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Boost Business ROI with Website Performance Monitoring

Tips for Optimization July 20, 2022
Author: Eric Erskine
Boost Business ROI with Website Performance Monitoring

In the past decade, tech-savvy customers have used digital platforms to transact with businesses. They were a convenient but not always the overwhelming preferred option over in-store purchases. The pandemic reshaped the business landscape, however. It shifted consumer behavior to favor doing most of their shopping online.

The digital options that developed during lockdown made shopping so much easier. Now that stores and other businesses are re-opening, experts don't expect consumer attitudes to change much. Reverting now would add no value to the consumer's experience. Your website's performance will significantly impact your company's revenue moving forward.

You'll need to know how to monitor online performance to stay relevant and competitive. You'll also need to set proactive digital marketing goals that align with your business' larger objectives. Moonstone Interactive discusses website monitoring and shares the best traffic checking tools to meet your objectives.

graph of conversions, performance monitoring to boost ROI

Understand your users' behavior with website monitoring

Knowing your business' audience and their behavior on your site is as crucial to your success as a great marketing strategy. For instance, you can use the information you gather to gain a unique understanding of the needs of your website visitors.

You can also utilize your knowledge to make crucial decisions based on data. It can help identify key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to your business. If you monitor your website performance, you can also:

  • Create or improve upon your content and SEO strategy
  • Manage real-time data and information more effectively
  • Provide unique insights into users' journey through your website
  • Open opportunities to deliver better customer service
  • Drive decision-making on a marketing and business scale

Here's Moonstone Interactive's list of real-time performance checkers. They protect data privacy and offer accurate data points for website owners to analyze and use.

Real-Time Website Monitoring Tools

Google Universal Analytics/Google Analytics 4 - is, without a doubt, the most popular website monitoring tool out of the dozens available. The search engine giant has introduced significant changes through the years, including AI-powered insights and predictions, enhanced audience integrations, and more.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Google's most recent update, doesn't support customized views like Universal Analytics. It only allows viewers to filter internal traffic for data streams. You won't be able to access previous data after the update is rolled out on July 1, 2023, making real-time website traffic monitoring harder.

If you still plan on using GA4 next year, you'll need a backup plan to account for the changes.

Clicky - provides you with real-time data in the form of easy-to-understand reports packed with meaningful insights. You can integrate the script on your website to get backlinks and on-site analytics on top of detailed integrated heatmaps. Clicky can also detect and block bots easily.

The analytics tool doesn't use tracking cookies. And it can still monitor visitors even when the user turns off javascript without compromising privacy and data security.

Fathom - is a monitoring tool that uses a lightweight script, making it faster and easy to install. Fathom isn't a script that will slow down no matter how much traffic your website encounters—a win for your SEO strategy. You'll also be able to view visitor data in real-time, even with an ad-blocker installed.

Fathom is revolutionizing website analytics, providing visitor data protection like the GDPR, ePrivacy, CCPA, and PECR. Moreover, this tool alerts you about certificate renewals and generates SSL certificates for custom domains. It also does not store personal data. If you pick this option, you won't have to include cookie notices on your website.

ManageEngine WebAnalyzer Plus - this real-time web analytics tool provides monitoring data on website traffic and engagement that's easy to understand while maintaining user privacy. You can keep tabs on how visitors behave and engage with your content, making you more agile when responding to trends and changing tactics as the need arises.

The WebAnalyzer is excellent for overall behavior research. It features integrated heat maps and filter options that let you customize reports.

Matomo - is an open-source website analytics tool you can easily install and access on your server. Its key features include its ability to give you control over your data on a single dashboard, generate accurate reports about user behavior and how to optimize search terms and strategies, and take user privacy seriously (no third-party cookie usage).

Other features of Matomo:

  • Custom branding
  • Heatmaps
  • Session recording
  • Video analytics

Panelbear - allows you to understand user behavior through a simple reporting system. This lightweight and open-source tool monitors website traffic in real-time, simplifies metric filtering and comparison, automates alerts, and helps manage your metrics dissemination. Panelbear also takes user privacy seriously, taking care to secure data from third-party interference.

marketer with magnifying glass, data driven marketing growth

Use performance monitoring tools to improve decision-making

Monitoring your website traffic and users' experience on your platform, especially in real-time, is essential. It helps you understand visitor/consumer needs and interests to develop compelling content plans, identify and fix website flaws, and measure engagement.

Most important is how this could lead to better, more informed decisions regarding the overall website experience, the creation of online strategies, and the implementation of business policies. Different kinds of businesses can tailor their goals to their specific needs and still have the same positive result: progress towards specific goals and a boost in overall ROI.

  • Lead generation websites can use the information they collect from users to aid the sales team's initiatives to reach out to and connect with potential leads.
  • eCommerce platforms can utilize digital analytics to understand customers' online purchasing behavior better. They can use the data to market products and services more meaningfully.
  • Online content publishers can cultivate strong relationships with their audience by launching on-site marketing initiatives that align with user interests.

Having individual goals that tie into the bigger picture of the organization's vision helps the company move forward and achieve success at various levels. Moreover, it's also an excellent way for employers to evaluate how someone is doing and guide them to improve.

Take charge of your website monitoring and analytics

Businesses need the right website performance and traffic checker tools to stay competitive. Determining which aspects of digital marketing initiatives are working or need more tweaks is useful. But the real power of performance testing on websites lies in what you do with the data you collect and how you analyze it.

Your findings are an invaluable resource that could help inform your overall digital strategy and deliver more ROI for your business. Moreover, website and online marketing goals must align with overall business goals. Online monitoring and digital analytics are perfect for that. Website performance testing is the future of online optimization.

Want to develop data-based digital initiatives that could bump up your ROI? Get in touch with us for a FREE consultation on measuring website performance and utilizing the results!

Sources: https://geekflare.com/real-time-website-traffic-checker