An unreliable, semi-broken and unresponsive website is an excellent way to lose leads and visitors — regardless of how aesthetically pleasing or well-designed, the visual elements are.

Over the past decade, we’ve seen more initiative to deliver faster internet to regions of the world that were previously devoid of it. With online communities expanding and more people becoming receptive to online shopping, ensuring your site’s dependability is now more important than ever. 

One way to achieve this is by employing uptime and downtime monitoring tools. This guide will examine the best ways to get alerts when something goes wrong and your website falters.

Why Is Website Uptime Monitoring Important?

Downtime is bound to occur occasionally. Nonetheless, the goal is to minimize it. The longer the downtime occurs, the more traffic and potential clients you lose. A dysfunctional website is also detrimental to your credibility and reputation. People may associate your website’s unreliability with your real-world products or services.

With web developers charging an average of $200 per hour, high-quality websites can be expensive to build and maintain. Nevertheless, it’s often worth the investment. However, an unreliable website can backfire on you. Instead of attracting more customers, it could potentially repel them. This can result in lost revenue.

An uptime monitoring solution can help you prevent or reduce these losses. It verifies if your website is up and functional and notifies you if it’s not. This allows you to troubleshoot the issue and get your website back up and running as soon as you’re alerted. The most common issues behind your website’s downtime include: 

• Server faults;
• Network outages;
• Power outage;
• Traffic spikes;
• Cyberattacks;
• Domain name issues;
• An erroneous web application deployment;
• Increased server loads;
• DNS Resolve issues;
• Human error.

Thus, you must employ a dependable tool that detects downtime or any interruptions related to your website as soon as they occur. They are must-have tools for web designers, developers, and network administrators. However, not all of them are built the same. So how do you identify the best uptime monitoring tools?

Essential Features of Uptime Monitoring Tools

Uptime monitoring tools typically detect interruptions by running network tests such as pings and trace routes. You could practically monitor your website’s uptime by constantly running these tests yourself. 

However, this isn’t an efficient way to monitor your website’s uptime. A comprehensive uptime monitoring tool will automatically monitor your website’s uptime in the background. It will then alert you through various channels as soon as it senses that your website may be down. 

Furthermore, high-quality uptime monitoring solutions tend to offer additional information regarding your website’s uptime/downtime and its performance. These tools commonly feature dashboards, status pages, badges, exportable records, etc., to help you keep track of your site’s overall health.

9 Best Features of an Uptime Monitoring Solution

The ideal uptime monitoring tool or service should feature: 

1. Website security features that notify of and repel potential cyber attacks;
2. 24/7 uninterrupted background website monitoring;
3. Multi-channel alerts (email, SMS, push notifications, instant messages, social media, etc.);
4. Report generation;
5. 24/7 customer support available through different channels (email, phone, chat, etc.);
6. Be capable of monitoring multiple websites and proxies at the same time;
7. Offer insights and suggestions to improve your website’s performance;
8. Be affordable;
9. High customizability should allow you to choose which features to enable and disable.

Another optional feature to look out for is public status pages that your clients can access to determine if all your services are up and running. GetWeave is an excellent example of this. The website features a well-organized systems status page where customers can check if all of Weave’s services are functional. 

Nevertheless, you can use the above information as a buying guide when assessing potential uptime monitoring tools. The rest of this guide will supply a few suggestions as to which tools you should use for your website.

3 Best Website Uptime Monitoring Tools 

Some of the best uptime monitoring tools for website downtime alerts include:

1. Uptrends

Uptrends isn’t just a downtime detection tool; it’s a complete web performance monitoring solution. It will notify you as soon as it detects any disturbance in your website’s performance. It features highly customizable checks. For instance, you can set performance check limits for load times. Uptrends will notify you instantly if your website takes too long to load.

You can also configure from which locations you want it to monitor your website. Uptrends will then point you to where your website usually suffers performance dips in the real world. 

The service uses multiple communication channels to send users notifications: email, phone calls, and SMS. Alternatively, you can download one of Uptrend’s mobile applications and receive push notifications. Additionally, you can integrate Uptrends with messaging and communication applications such as PagerDuty, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.   

Another impressive Uptrend feature is its ability to emulate your website’s performance on different browsers. It runs Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge on its servers. Thus, you can compare how your website runs on these web browsers without installing them on your servers or computer. 

Uptrends supplies users with various charts, reports, and graphs to help identify sudden spikes or dips. Waterfall reports display the complete page-load from the initial request to the last download. This allows you to compare the history of your website’s performance element by element. It comes with three price plans whose costs depend on the number of monitors you would like. Starting at $16.21 (at the time of writing) the Starter Plan is the most affordable.

2. Oh Dear

Oh Dear is a slightly cheaper option than Uptrends, with the most affordable plan starting at $12 per month (at the time of writing). However, while Uptrends offers a 30-day free trial, Oh Dear only provides a 12-day trial period. Nevertheless, Oh Dear’s interface is a lot cleaner and more minimal. 

Since Oh Dear runs servers in different locations across the globe, it can track how your website performs in various regions. Oh Dear will scan through your website and index all the pages. If it detects any issues, it will alert you immediately. 

Oh Dear also features a continuous certificate monitoring function. Site owners who are concerned with their website’s security may find this feature to be especially useful. It will verify your SSL certificate expiration dates and alert you of any changes.  

Oh Dear’s public status page enables your clients to keep track of your website’s availability.

Oh Dear uses email and SMS text messages to alert site owners of any issues. It also features integrations with communications and social media applications such as Telegram, Discord, Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc. Oh Dear ensures that messages are as detailed and user-friendly. This makes it easier to troubleshoot and find the origin of your problem. Oh Dear is more than a worthy alternative to Uptrends. 

3. WP Umbrella

WP Umbrella is a little different from the previous entries. It’s intended to help users manage and monitor multiple WordPress sites. Thus, it is far more particularized in its approach to website uptime monitoring. Again, as is the primary function of the uptime monitoring tool, it offers a real-time alert system that will contact you through email, SMS, Slack, etc. 

WP Umbrella employs a simple minimal UI. Its main screen consists of a dashboard that allows you to view all your WordPress websites. By default, this dashboard features four columns: Site, Uptime, Speed, and Issues.

WP Umbrella will alert you of any outdated or erroneous plugins or themes. While it doesn’t offer dedicated public status pages, it does have a client report generation feature. You can automatically send these reports to your various subscribers or clients when your website is down. 

WP Umbrella is the most affordable option on this list. Users are charged $1.99 per month (at the time of writing) for each website monitored. In addition, WP Umbrella offers a 14-day trial and does not require your credit card details. It’s an excellent option for anyone running a WordPress website or two.

Conclusion

This guide has only explored three possible uptime monitoring solutions. They won’t only assist you in detecting downtimes, they can also help you find the reason your site may be slow.

These solutions are an excellent place to start. But there are many other options coming to market all the time. You may find that this is the first step to converting more leads and reducing your bounce rate. 

Source

The post 3 Best Website Uptime Monitoring Tools  first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Are you looking to locate social media influencers for your marketing campaigns? You’re not the only one! Influencer marketing is a growing industry whose market value has more than doubled over the past two years.

But fake influencers are still an issue for marketers. How can you tell if the people who follow an influencer are genuine people and not bots? How do you know if an influencer is buying the likes or comments that you see on their posts?

The process of determining influencer authenticity isn’t easy if you’re only taking a look at social media. However, thanks to the power of AI, you will be able to identify fake influencers and steer clear of them easier.

How can you make use of AI to identify fake influencers

If you’re looking for aid from AI in your search for influencers, you must sign up to an influencer marketing platform. This is a form of subscription-based software that permits you to find influencers with filters like category, location, engagement rate, audience demographics, authenticity and much more.

The platform also gives you an instant analysis of the influencer’s profile and performance metrics. This means that you don’t need to inquire about influencers’ media kits or their internal insights data prior to starting your analysis. Moreover, with AI it’s possible to get a more detailed analysis than you would by manually looking over the profile of an influencer through social networks.

What can AI tell you about the authenticity of influencers

There are some important metrics to consider in order to determine if the influencer’s followers are genuine or fake. Let’s take a look at each.

Follower growth evolution

Many people concentrate on the number of followers an influencer has. However, you must also be aware of the method they used to acquire followers over the years.

AI will track the growth of an influencer over time and present a graph of the data. With this information, you can check whether the growth of an influencer is natural or not.

A growth rate analysis by an influencer marketing platform. The growth is slow, but steady, which suggests that it’s organic.

Organic growth is supposed to look like an upwards-inclined hill. The influencer may gain followers at a slow rate, however, it is steady.However If you observe rapid growth in followers, you must investigate further. 

Check first whether the influencer held a giveaway or went viral around the time of the spike in growth. Perhaps they were featured on TV or debuted their first album. If you find something like this, it’s a logical reason why an influencer would see massive growth spurts in short amounts of time.

However, in the absence of any rational explanation for a sudden increase in followers, you should consider that the influencer might have purchased a batch of fake followers. In this situation, you must examine the other metrics listed here and determine if the followers are fake.

Engagement rate compared to averages for their peers

Engagement rate measures the amount of interaction between an influencer and their followers. Influencers with high engagement rates have trusting and interested audiences, and that’s beneficial for the brands that the influencer promotes.

However, engagement rates can be too high. If you see an engagement rate that is much higher than the average for that segment, it could be that the influencer bought fake engagements, like fake likes or comments.

Similarly, very low engagement could show that the influencer has fake followers. These bots follow an account but don’t usually like or comment on comment, and therefore end up driving engagement rates down. At best, low engagement says that the influencer’s audience isn’t interested in their content.

But how do you know the average engagement rates for influencer segments? Well, you can research them. But it’s much easier to let AI calculate them for you. On an influencer marketing platform, the AI will calculate an individual influencer’s engagement rate, and then compare it against the data for all the other similar influencers in the database.

The program then tells you if the engagement looks low, average, high, or suspiciously high. Keep in mind that engagement benchmarks vary depending on social network, category, and follower count. 

So don’t compare the metrics of TikTok influencers against the engagement rates for Twitch streamers or youtubers. Those networks have different ways to engage with content, so the benchmark rates differ.

Audience demographics

Next up, check out the demographics of an influencer’s audience. Consider things such as gender, age, interests as well as language and geographical location. This is beneficial due to two reasons. The first is that it allows you to ensure that the target audience of the influencer matches your own target audience.

An analysis of audience location. In this instance the influencer is German and so it would make sense that her fans are mainly from Germany and other countries around it.

It also helps you identify discrepancies that could identify fake followers. For instance, if you discover that the majority of the followers originate from a nation that the influencer has no connection to or has never visited, it is possible some of those followers are fake.

Audience authenticity

In the end, AI can give you an estimate of how much of the influencer’s following could be fake. AI examines the followers and accounts that interact with an influencer’s posts to determine if they are performing actions that are typical of bots.

An AI-powered analysis of the authenticity of an influencer’s audience. In this instance we can see that almost 20 percent of the followers are suspicious and could be bots.

It’s common for influencers to have a tiny percentage of followers that are not trustworthy. However, when you are looking for influencers to use in your marketing campaigns, prioritize influencers who have around 80% or more authentic audience members. And the higher the number, the better.

Influencer marketing platforms that can help you with your campaign

Now you know the benefits of using an influencer marketing platform to choose the right influencer for your brand, so you will probably be wondering where I can find an influencer marketing platform? Here you will find three different options for you to decide which platform will work better for you. 

Heepsy

Heepsy has one of the best influencer marketing platform search engines, they have a lot of filters that allow you to find the right influencers for you in seconds.Plus their platform is super easy to use, so it is perfect for beginners. 

Aspire IQ

Aspire IQ, is a platform that will help you with the automation process, moreover, you will be able to integrate shopify to your account, so will see the sales coming from your campaign. But you must know that you will have to send your influencers the Aspire IQ login if they are not already inside the platform. You can also use an Aspire IQ alternative if you want a powerful and reliable influencer marketing search tool.

Ninja Outreach

With this platform you will be able to contact the influencers inside their platform, but their search engine and metrics are worse than other platforms. I would recommend this tool if you already have the information regarding the profiles of the influencers and you just want to contact them.

Conclusion

Influencer fraud continues to be an issue for marketers. Everything on social media can be bought nowadays. Fortunately, artificial intelligence can assist you in identifying this fraud so you find authentic influencers to promote your brand in an influencer marketing campaign.

The post How to Use AI to Detect and Avoid Fake Influencers? appeared first on noupe.