The publisher saw a 79% increase in average daily revenue and 70% increase in users within 30 days after its redesign

The Social Edge Network has been through several highs and lows, but the consistent service, support, and expertise we have benefited from since partnering with RebelMouse since 2016 have carried uys through the worst and helped us to be our best.

Blair Shepard
Chief Revenue Officer

Introduction

bokeh photography of person holding fireworksPhoto by Wout Vanacker on Unsplash

The website, under The Social Edge Network umbrella along with George Takei’s official website, is popular for its coverage of trending news, from Reddit to “pointless celebrity Twitter wars.” After the launch of the new design, Comic Sands’ 30-day average daily revenue increased by 79% and the site saw a remarkable 44% growth in users with a 76% increase in sessions in the 60 days that followed the redesign. Google traffic has approximately doubled (total users) and Google referral pageviews are up 44%.

RebelMouse's genuine commitment to our success makes it seem as if we are one company, navigating the ever-changing landscape of the web publishing world with confidence. We are still here and THRIVING today because of their guidance and straight-up hard work!

Blair Shepard
Chief Revenue Officer

How We Did It

The new look marked the opportunity to introduce a new logo. Comic Sands is such a fun brand and we wanted the new logo to reflect that identity. Our design team provided several options until Comic Sands chose the one that they fell in love with.

The redesign represented an opportunity to totally rethink Comic Sands’ taxonomy. They create so much great content, but it’s really diverse and it’s important that everything has a proper home and the website is easy for users to navigate.

New Design www.rebelmouse.com

The old site had three “News” categories — News, Weird News, and Funny News, which may have been confusing to users. It had “Politics” and “Entertainment” sections as well.

The new site introduced a “News and Politics” dropdown, an “Entertainment” dropdown, and a "Trending" dropdown. A new “People” dropdown was also added for its extensive coverage of key individuals (subject to change over time) like Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Kamala Harris, and Taylor Swift.

They added a link to “The Big Picture,” another great initiative from their company, and the new taxonomy was complete. This new and improved navigation is great for the user experience, android it certainly helps to increase pageviews and time on site. We were so excited about it that we rolled it out before the full redesign was in place and it looks even better with the redesigned Blueprint site.

Perfect Core Web Vitals

The user experience was vastly improved with Comic Sands’ redesign, as the site is super fast and responsive. The following optimizations were made with Core Web Vitals in mind:

--Ultra-light JavaScript application; cleaned and optimized CSS and HTML
--Smart caching rules
--GZIP compression, which reduces file sizes by up to 85%A progressive web app (PWA) and a smart page load strategy
--Blueprints preload fonts and load images ahead of time for certain screen sizes depending on network speeds

The Results

Key engagement metrics are also showing impressive growth. Notably, engagement time per user is up 61% and views per user are up 22% (three views per user, a nice milestone). The site’s improved taxonomy and new recirculation modules are certainly part of that growth, too.

Copy of Blueprint Redesign Grows Traffic and Revenue for Comic Sands www.rebelmouse.com

The old saying goes that a rising tide lifts all boats, and Comic Sands has experienced growth across the board — from Google to Facebook, Threads to X, everything is up since the redesign. That goes for total users, pageviews, and engagement metrics for each platform, making the site’s overall growth all the more remarkable.

The increases are not limited by device, either, with a 45% increase in mobile users and a 49% increase in desktop users in the 60 days since the redesign launched (compared to the previous 60 days).