Website performance monitoring metrics -
Have you ever gone to a new website, only to have it stall during the loading process? Slow page speeds are a part of life for all Internet users, but if your site is suffering from slow page speeds, you need to find ways you can start speeding things up — immediately.
Slow page speeds are one of the quickest ways to get people to turn around and leave your site, no matter what it is you have to say or what you have to sell them. From a technical perspective, Page speed is the time it takes for a page to load and has three different metrics it consists of:.
Ultimately, page speed refers to the entire time span, from sending an HTTP request to a server to the complete and final display of the web page on a browser.
While this may seem like a rather small and insignificant detail, time to title can help assuage any concerns or anxiety about a site being reputable, so it's an important metric to pay attention to.
The time it takes from an individual making a request and the amount of time it takes for content to begin loading — even if it does not fully load — is called the time to start render. It's very similar to the last metric that makes up page speed — the time it takes for a site to render — but, it's not the full duration it takes to render, only the time it takes to start loading.
This metric is also quite important, because even if the content on a page does not fully load, an individual is more likely to stay on a page if they see content begin to appear. While a site visitor's patience may still be tested if it takes too long for everything to load, a quick time to start render can be enough to keep people interested and keep them around on your site.
It refers to how much time it takes before individuals can begin to click on links, type in text fields, scroll on a page, and interact in other ways with a website.
As you can imagine, this is another important metric because the quicker an individual can begin to interact with a web page, the less likely they are to leave the page, even if the page has not rendered fully.
A real-world example would be if you added an item to your cart while shopping online, then immediately went to the checkout. The time it takes for the checkout button or link to appear and be functional would be the time to interact in this situation.
This refers to the amount of time it takes for your Domain Name System DNS provider to translate a domain name into an IP address. There are plenty of free online tools at your disposal to test your DNS lookup speed, and going with a premium DNS provider ensures you have a faster DNS lookup speed.
We recommend you find the fastest DNS provider possible. Your bounce rate is pretty much what it sounds like. It can also be defined as a single page visit to your site, with users failing to interact elsewhere. Typically just a few simple site improvements will be enough to retain visitors for a longer period of time, subsequently improving your bounce rate.
It is a rather basic metric used to measure the main purpose of your server, and those working on a large scale can reach upwards of requests per second. It will let you know the pressure your web application is operating under and if any adjustments need to be made.
It is inevitable some errors will occur on your site at any given time. The performance of a website can be influenced by a variety of factors, including images, CSS, JavaScript, underlying hardware, and networking issues.
Modern web monitoring tools can help you keep track of various metrics and performance indicators so you can stay on top of the performance of your website. Atatus is a Full Stack Observability Platform that lets you review problems as if they happened in your application.
Instead of guessing why errors happen or asking users for screenshots and log dumps, Atatus lets you replay the session to quickly understand what went wrong. We offer Application Performance Monitoring, Real User Monitoring, Server Monitoring, Logs Monitoring, Synthetic Monitoring, Uptime Monitoring, and API Analytics.
It works perfectly with any application, regardless of framework, and has plugins. Atatus can be beneficial to your business, which provides a comprehensive view of your application, including how it works, where performance bottlenecks exist, which users are most impacted, and which errors break your code for your frontend, backend, and infrastructure.
If you are not yet an Atatus customer, you can sign up for a day free trial. What Causes Poor Web Performance? How to Monitor Website Performance?
Website Performance Indicators Tools for Monitoring Website What is Web Performance Monitoring? Page Size The majority of today's customer-facing websites use high-resolution photos. The average physical size of web pages has increased as a result. However, when the page weight grows, loading time may increase.
Scripting or Code-Related Issues Thousands of lines of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript code go into every significant website. The quantity and complexity of code on websites grow as they evolve. Multiple scripts are frequently executing in concurrently.
Higher-than-expected web server calls can result in greater latency in such scenarios. Additionally, several threads accessing the same shared code or data might cause a "race situation," exposing a website to cybersecurity threats.
Server Location Businesses with multiple geographies must guarantee that the performance of their websites is uniform across all of them. If, on the other hand, your website is hosted in one location but receives visitors from other regions, the user experience will differ.
In such circumstances, a CDN content delivery network might be a good option. Server Performance The performance of a web server has a direct impact on the performance of your website. When a browser sends a ping to your server, it is requesting that the server load or communicate data to your website.
These requests take longer to process if your server is down. An APM solution, in further detail, accomplishes the following: Measures the availability and performance of an application Troubleshoots and diagnoses problems before they have an impact on operations or the user experience UX Actions to resolve and recover from apparent performance concerns are automated Web Performance Optimization WPO is a similar performance monitoring tool that works in conjunction with Web Performance Monitoring.
Real User Monitoring RUM Real User Monitoring RUM is a type of Web Performance Monitoring that uses passive monitoring the RUM application collects website performance metrics without interfering with the website's operation technology to continuously observe, capture, and analyze all user interactions with websites and web applications, tracking availability, functionality, and responsiveness.
Organizations can obtain the following results by utilizing RUM: Recognize its users and determine which portions of the website require the greatest attention. Understand end-user distribution trends by geography or channel, as well as other significant usage data.
Knowing your user trends allows you to target areas for performance improvements and optimization from a monitoring perspective. Synthetic Monitoring Synthetic Monitoring is a type of Web Performance Monitoring that uses active monitoring technologies to install scripts that imitate an activity or path a user could take through a web application, then report the results for further analysis.
Website Performance Indicators The following metrics can be used to assess the performance of your websites. Bounce Rate The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who depart your website without visiting any other pages after landing on the first one. Assume someone uses Google to search for something, and Google returns your website as one of the results.
The user then goes to your website after clicking on the link. The bounce rate increases if a person leaves your website after viewing the first page. If a user navigates to different pages on your website, this is not called bouncing. Connection Time From the time the web application is first requested, the amount of time it takes the web browser or client to establish a connection with the webserver is known as connection time.
The connection time can assist you to figure out how well the website's network is performing. There might be a lot going on in the network between the client and the browser. The total number of bytes the user receives is referred to as the overall weight of your website.
More important than the overall weight is the relationship between each asset since one heavy asset can slow down everything else. Furthermore, the growth of web page size has continued to expand year after year , therefore it's important to sometimes step back and see which assets are truly necessary.
By separating individual metrics such as JavaScript weight, CSS weight, image weight and total asset weight, you can pick out which categories are too heavy, and then you can perform a waterfall analysis to identify the asset that needs to be altered or removed. The number of assets you have obviously affects your website's overall weight, but it's important to differentiate between asset count and weight.
Every asset, no matter how small or compressed, has the potential to add more time to the loading process. Your overall asset count includes your total JavaScript, CSS and image counts.
See how we improved WordPress performance and went from a ms load time to ms by reducing the amount of HTTP requests made. The majority of your website's content is hosted on your domain, but many sites also include third party content such as embedded videos or social media widgets.
Because these items originate from other domains, you have limited control over their functionality. Therefore, the potential for problems rises with each domain that's in play. Only rely on other domains that can guarantee impeccable performance, or else a third party could compromise your users' experience.
Now that we've covered the technical aspects of website performance, let's discuss what visitors actually do after clicking a link to your website. The first important non-speed related metric to keep an eye on is your website's error rate. The average number of problem requests compared to total requests is your error rate.
This metric is likely affected by your number of concurrent users; test your website's performance under different loads to check.
For example, you may notice that your error rate starts to increase at a specific point during a load test, such as when a certain number of concurrent users are attempting the same action. If you're expecting a sudden surge in traffic due to a special promotion or event, this information can help you prepare.
Some errors are inevitable , but keeping an eye on the number of errors your website is encountering can help minimize larger issues down the road.
If you're using KeyCDN, you can use the Reporting section to see how many client errors your Zone s have encountered over a specific period of time. If your bounce rate is high, that means something is making users turn away without thoroughly exploring your site. Google calls such visits "single-page sessions," and too many of them can impact your SEO.
Possible causes of high bounce rates might include poorly targeted keywords, slow load times or unpleasant graphic design. If you make changes and your bounce rate starts declining, then you're doing something right.
Check out our detailed post about 21 ways to help reduce bounce rate on your website. You can find out which of your pages draws the most traffic by simply checking under the Behavior section of Google Analytics.
Knowing where users focus their attention can give you an idea of which content is helping you retain an audience. Keep in mind that the number of views a page receives isn't the only measure of its relevancy; the number of shares a page receives via social media is also important.
Perhaps the most important of all your performance metrics, the conversion rate is the most intimately connected with your bottom line. When it comes to optimizing user experience, your conversion rate is more important than your overall conversion numbers because it lets you know if users are doing what you want them to do when they visit your site.
A Conversion rate is calculated by simply dividing your number of unique visitors by your number of conversions. Google Analytics can track this information over time, but defining a "conversion" is up to you. If your conversion rate is low, you may be attracting the wrong kind of traffic, should improve upon your website speed metrics, or might have an inefficient call to action.
Sometimes numbers don't tell you everything you need to know, which is why it's important to understand how web users think. Perception is everything , and sometimes there is a difference between how long it takes for a page to load and how long the user "feels like" it's taking.
Performace said, Boosting immune defenses should Body composition measurement scale go about tracking perrformance performance? Website performance metrics are often an overlooked part Body composition measurement scale the puzzle that is SERP success. Helps clients reach their overall website goals e. Ensures a great user experiencewhich increases the chances of high engagement and conversion rates down the road. Perceived website performance is relative to the user experience.Website performance monitoring metrics -
More people are interested in a certain page maybe the weather is heating up and customers are looking for spring and summer clothing.
Whatever the case, once you realize that more people are clicking on a particular page, you can investigate why and take appropriate action. For instance:. Pro tip: dig deeper into which web pages your customers are most attracted to, where they click, and how they interact with your content with Hotjar's Observe tools like Session Recordings and Heatmaps.
It can be helpful to measure both website traffic and page views over a specific period of time so you can understand how many people are visiting your site and where they end up during their sessions.
A great way to increase your overall page views is by studying your best-performing pages, determining why they prompt such great results, and mimicking that approach across your site.
Make sure your tab menu is well-located, clear, and only contains essential information, which brings us to our next point…. Get rid of clutter: if your site has too much going on, users will find it difficult to navigate. Be smart about linking: great websites have lots of internal links that connect different pages, prompting more views.
But linking for the sake of it will frustrate your website visitors. Average session duration measures the average length of user sessions on your website.
Basically, they tell you how much time people are spending on your site during one visit. Average session duration provides a pretty good idea of how engaged visitors are while scrolling on your website.
When users bounce right away or after a brief session, they probably:. As you can see, average session duration is a tricky metric to track.
To determine a useful average session duration benchmark, investigate industry averages and pair them with your own historical data.
But only you know the specifics of how long your ecommerce website takes to navigate. It might be designed with quick sessions in mind, or it might have many different pages to view and elements to interact with, leading to longer sessions. Your historical data could show you averages as low as one minute or as high as twenty minutes.
The best way to accomplish all of the above is by conducting different kinds of user and product experience research. For example:. Usability research with Hotjar Observe tools like Session Recordings uncovers barriers to your customers having seamless navigation experiences like confusing layouts, broken elements, and glitches.
User research with Hotjar Ask tools like Surveys helps you get to know your customers on a deeper level so you can make sure your site aligns with their needs and pain points. All in all, monitoring key website performance metrics is essential if you want to maintain an excellent site.
If you want to provide your customers with a smooth, consistent, and high-performing site, you need granular details. When choosing which metrics to track, ask yourself:.
Most importantly, you should always keep your customers in mind by measuring metrics that are relevant to their experience. Be sure to choose tools like Hotjar that reveal both quantitative and qualitative insights.
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Try Hotjar now! Page speed Page speed measures how quickly your pages load when someone visits your website. How to improve page speed Improving page speed can be tricky. Bounce rate Bounce rate is the percentage of people who visit your visit and leave almost immediately after, rather than continuing to view other pages.
Hotjar Session Recordings help you go deeper into how users experience your product. Static content that appears the same to all users should be separated from dynamic content that is specific to the individual visitor.
This way, users will receive your content right away while waiting for slower personalized content to load. Rigorous metric monitoring and load testing can help developers identify time to first byte issues. You can also use the KeyCDN's Performance Test tool to view the TTFB of a domain, or single asset, from 10 different locations.
When the user's browser finally receives each and every byte of your website, the last byte time is recorded. The quality of your code and database queries play a big role in this metric. Other factors that may be affecting your TTLB include a misconfigured webserver, or if the origin server has reached its capacity.
Keeping track of website performance metrics involving time isn't very useful if you don't understand all of the other factors at play. Information about your website's content complexity can help you find ways to improve all of the previously discussed metrics.
The total number of bytes the user receives is referred to as the overall weight of your website. More important than the overall weight is the relationship between each asset since one heavy asset can slow down everything else. Furthermore, the growth of web page size has continued to expand year after year , therefore it's important to sometimes step back and see which assets are truly necessary.
By separating individual metrics such as JavaScript weight, CSS weight, image weight and total asset weight, you can pick out which categories are too heavy, and then you can perform a waterfall analysis to identify the asset that needs to be altered or removed.
The number of assets you have obviously affects your website's overall weight, but it's important to differentiate between asset count and weight. Every asset, no matter how small or compressed, has the potential to add more time to the loading process.
Your overall asset count includes your total JavaScript, CSS and image counts. See how we improved WordPress performance and went from a ms load time to ms by reducing the amount of HTTP requests made. The majority of your website's content is hosted on your domain, but many sites also include third party content such as embedded videos or social media widgets.
Because these items originate from other domains, you have limited control over their functionality. Therefore, the potential for problems rises with each domain that's in play. Only rely on other domains that can guarantee impeccable performance, or else a third party could compromise your users' experience.
Now that we've covered the technical aspects of website performance, let's discuss what visitors actually do after clicking a link to your website.
The first important non-speed related metric to keep an eye on is your website's error rate. The average number of problem requests compared to total requests is your error rate.
This metric is likely affected by your number of concurrent users; test your website's performance under different loads to check. For example, you may notice that your error rate starts to increase at a specific point during a load test, such as when a certain number of concurrent users are attempting the same action.
If you're expecting a sudden surge in traffic due to a special promotion or event, this information can help you prepare. Some errors are inevitable , but keeping an eye on the number of errors your website is encountering can help minimize larger issues down the road.
If you're using KeyCDN, you can use the Reporting section to see how many client errors your Zone s have encountered over a specific period of time.
If your bounce rate is high, that means something is making users turn away without thoroughly exploring your site. Google calls such visits "single-page sessions," and too many of them can impact your SEO.
Possible causes of high bounce rates might include poorly targeted keywords, slow load times or unpleasant graphic design. If you make changes and your bounce rate starts declining, then you're doing something right.
Check out our detailed post about 21 ways to help reduce bounce rate on your website. You can find out which of your pages draws the most traffic by simply checking under the Behavior section of Google Analytics.
Much like page loading time, avoid a notably slow time to first byte that leaves users waiting excessively for their requests to be processed. As a benchmark, aim for a time to first byte of no more than milliseconds. Speed Index is the rate at which a webpage loads progressively over time.
In contrast to FCP, this metric considers the entire page loading process rather than solely focusing on one part. A fast website speed index is generally between 0 to 3. Interactivity is a no-brainer when it comes to the user experience.
As a rule of thumb, site owners should have TTI scores between 0 - 3. First CPU Idle measures when website loading is idle enough that it becomes responsive to user input. A lower First Idle CPU score around 0 - 4. This factors in items like images, script, and fonts.
The important thing is to strike a balance between minimizing page size and maximizing user engagement. These requests are directly tied to the loading of key website elements such as images, fonts, and HTML files to name a few.
While the average number of HTTP requests is around 70 , fewer requests mean enhanced website performance. Therefore, your agency must go a step further and present the entire picture to clients. The only way to assess how what you are saying is perceived is by studying the reactions. Seth Giammanco, Principal, Strategy and Technology at Minds On Design Lab.
Alternately, it may mean site performance optimization is needed, such as reducing page loading time or having a faster First Contentful Paint. In other words, they were actively engaged e. This important metric helps to understand overall interest and whether content is engaging.
Scroll Depth. This helps to assess content effectiveness and whether there are opportunities for more CTAs. The rate at which users carry out a specific, desired website action e. A longer average session duration often indicates engaging content.
An exit page with a high bounce rate may indicate that content optimization is needed e. Luckily, a client reporting tool like AgencyAnalytics consolidates all that valuable data for you. The way metrics are laid out and displayed on AgencyAnalytics is much easier for the client to digest, as opposed to viewing them directly on an intricate platform like Google Analytics.
It gets the point across without forcing the client to get too into the weeds. Here are three top dashboards that automate data retrieval and give you a better understanding of website performance.
This handy tool helps you to assess website performance, gauge user experience, and identify any potential issues. Use an automated Google Lighthouse dashboard to:. Identify performance bottlenecks listed by priority level and actionable feedback on how to improve them.
Access real-time web page performance insights at the click of a button. Use a pre-built Google Lighthouse dashboard— try it on AgencyAnalytics, free for 14 days. In addition to website performance, a Google Search Console dashboard is useful to track:.
Best performing website traffic sources e. Audience-related analytics such as new and returning users. Track metrics like bounce rate, average session duration and exit pages alongside web page performance insights— create a custom dashboard on AgencyAnalytics, free for 14 days.
Similarly, Solarwinds Pingdom Speed Test is another platform that delivers page speed insights across different regions including the US, UK, and Japan. Wondering how to get started with monitoring website performance metrics?
Pick your desired integration, grant any requested permissions, and sync it to your AgencyAnalytics account. Picking a more general dashboard e. Replicating an existing dashboard or even just a specific section. Add social media widgets and search engine optimization insights alongside your clients' web performance metrics.
Create your own custom dashboard on AgencyAnalytics, free for 14 days.
Tools like Body composition measurement scale and Lighthouse capture Nitric oxide boosters different metrics to describe the speed Webxite your Mettrics. This mmonitoring explains what these metrics mean monitorung how to work performannce them. Web performance metrics can be collected in different environments. DebugBear reports three different types of data. Lab Data reports how a website performs in a controlled test environment using defined parameters such as network speed, location, and device speed. CrUX Data is collected automatically by Google based on real Chrome user visits. The results aggregate visits by different users across a day period. Most metricx Website performance monitoring metrics have Webite large digital presence, perflrmance some rely significantly on their web applications to provide value to their customers Sport-specific weight loss generate income. Monitorring provide merics better experience, you metrucs optimize your Powerful antifungal herbs pages frequently. Slow-loading pages or those that aren't mobile-friendly might cause an increase in bounce rate as well as influence your search engine rankings. In this article, we'll go through what is web performance monitoring and the tools to monitor and improve the speed of your website. Web performance monitoring is a set of methods and tools that help you track your web application's performance using various metrics and technical aspects that affect page load speed and user experience.
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