Posted on February 12th, 2010Many business owners do not realize that maintaining website performance is every bit as important as making the website appear to be professional. In fact, many site owners make the mistake of overloading their site with too much information and thereby hindering the speed and functionality of their website. While having complex flash presentations, eye-catching media, and other entertaining features on your website is optimal, it should not sacrifice the performance of your website. After all, how many people will want to stay at your site if all of these features are taking an hour to load? In order to crate a well balanced website and monitor the server load of your website you’ll need a competent control panel, and you’ll need to know how to use it as well.
Database Management
Managing databases and managing your website might as well be interchangeable phrases, as the databases of your website basically comprise it’s existence. Without the right database management skills, you could find yourself staring at a cluttered unorganized mess of date. Using a control panel to maintain cleaned and up to date databases is a good way to improve the speed of your website. Using database servers like MySQL will let you use several databases for multiple reasons, thereby balancing some of the load placed on the web server. Using a control panel like cPanel will let you manage all of your databases with ease.
Controlling File Transfer Protocol
Uploading files to the server can be a daunting task, especially when you have a lot of content for your site. To lessen the amount of time it takes to upload, it is best to become familiar with your control panels FTP module. You’ll also want to outsource some of the work eventually, especially if you have people producing content for you in large quantities. A good control panel will let you create new FTP accounts for each user, so they can upload the content straight to the website, saving you a lot of time and frustration. Each FTP account can be given limitations or permissions that allow certain users to handle certain tasks. For example, a writer would only be able to upload written content to the site.
Analyzing Traffic with Your Control Panel
Another way to boost productivity and manage the loaf placed on your website is to use the traffic analyzing utilities that are included with your control panel. Using these tools you can find a plethora of statistics that lend insight to the nature of your website’s traffic. This information can help you make decisions in regards to upgrading your web hosting plan, and judging when it is time to expand your server capabilities. The number one reason why website owners suffer from poor website performance is because they fail to upgrade when it is time to do so. Staying on top of your website’s traffic habits not only lets you monitor your servers capability, but you’ll also be able to see what traffic generating techniques work for you by analyzing daily and weekly traffic statistics.
I would add that in addition to enhancing the user experience, good website performance is becoming more and more important when it comes to search rankings, both organic and paid. Smaller sites, especially those just starting out, can’t afford to ignore website performance.
Also, if your database becomes a bottleneck, look to caching (i.e. memcached) as a low cost / high return way of saving cycles.