Site monitoring sounds like a very complicated task for site managers. In truth, it’s very straightforward. However, it involves a high level of focus and patience. There are many things to check off when it comes to monitoring a site, and while much of it can run on automation, implementation can fall by the wayside due to other important duties.
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What is Website Monitoring About?
Any activity that checks a site’s availability, performance, and function falls into this bucket. Typically, the aim is to ensure that the website is working as it should.
- Availability Monitoring
Pay attention to the availability of your site, or its uptime. Making sure that your website is always accessible and functional is crucial. This covers basic website and API monitoring, server access, DNS records, SSL certificates, databases, email servers, and more.
- Performance Monitoring
Track your site’s speed to ensure that visitors aren’t waiting too long for pages to load. You’ll want to monitor connection speeds and browser load times using synthetic monitoring or RUM technology. Keep track of page errors, missing content, and slowness.
- Functionality Monitoring
What functions does your site serve? Does it have a shopping cart, search utility, payment system, or forms? All these functions require monitoring, and you can do that with specialized monitors. They use script files to run through every process and report any abnormalities.
Website Monitoring Tools and Their Features
Site monitoring tools are widely available, but how do you choose the best one? Here are some key features to look out for:
- Frequent checks
- Worldwide monitoring
- Variety of checks
- Smart notifications
- Third-party integrations
- Comprehensive reporting
- Multiple-step flows and transactions
- Staging environments
- Content rendering
- Page availability
- The browser and mobile emulations
- SEO
- SSL certifications
Doing It Yourself
Instead of searching for a website monitoring solution online or hiring an extra headcount to handle everything, perhaps you’re considering doing it by yourself. Before you take on this task, ask yourself if you have the bandwidth to do so. Checking a site’s availability and performance might not seem like very challenging stuff, but they do take up a lot of time. Remember that patience is key!