Web Performance (also known as Site Speed) focuses on the users perception of the speed at which the browser displays the content and responds to their interactions.
Performance plays a major role in the success of any online venture, as high-performing sites engage and retain users better than low-performing ones.
Impact of web performance
User Experience
Performance has a significant impact on user experience. In its simplest form a fast performing website provides a good user experience and a poor performing site a bad one.
User and owner cost
Performance has a financial impact on both users and the site owner.
Search Engine Optimization
Performance has an impact on search ranking - better performance means better search indexing.
How to measure web performance
Web performance can be monitored through different approaches E.g. Real User Monitoring (RUM) or Synthetic monitoring.
Real User Monitoring
Real User Monitoring is a passive approach to test a website, collecting data directly from the audience.
RUM captures real-life user experience and enables correlation to business KPIs, has limited testing capabilities and is highly sensitive to volatility due to exogenous factors.
Synthetic Monitoring
Synthetic Monitoring is an active approach to test a website in which users are emulated in a ‘lab’ environment.
The lab environment is very stable and completely controlled.
As synthetic monitoring simulates users’ browsing, you can apply it to whatever website you want including your competitors!