Whether you're a startup, agency or a large corporation: Wouldn't it be nice if your website was constantly being monitored and tested? To know what's working, what isn't and be able to fix it in a matter of hours or minutes?
Website monitoring software is the ultimate answer. It'll tell you about any technical problems that are causing your customers to become unhappy and potentially are leading to losing their business. Overall, monitoring your website is paramount if you want to improve the user experience of your applications and services.
The main goal of website monitoring is to make sure that your web apps and websites are up, running and online the way you want them. Whether you have an online store, a blog or an app-based business, your customers are looking for immediate responses, which is why your web applications mustn't become unavailable at any time.
Monitoring the performance of your website is a commonplace process that is carried out by various business roles, each with different tasks. For example, marketing and IT may want to ensure that their on-page content is accessible to all users, while SEOs look for changes in rankings.
Synthetic monitoring
Synthetic monitoring is the vital process of monitoring your website via an automated script that simulates a human visitor. Synthetic monitoring is way more important than real user monitoring and it can be done 24/7, 365 days a year without taking a single day off. All you have to do is set up a script that visits your website or sign-up with an online platform that does it for you and you will get an email every time the script encounters any web errors.
If you want to track performance metrics such as conversion rate and check if they are in line with your benchmarks, you can have another script set up that calculates these metrics and outputs them in a predetermined format.
Real-User monitoring
Real-user monitoring, conversely, provides valuable information about site visitors such as where they are coming from, what pages they view, how long they stay on the site and whether or not they complete the desired goal.
Real user monitoring (RUM) refers to a variety of methods that enable website owners to monitor how their site performs in a live environment, with real users accessing it. Such methods include eye-tracking and click tracking, which is useful for seeing where people are looking, and what they are clicking on.
Both synthetic and real-user monitoring is essential. The two approaches complement one another, with each having its strengths and weaknesses. Metrics+ provides a comprehensive mechanism for synthetic monitoring with frequent website checks and instant notifications.