News Room

Auto WhatsApp Story Sharing
Lightning-Fast Performance
Smart Ad Placement Control

About The Project

Industry :

Media & News

Sector :

Digital Media & Online Publishing

Niche :

Online News & Current Affairs

Country :

Guyana

Technologies:

Team Size :

2 Frontend developer, 2 Wordpress developer, 1 QA

Initial Goal

The client initially approached us to integrate a WhatsApp API that would allow new stories to be automatically shared via WhatsApp using Meta’s API with an opt-in process. However, during our initial technical evaluation, we discovered major structural and performance issues on the existing website. Based on this, we proposed a complete redevelopment to improve SEO, site speed, and overall user experience while still including the WhatsApp integration.

Pain Area

The website was not appearing on Google Search unless users typed the full domain name.

Staging URLs were indexed by Google, leading to 404 errors and zero click-throughs.

Outdated theme that was officially deprecated and incompatible with new WordPress versions.

Non-responsive design and poor mobile optimization.

Low site performance scores due to heavy scripts and unoptimized media.

Weak SEO structure with missing meta tags, schema, and broken internal linking.

Development Approach

Rebuilt the website on a modern, lightweight WordPress framework.

Redesigned UI/UX for better readability and responsiveness across all devices.

Implemented core web vitals optimization, including image compression, caching, and lazy loading.

Created structured schema markup and clean URL hierarchy for SEO improvement.

Integrated Meta WhatsApp API for automatic post sharing to subscribed users.

Implemented a content migration plan to retain URLs and avoid ranking loss.

Set up staging-to-production synchronization with clear version control and sitemap submission.

Deliverables Outlined

Complete redesign using a performance-optimized theme with clean code, flexible ACF structure.

De-indexed staging URLs, corrected sitemap and robots.txt issues, and enabled proper canonical structure for ranking recovery.

Custom WhatsApp API module connected with Meta Business API for real-time story notifications via opt-in system.

Reduced load time from 9.2s to under 2.5s through caching, CDN, and optimized media handling.

Challenges Faced

The staging site was wrongly indexed, making it appear as the main domain in search engines.

The client’s hosting setup was slow and cluttered with legacy files.

There was no proper sitemap or robots.txt, and canonical links were broken.

Coordinating real-time WhatsApp integration with content publishing required in-depth understanding of Meta’s Business API flow and permissions.

The client had no clear sitemap or page hierarchy, making UX planning more complex.

Multiple plugins used on the old site were bloated or deprecated, requiring careful replacement and testing.

Solution

Complete Website Revamp in WordPress: We redeveloped the entire website using WordPress, ensuring modern coding standards, responsive layouts, and optimized UI for both desktop and mobile users.

SEO Overhaul & Indexing Fix: We corrected the SEO issues that caused the site to not appear in search results. This included configuring proper metadata, submitting sitemaps to Google, fixing canonical issues, and resolving indexing errors caused by staging links.

Staging URL Cleanup: We removed all instances of the staging URL from the database and source code, replaced them with the live domain, and reindexed the site to eliminate 404 redirects from Google’s search results.

WhatsApp API Integration: Implemented a business-level WhatsApp API connection that automatically sends newly published news stories to subscribers using the Meta opt-in flow, increasing real-time engagement.

Performance Optimization: We significantly boosted load speed and Core Web Vitals by optimizing images, enabling browser caching, compressing assets, and minimizing render-blocking resources.

Modern Design Implementation: Delivered a new visual identity for the site aligned with current UX/UI trends, providing a clean, professional look while preserving the brand’s trust factor.

Mobile-First Responsiveness: The entire site was redesigned to work seamlessly on smartphones and tablets, ensuring accessibility and readability on all devices.

Analytics & Tracking Integration: Integrated Google Analytics, Search Console, and event tracking to monitor user behavior, improve SEO, and measure WhatsApp click-through rates.