According to a 2022 electronic marketer report, e-commerce retail sales will exceed $6 trillion by 2023, as more than 20 percent of all retail purchases will be made online.
This is great news if you are a business owner with a digital storefront.
However, how much of this pie you get depends on how well you are prepared to create an engaging digital commerce experience. For example, a 2022 Omen One study found that a website that loads in one second converts 2.5 times more customers than a website that loads in five seconds.
Similarly, there are other facets of the commerce experience that you may need to focus on to meet the needs of eCommerce buyers.
Still, monitoring the exact customer experience can be difficult, as it varies from web page performance to search engine page rankings.
But here’s the good news: You can rely on website change monitoring tools to track changes to your website, benchmark it against the competition, and comply with regulations.
Read on to learn how website change monitoring tools can benefit you, how to decide on a tool, and which tool may be optimal for you.
Why website change monitoring software is important
Improving your website to keep up with buyer expectations and updating your source code to remove security vulnerabilities is part of standard website operations.
But, all these changes must occur under control. You don’t want a recently updated plugin to slow down your website or a change to back-end code-cracking landing pages.
Website change monitoring tools protect against unwanted and unexpected changes by helping you keep track of all changes.
You can even rely on them to track source code changes by malicious actors. That is significant since a 2023 synopsis The report showed that cybersecurity risk vulnerabilities in the electronic commerce sector increased by 557 percent in the last 5 years.
These are some other examples of unfavorable scenarios that could arise as a result of changes to the site, situations that could go unnoticed if you do not monitor changes to the website.
How to choose the right tool to monitor website changes
While the optimal website change monitoring software varies from use case to use, there are some general guidelines that can serve as your lodestar.
Flexibility – Make sure the tool offers the features and capabilities you need for your business. Examples of features include regular checks, push notifications, and fast processing speeds. Scalable – Reduces maintenance and restructuring costs while allowing you to keep the same software through any future changes (such as downsizing or corporate expansions). Security Features: Prevents hacking, hijacking, and other malicious activities. Examples of security features include HTML source code and edit control, interface-less browser-based page change detection, and data encryption. Ease of Use: Look for options that offer innovative and proactive features that make your job easier, such as comparison tools, centralized dashboards, collaboration channels, and innovative visualizations. Customizable – Allows for custom configurations to meet your changing needs. This includes connectivity and third-party integration capabilities, which streamline the software merge and deployment process at all organizational levels.
Top Website Change Monitoring Tools
Plugin Performance Monitor.Fluxguard.Site24x7’s Website Monitoring.Sken.io.Visualping.ContentKing.
Plugin Performance Monitor
A Nexcess exclusive, Plugin Performance Monitor is an advanced tool that offers WordPress plugin performance testing, tracking capabilities, and actionable insights.
The plugin performance monitor displays changes related to files, plugins, and themes that affect performance. It runs automatically to identify issues, assess the performance of page elements, and provide daily critical page score reports.
Price: Included with each Nexcess Managed Hosting Plan free.
The best website change monitoring tool for: WordPress plugin management.
flow saver
Fluxguard is a cloud-based website change detection software that manages a variety of multi-step tracking activities.
You can use Fluxguard to continuously crawl and monitor pages and detect complex changes. It even helps you crawl, analyze, and audit entire websites.
Fluxguard sends change alerts for key updates. You can visualize the changes through side-by-side HTML comparisons, screenshot sliders, and before and after views of the site changes.
You can also integrate Fluxguard into your routine workflow by adding it to apps like Slack or the back-end code of custom apps via APIs and webhooks.
Price: Free (with limited features). Premium plans start at $83/mo when billed annually. Business commitments are negotiable and come with personalized benefits.
The best website change monitoring tool for: Complex page change detection.
Site24x7 Website Monitoring
Site24x7 website monitoring is smart software that reinforces site security. Its interface is not as efficient as that offered by Fluxguard and Nexcess, but it does have more than 120 global monitoring locations.
Site 24×7 website monitoring allows you to benchmark web page content for future comparison. Additionally, it can mitigate site hijacking attempts and detect security issues such as unauthorized HTML edits or malware in the source code.
You can integrate Site 24×7 website monitoring with multiple apps like Slack and receive proactive alerts. You can view status updates, deface details, and detailed reports through a simple dashboard.
Price: There is a free option. Paid plans start at $9/mo when billed annually, and business plans start at $225/mo.
The best website change monitoring tool for: Strengthening the security of your site.
sken.io
Sken.io offers a simplified website tracking solution. You can monitor competitor sites and keep track of changes in international compliance standards. Additionally, you can use it to detect advanced page changes and view the changes through optimized display options.
You can also use Sken.io for web page error tracking and media monitoring based on a fully customizable scheduler.
Sken.io also offers an easy-to-use mobile app and alerts for changes via email notifications. Besides that, you also have free browser extensions.
Price: Plans start at €3/month (or $3.17) when billed annually. Enterprise plans are priced at €45/month (or $47.49).
The best website change monitoring tool for: Simplified views and ease of use.
display
Visualping is comprehensive software that monitors a variety of website changes. For example, you can rely on it to track changes in regulations, portfolio listings, and compliance standards. Similarly, you can receive alerts about security issues, regressions, and dns lack of time
Additionally, Visualping helps with your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. You can use it to monitor page changes, identify SEO errors, and receive SEO feedback.
During peak holiday seasons, you can also rely on Visualping to monitor price changes across the market to remain competitive in terms of discounts and top of mind with customers.
In addition to website monitoring, Visualping also supports social media monitoring. For example, you can use it to start monitoring competitors’ bios, links, and social media posts across different platforms.
Visualping offers its services both through the browser and through a Chrome extension.
Price: Business plans start at $25/month per workspace, but many pricing options are available.
The best website change monitoring tool for: Scalable and comprehensive change tracking.
ContentKing
ContentKing is SEO-focused website change monitoring software that offers 24/7 Monitoring™, cloud-based data storage, and many other capabilities.
You can use ContentKing to audit websites and monitor pages regularly for any content changes to maximize your search engine visibility. It presents real-time data, automated reports, visualization tools, and information about changes to the website.
ContentKing sends customizable notifications about technical issues, robots.txt file alterations, web content changes, and other platform issues. Not to mention, it keeps a change log for every page, allowing you to easily investigate deeper issues.
Price: the plans are priced on a case-by-case basis.
The best website change monitoring tool for: Search Engine Optimization.
Final Thoughts: 6 Best Website Change Monitoring Software Tools for 2023
Website change monitoring tools allow you to track your website and monitor the competition. Also, you can use them to monitor search engine results pages and stay up to date with laws and regulations.
But to deliver a quality user experience to ecommerce customers, you need to start with an optimized store.
Verify Business Hosting Nexcess today and level up the digital commerce of your business. Not to mention you also get Plugin Performance Monitor Free with all managed WordPress and WooCommerce plans.