11 Essential SEO Elements to Track

Effectively monitoring your SEO performance requires a comprehensive and strategic approach. It’s not just about keeping tabs on technical and on-page changes but also about utilising the right tools to streamline your efforts and ensure meaningful outcomes. Without a clear focus, even the most advanced tools can fall short of driving tangible results.

Many SEO professionals rely on dashboards, such as those offered by Screaming Frog, which integrate seamlessly with platforms like Looker Studio. Others may use enterprise-grade tools to track technical SEO in the cloud, offering capabilities to manage multiple sites simultaneously. While these methods are popular, it’s important to ask yourself some key questions: Are these tools genuinely helping to improve your rankings? Are they offering actionable insights for your specific needs? If you’re managing anywhere from 30 to 100+ websites, are the outputs of these tools addressing the unique challenges of your portfolio?

If the answer to these questions is “yes,” then congratulations! Your current setup may already be delivering the value you need. However, if you find yourself questioning whether there’s a more efficient and effective approach, you’re not alone. Many professionals in the SEO field feel the same way. The solution lies in being more targeted and intentional in what you track and which pages you prioritise. Shifting your focus to what truly matters can lead to better optimisation and improved rankings over time.

This article is designed to guide you through the essentials of SEO tracking. We’ll break down which elements are most critical to monitor and offer insights into the best methods for doing so. Additionally, we’ll highlight a selection of paid tools that can enhance your tracking efforts. While there’s no affiliation with these companies, their features have been tested and proven valuable in many real-world applications. By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to refine your SEO approach to achieve better outcomes.

Indexability elements

Monitoring your site’s indexability is fundamental to ensuring its visibility on Google. If your site isn’t properly indexable, even the best SEO efforts will fail to yield results. Understanding the core factors influencing indexability and how to track them is crucial for maintaining your site’s health and performance. Below, we break down the essential areas to monitor and the tools to help you stay on top of these critical elements.

Robots.txt Changes

The robots.txt file is the first point of contact for search engine bots when they crawl your website. This seemingly simple file contains instructions on how these bots should navigate your site. Monitoring changes to this file is non-negotiable for SEO success, especially if alterations inadvertently block search engines.

Developers sometimes accidentally push a staging version of the site to live production, including a restrictive robots.txt file, which can unintentionally prevent search engines from crawling the site. To mitigate this, you should set up email alerts for any changes to this file, ensuring you can act quickly if an issue arises.

Recommended Tools

Several cost-effective tools can help track changes to robots.txt. LittleWarden is a standout option, offering features to monitor specific changes or general indexability checks with email alerts. It can be set to perform checks daily or even hourly for maximum peace of mind. Alternatively, Visualping is a versatile option for monitoring robots.txt changes and has proven useful in various SEO case studies.

Noindex Robots Tags

The noindex meta tag is an important tool for controlling which pages appear in Google search results. While it’s useful for excluding low-value pages such as login or account sections, it’s vital to ensure that high-priority pages remain indexable. Regularly tracking changes to noindex tags can prevent costly mistakes that harm your site’s visibility.

Recommended Tools

LittleWarden excels again here, allowing you to customise settings for individual pages. This makes it easy to keep most pages indexable while marking specific ones as noindex. If you prefer more advanced analysis, tools like Screaming Frog and Sitebulb can also track noindex tags, though they may require additional configuration to meet your needs.

Monitoring and managing critical SEO elements is essential to maintaining your site’s search performance. Here, we’ll explore three key components—X-Robots-Tag changes, XML sitemap validation, and canonical tag changes—and how to track them effectively to ensure your site remains optimised for visibility.

X-Robots-Tag Changes

The X-Robots-Tag serves a similar purpose as the noindex meta tag, determining whether a page should appear in search results. However, instead of being included in the <head> section of a webpage, the X-Robots-Tag is placed in the HTTP response headers. This subtle difference makes it equally crucial to monitor changes to these tags to prevent accidental indexing issues.

Tools to Use

LittleWarden is an excellent tool for this purpose, offering built-in features to check HTTP response headers for potential indexability issues, including changes to canonical tags and X-Robots-Tags. Its pre-configured setup makes tracking seamless and ensures prompt alerts when issues arise.

XML Sitemap Validation

XML sitemaps act as a roadmap for search engines, highlighting the pages they should prioritise when crawling your site. These sitemaps are particularly helpful in directing search engines to newly added or updated pages. However, errors in your sitemap—such as fetch or parse failures—can disrupt Google’s crawling and indexing process. If unresolved, these issues may lead Google to stop crawling your sitemap altogether.

Tools to Use

Once again, LittleWarden stands out for its user-friendly approach to tracking changes and validating XML sitemaps. Its ability to quickly identify and alert you to errors ensures your sitemap remains functional and effective at guiding search engines.

Canonical Tag Changes

Canonical tags, while often misunderstood, play a vital role in SEO by signalling which version of a page should be treated as the primary one. Although Google treats canonical tags as hints rather than strict directives, it’s important to monitor any changes to these tags to avoid confusion or duplicate content issues that could affect rankings.

Tools to Use

LittleWarden excels in tracking canonical tag changes, providing an efficient way to ensure consistency across your pages. Other tools, such as ChangeTower and Visualping, can also monitor these changes effectively. For more advanced setups, Screaming Frog and Sitebulb offer robust tracking capabilities, though they require additional configuration for email alerts.

Staying on top of changes to X-Robots-Tags, XML sitemaps, and canonical tags is essential for a well-rounded SEO strategy. Using reliable tools like LittleWarden, Visualping, or Screaming Frog ensures you can quickly detect and address any issues before they impact your site’s visibility. By maintaining a proactive approach, you can safeguard your site’s performance and remain competitive in search rankings.

On-Page Ranking Elements

On-page SEO encompasses all the elements within your web pages that both users and search engines interact with. These factors are integral to ensuring optimal rankings and user experience. While local SEO practitioners may encounter fewer site changes, organisations with multiple team members accessing and editing the website can inadvertently implement modifications that impact performance. This makes tracking on-page changes essential.

Heading Tag Changes

Heading tags, such as <h1>, <h2>, and <h3>, structure the content of a page and aid both accessibility and user navigation. While Google representatives suggest that these tags may not directly influence rankings, many SEO experts argue that optimising headings, particularly <h1> tags, can positively impact performance. Regardless, tracking changes to heading tags on your key pages ensures consistency and helps maintain accessibility.

Tools to Use

For monitoring heading tag updates, several tools provide reliable tracking and alert systems, including Little Warden, Versionista, Wachete, Visualping, and ChangeTower. Although tools like Screaming Frog and Sitebulb are also capable, their email alert configurations can be cumbersome.

Internal Linking Changes

Internal links are crucial for creating a robust link graph within your website. Strategic internal links with optimised anchor text help direct users and search engines to relevant content. Removing or altering these links, even inadvertently, could negatively affect your rankings. While the impact may not be catastrophic, overlooking such changes could risk valuable traffic and SEO equity.

Tools to Use

To monitor internal link updates, consider using Little Warden, Versionista, Wachete, Visualping, or ChangeTower. These tools ensure you can spot changes promptly and maintain your internal linking strategy.

Keyword Changes

Keywords remain the backbone of effective SEO. Tracking changes in keyword usage is essential, as even well-meaning edits to content by team members could unintentionally reduce a page’s visibility in search results. Ensuring consistency in keyword optimisation helps safeguard rankings and overall site performance.

Tools to Use

The tools recommended for heading tag and internal link monitoring—Little Warden, Versionista, Wachete, Visualping, and ChangeTower—are equally effective for tracking keyword changes. These platforms provide alerts when modifications occur, allowing you to intervene before rankings are impacted.

SERP Visibility

Monitoring how your website appears on search engine results pages (SERPs) is an important aspect of SEO. While it may not have a direct impact on rankings, it significantly influences your organic click-through rates (CTR). Ensuring consistency and optimisation in this area can enhance your website’s overall performance.

Title Tag Changes

Title tags serve as the code that informs search engines about the title you prefer to display for your web pages. While Google often modifies these tags to align with search intent, they remain a vital element of your SERP strategy. Ignoring title tags can lead to missed opportunities for improving CTR. Regularly tracking changes ensures that the intended messaging is conveyed.

Tools to Use

Reliable tools for monitoring title tag changes include Little Warden, Versionista, Wachete, Visualping, and ChangeTower. These platforms help identify any unauthorised or unintended modifications promptly.

Meta Description Changes

Meta descriptions are a contentious topic in SEO. Although they are not direct ranking factors, they play a critical role in persuading users to click through from SERPs.

There are challenges, however:

Google rewrites: Search engines frequently rewrite meta descriptions to better match user queries.
Mixed opinions: While some SEO experts argue that optimising these snippets is a waste of time, they are undeniably a crucial part of your SERP sales pitch.

To maximise their effectiveness, it’s wise to track any changes to meta descriptions as part of your broader SEO efforts.

Tools to Use

The same tools mentioned for title tag monitoring—Little Warden, Versionista, Wachete, Visualping, and ChangeTower—are also ideal for tracking changes to meta descriptions.

Schema Validation

Schema markup enables you to provide structured data to search engines, which can lead to the display of rich snippets and other SERP features. These features, such as review stars or FAQ dropdowns, can significantly improve your organic CTR.

Given the effort required to implement schema markup, it’s essential to validate and monitor any changes. Unintended modifications can lead to errors, undermining the potential benefits.

Tools to Use

For schema validation and monitoring, Little Warden, Versionista, Wachete, Visualping, and ChangeTower offer robust solutions to help you maintain the integrity of your structured data.