The 10 Best Free Google Chrome Extensions For SEO
Experienced SEO practitioners know that without SEO tools, you just won’t get far in the field. It’s almost quite literally impossible; that’s because SEO relies so much on data, and without tools you cannot acquire that data.
If you’re just starting out in SEO, or are doing SEO for your own small business, the price of SEO tool suites can be daunting. What will you get if you pay for it? What will you do with this data once you do actually get it? And then there are so many tool suites to choose from, all with their own unique selling points and features and…well, it’s a lot.
This is where I was when I began SEO, and I have good news! Below I’ve compiled a list of the ten best free Google Chrome extensions for SEO so that you can familiarize yourself with the data surrounding SEO and how to capitalize on it without breaking the bank.
1. Page Analytics (By Google)
This extension shows you key page analytics for a certain page without even leaving that page. If you’re running a website, flipping back and forth between Google Analytics can be frustrating and sometimes, you just want a simple “how many people have visited this page?” If that’s the case, this is the extension for you. It gives you insight into:
- Customer location
- Page bounce rate
- Unique page views
- Average time spent on page
- Page exit {ba0a9a3e15355dd97c9749cb9a24ec6f5ef05feff25622efecfa17819de82733}
Imagine you just published a piece on the dangers of drinking and driving; now instead of opening up Google Analytics and sifting through the complicated (yet valuable) drill-down methods, you just visit the post, open up the Page Analytics extension and you can see how your piece is resonating with your audience in real time.
Good For:
- Measuring your content’s impact
- Finding which content works best for different audiences
2. MOZBar
The MOZBar was actually the first Google Chrome SEO extension I ever installed. It allows you to view key metrics about a page and domain without ever leaving that page. Among other things it shows you:
- Page authority
- Domain authority
- Allows you to create custom searches where you can simulate the browser, device and location
- Easily see if on-page links are followed, no-followed, internal or external
This information is critical to determining the strength of a website, whether its a competitor or a potential backlink opportunity. The last thing you’d want is to write a guest post for a website with a page and domain rating of less than 5, and checking the site quickly using the MOZBar helps you avoid just that.
Good For:
- Competitor research
- Backlink ideas
3. Ninja Outreach Lite
When you’re looking for backlink opportunities, finding contact info for those opportunities is sometimes the most challenging part. Ninja Outreach Lite takes care of that for you by:
- Quickly finding contact info like e-mail and phone number
- Highlighting key pages like “resources”, “about” and “contact us”
- Includes outreach email templates
This means you spend less time sifting through sitemaps looking for email addresses and more time creating quality outreach emails that are more likely to get you those backlinks.
Good For:
- Backlink opportunities
- Crafting quality backlink outreach emails
4. Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo is a must-have Chrome extension if social media marketing is part of your marketing strategy. It enables you to:
- View shares and engagements for a specific piece of content
- Shows engagement data from Facebook, Twitter and Pintrest
- Displays the most shared piece of content from a particular website
Buzzsumo is great if you’re looking for the ideal content structure for your audience. Simply find posts on the same topic and see which piece performed best. Perhaps you use more of the tools on this list to help you craft a piece of content that will outperform it!
Good For:
- Content ideas
- Competitor research
5. Mangools SEO Extension
Of all the free Chrome SEO extensions, the most robust and complete is Mangools SEO Extension. It is essentially a lighter version of their paid software. Among other things, it gives you:
- Onpage backlink checker
- Check domain authority
- Page anchor text analysis
- Broken link checker
- Long tail keyword density calculator
- Google index coverage
- Google Pagespeed grade
- Keyword tracker
This means you can see how your site or your competitor’s ranks for certain keywords, find where your competition is linking to and see if your page’s performance is suffering at all. All around, this is a solid tool to help you bolster a site’s SEO.
Good For:
- Competitor long-tail keyword research
- Tracking competitor keyword rankings
- Identifying resources with broken links and reaching out to them using the Skyscraper Method.
6. LinkMiner
While its nice to have robust extensions that offer plenty of features, its also nice to have tools that perform basic actions that do exactly what you need them to. LinkMiner is one of those tools. LinkMiner lets you:
- Extract all outgoing links on a page
- Download the links onto a spreadsheet
This gives you great opportunity to check out where your competitors are linking, as those are potential guest posting opportunities.
Good For:
- Backlink opportunities
- Competitor research
7. SEOquake
A robust Chrome extension, SEOquake will help you run a full onpage SEO audit that can can help you determine exactly where your onpage flaws are. More than that, you can:
- Export SERP results to a spreadsheet to see who ranks where for what keyword
- Estimate keyword difficulty
- Check mobile compatibility of a site
- Check Alexa rank, Google & Bing index for a site
- Get WhoIs and backlink info from a site
- Get information like H1 tags, bolded text, meta descriptions and other pertinent onpage info
SEOquake provides users with a free extension that helps them to make sure their own site is up to snuff and address any problems that may be hurting a site’s SEO health.
Good For:
- Backlink ideas
- Fixing any unknown onpage SEO issues
- Determining keyword difficulty of target and related keywords
8. Keywords Everywhere
Keywords everywhere is one of the simplest, most effective free keyword research tools out there. Most people go through the hassle of creating a Google Ads account in order to access a robust free keyword tool, but Keywords Everywhere changes that. Keywords Everywhere lets you:
- Search Google you and check search volume for your target keyword
- Get a list of related and similar keywords along with their search volume
- Get estimated cost-per-click data for target and related keywords
Keywords Everywhere is an essential tool in your content creation strategy as it tells you what people are searching for so you can craft your content to reach more of your audience.
Good For:
- Keyword research
- Content creation ideas
- Competitor keyword research
9. Google Analytics URL Builder
Many users struggle with setting up URL parameters in Google Analytics which means they miss out on valuable social media engagement data. If you create a post and want to easily see how many social media engagements it gets, look no further than Google Analytics URL Builder.
How it works:
- Create your content & post it to your site
- Go to your site and access your newly posted content
- On this content page, click the URL Builder extension button
- Now, fill out the URL form
- Now when you share that post on social media, use the URL that the URL Builder generates
And that’s it! Now you’ll be able to see post engagements for this content easily in your Analytics account. And not only that, but because Google Analytics offers such powerful insights you can see how each piece does throughout various demographics such as age, gender, location and more.
Good For:
- Tracking social media engagements
- Finding which content best resonates with your target audience
10. Page Load Time
If your page is loading slowly it can be very difficult to identify exactly what is causing that if you’re not tech savvy. The Page Load Time extensions changes that and makes it much easier to identify and fix those problems. The Page Load Time extension:
- Identifies problems in your load time
- Once you’ve identified the problem, it becomes much easier to troubleshoot a solution
Because page speed and load time are now so critical to SEO rankings, a well-performing page is a must for any organization today.
Good For:
- Identifying problems with page speed and load time
As with any SEO toolkit, these tools will likely take some getting used to and tinkering before you’re able to use them to their fullest potential. But by investing a little bit of your time instead of money, you’ll be able to gain invaluable SEO experience and knowledge that will take your organization’s performance to the next level.
