Regardless whether your website is a hobby or your livelihood, the most likely scenario is that you have so far invested a fair amount of time in order for it to perform admirably. Unlike in some other trades here you will need adequate tools to observe the results of all your hard work. The aspects that you need to keep your eye on with their help are called key performance indicators or KPI’s. Regardless of what you do, the key to success lies in monitoring feedback and responding to it accordingly. Here, running a website is not an exception.
Focusing on Real Problems
What you need here is to find a reliable way to prioritize between problems that occur on your website. Errors are bound to happen, it is just the way it is, and still you cannot afford to waste your time and resources on every minor problem that occurs. Overburdening yourself with every minor issue of every page on your website is often extremely counterproductive. It may cause you to oversee something big once it happens and this can definitely make your work suffer. Try to spot anything worth your attention as soon as possible but always keep in mind that not every problem deserves your immediate attention.
Availability: Top Priority
The most important thing about your website is that it is always available. Making sure that all other aspects are in order is quite irrelevant if people simply cannot access it. One of the greatest and most reliable tools for making sure that your site is accessible is Uptime Robot. This tool enables you to monitor your website’s availability in 5 minute intervals. On top of all this, it is completely free to both register and use.
Monitoring Speed
When talking about performance, most people will instantly think of site’s speed of response and they are not wrong. Tiny errors in code or some other more serious issues can remain hidden to a layman but the speed is something that anyone can observe with ease. This is sometimes even unjust because regardless of the time you spent polishing various aspects of your website the great majority of its audience will judge its quality on only two principles: content and speed. One of the most popular and most precise tools of its measure here can be found on Pingdom.com.
Monitoring Server Disc Space
Since, people rarely manage to exceed the designated free memory with their website, they make a mistake of instantly assuming that it is infinite. However, you simply cannot keep track of everything on your own. This is why a dedicated server management, might not be bad idea in the long run. Although the spirit of a renaissance man, the jack of all trades is strong in the early 21st century, you should never be afraid to ask for help or even resort to outsourcing. Just ask yourself when months, or even years of your hard work are in danger do you really have the luxury of turning down a helping hand.
Full Page Loading
Different elements of your pages can take different times to load (in regard to their complexity) but until the entire display is up and running you cannot say that it is truly loaded. Set high criteria in regard to the general speed of your website and settle for no less. Slow loading time of videos or images may occur and it may not be your fault but this can often be enough to discourage even some of your most loyal followers. Your solution might lie in HTTP Full Web Page sensor. This tool will help you monitor the time it takes your pages to fully load.
Keeping the Shopping Cart Alive
If your website is of commercial nature, make sure that your shopping cart button is always operational since it is the sole purpose for the existence of your site. In this case, even keeping the rest of your site fully operational won’t matter since it would be stripped of its most vital function: making you profits. Check the button manually as often as possible or even have an automatic testing system that will alert you if something is wrong.
You can never keep your eye on every single aspect of your site but what you can do is at least keep your eyes open for these several KPIs. Every one of these elements is vital for the functioning (or at least proper functioning) of your website and should never be neglected. Always be prepared, use the proper tools and never be afraid to ask for help.
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