Kentico Ask The Experts - Part 1 Recap

The first Kentico Ask the Experts webinar turned out to be a huge success! It was a really great to connect with so many partners and help answer some tough development questions. And with so many experts on the call, even I learned stuff! Between Brian, Jeroen, Juraj, and I there’s not many areas of Kentico development we haven’t looked in to.

With nearly 40 people viewing the webinar at one point, the session proved to be extremely popular and informative. Here’s a quick recap of some my favorite questions from the webinar.

“What are some best practices for optimizing a site?”

Definitely use caching. Be sure to utilize Kentico’s built-in in memory management to speed up long running queries and process.
Be sure to pay attention to the number of queries being executed on a given page. Consolidate queries to single transactions to improve performance and responsiveness.
Use Kentico’s debugging when you can to isolate any code that is taking a while to complete. Be sure to turn this off on your live site, though!
Use scheduled tasks to execute code during off-times and peak hours.
Use Kentico’s built-in compression for faster resource delivery and minimize bandwidth.

“Should I use Google Analytics or Kentico Web Analytics for my site?”

Use both! There’s never a thing as too much data when it comes to analytics. Use both systems to get a 360 view of your traffic and fine tune your content.
Leverage the robust reporting of the EMS product to get even more data on your site traffic. Use campaigns, A/B testing, and MVT testing throughout your site to target your audience effectively and drive traffic to your content.

“What’s the best way to go about upgrading a site?”

When possible, start with a fresh Kentico installation on the newest version. Use exporting / importing to transfer you site to the new installation.
If you do upgrade, be sure to pull full backups of all your data and files prior to the process. Never upgrade a live production site. Always use a development site to test the process and minimize downtime.

These are just a few of the great topics covered during the webinar. Check out the full video here and be sure to join the next round to get your tough questions answered!