Synthetic Website Monitoring Best Practices
Synthetic Website Monitoring Best Practices
Synthetic website monitoring (also known as synthetic testing) involves simulating the actions that visitors perform on a website and the journeys they take, in order to evaluate performance and proactively spot any issues or problems.
For example, synthetic testing can help answer critical questions like:
- How fast is our website, and is it fast enough?
- Are all transactions (e.g., filling out forms, adding items to carts, etc.) working properly?
- Are some areas of the website getting limited traffic, and is this normal or problematic?
However, not all synthetic testing solutions or strategies are equal. To help ensure that you generate the most important and reliable results — so that can take fast and correct actions — here are four key best practices to keep in mind:
- Configure Alerts (What, How, When & Who)
Your team needs to know if things are working as expected, or if there are issues and problems. But does this mean everyone has to be informed at the same time, and on an ongoing basis? For all but the smallest businesses, the answer is typically no. That is where alerts enter the picture.
You can set up synthetic testing alerts on four levels: what, how, when, and who. Let’s take a closer look at each one of these, since they are all equally important.
- What: You can set up alerts to inform you about essential things like website status, page speed, and transaction functionality.
- How: You can receive alerts through various methods such as automated SMS (text), email, or phone call. Often, organizations will start with SMS, and then escalate to email and then phone if the problem is not addressed.
- When: Sometimes, a website may go offline (or appear to do so) or experience page speed slowdowns that are temporary, lasting only a few seconds. You can choose to receive alerts immediately for all issues found, or set a schedule for when these alerts would come to you.
- Who: You can choose who receives alerts based on the issue or problem. For example, a website going down (and not as a one-off for a few seconds) is a major concern, and typically multiple people should be informed. Alternatively, it may make practical sense to have only certain individuals, like members of the Web Development Team, receive alerts about issues with a transaction workflow.
- Use Script Recording to Set Transaction Monitoring
For all companies, but especially those in the e-commerce space, it is absolutely vital to know that all transactional elements are working properly.
As such, it is both wise and practical to choose an uptime monitoring solution that has built-in script recording for synthetic testing. Simply click “record” and perform actions that your customers typically take: filling out forms, adding and removing items from their cart, and so on.
When finished, simply end the recording and upload it to your account and the uptime monitoring solution will rigorously test the transactional workflow. If there are any problems or gaps, you will be able to address them proactively vs. waiting for your angry customers to bring it to your attention (assuming they even bother — many will just leave and head to a competitor!).
- Monitor Your Website from Several Locations
You definitely want to continuously monitor and test your website from multiple locations around the world, so that you can proactively identify and address any performance issues — including localized content delivery network (CDN) outages.
- Keep it SIMPLE
Last, but certainly not least: the synthetic testing and website uptime monitoring solution you choose should be refreshingly SIMPLE to configure and use. In the same light, the various reports should be straightforward and intuitive (i.e., you shouldn’t need multiple advanced IT and computer science degrees to understand them).
Try AlertBot Today!
With AlertBot, you will benefit from all of these synthetic testing best practices. AlertBot empowers you to:
- Choose what, how, when, and who to alert regarding problems or issues, as well as ongoing “everything is good” status updates via weekly email reports.
- Use intuitive script recording to capture any and every transaction workflow, down to the smallest detail.
- Monitor your website from locations around the globe to ensure that ALL visitors have a positive experience.
And of course, AlertBot has earned a stellar reputation for being extremely simple to use and adjust based on changing needs and goals.
Get a FREE TRIAL of AlertBot. There is no billing information required, no installation, and you’ll be set up in minutes. Click here to get started!
