Why website monitoring matters for your business
Launching your website is just the beginning. What happens next can make or break your online presence. Once a website goes live the hard work is not over. It takes time, effort and dedication to keep it working adequately. It takes even more time and effort to make it work perfectly.
There are factors such as your hosting and your website security that can slow or down a website. Third-party software like plugins and integrations can cause issues. Then, there are domains and SSL certificates, which need to be regularly renewed.
If all of your hard work in launching your website is not allowed to be in vain, you must invest time and money in maintaining the website. The best approach with maintenance is to be proactive and to know as soon as, if not before, a problem arises.
What is UpWatch?
In January I launched UpWatch. It is a business and a service that is the culmination of years of pain and learning while managing websites.
For many years, I have used uptime monitoring to alert me when a website becomes unavailable. I believed this monitoring was fairly accurate. However, over recent years I have experienced one unexpected incident after another that has crystallised for me that uptime monitoring is not enough on its own.
Uptime monitoring is a great first step in website monitoring, however, it cannot catch when your DNS records are changed and the website shows a 'coming soon' page. It cannot alert you just before a domain or an SSL certificate expires. It cannot warn you that a website is running slower than usual, at least until it becomes too slow to show uptime!
Therefore, I slowly gathered a collection of additional monitors for my websites. These seven monitors together created the ultimate, most comprehensive website monitoring solution.
Seven website monitors for your website
Here are the seven website monitors every business needs and every UpWatch customer can use:
1. Uptime monitoring
It starts with the bread and butter of monitoring. It will check your website to see if it is loading. Not just that, it will also check to see how quickly it loads across multiple continents and regions. Many people use a single uptime monitoring solution. We double-verify uptime by using two uptime monitoring tools to ensure that if one tool fails to spot an issue, then the other one will. This reduces the likelihood of false positives or issues being missed.
2. SSL expiration monitoring
Every modern website requires a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate or the website will be marked as 'unsecure'. It helps encrypt traffic between the user and your website. However, SSL certificates are not permanent and need to be regularly renewed. Our SSL monitoring will alert you in case your auto-renewal fails.
3. Domain expiration monitoring
Without a domain, there is no website. You need to renew your domain regularly or someone else will swoop in and purchase it! Most domain providers offer auto-renewal. Some forget to turn it on and sometimes the auto-renewal fails. Our domain monitoring will alert you before the domain expires.
4. DNS change monitoring
Your DNS records are the brains behind the scene. They help direct traffic to your website and your business emails. The last thing you would want is for any of your records to be altered, either by accident or maliciously. Our DNS change monitoring can let you know as soon as anything changes with your DNS records so you can take action if it creates issues.
5. Visual change monitoring
With your website up and your domain in-date, you don't want to find that someone has hacked and changed your website. Conversely, you don't want to find it's stuck on a 'coming soon' page or shows incorrect information. Visual change monitoring compares your website visually to past records and alerts you if something changes.
6. Page speed monitoring
Nearly half of all website visitors expect your website to load in less than 2 seconds. If your super-fast website suddenly moves like a snail, you will want to know. Our page speed monitoring benchmarks your website's loading time and lets you know if it slows.
7. Site health reporting
The final monitor is the most powerful when it comes to website maintenance. Our site health report will provide you with deep analysis across your entire website. It helps set out clear actionable steps to improve it. We use the UpWatch site health data to inform our website maintenance service.
How the human factor sets it apart
One of my most abiding experiences with uptime monitoring has been regular false reports. Maybe 3 times as often I get a report of downtime when the site is fine compared to accurate reports of issues. When I have been managing lots of client websites it can be very difficult to differentiate between the false and correct reports. Especially when you consider the emotional stress such an alert generates.
One of the core differentiating factors with UpWatch is that you will not be notified of any issues until we have verified it. With human-led support, we will check and validate any alert that comes to us. If the alert is false, you will never know and never be stressed. If it is accurate we will let you know and endeavour to explain why it occurred and how we’ll resolve it
No more 'your website is down!' alerts. We will give you rich, accurate information that will significantly reduce downtime.
How 80five integrates UpWatch for you
In our previous blog post, I wrote about how our website maintenance is empowered by UpWatch's monitoring. We plan to integrate UpWatch into our maintenance service and offer it to all clients.
We will use the data from UpWatch to lead us towards delivering timely interventions to fix and improve your website. We do not believe in box-ticking maintenance packages. You will get the best service led by real data.
That being said, UpWatch is still a standalone business and you can sign up to it without having a website built or maintained by us.
Pricing and plans
UpWatch provides three plans, Basic, Standard and Premium. All feature the seven core monitors. The main key difference is how often the monitors are run.
With the Basic plan, the uptime is monitored every 30 minutes and the other monitors provide you with checks every few days. The Standard plan checks your uptime every 5 minutes and the other checks happen more frequently. At the Premium level, your website's uptime is checked every 30 seconds and all other checks happen with similar increases in frequency.
On top of the core seven monitors, with Standard and Premium, there are additional monitors and enhanced methods of alerting. I would recommend you compare all three plans today.
How to get started monitoring your website
If you are ready to start monitoring your website with the most comprehensive website monitoring service, check out UpWatch.
If, though, you would like to integrate the power of UpWatch into proactive website maintenance, get in touch with us at 80five directly.
Find out how UpWatch and 80five can protect and empower your website today.
