Five Of The Most Important Reasons To Monitor Your Website

The internet is like a dimensionally inferior subset of reality. As in reality, entropy will steadily erode structures not maintained by those who built them, in virtual reality, websites left on their own “erode”; they self-destruct.
For one thing, malware infects stagnant sites as hackers try to snare unaware visitors. For another, hardware and software develop such that old interfaces may eventually not be readable, or may act buggy even if they can be interfaced with. Additionally, trends in the display of data shift, making it very easy to spot antiquated site design.
What all these things indicate is that you need to monitor how your website is performing in order to ensure it functions as intended, and simultaneously keeps pace with the rapidly shifting tech market defining the modern era. Following are several more notable reasons why monitoring your site is fundamental.

1. Catching Cybercriminal Activity Immediately

When it comes to cloud computing, there are application monitoring solutions out there which help ensure designed apps act as they were intended to. Such monitoring solutions are also co-opted into security strategies to detect anomalous behavior in varying server arrays.
The internet is quite similar to the cloud, in that it is essentially “floated” from diverse server arrays “networked” together. That’s where the term “internet” comes from. When you’ve got an “internet”-like user interface among internal server arrays with no external access, that’s called an “intranet”.
Cloud computing is basically a consolidated extension of this allowing for decentralized space and processing utility to paying customers. Cloud computing maintains security by monitoring for abnormalities and quarantining sections of their arrays when necessary. The same must be done with your website.
You need security algorithms which will notify actual personnel should issues arise which can’t be handled autonomously. Beyond that, firewalls, password management, and alert notifications are all key in monitoring activity. If you’ve got proper monitoring protocols in place, you can catch attacks before they begin.

2. As A Means Of Maintaining Security Of Client Data

There have been several high-profile hacks of companies which had as their aim acquisition and dissemination of client data. In 2018 alone, Macy’s, Adidas, Sears, Kmart, and Delta were all hacked in ways which exposed client information to cybercriminals. The truth is, no business is too big or too small.
You need to secure client data as much as possible, but even so, some enterprising cybercriminal may break in. If you’re monitoring things, you can get ahead of those criminals by issuing statements to clientele and offering bonuses or discounts to assuage distressed responses of the affected.

3. In Order To Manage Periods Of High Traffic

Sometimes the best way to manage a site is to buy bandwidth in accordance with average digital traffic patterns. But just like in the real world, when traffic “populates” unexpectedly along your morning commute, you’ll have unexpected incidences of traffic expansion on your site.
If you’re not prepared to handle it, you could lose good clients who would have stayed with you. Proper monitoring solutions make it easy to expand bandwidth when you can see traffic trending that direction. Through such monitoring tactics you’re not overpaying for bandwidth you don’t need during slow times, and you’re able to expand bandwidth when the need arises.

4. Improvement/Innovation Requires Knowing: Where To Start

If you’re not monitoring website trends from as many feasible angles as possible, you won’t know where to start when it comes to site design improvements, or User Interface (UI) innovations. You need to see where visitors go on your site, how long they dwell there, and at what times they come.
Such data allows you to optimize management infrastructure to its most efficient, while allowing for necessary margins of error. Additionally, you can try different things in terms of design, measure the result, then choose options which objectively facilitate your site’s navigability.

5. You Can Determine The Success Of Varying Marketing Efforts

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, can deliver predictable ROI—Return On Investment. However, to get SEO delivering ROI isn’t something you’re likely to achieve without deliberate effort. You need to use meta-tagging protocols, keywords that are short and long, proper content layout, value-rich information, pictorial and video elements, infographics, and regular update strategies.
Working with the right companies can be key in terms of ROI-rich SEO, as they allow you to avoid the costs necessary in facilitating online visibility for your site from the ground up. Also, monitoring things internally can help you determine which SEO strategies you can effect yourself, and expect results. Which approach works best—external or internal—will differ per company.

Monitoring Operations

Monitoring your website can help you increase traffic, manage unexpected traffic, improve, innovate, secure client data, and nip cybercriminal activity in the bud. These are just a handful of reasons why web monitoring makes sense; different operations will likely find purpose in such protocols that are entirely unique.
 

Image credit : Berin Catic