offer this functionality, which means when working with external partners like a team of nearshore developers, Drupal does have a significant edge.
<h3>So Which Is it?</h3>
In the end, whether you hire a freelance developer to bring additional might to your web development project, or outsource your entire development project to an expert nearshore team, whether you use Drupal or WordPress will depend on your needs, your preferences, and the expertise you have at your fingertips. Though with the expansiveness and know-how of the nearshore community, that expertise might just be deeper than you even know!
--
If you want to stay up to date with all the new content we publish on our blog, share your email and hit the <a href="https://www.jobsity.com/blog">subscribe</a> button.
Also, feel free to browse through the other sections of the blog where you can find many other amazing articles on: <a href="https://www.jobsity.com/blog/category/tutorials">Programming</a>, <a href="https://www.jobsity.com/blog/category/it">IT</a>, <a href="https://www.jobsity.com/blog/category/outsourcing">Outsourcing</a>, and even <a href="https://www.jobsity.com/blog/category/management">Management</a>.
<a href="https://www.jobsity.com/contact-us"><img src="https://5621549.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/5621549/CTA_2.png"/></a>

Should the Nearshore Website Developer You Hire Use Drupal or WordPress?
Today, many companies are hiring nearshore teams to help supplement website and software development, and those that do choose that route because of the maximum flexibility it offers for staffing needs. When it comes to website development itself, we’re going to let you in on a little secret: flexibility is still king. For some, using Drupal as the backbone for a website can give the nearshore developer you hire a great advantage when it comes to that same virtue. For others, it’s WordPress that has the edge. In this article, we discuss the pros and cons for each.


Hire a Website Developer to Use Drupal or WordPress

Valentina

Nearshore Drupal Developer

Skills Sets

Languages

Frameworks

CMS

Databases

Platforms

Tools

Management

Availability

Interest

Location

More Drupal Developers

Our Top Drupal Blogs

What Is Making Your Website Slow?

Hire a Website Developer to Use Drupal or WordPress

Leave your worries about hiring &
retaining costly developers behind.

We provide you with top-level nearshore developers from around the world

Valentina

Nearshore Drupal Developer

Skills Sets

Languages

Frameworks

CMS

Databases

Platforms

Tools

Management

Availability

Interest

Location

More Drupal Developers

Our Top Drupal Blogs

What Is Making Your Website Slow?

Hire a Website Developer to Use Drupal or WordPress

Leave your worries about hiring & retaining costly developers behind.

Leave your worries about hiring &
retaining costly developers behind.