Performance hosting of website hosting servers and systems is key. It helps businesses desiring growth and success in cyberspace. A complete audit of a site’s hosting system can show the issues affecting the website’s performance, look for areas for improvement, and provide the right direction when it comes to future growth.
This audit also helps businesses, brands and companies alike uncover obsolete technologies along with problematic configurations that can slow the website down. Slow loading speeds and poor website security can kill a website.
Poor website hosting performance is the leading cause of numerous problems for businesses and companies. It is hence important that they take the time and conduct a hosting audit to ensure and verify that everything is running at optimum performance.
Why is a website performance audit even necessary?
A website performance audit is the process of evaluating how a website performs and identifying areas of improvement. The objective is to ensure that the website is running in the best possible fashion and is also delivering a top-notch user experience.
Here are some reasons why they are necessary:
- The website has been experiencing problems in loading/rendering the web pages properly.
- Users have been reporting slow loading times.
- The Google Page Speed insights score is below 50.
- Site owners are unsure about how the site fares on mobile devices.
In any instance, a comprehensive website performance audit will identify the reasons why a website is slowing down and not working nicely. It can help decision-makers go for changes that will take the site forward in the right direction. User experience and conversions will amp up if done right. Website host performance audit is hence a necessity which should be done timely.
A website host performance audit – what is it?
A website performance audit is the process that evaluates a website’s performance. It involves the identification and resolution of issues affecting the website’s speed, and loading time, along with the complete user experience. Numerous factors can affect this, and they are:
- The website’s files may be large.
- The amount of images and videos on it.
- Any plugins and widgets added and used.
- The hosting environment.
A website performance audit can help identify and fix these issues. They can help improve a website’s loading speed and time. This in turn improves the user experience and the outcome leads to a rise in revenue and traffic.
Which tools are used for performing a website host performance audit?
There are resources available to conduct a website host performance audit. They include the following:
- Google PageSpeed Insights.
- GTmetrix.
- Pingdom.
- WebPage Test.
These tools are instrumental in identifying existing and new issues in the website’s performance. They are also able to provide insights and recommendations in repairing them and improving them further.
Website audits are a key part of maintaining a worthwhile website. Website owners improve the user experience and bring new visitors on board after detecting and repairing performance issues. A typical website host performance audit has the following components:
Speed performance audit
Speed tests measure the website’s loading time by sending it a request and seeing how long it takes to respond. They measure website performance in terms of speed, espcially before and after any changes are made to the site.
Speed performance audit in a website host performance audit identifies areas where the website can be improved. It even looks for issues with the site’s infrastructure that cause performance issues.
Functionality performance audit
This test is a non-functional test and a component of web development verifying the website’s features are working as desired and expected. It checks the site’s navigation, forms, search functionality along with other interactive elements. They are performed both manually and automatically (via selenium).
This tests checks the following in a website:
- Pages loading correctly and timely.
- Forms submitted correctly.
- Search functionality working as desired.
- Easy to use and easy to navigate.
- Interactive elements are working as expected.
Security performance check
It is a key part of a website’s performance audit which helps identify and fix vulnerabilities which hackers can exploit, It consists of the following:
- Scanning for vulnerabilities.
- Penetration testing.
- Risk assessment.
- Security testing.
Auditing SEO performance
The SEO performance audit checks the following for issues which can be resolved eventually:
- Title tags.
- Meta Descriptions.
- Headings.
- Images.
- External Links.
- Internal Links.
How often does a website require such an audit?
Numerous factors are involved in a website requiring such an audit. They can be the site’s size, complexity, amount of traffic it gets and the industry it serves. A good rule of thumb says such an audit needs to be done once in a year. It helps detect potential issues and ensures the site runs in the best possible manner. It also helps with the following
- Amplify and fix the website’s ranking in search engine result pages (SERPs).
- Helps raise the website’s conversion rate.
- Helps companies wsave money on the site’s hosting expenses.
- Improving the website’s security.
A brief overview of different kinds of website audits
Here are the various kinds of website host performance audits as determined by experts from a well known web design company in Dubai
Server performance and speed
This process evaluates a server’s performance. It identifies and resolves issues that can affect the server’s performance, especially slow loading times, excessive CPU usage or leaks from memory.
The website speed
This process evaluates the website’s loading time, looks for and fixes issues like large images, inefficient code and slow loading scripts.
Website’s security
A security audit evaluates a website’s security. Vulnerabilities like Cross-site scripting, file inclusion and SQL injection vulnerabilities are examined, identified and fixed on time.
Checking the mobile optimization
This process evaluates the website’s mobile friendly nature. It detects and fixes issues that can affect the site’s usability on mobile devices, like small fonts, broken links and poor layouts.
Conclusion
A website host performance audit is best done at least once a year. This can help companies be at the forefront at keeping their website in top-notch condition and in full running gear. If they do it twice in a year then it is also perfect and worth doing it too.
