For many businesses, technology has enabled them to work to a level that is similar to other businesses but this is increasing in pace in the online marketplace. This is because users are becoming more demanding and if they do not see what they want to see then they will abandon a website after four seconds. That is a short amount of time but it is now the expectation of customers. If your website is there to help you sell products then you should consider monitoring the following areas:
Speed Index
There are many ecommerce businesses that use measures such as Time to First Byte to make sure that their site is running exactly as it should be. This is important as it helps to improve search engine results but it is not the most efficient or effective method of measuring the site speed for user experience. It is important that business owners understand the timings when it comes to users engaging with the site because speed index is a way of measuring the actual site speed. Research has been carried out that has proven that for every second it takes for a site to load, seven percent of visitors will leave.
Speed of Checkout
Many businesses spend time monitoring the speed of their site but very few do not monitor the speed at checkout. This process should be simple and speedy because once a customer decides to make a purchase there should be nothing stopping a successful sale.
Time-outs
Time-outs occur when a website becomes unavailable, however, it will be unavailable to some and not others. A site outage is when a site is completely unavailable and during these periods many visitors are unavailable to enter the store. Spikes in traffic can cause outages because servers are overloaded or there are failures with the infrastructure and they often happen at the worst possible time. Many large companies have the staff to cope with these issues but smaller businesses do not which means that they should make use of a number of web service to help automate the vital infrastructure.
This is why it is important to assess the following areas:
Your Web Host
If you are experiencing timeouts and outages and you want to reduce them then you need to speak with your web-hosting provider and why do you have problems when there are spikes in traffic. It makes sense to understand what controls they have adopted to carry out changes to the production servers and how quickly can your business get back up and running should there be a failure.
Security Concerns
Ensuring that the relevant security is in place will ensure that your site remains safe and secure. This means guaranteeing that your web host has the correct systems and a good track record because they have to have your best interests at heart.
Making Your Business Known
Your business has to be visible to everyone because if they cannot find it then how can you make sales. Many small businesses make the mistake of believing that if their business name appears at the top of a search they have won when in reality they have not scratched the surface.
There are many services available that can help small businesses to monitor their performance and really maximise their potential.