There is no shortage of tools out there to help you analyze links, keywords and other important SEO elements. But even better than grabbing a URL and pasting it into an external tool is the ability to view the stats you need without navigating away or opening a new window. There are a number of browser extensions out there that can pull up these stats at your convenience, so no matter where your Internet travels take you, the stats are right there at your fingertips. I have a personal bias toward Chrome, so I’ll cover some of my favorite SEO extensions for this browser.
MozBar
MozBar is like the Swiss Army knife of SEO extensions. A single click pulls up SEO metrics such as domain authority, page authority, meta descriptions and H1 and H2 tags. There’s also a SERP overlay — so when you’re doing keyword research you can see domain and page authority right there under each individual result. When you’re on the webpage it self you can highlight specific elements such as no-followed, followed, internal and external keywords.
PageSpeed Insights by Google
Page speed is an important element for both user experience and SEO. The original PageSpeed Insights from Google is a handy tool, and the extension makes it even more useful. The extension actually works within Chrome Developer tools, and will show return an overall PageSpeed score out of 100 as well as tips for what you could do to improve load times.
Alexa Traffic Rank
Alexa’s traffic rank extension is pretty bread and butter but still quite useful for research. The extension provides you with Alexa data about the sites you visit without interrupting your browsing. You’ll see stats like Alexa Traffic Rank, traffic rank within the US, a link to check out top search queries that lead back to the site, and site speed. Note that when you install Alexa Traffic Rank, you grant the tool access to track your own tabs and browser activity.
Did we miss your favorite SEO extension? Share it in the comments below.
