Whether your website functions as a major part of your business model, a marketing tool, or an information portal, you want to ensure it functions as well as possible.

Many website owners mistakenly believe that monitoring consists of determining how many visitors they receive on their websites, the number of social media followers they acquire, their keywords’ rankings, and other similar metrics.

These are all handy performance indicators, but serious website owners cannot afford to take these as definitive benchmarks of their success. Monitoring your website is actually a combination of factors besides Google's analytic-type of metrics.

Website owners do not need to have in-house resources to monitor their websites closely. They can use external monitoring service companies to oversee their websites, improve performance and enhance users’ experiences.

Here are three of the top reasons website owners choose to use third-party services to monitor their websites and get the most out of their assets.

Downtime percentage affects sales

Even if your website experience is 99% uptime monthly, there is still 1% of downtime during which your customers cannot access your website, which could significantly harm your sales.

You know that things can sometimes go wrong with your website. Therefore, you must know how many hours your website is actually available for browsing and set up alerts if it goes down. Even if your hosting company claims it delivers a certain uptime percentage, you should always try to double-check these metrics.

Page speed loses visitors

It would be best if you understood the importance of fast-loading websites. Many studies have shown that page speed affects website performance. Users want to find quality information quickly. They detest slow-loading websites, grow impatient, and move on to a competitor’s website within 6 to 10 seconds.

It’ll be useful for your website to determine how long it takes for your pages to load.  If they load slowly, the website design might be too convoluted for the server. You may also have too many videos or media files on one page, slowing the loading speed.

One of the elements Google considers when determining the rankings for organic search results is the website’s loading speed.

Load tolerance causes website crash

Many owners learn about load tolerance only after their website crashes due to a significant traffic increase. It would be best to carry out “stress tests” to determine how many visitors your website can handle. If you are aware of your website’s traffic capability, you can safely increase your visits capacity and avoid customers' potential loss.

Benefits of website monitoring

Monitoring services ensure your website is being “watched” 24/7. There are a variety of website monitoring services and tools to monitor the different processes in your network. Depending on your needs, these companies provide checks and handle hardware and software issues.

Website owners can ensure a quick response to any problems and solve them without risking the loss of customers and business. These services include regular monitoring of up and downtime, instant notifications, and technical support to cover:

• Servers
• Network components
• Websites
• Web applications
• E-mail

The process monitors these components from different locations. It sends specially tailored tests to verify that the Web's target devices respond properly or if the device delivers customer content on time. Business transaction tests can monitor the same steps that an actual customer would take on the website.

If the system detects an error, it goes through a series of steps to confirm the error. Then, it automatically sends a pre-determined notification to designated contacts.

An effective monitoring service needs to go beyond keeping an eye on your websites and reporting a problem. It must provide more detailed information, such as a snapshot of the page or network traceroute that leads you to the problem's root cause. This way, you can quickly assess and correct the issue.