That’s what Germany-based startup Ryte, founded in 2012, specializes in. Its website user experience platform is built on AWS and helps more than 2,000 business customers around the world optimize their websites with its software products. The platform focuses on six optimization pillars: search engine optimization, quality assurance, web performance, sustainability, accessibility, and compliance. For business users, the result is better search results, 25 percent quicker site loading times, and faster identification of problems—such as large file sizes and server timeouts—that could drive away customers. Ryte’s new data layering of analytics and Google Search Console with website analysis results provides the insights that digital marketers need for their decision making.

Using AWS, Ryte has added new levels of automated intelligence to its services. These features make it easier for its customers to anticipate and act on changes that could affect their websites’ search engine rankings and online business success.

During the labs—one an AWS Data Lab and one a lab focused on ML for software as a service (SaaS) programs—Ryte’s teams worked closely with AWS experts to develop proofs of concept for both projects using iterative design and testing sprints. As a result, Ryte was able to streamline and improve its development processes. Now, instead of having to rely on the technology team to write code in the early stages of a project, the company’s data scientists can develop prototypes themselves, while the technology team remains responsible for integrating the results into Ryte’s service platform.

This new way of working has produced big benefits. “There’s a huge advantage in terms of speed,” Semmelmann says, noting that data projects that previously took months are now completed within weeks. “It’s up to 80 percent faster than before. Now, the data team can produce a prototype and we have our own pipelines so we can test without having the tech team involved up to that point. Then we can go to the tech team and say, ‘OK, this has been tested. Now let’s focus on integrating the tool.’”

Building on the outcome of the AWS labs, Ryte completed the proofs of concept for the ML and Google Top 10 Test projects and went live in a matter of weeks. 

And the feedback from customers? “They love it,” Semmelmann says of the new Google feature, which saves users hours of work they once had to spend manually looking through keywords to detect pages being tested by Google. The same is true for the ML capabilities, which are helping customers improve their website strategies and budgeting. “They can plan more efficiently,” says Semmelmann.

Change is a constant in the world of website optimization, so Ryte is exploring other AWS labs and services as its needs evolve. “AWS is easy to work with,” Semmelmann says. “These topics can be heavy and technical, but all the people who worked with us knew what they were talking about. That’s something I really appreciate. I always had the feeling that we had common goals and were trying to solve things together.”