5 must-have Chrome extensions for SEO

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Jul 10, 2020 / by
5 must-have Chrome extensions for SEO

Google Chrome is, without question, the most popular and fully featured browser on the market right now and one of the many reasons it has become so ubiquitous is the extensions feature. This is an ingenious conception that makes the browser completely customisable to your specific needs and it’s something that has saved writers such as myself countless hours. The Grammarly extension alone is something of a game-changer in my opinion.

But are there any Chrome extensions developed 100% with SEO in mind? Yes, thousands actually, and some of them can perform SEO functions that used to be laborious and time-consuming in the literal push of a button. With so many to choose from though, where to start looking? Well, look no further, as we’ve sifted through the chaff for you.

So, without further ado, here are the 5 crucial SEO Chrome extensions that could form the spine of your plan of attack from this point onwards.

NoFollow

Let’s start with a pretty basic but indispensable extension for link building. NoFollow is a tool designed to highlight nofollow links, so you know which links to avoid when building your portfolio of backlinks. It’s simple and elegant in operation, scanning the page and surrounding all nofollow links with bold red dots. This will save a lot of time for those building outreach opportunities by negating the need to check links manually. NoFollow is a NoBrainer for all link builders.

Check My Links

Speaking of link checking, one of the greatest blights of anyone working in SEO is getting rid of broken links. To ensure a complete lack of 404 errors, however, Check My Links is another quick and easy tool with an incredibly practical application: Just click the extension and all broken links on the page you’re currently viewing will be highlighted in unmissable blood red. As well as being used to check for broken links on your own site, a great tactic for link builders could be to scan other sites for broken links, then reach out to site owners and offer your content as a replacement for that link.

Grammarly

I’ve already waxed lyrical on the virtues of this particular extension but for copywriters, it’s an absolute must-have. Grammarly is a surprisingly powerful and flexible spellcheck tool that also highlight any grammatical errors in your work. Whether you’re creating written content or simply sending outreach emails, the ability to click through a piece of text without needing to copy and paste it all into Grammarly itself is incredible and has saved me countless hours over the years.

Keywords Everywhere

This is pretty much a jack-of-all-trades SEO extension that is invaluable for keyword research. Simply type a keyword into Google and this will display search volume, cost per click and keyword competition. Again, a simple and maddeningly effective little tool.

Page Analytics

Google’s very own analytics extension allows you to spy on a site’s most important information in a quick click – everything from page views to the average bounce rate and the average time spent on the page. You can also customise the toolbar to display the most appropriate data and it automatically highlights the number of clicks that every link receives on all pages. An absolutely indispensable tool.

Of course, we’ve just scratched the surface here. The five tools above are all certainly worth your time but they are by no means where you should end your Chrome customisation mission. Think of it as a modular approach to building your perfect SEO web browser. It’s a mission that might never truly end but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth the effort because that effort will be paid back in potentially dozens of hours saved.