Why You Need Web Performance Testing

It’s frustrating, isn’t it, when you open a web page but it loads too slowly, or doesn’t open at all?

Poor performance reduces a website’s ranking and the outcomes can be devastating. When load times take a plunge, users may just opt to close the tab and move on.

Why jeopardize all the time and effort you put into your platform? Your site could be achieving faster and higher quality service and gaining other crucial benefits through web performance testing.

What exactly you should monitor depends on your type of business and website. However, the web development team at Drudesk pointed out some of the main features that are essential for a successful web performance. Check out why you need web performance testing and what exactly you should monitor.

Why Should I Do Web Performance Testing?

If you are still hesitating over whether you need to spend the extra time and money on web performance testing, this article is for you. We give you three important reasons for web performance testing and bring to light some web performance indicators which should be monitored:

• Better Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Page speed is included in Google’s ranking algorithm for organic search results. Who wants to sit and wait for a page to load? Users want to get the results they’re looking for as fast as possible and Google knows it. Faster equals higher ranking.

Tip: PageSpeed Insight is a free tool available in Google for measuring speed and offers advice on how to improve web performance.

• Positive User Experience (UX)

The content and quality available to visitors of a website are the bases for a successful platform. Speed and reliability are always expected. If this goes undelivered, the user experience suffers. Pairing good content as well as good usability with speed will provide more positive user experience.

• Increased Conversion Rates

There’s an undeniable correlation between conversion rates and user experience and satisfaction.

If users are completely satisfied with the website and their online user experience, conversion rates will grow, which is great for your business! Such an increase in conversion rates is just not possible, however, if web performance is poor and the platform is not usable.

What Web Performance Indicators Should I Monitor?

• Uptime

Uptime is the most important performance indicator of your website. If the platform is down for more than a few minutes, it will directly impact sales. The longer the downtime is, the more disruption in your workflow your company will experience. This may result in a poor business reputation.

Uptime is usually measured in percentages, and the goal is to get as close to 100% as possible. For a complete overview of your site’s uptime, check the uptime of the key web pages from different locations.

• Full Page Load Time

Full page load time indicates how long it takes to download the source code of a specific web page. Fast page loading improves the user experience, and boosts your organic search rankings. Once again, Google includes page speed as a ranking metric.

Tip: You can easily increase page loading time by optimizing your images or hosting a website on a reputable server.

• Broken Links

Sometimes when you try to open a web page it displays a 404 error. This means that the link is broken or the page doesn’t exist anymore. Some common reasons for broken links are:

1. web pages moved to new URLs
2. web pages totally removed
3. typos in the URL creation 
4. pages removed by third-party resources
5. third-party websites that no longer exist

Whatever the reason may be, broken links are bad for business. Make it a part of your weekly routine to check the website for broken links. If you rename or delete pages, make sure that you redirect the old URL to the same or similar content.

• Database Performance

Many websites possess dynamic content that is stored in a database. The reason for slow site loading might be due to poor database performance. Therefore, it is important to monitor the response time for your database queries and optimize those that are taking the most time.

• Geographic Performance

Check out what your website speed is across the globe. Make sure that all users are able to access your platform and experience good performance, no matter what their physical location may be. You can focus on a specific place according to your analytics data or track the geographic performance worldwide.

• Web Server’s Hardware 

All the data on your website can consume a great amount of your web server’s hardware. To avoid errors and data losses, monitor the amount of free disk space available of your web server.

What Causes Poor Web Performance?

There are many things that can cause or contribute to poor web performance. File sizes, file quantity, user features such as location, device, operating system and connection speed. Together these can result in great or poor user experience. Performance problems can also appear due to website changes, failing or otherwise inadequate hardware too.

Get Your Monthly Web Performance Testing Service Today

Web performance testing is crucial for any digital platform and the​​​​​​​ team of web professionals at Drudesk is ready to serve you. Contact us today to reap the benefits of our monthly web performance testing services.

We’ll take care of your website’s performance while you focus on your business goals.