We’ve all experienced it—that moment when you have ten minutes to get to the office, coffee in one hand and a croissant on your lap, and just as luck would have it you’re stuck behind an oversize load and feel like you are going “- 5” MPH. This is exactly what many companies put their online customers through during high-traffic times, such as holidays and sales promotions. By failing to identify bottlenecks and optimize their websites, many companies risk slower performance and, ultimately, loss of revenue.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to prevent this: website load testing. Load testing uncovers problems that cause failures and throughput disasters. And when you opt for full-service load testing, you’re guided by a load testing engineer who manages the load tests, which means you can focus on what matters most—your business, your employees and your customers.

Load Testing 101

Load testing does exactly what the name implies. It throws hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of users at your online web services until you reach a breaking point. The goal: uncover weaknesses in your web infrastructure.

These simulated users may be provisioned in two ways, as virtual users or real-browser users. Virtual users interact directly with web services by sending commands and receiving responses without the use of a browser. Real-browser users actually launch a virtual machine and a real browser. Because you’re using real browsers, you get a more accurate view of what happens when real users hit your site.

Full-service load testing goes one step further, providing the added value of expertise. A professional services engineer will gather your requirements and script scenario(s) using best-in-business practices and technologies. Your engineer will also run the pretests and tests, analyze the resulting data and provide specific recommendations on improving your online offerings. With this level of expertise, you can be proactive, instead of reactive, with your online business, which can make the difference between gaining and losing valuable customers.

Accelerate Web Performance

Internal server errors, page load times, data transfer times, throughput, bandwidth, time-to-first-byte—have I lost you yet? If so, chances are you’re not in the business of pioneering the web performance market. That’s okay because teams of load testing services engineers, such as those found at Neustar, are ready to guide you through. Drawing on years of experience, they can create and scour load testing data down to the most granular levels, providing service that makes you sit back and think, “Wow, that was easy.”

If you rely on ecommerce to grow your business, full-service load testing is a smart investment. Today’s customers are impatient. They want what they want and they want it now. If your web page loads are a little slow—as in a quarter second’s delay—customers will abandon the website and take their business elsewhere. In 2012, worldwide ecommerce revenues hit a new record at over $1 trillion, with $364.66 billion in North America alone. Clearly, it’s more vital than ever to understand your website performance and customer experience.

Full-service load testing lays a strong foundation. It helps you motivate customers to tell their friends about your services, rather than a competitor’s hot new site.