How to Prepare Your Website for Peak Traffic

Imagine it’s Black Friday, when all of the sudden … boom! Your most critical web application goes awry, bringing your e-commerce operation to a screeching halt on the very day flawless performance is needed most. Think it can’t happen? Think again …

Heavy traffic volumes brought on by peak sales periods can put even the most battle-tested websites and applications to the test. To make matters worse, missteps almost always seem to happen at times when businesses have the most to gain — or lose. A recent survey from my firm Gomez found that a third of online shoppers had a bad experience (e.g., slow downloads, frequent user errors and/or transaction problems) on a retail website last holiday season.