Monitoring website performance metrics is crucial for ensuring your site runs smoothly and delivers a great user experience. However, many website owners aren’t fully aware of the most important website performance metrics to monitor.
In this guide, we’ll reveal the top performance metrics that impact your search engine rankings and user satisfaction. By focusing on these, you can improve your website’s performance and make the most out of it.
The top website performance metrics to monitor are page load time, Core Web Vitals, server response time, and mobile-friendliness. Of course, there are more metrics, but these are the ones that make the biggest difference and should be your priority.
These four metrics influence the speed, stability, and responsiveness of your website, which directly shape user experience – and ultimately impact your traffic and conversions.
Another big reason these metrics matter is that Google uses them as direct ranking factors. If you ignore them, your rankings can take a hit – which means fewer visitors and missed chances to convert them into customers.
Now, let’s take a closer look at these metrics.
Page load time is the time it takes for a webpage to fully load and display all its elements. If your site is slow, users will likely leave out of frustration – and that sends a bad signal to Google, which can hurt your rankings. So, aim to keep page load time under 3 seconds.
How can you keep your page load time under 3 seconds? Compressing images, enabling browser caching, and cutting down on third-party scripts are great places to start. These small changes can go a long way in speeding up your pages.
Core Web Vitals (CWV) are Google’s metrics for evaluating a website’s performance and user experience. They include:
Need tips to boost your Core Web Vitals? Optimise images and enable lazy loading to speed up LCP. Cut down on JavaScript to improve INP. And for a more stable layout, set fixed dimensions for images and other elements to reduce CLS.
Server response time measures how long it takes for the server to respond to a request and send the first byte of data to the browser. A response time of less than 200 milliseconds is considered excellent.
Want to improve your server response time? Upgrading your server or using a content delivery network (CDN) can make a big difference. Optimising your database queries is another great way to keep response times under 200ms.
Mobile-friendliness ensures your website looks great and works well on any device, especially smartphones. With over 80% of people using mobile devices to access the web, optimising for mobile is essential to keep users engaged and improve your search rankings.
Here are a few tips to make your site more mobile-friendly: Use responsive design to adapt to any screen size, compress media files for faster loading, and consider AMP for lightning-quick performance. And don’t forget to test regularly.
To monitor website performance metrics such as page load time, Core Web Vitals, server response time, and mobile friendliness, try Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse. They’re free and get the job done.
However, these tools don’t provide ongoing performance monitoring. Ideally, you need a tool that continuously tracks your site’s performance and makes it easy to identify and address issues as they arise.
This is where WebYes comes in. It simplifies performance tracking by continuously monitoring your site and presenting everything in one user-friendly dashboard. It’s the go-to choice for agencies and website owners who want effortless performance monitoring.
If you wish to set up performance monitoring, read our detailed guide on how to monitor website performance.
Focusing on key performance metrics like page load time, Core Web Vitals, server response time, and mobile-friendliness ensures your site runs smoothly. These metrics address the critical aspects of speed, responsiveness, and stability, which directly influence user satisfaction and engagement.
With tools like WebYes, monitoring performance becomes effortless. Continuous tracking and actionable insights help you stay on top of issues and keep your site optimised. Start focusing on these metrics today to maximise your website’s potential.
Article by
Melwyn holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and has been writing professionally for over 4 years. He has a strong background in SEO and is certified in web accessibility from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). When he's not writing about website optimisation, you can find him enjoying a game of FIFA or exploring the open world of GTA.
