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The Importance of Monitoring Website Performance for Providence, RI Businesses
More than 1.17 billion websites exist, and every site is facing fierce competition. This means that your business must always look for ways to improve your site’s performance to stay ahead of the game and sustain long-term growth.
Of course, accomplishing that isn’t easy. It requires you to monitor your site regularly and implement changes when necessary. Today, the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce shares some of the top reasons for monitoring your website’s performance with some tips for doing so.
Business Process Management
Exploring business process management (BPM) is an excellent place to start. This discipline can provide you with valuable insight into how to better align your website with the needs and expectations of your target audience. Essentially, BPM automates laborious tasks that your team used to perform manually and optimizes processes to streamline workflows.
BPM analyzes data, systems, and people to help you redesign processes and improve customer experiences. It can help you develop the most user-friendly website in your field, as long as you learn how to implement it correctly. If you’re not confident that your in-house staff can adopt BPM efficiently and create a solid and adaptable framework, research how outsourcing works with BPM. The key is to start even if you’re not an expert. Diligently plan, and expect to learn a lot as you go.
Protecting Your ReputationOne benefit of regularly monitoring your website's performance is that it helps to safeguard your reputation. Most consumers turn to the web to find and purchase products or services. If potential customers click on your domain only to realize your site doesn’t work, it can make your business appear unprofessional or non-existent. Your site reflects your company, so make sure it does so well.
Don’t underestimate the impact of first impressions. A bad impression can yield devastating consequences for your reputation. But monitoring your site's performance can help ensure customers get the right view of your company.
Enhancing SEO
In order to understand just how important your website is, it helps to learn the basics of website analytics, from how many visits you’re getting to how long those visits last. After all, website owners invest ample time and money in developing search engine optimization (SEO) tactics that draw more traffic to their sites. To gain traffic, you must show up higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). Make sure all of your blog posts and landing pages are optimized for search engines.
With that said, all of your SEO efforts can be rendered useless if you don’t keep up with your website's performance and make the necessary changes. Say, for instance, that you update your site design, which unintentionally impacts the page-loading speed. Even a slight decrease in load times can cause you to rank lower on SERPs. On the other hand, modifying your site with new content, better SEO, and more usability can help you rank higher.
Bolstering Cybersecurity
Another advantage of performance monitoring is that it helps you to enhance your company's cybersecurity. Hackers spend every day attempting to circumvent protective layers and install malware onto websites or steal sensitive information.
Small and medium-sized businesses are particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks and threats. Keeping up with your site’s security and making performance-boosting changes can protect company and customer data, thereby helping you avoid devastating repercussions for your company’s finances and reputation.
You can also make some simple behavior changes within your business that will help increase your cyber security. Offer training on how to identify fraudulent email and phishing attempts, and encourage your employees to password protect their files. Free online PDF editors are available to allow employees to provide feedback to each other on their documents, like mockups of proposed web design changes. But when they are done, they need to find Protect under the Tools menu so they can add a password under Encrypt. Then, their files - and their comments - will be protected.Finding Solutions
Finally, monitoring your website's performance helps you to troubleshoot your website. Web development and design are complex fields, and unless you’re an expert, it’s nearly impossible to understand the intricacies of keeping a site fast, efficient, and secure. Using a website monitoring tool can help you find the source of various problems so you can take the necessary steps to resolve them.
Finding Solutions
Having a top-notch website is non-negotiable in this day and age. Besides looking the part, your business website must perform with the best of them to keep your company moving in the right direction. Consider the benefits above, and begin researching website monitoring tools and services that will help you stand out from the competition and grow as you envision. And remember to train your employees on simple everyday practices that can increase your cyber security even more.
Connect with and learn from other local business leaders by joining the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce.
