Hive Originals, a small business based in Wiltshire, have been using our VoIP service for a while now and recently moved their email to our Hosted Exchange system and we have now just finished the migration of the Hive Originals website to our web hosting platform.
After spending some time discussing with Claire the best timeframe for moving the site to minimise any impact to her business and customers, it was decided that a Sunday transfer would work best and allow DNS changes to update before the start of the working week.
Website Improvements
Moving the WordPress and Woocommerce based system was a fairly simple process, and as part of the move we undertook some additional steps consisting of :
a) Removing all unused WordPress plugins and ensuring all required plugins were up to date.
b) Installing additional WordPress security to minimise the impact of ‘bot’ style login attempts.
c) Image Optimisation – Hive use a lot of high quality artwork, and performing some basic image optimisation has helped with the loading speed of the website, especially on mobile devices.
d) Basic Compression and Caching Optimsation using .htaccess and WordPress Plugin’s
GTMetrix report on Hive Originals Website after some simple basic optimisation steps
By undertaking these relatively simple steps, Hive Originals have ended up with a much improved website in terms of performance as reported by GTMetrix (a great free resource for testing your website performance) and the website is now more “mobile friendly”.
Mobile Friendly result for Hive Originals.
Taking Data Protection and Customer Security seriously
Hive Originals deal with online sales as well as physical sales, and as part of the sales process they need to collect personal information on the customers for delivery and payment purposes. Being a responsible small business they are registered with the ICO (Information Commissoners Office) and they take their customers information seriously.
PayPal is used as the online payment processor for Hive’s online sales which provides a secure mechanism for accepting customer payments, and to help secure the whole shopping experience, Hive Originals have implemented an SSL certificate and moved their entire site to https:/www.hiveoriginals.co.uk. This means that all the information transmitted between the client’s browser and the website is encrypted. (You can read more on why you should have an SSL certificate on your website here)
Hive Originals SSL Certificate Report
Chrome web browser showing that Hive Originals website is secure
Moving forward
Hightrees Organisation will be working with Claire from Hive Originals on an ongoing basis to help update and improve their website to assist the customer shopping experience, as well as looking at suitable IT solutions that can help this successful small business continue to grow !
Take a look at the wide range of products over at the Hive Originals website, all of which are handmade, in small batches using only the finest and most natural of ingredients !
