Q: I just signed up for a monitoring tool. What's the right setup order?

Q: I just signed up for a monitoring tool. What's the right setup order?

A: Do these in order so you don't get a flood of garbage alerts on day one.

— Add the monitor as HTTPS, not ping. Ping only tells you the box answers, not that your app serves pages.
— Set the check to look for a keyword on the page (like your footer text), not just a 200 status. A hacked or maintenance page still returns 200.
— Add a 30-second confirmation delay or require 2 failed checks before alerting.
— Pick ONE notification channel for now. Add more later.
— Send yourself a test alert and confirm it actually arrives.

The follow-up everyone asks: skip uptime emails to your team until you've watched it solo for a week. Tune first, broadcast second.

Got a question? Drop it in the comments.