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It is not incorrect to say that most businesses rely on web applications today, whether they’re used for customer service or revenue generation. As a thumb rule, you should be proactive in business, but don’t stop there, you should also optimize your web pages daily to deliver a wonderful user experience.
As you may remember, the turtle beats the rabbit in the turtle story, which is another way of saying that slow and steady wins the race. In our case, if your website is too slow, someone will beat you and there will be no turning back. It’s a certain fact that no one will nap during the race. Oh, ha-ha!
Our point is that slow-performing pages will only increase bounce rates and may have an effect on search engine rankings. We will review how to monitor your website’s performance and speed it up with these best practices and tools.
Just a moment, before we discuss web performance tools, let’s discuss what website performance monitoring is.
What is Website Performance Monitoring?
The website performance monitoring method involves measuring various metrics and technical indicators of the website to see if it affects the user’s experience and page loading speed. Most of the time, we use this method to monitor website status or uptime, as well as track important factors such as page size, time to the first byte, and broken links.
Ultimately, website performance monitoring can help us monitor our web applications and identify any remaining, hidden, or critical issues. It can also alert us of any spikes in performance that need to be fixed.
Also read: How Does Website Monitoring Help You Improve the End-User Experience?
Now you know more about website performance monitoring and how it can help to enhance the user experience for your website. Let’s explore website performance monitoring tools to learn how they work and why you should check your website performance frequently.
1. GTmetrix
GTmetrix is one of the best website performance monitoring tools because it offers a range of features for advanced testing and analysis.
To evaluate how tools can help you measure web performance, we can also get a free performance report of a website. PageSpeed Scores, Fully loaded time, and total page size are some of the metrics that can be obtained from the tool.
Over 25 servers are being used to measure these scores in seven different regions around the world. This is how you can measure user experience more accurately in targeted regions.
Features of the GTmetrix
- Real-time report of performance issues
- Better recommendations
- Quickly identify areas that can be improved
- Quickly review the general technical health of a page or site.
- Collect reports from the other tools like PageSpeed and YSlow
2. WebPageTest
The first and best thing about this tool is that it’s free. Since it’s free, many people believe it can’t be used well. As such, it still gives users options to choose multiple browsers and server locations to obtain detailed insights into the user experience.
It does take a little longer for the tool to run tests, but has plenty of options for drilling down and pinpointing problems. In addition, you can create custom metrics based on your monitoring needs. Since WebPagetest is open source, it can be said that it is the most customizable web monitoring tool available on the market for measuring website speed.
Features of the WebPagetest
- Monitor site for mobile performance
- Collect your own custom metrics
- Compare multiple tests in test history
- Option for visual comparison
3. PageSpeed Insights
The PageSpeed Insights tool is created by Google to monitor your website’s speed. Nonetheless, it’s a common tool for teams focused on search engine optimization (SEO). You can run a test to get a summary of various parameters, to identify issues of interest.
Through tools, you can examine many on-page and back-end elements of your web application and see how they affect loading speeds and response times. For those seeking to monitor various primary components and seek recommendations to optimize them, this tool is ideal. Consider making your marketing teams and developers familiar with PageSpeed so they can enhance speed with Google’s web guidelines and recommendations.
Features of PageSpeed Insights
- Performance score
- Real-world field data
- Recommendations
4. Uptrends
Web performance monitoring software like Uptrend is an established player and gives users access to a highly intuitive dashboard for keeping track of each website’s load time, errors, metrics, and waterfall charts.
It’s possible to run tests with multiple browsers from different 200 locations around the world, just like with other tools. Moreover, the tool allows you to test website performance on mobile devices as well.
There is also a feature for simulating slower mobile networks (2G, 3G, etc.) to test how well your site performs in such conditions. It is necessary to choose an advanced version to monitor transactions, APIs, and multi-browser testing. There is also a limit on real-time user monitoring until you subscribe to a more expensive plan.
Features of Uptrends
- Custom dashboards
- Schedule maintenance
- False alert free
- No software to install
- Use it at any location
- Optimized for PC, tablet, and phone
5. Site24x7
Furthermore, Site24x7 is one of the best and most powerful website performance monitoring tools, providing all the usual and extended features such as monitoring of web defacement, SOAP, and REST APIs.
Utilizing this tool, you can get an advanced view of website uptime statistics and performance over 90+ locations around the world. In addition, dashboards and alerts keep track of key performance metrics, allowing you to respond quickly and resolve issues in real-time.
In spite of the fact that the tool is well-suited to monitoring end to end, the first setup can be a bit daunting and the fine-tuning of alerts and notifications can be tricky.
Features of the Site24x7
- Website performance monitoring
- Web page speed
- DNS server monitoring
- FTP transfer monitoring
- Auto-discovery
- Network mapping
- Heath dashboard
Conclusion – Test Smartly
Keeping track of, maintaining, and improving web performance is essential for business. Nonetheless, a sluggish website may cause prospects and clients to look elsewhere. In order to ensure your website is working properly, we have compiled a list of tools that can alert you to unexpected spikes and track its performance, such as uptime monitoring, page speed testing, and many others.
Are you wondering what your best option is? M-connect Media can assist you. With years of experience and expertise, we can help you choose the right tool. For more information, please contact us.
