When it comes to establishing a fully functioning website, there are many tips and techniques you may follow. While some of these are based around the design and implementation of site infrastructure, the most powerful post-launch performance-saving techniques involve continual website uptime and performance monitoring. This is especially important if you operate a content-heavy or an eCommerce website. Although the exact levels of monitoring your site require is determined by the type of website you operate, there are several universal website monitoring tips all administrators must follow for a well-designed website.
Monitor Key Pages of Your Website
While complete web monitoring is an essential component to determine the overall functionality of your site, it’s essential that you focus extra attention on several key pages. Of course, these pages vary based upon the type of site you have. Therefore, the following pages are broken into two website categories.
- Traditional Website and Mobile Applications - When it comes to a traditional, non eCommerce site, make sure to establish monitoring on the: Home Page; Essential Landing Pages, such as user registration pages; Pages that come from differentorigin servers; Pages with dynamic technologies, such as forums or support centers; and, dynamically-generated web pages.
- eCommerce Websites - When it comes to an eCommerce website, you must place monitoring agents on the following pages: Product Catalog; Customer Shopping Cart; Customer Checkout Page; and, Product Detail Pages.
Performance Monitoring With Established Alert Triggers
When you’ve established a monitoring solution for your key pages, it’s imperative that you set forth various performance metrics and alert escalations based upon the severity of an error. When it comes to setting performance metrics regarding errors and issues with the functionality/performance of your site, consider establishing three levels of errors:
- Critical Error Alerts - These alerts involve issues regarding network connectivity and page status codes, such as a major error that results in a 400-Page Error. This type of error should be sent to the development team and to senior management.
- Standard Error Alert - While there’s nothing standard about an error, these errors tend to involve HTML content errors that lead to a decrease in content performance. Consider sending this error alerts to the development and operations team.
Warning Error - If the monitoring solution detects a potential error, moreover, the an aspect of your site performance dips below your designated performance baselines, an error alert will be sent. While an actual error as yet to occur, warning alerts are essential to correct a problem before it has a chance to alter the end-user experience. This is an essential component of website uptime monitoring as it allows you to rectify a situation before users are negatively affected.