The Chrome browser has become the most widely accepted desktop browser with the best user experience in the world. According to a recent market survey, Google's chrome browser's market share has exceeded 70%.
Google's central role in digital software and hardware has fueled this growth, but users also love browser customization.
In fact, it's incredibly customizable. There are thousands of extensions available, and finding a few that will help you with your daily routine is a very time-consuming endeavor. In one store you can find Nicholas Page (an extension to any page that will be Nicholas Cage themed) various income tax calculators.
In between these two extremes, there are hundreds of SEO-themed extensions that are far more useful than some others.
Using some SEO Chrome extensions Latest Mailing Database can be a bit of a learning curve, but once you get used to it, they will save you a lot of time in the long run.
So, in this list, we've narrowed down 15 extensions that will make you more effective in the core area of SEO.
A Chrome extension for quick website reviews
SimilarWeb The
SimilarWeb extension is a great place to start a quick site analysis. It provides a broader view of the site, not just SEO, while taking into account all traffic sources. The extension works by analyzing clickstream data from thousands of Internet Service Providers, SimilarWeb's own web crawlers and their customers' data.
As a result of these calculations, you can get reasonably reliable statistics on your brand's audience, how much they spend on paid media, and which countries the traffic comes from.
All of these factors affect SEO, which, of course, provides valuable insights when analyzing a brand's digital presence. The Chrome extension is free, but paid accounts have access to a more complete dataset.
MozBar
We don't really have a list of SEO Chrome extensions that don't include MozBar. As an all-in-one tool for a quick SEO website overview, MozBar remains the best on the market. Once a user is logged into their Moz Community account (signup is free, for those who don't have an account yet), MozBar will act on the website and search engine results pages.
It contains an extensive list of analytics covering SEO techniques, online content, social media engagement and backlinks. However, MozBar can make your website load a little slower, so it should only be enabled if you need to evaluate your website's SEO metrics.
Impactana
Impactana is a content marketing toolbar that provides the social media analytics you've come to expect, showing the share of each web page from Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and more.
What sets it apart from the competition is the use of proprietary metrics to calculate the "Impact" and "Buzz" of each content. These metrics contain user engagement signals to assess whether content has been shared and users have been interacted with. Therefore, this is a good starting point when analyzing the effectiveness of your competitors’ content marketing campaigns.
Chrome Extension for SEO Techniques
User-Agent Switcher
In this mobile-first era, we need to make sure we optimize for a variety of screen sizes and device types. It's quite difficult to switch from desktop to mobile unless you have a user agent switcher to download.
This extension will give you options to view web pages as they will be displayed on various devices and operating systems. This is an important extension for developers, but very useful for those doing SEO analysis.
Scraper
Many times we need to extract elements from a series of individual pages or websites for large-scale analysis. There are a few different ways to do this, such as using IMPORTXML code to pull structured data from a website out of Google Sheets or Excel.
The Chrome extension Scraper speeds up this process, using the XPath query language to export HTML data elements from pages, and similar data from entire websites.
It takes a little getting used to, but here's a handy step-by-step guide. Once you get used to Scraper's features, it will save a lot of time in any SEO technical audit.
META SEO Inspector
If we want to understand how search engines crawl and index our site (presumably we all do), we need to get hold of metadata. META SEO Inspector goes beyond the narrowness of "meta" tags defined in HTML source code based on SEO metadata.
The extension also facilitates analysis of XFN tags, canonical tags and various microformats. It is also updated frequently to keep up to date with any revisions or additions to Google's Best Practice Guidelines.
Tag Assistant
, Google's Chrome extension, isn't the most glamorous tool on our list, but it's one of the most useful. Tag Assistant acts as a problem solver, verifying the installation of Google tags, such as tags used for Google Analytics and remarketing.
The main USP of Tag Manager may log sessions and analyze the implementation of tracking tags. It gives the extension a lot of potential for frequent use beyond occasional spot checks to verify that tags are being implemented correctly.
Page Load Time
As we discussed in a recent article, speed is critical as Google continues to write its mobile-first index.
Page load time can help SEOs keep an eye on this fundamental ranking factor without being as prominent as other Chrome extensions. Every time a page loads, it highlights the time spent in seconds.
Users can then click on the extension's icon to see a breakdown of the elements needed to load the page's content. It makes a perfect starting point for getting a quick idea of page speed.
Chrome extension for online content analysis
Page Analysis
Many of the entries on our list focus on evaluating competitors, but this Google extension allows you to view data from your Google Analytics account as you browse your website. Once a user is logged into GA, they can view the metrics in their account in real time by opening the extension.
Metrics provided in this snapshot include bounce rate, unique page views, and average time on page. As the user engagement factor becomes more prominent in the RankBrain-powered Google search ecosystem, this extension is a very convenient way to keep an eye on each page's performance without having to visit the Google Analytics platform.
Keywords are everywhere in
SEO Some things never change. We still need to understand which search queries our target audiences use, but getting access to accurate search volumes is becoming increasingly difficult. The keyword ubiquity expansion doesn't quite solve the riddle, but it provides some clarity.
By pulling data from Google Keyword Planner, Google SearchConsole, and UberSuggest, the extension displays approximate search volumes in the results page. From there, SEO professionals can start thinking about the queries for which they want to optimize their content.
This extension shouldn't be used in isolation for larger keyword research tasks, but it has enough handy features to make it a worthwhile addition.
Spark Content Optimizer
This extension is ideal for allowing different teams to incorporate SEO into their daily lives. Everyone from writers to developers can benefit from Spark, a Chrome add-on that scans content to assess how comprehensive it covers topics and how it can leverage popular search queries.
This can be a tricky area for SEO, as we want to give search engines clear signals about our content, but also need to be careful to avoid keyword stuffing that compromises content quality. Spark offers tips without being overbearing, making it a worthy addition to any SEO arsenal.
Chrome Extension for Backlink Analysis
Link Research Tools
This toolbar from Link Research Tools overlays backlink data from user searches and browsing. Soon, you can quickly view a site's backlink profile, although it does require a paid account to access some of LRT's more advanced features.
In much the same way as MozBar, the LRT Toolbar also overlays backlink data onto search engine results pages. This is very beneficial for taking a backlink-based approach, especially why a particular site is performing well for a keyword.
LinkMiner
LinkMiner is probably the best Chrome extension for identifying broken links. Once activated, it will highlight the number of outbound links on any page, those that are active in green and those that are broken in red. It makes an easy way to share issues with the development team and get permalinks.
It also provides a simple overview of the ratio of inbound and outbound links on each page through integration with a range of metrics including Ahrefs, Majestic and Moz.
Majestic Backlink Analyzer
Majestic is still one of the heavyweight SEO packages, and this Chrome extension offers a ton of features without having to visit a separate URL. Backlink Analyzer provides insight into the quantity and quality of backlinks to any page, as well as their topical relevance to the source material.
Majestic's index is larger than Moz's, so it's a stronger reference point when doing backlink analysis. However, you will need a paid Majestic subscription to use these offers.
Interacting with influencers on Buzzmarker
can be a fantastic way to gain relevant authoritative backlinks. Still, anyone who has worked in this field knows that pursuing these important backlinks requires a lot of time-intensive and manual work.
This extension from outreach platform BuzzStream aims to simplify the outreach process. It aids in prospecting through prominent social media metrics on potential partner websites. It also makes it easier to bookmark and add influencers to the main BuzzStream platform.
Again, this will require a paid BuzzStream account, but if you already have one, downloading this extension should be a no-brainer.