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10 Best SEO Chrome Extensions Available for Free
Explore the Chrome extensions that our team of SEO and digital marketing experts use every day.
It’s difficult to stay on top of a site’s search engine optimization (SEO) strategy without the right tools. Software, plug-ins and extensions specifically built for SEO can help you efficiently and accurately identify errors and opportunities for your site, especially compared to manual methods. Unfortunately, many of the most powerful tools on the market can be quite expensive, particularly for small agencies or businesses.
Luckily, there are a lot of fantastic, free Chrome extensions for SEO – from keyword research and content marketing to on-page optimisation and Core Web Vitals. In fact, our digital marketing specialists at Zelst use these SEO extensions virtually every day.
Check out our list of the ten best free Chrome extensions for SEO, tried and tested by the SEO experts here at Zelst.
What are Chrome Extensions?
Chrome Extensions are software integrations for your Google Chrome browser that allow you to customise and enhance your in-browser experience. Chrome extensions have a wide variety of functions, from Honey, which automatically scans for coupon codes as you shop online, to Evernote Web Clipper, which allows you to save articles to your Evernote account to read later. Of course, there’s also a whole range of extensions that have been built specifically to help you perform your SEO tasks more efficiently.
If you want to add an extension to your browser, the process couldn’t be simpler! First, head on over to the Chrome Web Store, find an extension that you’d find useful, and press ‘Add to Chrome’. The extension will appear at the top right of your browser, ready for use.
What are the Best Chrome Extensions for SEO?
No matter which area of search engine optimisation you are working on, there’s undoubtedly a free Chrome extension that can help you.
Here at Zelst, our top ten Chrome extensions for SEO are:
1. Ahrefs SEO Toolbar
The Ahrefs SEO Toolbar is a brilliant all-in-one extension for SEOs. This extension provides a comprehensive report for on-page SEO by scanning through the page’s code to discover any missing or incorrect elements. Ahrefs SEO Toolbar displays all this information in an easily accessible and visually friendly manner, making it easy to identify errors and opportunities.
Some of the issues that the Ahrefs SEO Toolbar extension will flag are:
Missing h1s
Missing alt text
Titles and meta descriptions that are too long or short
Poor Core Web Vitals
Disallowed robots.txt
Incomplete open graph tags
2. Moz Bar
A great alternative to the Ahrefs SEO Toolbar is Moz Bar, which comes with practically all of the same features as its competitor. Many SEOs prefer Moz Bar due to its slick visual look, and the fact that it sticks to the bottom (or top) of your browser, reducing the number of button clicks to see relevant information.
Amongst other features, Moz Bar lets you easily identify missing tags such as headings or canonicals, determine whether a page has schema markup, and check the page’s load time.
One of our favourite features of Moz Bar is that the extension will highlight all of the outgoing links on a page, making it easy to quickly find new linking opportunities or broken links.
3. Redirect Path
So we’ve spoken about a couple of extensions which do just about everything, now it’s time to mention a great extension that specialises in just one aspect of SEO – redirects.
As the page loads, the Redirect Path Chrome extension will show you the path that the browser took to reach the page. This will highlight whether a page has been redirected, and SEOs can use this tool to avoid linking to 301 pages, which can cause redirect chains or loops.
See what our Technical SEO Specialist Lauren had to say about the Redirect Path extension:
"I use the Redirect Path Chrome extension every day as part of my routine SEO work. It's a quick and easy way to identify and fix potential link issues, redirects and errors that aren't obvious at first glance to improve the experience on our clients’ sites."
4. View Image Info
If you’re noticing that your webpages are loading pretty slowly, it’s always good practice to check the images on your site. Maybe they’re too large, poorly optimised, in an outdated file type, or all of the above. The easy-to-use View Image Info Chrome extension lets you examine important details about an image. By right-clicking on an image and pressing ‘View Image Info’, you can see relevant information such as:
The file type (e.g. JPEG, PNG, WEBP)
The image dimensions
The size of the image file
The alt text
All of this information is extremely valuable for SEOs to ensure that images aren’t drastically slowing down your page speeds. You could reduce the file size to under 250kb, change the file type to WEBP, or add alternate text for accessibility. The possibilities are endless!
5. Image Alt Text Viewer
Sticking with the theme of images, another great Chrome extension is the Image Alt Text Viewer. Once the extension is activated, the plugin will display the alt text for every image on the page. It’s such a quick and easy way to check whether an image has alt text and ensure that your page is accessible to both your users and search engines.
6. Google Lighthouse
Core Web Vitals are a set of performance metrics that measure the user experience on a site, including loading performance, interactivity and visual stability. Google has confirmed that a site’s Core Web Vitals is a ranking factor, meaning that it’s definitely something that SEOs should try to optimise.
You can see a page’s Core Web Vitals in a number of ways, such as through Page Speed Insights, or more easily, using Google’s own Chrome extension, Google Lighthouse. This extension lets you test the Core Web Vitals for the current page that you’re on. It will also provide reasons for why a page is performing poorly in a particular metric – for example if there is excess Javascript or large images – and SEOs can then take action.
Our Technical SEO Specialist Kieron absolutely loves the Google Lighthouse extension:
“A brilliant tool for testing the Core Web Vitals of any page. In particular, it’s great for viewing the LCP and CLS, both of which can be optimised quickly for SEO.”
7. Keyword Surfer
One of the most popular SEO Chrome extensions is Keyword Surfer, with over 600,000 users. Whenever you search on Google, Keyword Surfer will show you related keyword ideas and how much search volume they have. This is a great way to identify secondary keywords that you can target on your site.
Furthermore, this extension shows you the estimated volume of monthly traffic for the domains that appear in the search engine results page (SERP), alongside the length of the article and how many times that keyword was used on the page. This valuable information on your competitors can help you emulate their winning strategy and hopefully appear higher in the SERP results.
8. Grammarly for Chrome
SEO is not all about redirects, image optimisation or Core Web Vitals. One of the main pillars of SEO and digital marketing is quality content. After all, search engines cannot index or rank your pages if there’s no content.
A great tool for writers is Grammarly for Chrome, which is a highly versatile spelling and grammar extension. Grammarly works on any writing tasks that you complete within your browser, including on Google Docs, Gmail, social media platforms, and more.
Our Content Marketing Specialist Vic adores Grammarly for Chrome and uses it every time she writes. In fact, she even used Grammarly for her quote:
“With Grammarly, I’ve been able to elevate my clarity in writing, not to mention my fluency, tone, and word choice. The extension adds the polish you’ve been missing – every time you start typing.”
9. Glimpse
Google Trends is a great tool for analysing search trends and coming up with ideas for new content. However, I often wish that it provided more data for related topics and queries.
That’s where the Glimpse Chrome extension comes into play. It essentially supercharges Google Trends, providing enhanced data insights. Where Google Trends supplies around 15 related queries for a search, Glimpse will show you hundreds.
However, Glimpse does come with a downside, in that the free version only gives you ten searches a week.
10. Awesome Screen Recorder & Screenshot
And finally, we have a fantastic tool that’s useful for any Chrome users, not just for SEOs.
Awesome Screen Recorder & Screenshot is an extremely handy screenshot extension. It lets you capture the contents of a webpage, with a variety of options. For example, you can screenshot an entire web page, even if only part of the page is visible on your screen.
This extension is perfect for quickly flagging technical issues on a site – such as a broken menu – to easily show to a colleague, developer or client. It’s also great for screenshotting analytical data from Google Analytics or Search Console and inputting it into your SEO report.
Final Thoughts
For small businesses and agencies, optimising your site for search does not have to break the bank. These extensions are fantastic tools to maximise your site’s potential through SEO, all for free.
To get more actionable tips and insights from SEO experts, why not sign up for our email to take your digital marketing to the next level this year.
If you’re looking for professional SEO, digital marketing or biddable media services, talk to our friendly team today to discuss the best strategy for you.
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