Trellis is Mediavine‘s WordPress theme framework which is created for lighter, faster websites.
What this means practically is that it is built for SEO and to increase ad revenue.
1. Built For Speed
Faster sites means better SEO and better RPMs (revenue per mille i.e. how much you make per 1000 sessions or pageviews).
After switching to Trellis my site went from a score of 55 on Google Page Speed Insights to 85.
My RPMs also went up over 60%.
When I saw the increase, I contacted Mediavine and asked if it was because of Trellis or coinsurance.
They said that when there has been such a large page speed increase the RPMs get a big increase too.
What makes it so fast?
In part, because it has fully integrated lazy loading for comments, iframes and images.
Also, because it is built with mobile and speed in mind so they make an effort to keep it light weight.
2. Built for Mobile First
In 2018 Google announced that it is going to predominantly use the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking.
Then in 2019 Google said that mobile-first indexing was automatically enabled for all new websites.
Followed by their 2020 announcement that they were going to go mobile first for all websites.
Ironically, these announcements were not written with mobile friendly paragraphs.
So what are Mobile first requirements?
Responsive Web Design which serves the same HTML code and URL no matter users’ device and displays differently based on the screen size.
Also, websites that are fast on mobile, have mobile friendly video, and have font sizes that are large enough to be seen on mobile phones.
3. Built for SEO
Google wants sites that are fast and mobile friendly.
WordPress does a lot of the needed SEO right off the bat.
Also, it’s up to you to make sure your blog posts are SEO Optimized.
However, being mobile friendly and fast depends on your images, theme, and plugins.
Trellis serves light weight next gen images making your site faster.
It also isn’t bloated with unnecessary code or slow due to using the wrong kind of code.
As for plugins, it is built to work with Create and Grow which together cover most your plugin needs.
4. Built for Revenue
Medavine was created by bloggers for bloggers.
This came about because their own ad network wasn’t making them the money they could have been.
So, they discovered how to make more on their own.
Then they started doing it for friends as a favor.
As more and more bloggers came to them for help, they decided to create an ad network.
Today it is still run and operated by bloggers and is recommended by word of mouth without any affiliate marketing.
So, needless to say, optimizing ad revenue was taken into account while building Trellis.
After switching to Trellis I saw my RPMs (revenue per mille i.e. per 1000) go up by over 60%.
5. Built for User Experience
By user, I mean both you and you’re reader.
Trellis is easy to use and easy to navigate.
One of my personal favorite perks of using it is that I stopped getting spam comments.
Also, the Trellis team hears me and takes my comments into consideration when I tell them where things can be improved.