One of the issues we have with site speed and site speed tracking is that Google’s Core Web Vitals data is based on a 28 day average and all the data they provide is a site wide average or data for a group of pages.
This is a problem because we can’t wait 28 days to see if a change to a site has improved the speed. The data Google provides isn’t precise it also makes it difficult to troubleshoot page specific issues or issues with a particular traffic type.
The other issue with waiting 28 days for changes is that it can take weeks for a problem with the site to show up in Google Search Console which means site speed issues can go undetected while having a serious impact on conversions and SEO.
To solve this issue we built Vital Signs Tracker aka VST
VST grabs the same Core Web Vitals speed data from the browser that Google is using and provides detailed reports on site speed, including weekly, fortnightly or monthly email reports and also provides visibility into page performance that other tools cannot.
We’ve been refining VST and using it internally for nearly two years and are now making it publicly available as a standalone product.
Key features of VST:
Identify poor page performance on particular traffic types – a common issue we see is slow Google Ads traffic due to query strings being injected by marketing and click fraud prevention tools.
We’ve seen sites spending 7 and 8 figures on Google Ads burning their budgets because the site speed is horrible due to custom query strings. Identifying and fixing these issues has a direct impact on conversion rate and paid ad performance.
Email reporting – VST can send you weekly, fortnightly or monthly reports so you can monitor your site performance without having to manually run reports. This is particularly useful for agencies working on multiple sites and gives you a way to detect speed issues and problems that would otherwise go undetected for weeks until they show up in Google Search Console.
Logged in vs logged out WordPress user performance – a common problem with WooCommerce and LMS or Membership sites is that logged in user sessions are typically not cached so logged in users get a much slower experience that logged out or public users.
With VST we’ve devised a way to segment logged in and logged out users in WordPress so you can see precisely how your site is performing for both.
Track the site speed of non-indexable pages including WooCommerce Cart and Checkout pages – typically Core Web Vitals data is not tracked for pages that have robots noindex tags or pages that are not indexed in Google.
In VST we track all pages across your site and capture the robots index tags so you can see the performance of all pages across your site including non-indexed pages like Cart, Checkout and My-Account pages in WooCommerce
Troubleshoot tricky INP (interaction to next paint) issues – INP is Google’s new Core Web Vital metric and VST gives you page level visibility into INP issues so they can be pinpointed and resolved
Troubleshot CLS issues – CLS (cumulative layout shift) issues can be difficult to detect because often they happen on specific pages or page templates and it’s not immediately obvious which pages are experiencing CLS issues.
Track multiple sites – we provide multi-site tracking options for VST so you can use to all your sites and client sites too.
Tracking performance based on custom segments – VST is powered by a custom version of Matomo Analytics which allows you to create up to 100 different custom segments you can use to track site performance. You can track by location, device type, traffic type an much more.
Pricing and Signup
VST is currently in BETA and we’re opening 100 customer slots to start with. The price is currently $29 USD/month for a single site with options to track up to 350 sites and 5 million users per month.
To signup, goto this link and complete the checkout process
Once complete, enter the email address you want to use to access VST in the onboarding form and the system will provision your account and you can get started.
You’ll need to add the tracking code provided to the footer of your site to get moving (our team can help with this if you get stuck!)
Monthly Plan:
$29 – $495 USD
From 1 Site to 350 Sites
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Yearly Plan:
$290 – $4950 USD
From 1 Site to 350 Sites
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