Customers often ask us how they can monitor and improve their website’s performance themselves.
From the dozens of tools available for this purpose, our account managers Martina and Daniel have selected 5 essential ones and created a webinar about them, which you can watch for free at any time. At AITOM, we make use of these tools on a daily basis. Perhaps you haven’t tried some of them yet. Or perhaps you’re already familiar with them, and this will help you review how well you’re utilising their potential.
And why did we choose these five in particular?
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they are simple
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they are easily accessible
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you can use them for virtually any website
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they combine well.
You could write a whole series of articles about each of these tools. So please treat our list as a practical and concise summary of the options available to us for free every day in their basic versions, and how we can use them to boost our website’s performance:
HotJar
What it does:
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Monitors what visitors are actually doing on your website
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Records three types of movement: click, move and scroll. This gives you individual heatmaps, which you can further break down by device type: desktop, tablet, mobile.
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Records anonymous videos of visitor behaviour on the website, showing you how they navigate the site, move the mouse cursor, scroll, and even fill in forms or place orders.
Benefits:
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You’ll find out what users are actually doing on your website. For example, you can measure visitor interactions with enquiry forms and thus identify which form fields are deterring them from completing the form
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You will discover which content on your website is most interesting from the users’ perspective
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You’ll gain insights for effectively organising content on your site
Our tip: Use HotJar repeatedly – one-off results can be misleading. Before you start making changes to your website, it’s worth evaluating multiple observations. Whilst the free version is limited to 100 random videos, the paid version offers you 1,000 or more. However, consistency in video tracking is more important than the number of videos. This will enable you to take specific steps towards improving your website.
Google Analytics
What it does:
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It answers a host of questions: where visitors come from, where they go, when and for how long they visit your website, and on which page they leave.
Advantages:
It can provide fairly accurate answers:
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What sources do visitors come from before they complete a goal?
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What content interests your website users the most?
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How long does it take for customers to convert on the website?
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Our tip: Before you start using Google Analytics, be clear about exactly which metrics you want to track. The tool contains a lot of data, and you only need some of it at any given time.
Collabim
What it does:
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It makes SEO easier and helps you identify your website’s weak points.
Advantages:
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Measures keyword rankings in search engines.
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Analyses the content of PPC ads.
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Generates reports with a single click.
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Gives you an insight into the competition.
Our tip: Before you embark on a more complex SEO analysis, consult someone who understands SEO well. You can get really useful data from Collabim.
Google PageSpeed Insights
What it does:
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Analyses the loading speed of website content and suggests ways to improve it for your site.
Advantages:
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Easy to use
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specific recommendations for website improvements
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Evaluation of every page on the website
Our tip: Google PageSpeed Insights can analyse desktop and mobile versions separately. It’s worth monitoring both results separately.
Google Search Console
What it does:
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Provides data on your website’s indexing on Google.
Benefits:
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Checks for errors on the website (404)
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Tracks the number of indexed pages on your site
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Sends automatic emails if it finds an error
Our tip: Use the option to request website indexing via Google Search Console.
There are plenty of other useful tools. The key to success is to use them regularly and turn the data you gather into real changes on your website. Even small steps can take you a long way!
Would you like advice on how to effectively and easily improve your website’s performance?
Our account managers Martina and Daniel will be happy to assist you!