5 Facts about Your Website You Should Know
You’re already well aware of the design of your site, the purpose of it, and hopefully, who your target audience is. But how well do you know your site when it comes to its performance and its capabilities? Here are five facts about your website that if you don’t already, you need to become familiar with.
Your traffic stats
The success of your site will depend on a number of things but the number one factor will be how much traffic your site receives. Everything you do for your site will be done with the intent of getting more traffic. But do you know how much traffic your site is actually getting? How many people are coming to your site per month, and what are they doing once there? Do they land on your page and then leave, giving you a high bounce rate? Or do they stick around, checking out the different pages of the site, giving you a high conversion rate? You must always know your traffic stats so that if you’re having a problem getting traffic or the right kind of stats, you can fix the problem. If you don’t know your traffic stats, Google Analytics is considered the gold standard in the industry for getting them.
Your page’s load time
The Internet is all about immediacy. If people have a question, they can get the answer in a matter of seconds. If they want to purchase something, they can with just a couple of clicks. If your page takes too long to load, the chances are that they will leave and go to a site that doesn’t have a waiting time. In fact, a site with a long loading time will turn people away even more than a site with low-quality content. Visit your page as though you were a visitor using any number of tools – Webslug is one of them – so you can again, fix the problems as they occur.
Storage space
If you’re a website owner that’s not concerned about their storage space because your web hosting package came with unlimited space, you’re not alone. Truthfully though, web hosts cannot physically provide unlimited space for all of their customers that sign up for it so they’ll outline in their terms of service just how much storage you’re actually getting under that “unlimited” umbrella. Read the fine print in your TOS so that you know exactly how much content you can load to your site.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of data transfer you’ll have available for visitors to download your site’s content onto their computer or device. So if your site gets a lot of visitors, you’ll need a lot of bandwidth. Analyze your traffic stats and then analyze your bandwidth stats so that you can see if you need more bandwidth, or if you’re paying for bandwidth that your site isn’t using just yet. If you exceed your bandwidth, your site could shut down so it’s important you always know that you have enough.
Your server
You need to know a few things about your server so that if you need tech support you can both communicate to the IT person what’s going wrong, and you can understand some of what they’re saying when they tell you about the solution. Know what type of server you’re using, whether it’s a shared, dedicated, or VPS. Also have handy the manufacturer of the server, the applications it can run, the processor information, and how it’s mounted. While you don’t need to know this information off the top of your head, you should have it available for your reference.
When it comes to your website, knowing about the design, theme, and content is all very important. But there are some stats at the back-end of your site that you also need to know to make sure it’s performing at its very best, and that it will continue to. These are five of the most important, as they’ll have the biggest effects on the overall success of your website.
Your traffic stats
The success of your site will depend on a number of things but the number one factor will be how much traffic your site receives. Everything you do for your site will be done with the intent of getting more traffic. But do you know how much traffic your site is actually getting? How many people are coming to your site per month, and what are they doing once there? Do they land on your page and then leave, giving you a high bounce rate? Or do they stick around, checking out the different pages of the site, giving you a high conversion rate? You must always know your traffic stats so that if you’re having a problem getting traffic or the right kind of stats, you can fix the problem. If you don’t know your traffic stats, Google Analytics is considered the gold standard in the industry for getting them.
Your page’s load time
The Internet is all about immediacy. If people have a question, they can get the answer in a matter of seconds. If they want to purchase something, they can with just a couple of clicks. If your page takes too long to load, the chances are that they will leave and go to a site that doesn’t have a waiting time. In fact, a site with a long loading time will turn people away even more than a site with low-quality content. Visit your page as though you were a visitor using any number of tools – Webslug is one of them – so you can again, fix the problems as they occur.
Storage space
If you’re a website owner that’s not concerned about their storage space because your web hosting package came with unlimited space, you’re not alone. Truthfully though, web hosts cannot physically provide unlimited space for all of their customers that sign up for it so they’ll outline in their terms of service just how much storage you’re actually getting under that “unlimited” umbrella. Read the fine print in your TOS so that you know exactly how much content you can load to your site.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of data transfer you’ll have available for visitors to download your site’s content onto their computer or device. So if your site gets a lot of visitors, you’ll need a lot of bandwidth. Analyze your traffic stats and then analyze your bandwidth stats so that you can see if you need more bandwidth, or if you’re paying for bandwidth that your site isn’t using just yet. If you exceed your bandwidth, your site could shut down so it’s important you always know that you have enough.
Your server
You need to know a few things about your server so that if you need tech support you can both communicate to the IT person what’s going wrong, and you can understand some of what they’re saying when they tell you about the solution. Know what type of server you’re using, whether it’s a shared, dedicated, or VPS. Also have handy the manufacturer of the server, the applications it can run, the processor information, and how it’s mounted. While you don’t need to know this information off the top of your head, you should have it available for your reference.
When it comes to your website, knowing about the design, theme, and content is all very important. But there are some stats at the back-end of your site that you also need to know to make sure it’s performing at its very best, and that it will continue to. These are five of the most important, as they’ll have the biggest effects on the overall success of your website.