Web performance is handled  best with a systematic long-term approach that will lead you to reaching a world-class web performance.

1. Make sure that web performance goals are aligned with business objectives

It is very common that IT goals are not compatible with business objectives, or even do not support them. This happens for instance when marketing strategies are working in full blast to achieve record business levels, but the website might not be able to handle such load of website users. Obviously, business objectives should be set first, followed by a discussion with IT staff to agree upon user demands on the website and together figure out the peak traffic levels.

2. Ensure that load testing is part of your testing procedures

Apart from the comprehensive testing of both functional and non-functional software requirements, you should ensure that load testing is a standard practice in your testing process. Failing to do so might lead into an unstable performance of your website and none of your providers or developers would probably take the blame. So prevent the drama and perform a sound testing practice as follows:

- perform load testing whenever you release an important update or upgrade

- run tests that simulate real behaviours of users at your site, generating your load outside your hosting facility in order to test the whole cycle of internet delivery.

- perform tests also on the production servers - this will give you an indication of your maximum capacity limit

3. Monitor your web performance

Once your project is successfully tested and launched, make sure that you keep close monitoring on the system as external service providers, web applications and content managers all have the possibility to destroy whatever you built, with a simple click. Monitoring  the server, CPU usage, database connections is useful, but even if everything there is fine, your customers could still be complaining that your site is slow.

What’s useful is to use the customer’s perspective when monitoring; testing real scenarios such as registering an account, logging in, loading a casino game and so on. It would help to run these tests from computers located in the same geographical location of your clients - wherever they might be.

It’s only when key customer processes run successfully around the clock, you’re assuring the delivery of a quality experience to your customers.

4. Test on both sides of the firewall

Tests should be run both inside the firewall and on the Internet - where your customers are. Comparing results from testing these locations will give you the opportunity of understanding any performance problems; whether they’re originating from faulty configurations on the server side or else in the delivery between your hosting provider and the end user.

5. Use test results to improve web performance

Whatever tools you use to test your web performance, make sure that it’s possible to easily analyse the results in order to be able to improve on your existing web performance. Knowing your maximum capacity limit is not really helpful if you cannot find out what’s causing the limit.  It’s only when you can pinpoint the specific performance bottlenecks that you will be able to try eliminating them.

Choose a testing software that allows drill-down techniques, visual representations such as waterfall graphs and time series graphs and the ability to sort results depending on the slowest components, so that you can ensure an effective resolution.

6. Manage potential web overload

Because of the nature of the iGaming business, many businesses are subject to sharp peak loads. This can happen when there’s a big sport event, or after you launch a promotional campaign. But if your website is not able to handle these extra traffic loads, the visitor’s experience will deteriorate as response times become slower.

In such cases, you can use the so-called ‘shop sale’ technique that will give you an extra layer of performance guarantee. This measure allows traffic only up to a preset volume, and any traffic above this volume is redirected to an external ‘wait page’. This is quite an effective measure, as without it, impatient users will click and refresh their browsers, creating web overload which could eventually crash the site.

7. Be pro-active

The last step in successful web performance is to use a strategy that not only retains your customers, but also acquire new ones as your competitors fail to deliver an experience that is equally fast as yours.

During peak times, web users often act like stampeding herds, meaning that if one popular site crashes or slows down, fleeing customers will immediately seek out the next alternative, thereby increasing the load on it with the possibility of bringing that one down too. So as the whole herd of users is driven to the few sites that manage to stay up, the sites will be acquiring a big portion of customers. So imagine, if the site that remains up and running is yours. You could definitely have a lot of new customers today.

Surely, these steps are not a comprehensive list, but they’re definitely a crucial set to help you achieve an advantageous web performance; that would not only bring you new customers, but also help you retain them. Good luck!