Taking your skills as a computer programmer and putting them into practice can be a bit intimidating. If you are an engineer looking to make your mark in the world of business, having a great looking and functional website is something you should be passionate about. A great looking website will allow you to make a great first impression on potential clients.
Most tech entrepreneurs fail to realize just how important it is to ensure their website is reliable. In a recent study, nearly 40 percent of the consumers polled said they stop engaging with a website if they feel the layout is unappealing.
Not only will you need to focus on the look of your website, you need to make sure it is fast as well. Investing in VPS hosting services is a great way to ensure your site performs at peak efficiency.
The best way to detect issues with your website is by monitoring key performance metrics. Here are just some of the website metrics you need to keep an eye on.
Are Pages Loading Quickly?
One of the first things a visitor to your website will notice is how quickly the pages load. Most consumers will exit a website if they have to wait longer than a few seconds for each of the pages to load. Monitoring this metric will give you information regarding how long it takes from the time a consumer clicks a link on your website to the time the page actually loads fully.
With apps like Papertrail, you can receive error messages when the pages on your site are struggling to load. The last thing you need to do when receiving these messages is ignoring them. The longer it takes you to address page load issues, the more sales leads you will miss out on. If you are unsure about how to diagnose these problems, working with an experienced developer is a must.
Monitoring Unique Visitor Traffic
For most tech entrepreneurs, monitoring the number of visitors their website it receiving is of the utmost importance. This metric will let you know how well your marketing campaigns are working and where most of your traffic is coming from.
For instance, if you see that the majority of your traffic is coming from Facebook, Twitter or other social media platforms, you need to ramp up your marketing efforts on these sites. Striking while the iron is hot will help you attract a larger audience and increase your bottom line.
One of the best ways to attract consumers on a social media platform like Facebook is by running targeted ads. Facebook allows entrepreneurs to target their ads based on a user’s location, economic status, and even their age. Being able to target these ads will allow you to achieve the level of marketing success you are after.
Source: Pixabay
Getting to Know Your Start Render Time
While most entrepreneurs have heard the term start render time thrown around, they don’t know what it means exactly. In short, the term start render time is used to describe the point in time when your website is displayed on a visitor’s computer or smartphone screen.
You need to realize that start render time does not detail the exact moment your full website is on the screen. This metric starts as soon as something as simple as your background color pops up on the screen. However, knowing this metric can let you know just how fast consumers are getting your website delivered.
If you start to notice start render times are getting slower, you need to check into why this is happening. With the assistance of a web developer, you should have no problem getting to the bottom of this issue.
Bounce Rate is a Very Important Metric to Monitor
As a burgeoning tech entrepreneur, you need to try and keep people on your website as long as possible. The bounce rate of your website is a metric that tracks how long users are staying on your website before leaving. The higher this bounce rate metric is, the more of a problem you have with content.
If consumers are unable to find what they need on your website, they are going to leave and probably seek out the help of a competitor. When faced with a high bounce rate, you need to take an objective look at things like your site’s navigation and content. Often times, these are the most common factors that lead to higher than normal bounce rates.
Assessing Your Site’s Error Rate
If visitors to your website are being bombarded with error messages, it is only a matter of time before this slows down the rate of traffic you are receiving. By monitoring error rate metrics, you can tell how frequently errors are occurring and what they are. With this useful information, you can get these issues fixed before they cause too many problems.
If you have a background in coding, you should be able to make and maintain a website with ease. Losing sight of how important a fast and appealing website is can make your journey from an engineer to an entrepreneur more difficult.