Libby Hakim Interview: Trellis Case Study

If you’re thinking about switching WordPress themes this year, we’d love for you to take a few minutes to dive into our Trellis Case Study series to learn the benefits that our custom-built framework can bring to your site.

This series features interviews with bloggers just like you who want to maximize site performance and crush the all-important Core Web Vitals scores without having advanced technical skills or the hassle of constant testing and site edits. They turned to Trellis to get it all done.

Today we’re welcoming Libby Hakim of Cooking with Nana Ling, who’s been running Trellis on her food blog for almost a year now.

How long have you been blogging? What made you want to start a blog?

I’ve been blogging for nearly 4 years. I’d wanted to start a blog for several years before I actually began. I love writing and creating and was amazed by stories of people who actually earned a living from blogging.

I was a lawyer at the time and would spend my lunch hour listening to podcasts about blogging and dreaming about leaving my job to be a blogger.

Tell us about your blog and its niche.

My blog is a recipe blog and my niche is summed up nicely in my tagline: “Classic Australian recipes served up with a side of nostalgia.” It took me a few years to settle on an idea for a blog. I was initially going to start a parenting or career blog. However, I was inspired to create the recipe blog by my great grandmother’s recipe collection, which I’d inherited a few years earlier.

The collection contains her handwritten recipes from the 1930s and thousands of others that she collected from newspapers and supplements. I posted a copy of her handwritten recipe for Christmas pudding (and photos of my attempt to recreate it) to Instagram and it got a great reaction from people.

Things finally fell into place, and I realised a recipe blog would be perfect as I also love cooking and wanted to start doing more home cooking.

Where did you first hear about Trellis?

After joining Mediavine. I was using Divi, which isn’t great for speed, and was on the lookout for something that was still easy to use but not as clunky.

How long have you had Trellis on your site now?

Since April 2021.

Switching themes and frameworks can be a big decision. What convinced you to make the switch to Trellis?

I was really desperate to get away from Divi with the Google Core Web Vitals changes. Nothing I was doing (or I was paying developers to do) would make much difference to speed. I knew I had to change. I’d been with Mediavine for a little over a year and the whole experience had been fabulous. I was always helped and supported by Mediavine and so I trusted that the Trellis framework would also be a good decision. I’d also read good and honest reviews on the Trellis Facebook group so I felt confident any issues could be resolved with the support of Mediavine and the group.

What issues were you hoping to resolve with Trellis?

I wanted something that was less clunky than Divi and was already optimised for speed. And also something I could easily do myself, as I enjoy looking after all aspects of the blog myself.

How easy was it for you to set up Trellis on your website? Did the process go smoothly?

I ended up doing it myself as I didn’t want to wait for help. And I also just generally like the control of doing things myself on my blog. I have no tech background (I was a lawyer) and have just taught myself WordPress. I was a little overwhelmed but I still managed to set it up and even build myself a static homepage. If I had any little issue I could usually find a fix had been discussed in the Facebook group.

What improvements have you noticed with Trellis? (Site speed, CLS scores, traffic, earnings, etc.)

CLS scores and speed have improved a lot. I also think my blog looks cleaner and is more user friendly. My traffic and earnings have also been building steadily.

Would you recommend Trellis to other bloggers? Why or why not?

Absolutely! I love the simplicity and clean look. I have managed the switch and building a homepage myself (without having a tech background). I find it easy to update my blog. I’m passing Core Web Vitals without any help from a developer. I feel supported and confident that the framework will only get better with each update.

What advice would you have for someone preparing to move to Trellis?

If you’re using a theme like Divi, there will be some work involved in removing all the code that is part of Divi as you switch over. But it can be done and is totally worth the effort. I’d say to not get overwhelmed but to take things one step at a time and you’ll get there and be so happy you made the switch.

What is your favorite feature of Trellis?

I couldn’t single out one thing — I just love it because it’s easy to use, lets my blog perform well (without having to make adjustments and spend money with a developer) and because it’s part of Mediavine and comes with great support.

Any other comments about your experience?

I’m just so happy I made the switch and can now focus on creating great content and growing my blog rather than constantly feeling pulled back by a slow theme.

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Thanks, Libby, for chatting with us today. We’re so pleased that Trellis is helping your online business succeed!

We’re really proud of the results that Trellis has produced, and our team is committed to improving and enhancing this framework to continue to serve content creators and their business goals. Learn more about Trellis, and if you’d like to read more testimonials, check out our other Case Studies.