Website security monitoring requirements and best practices

As a website owner or administrator, it's crucial to monitor your website regularly to ensure it's performing optimally and providing a seamless user experience.

Monitoring your website involves tracking various metrics, identifying and resolving issues that may affect the performance of your site, and making changes to enhance your site's performance.

In this article, I will discuss four critical things that you need to monitor on your website to ensure it runs smoothly.

What is website monitoring?

Website monitoring involves continuously observing a website's performance, availability, and security. It ensures the website functions properly and remains accessible to users.

This practice includes tracking uptime, performance metrics, and detecting security threats. By monitoring a website, businesses can address issues promptly and provide a better user experience.

It helps ensure the website's smooth operation and protect against potential disruptions.

Things need to monitor your website

#1 Traffic statistics

Website traffic statistics provide a wealth of information on how users interact with your website. By analyzing website traffic, you can identify which pages are popular, where users are coming from, how long they stay on your site, and what they do while they are there. Some popular tools for tracking website traffic include Google Analytics, Matomo, and AWStats.

Here are some key metrics to monitor when analyzing your website traffic:

• Visitors: Track the number of unique visitors to your site over a given period. This metric helps you understand how many people are visiting your website.

• Pageviews: Monitor the number of pages viewed by users on your website. This metric gives you an idea of how many pages users are accessing on your site.

• Bounce rate: The bounce rate measures the percentage of users who leave your site after only viewing one page. A high bounce rate indicates that users are not finding what they are looking for on your site.

• Time on site: This metric measures how long users spend on your site. A high time on site suggests that users find your content engaging.

• Traffic sources: Analyze the sources of your website traffic. This information helps you understand which channels are driving traffic to your site and optimize your marketing efforts accordingly.

#2 Error logs

Error logs are essential for identifying technical issues that may be affecting your website's performance. Server errors, database errors, and plugin conflicts are common issues that can cause your website to malfunction. By regularly monitoring your error logs, you can identify and fix these issues before they cause significant problems.

Here are some common types of errors that you may encounter:

• 404 errors: A 404 error occurs when a user attempts to access a page that doesn't exist. These errors can negatively impact user experience and your search engine rankings.

• 500 errors: A 500 error is a server-side error that occurs when the server cannot fulfill a request. These errors can be caused by a variety of issues, including server configuration problems or coding errors.

• Plugin conflicts: If you use plugins on your website, conflicts between plugins can cause issues that may affect your website's functionality. By monitoring your error logs, you can identify these conflicts and take steps to resolve them.

• Database errors: Database errors can cause your website to malfunction or even crash. Regularly monitoring your error logs can help you identify these issues and take corrective action.

#3 Website audit

A website audit involves evaluating your website's performance, identifying potential issues, and making changes to improve your website's performance. A website audit can help you identify technical issues, improve your website's usability, and enhance your website's overall user experience.

Here are some areas to focus on when conducting a website audit:

• Technical issues: Evaluate your website's technical performance, including page speed, mobile-friendliness, and security. Address any issues that may be affecting your website's performance.

• Usability: Evaluate your website's user experience, including navigation, content, and layout. Make changes to improve your website's usability and ensure that users can easily find what they are looking for on your site.

• Search engine optimization: Optimize your website for search engines by conducting keyword research, optimizing your content, and improving your website's structure and organization.

Website checker tools

There are a variety of website checker tools available that can help monitor your website's health and performance. Some of the most popular ones include:

• Google Search Console: A free tool provided by Google that helps monitor website performance, including indexing, search visibility, and website errors.

• Ahrefs Site Audit: A comprehensive website audit tool that helps identify technical SEO issues, content issues, and on-page SEO improvements.

• SEMrush Site Audit: A similar tool to Ahrefs Site Audit, which also provides a comprehensive website audit report and identifies technical SEO issues, content issues, and on-page SEO improvements.

• Pingdom: A website monitoring tool that helps identify website speed issues and downtime, providing real-time alerts and performance reports.

• GTmetrix: A tool that analyzes website performance and provides recommendations for optimizing website speed and performance.

Using these website checker tools can help you stay on top of your website's health and performance. By regularly monitoring your website using these tools, you can identify issues quickly and take steps to fix them before they become larger problems.

Search engine tools:

Another important aspect of monitoring your website is ensuring that it is visible to search engines and getting traffic from them. To do so, you need to monitor your website's search engine performance, and there are several tools that can help you do that:

• Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a free tool offered by Google that provides detailed information about your website's traffic, including the number of visitors, the sources of traffic, and user behavior on the website. It also provides information about keywords and search queries that are driving traffic to your website.

• Google Search Console: Google Search Console is another free tool offered by Google that provides information about your website's performance on Google search engine. It provides information about search queries, impressions, clicks, and the position of your website in search results.

• Ahrefs: Ahrefs is a paid tool that provides comprehensive information about your website's search engine performance. It provides information about keywords, backlinks, traffic, and other important SEO metrics. Ahrefs also provides a site audit feature that can help you identify technical issues that are affecting your website's search engine performance.

• SEMrush: SEMrush is another paid tool that provides information about your website's search engine performance. It provides information about keywords, backlinks, traffic, and other important SEO metrics. SEMrush also provides a site audit feature that can help you identify technical issues that are affecting your website's search engine performance.

Hosting control panel

Finally, it is important to monitor your website's hosting control panel to ensure that it is functioning properly and that your website is up and running. Your hosting control panel is the interface that you use to manage your website's hosting account, and it provides important information about your website's performance, including:

• Server uptime: Your hosting control panel should provide information about your server uptime, which is the percentage of time that your server is up and running. A good server uptime should be 99.9% or higher.

• Bandwidth usage: Your hosting control panel should provide information about your website's bandwidth usage, which is the amount of data that your website is transferring over the internet. Exceeding your bandwidth limit can result in your website being taken offline, so it is important to monitor your usage regularly.

• Disk space usage: Your hosting control panel should also provide information about your website's disk space usage, which is the amount of storage space that your website is using on the server. Exceeding your disk space limit can result in your website being taken offline, so it is important to monitor your usage regularly.

• Security: Your hosting control panel should provide information about your website's security, including any security features that are included with your hosting account. It is important to ensure that your website is secure to protect your users' data and your website's reputation.

Why website monitoring is important?

#1. Ensure proper user experience

Regular website monitoring ensures that your site is functioning correctly and providing a good user experience for visitors.

#2. Identify the website performance and errors

Monitoring your website can help you identify any performance issues or errors that could be impacting your site's speed or functionality.

#3. Provide better quality contents

By monitoring your website, you can track user behavior and determine which content is performing well and which needs improvement.

#4. Eliminate the website flaws

Monitoring your site regularly can help you catch and fix any flaws or bugs that may be impacting user experience or site functionality.

#5. Make website more professional

By staying on top of website monitoring, you can ensure that your site is always up-to-date and providing a professional image to your audience.

#6. Understand the user’s behaviour

Website monitoring can help you gain insight into user behavior, such as which pages are most popular, how long visitors stay on your site, and what actions they take while there.

Conclusion 

Monitoring your website is crucial to ensuring its success. By keeping a close eye on your website's traffic statistics, error logs, website audit reports, and using website checker tools, you can ensure that your website is healthy and performing well.

By regularly monitoring your website, you can identify issues quickly and take steps to fix them, ensuring that your website continues to perform well and meet the needs of your audience.

Frequently asked questions 

Q1. What is website monitoring?

A1. Website monitoring is the process of keeping track of the performance, uptime, and accessibility of a website. It involves regular checks to ensure that the website is functioning properly and to identify any issues that may arise.

Q2. What are the benefits of website monitoring?

A2. Website monitoring can help you ensure proper user experience, identify website performance and errors, provide better quality contents, eliminate website flaws, make the website more professional, and understand user behavior.

Q3. How often should I monitor my website?

A3. The frequency of website monitoring depends on the website's traffic, complexity, and business criticality. For instance, high-traffic websites may require hourly monitoring, while less busy sites may need daily or weekly monitoring.

Q4. What are the common website issues that monitoring can detect?

A4. Website monitoring can detect various issues such as downtime, slow page loading, server errors, broken links, security breaches, and other performance problems.

Q5. How can I monitor my website?

A5. You can monitor your website through various methods such as website monitoring tools, uptime monitoring services, server logs, analytics software, error logs, and search engine tools.

Q6. What are some website monitoring tools?

A6. Some popular website monitoring tools include Pingdom, UptimeRobot, Site24x7, GTmetrix, and Google Analytics.

Q7. How can I use website monitoring tools?

A7. Website monitoring tools can be used to track website uptime, performance, loading speed, broken links, SEO optimization, user behavior, and other metrics.

Q8. How can I fix website issues identified by monitoring tools?

A8. Once you identify website issues through monitoring tools, you can fix them by troubleshooting the specific problem, updating your website software or plugins, optimizing your server or database, or seeking assistance from a web developer or hosting provider.

Q9. How can website monitoring improve SEO?

A9. Website monitoring can improve SEO by identifying and fixing technical issues that affect search engine crawlers, optimizing page loading speed, improving website user experience, and ensuring that the website is mobile-friendly and accessible to all users.

Q10. What are the best practices for website monitoring?

A10. Some best practices for website monitoring include setting up alerts for critical issues, monitoring website performance and uptime from different locations, analyzing website traffic and user behavior, keeping an error log, and regularly reviewing website analytics and audit reports.