We are faced with a generation of
netizens whose attention spans are measured in seconds rather than minutes. It is a world populated people with instant
gratification syndrome. Why? It’s because
in this world, next greatest experience possible is a click away. And if you own a website that caters to the
needs of this market, a back click means opportunity lost. By opportunity that
means a loss in sales and profits. This is why webmasters and business owners
must be diligent in website monitoring.
One of the reasons why visitors
click the back button when they do not find what they are looking for, or the
website does not contain what is promised. However, the most disastrous example
for a webmaster is to lose sales because the site is experiencing system
failures or communication failures that result in major downtime. Even a well-built site experiences these
glitches and the more elements you have on your site, the more difficult it is
to monitor your website’s performance and its availability 24 hours a day. It is a time consuming yet extremely
necessary part of maintaining and owning a website.
There are several reasons why
websites fail to function properly from simple bugs to script errors or network
connectivity issues. The bottom line is
to know what happens so that necessary adjustments are made in real time,
minimizing your site’s downtime and maximizing viewer traffic. Monitoring website performance involves quite
a number of things that an application needs for it to function properly and
there are metrics that are most commonly measured as performance indicators
such as response time and availability or uptime. Here a list of the essentials.
1.
Website availability or Uptime – Monitoring your
website’s uptime should be the first and foremost concern. You are online because you want to be visible
and visible you must be at all times. It
is essential for websites that are intended to reach global audience, uptime of
key pages should be checked from different locations.
2.
Full Page Loading – Monitoring the functionality
of each element should also be monitored, from images to videos to flash files,
etc. For viewers, the visuals matter.
3.
Broken Links – It is frustrating for viewers to
find that certain links do not take them further.
4.
Sign Ups and Log-ins - Let your viewers feel
that they are important, welcome them and answer their queries promptly.
5.
Page Loading Speed – As mentioned, the internet
is fast paced and the loading speed determines whether your viewer would decide
to explore your site further and stay longer.
6.
Query Forms and Shopping Carts – These
applications should always be working well.
One keeps clients interested and the other one is of course income
generating.
7.
Your site has been hacked and is flagged by
search engines and anti-virus softwares.
Remember that if a website’s monitoring processes
are overlooked, you may be missing out because of issues that may be easily addressed
if you only you know what they are.
