16 Best SEO Extensions for Google Chrome to Boost Website Rankings

Author's avatar SEO UPDATED Jul 11, 2024 PUBLISHED Apr 12, 2021 18 minutes read

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    Peter Caputa

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    Truth be told: there are tons of SEO Chrome extensions out there.

    But if you were to sit and sift through these extensions to get your hands on the top SEO Chrome extensions, you’d easily waste hours – just exploring the right fit with no guarantee of results.

    So we decided to create a shortcut for you by putting together this piece on the best SEO extensions for chrome that you should be using.

    There are all roughly divided into extensions that help with on-page SEO, keyword research, competitive analysis, rank checking, and more.

    No matter the order though, you’ll find an SEO extension for your browser for any SEO-related task that you’re looking for.

    Altogether, we’ll dig into the following today:

    ga_seo_dashboard_template_databox

    How Can SEO Extensions Be Helpful?

    SEO extensions can help you with keyword research, on-page SEO optimization, ranking checking, and other SEO-related aspects.

    The majority of experts (26.8%) that we surveyed use the top SEO Chrome extensions for on-page SEO. A close majority, 19.8% and 19.4% leverages them for rank checking and technical SEO, respectively.

    To add, these are also handy for competitive analysis and link building. Here’s the full picture of how experts are using SEO extensions and how you can too:

    what do you most commonly use SO chrome extensions for?

    Lots of the SEO Chrome extensions that we’ll cover in the next section can help you for more than one function. If not, you can use multiple extensions to modify the browser to show what you’re looking for.

    For instance, most of our survey respondents – around 63% –  use 2-5 SEO Chrome extensions. Some 20% also use between 6-10 extensions. Hardly a handful of people use one SEO extension at a time.

    how many SEO chrome extensions do you have installed?

    16 SEO Extensions for Chrome You Should Try

    Let’s now give you a list of expert-recommended SEO Chrome extensions that you’ll love:

    1. SEO Quake by SEMrush
    2. Ubersuggest
    3. MozBar
    4. Detailed SEO Extension
    5. META SEO Inspector extension
    6. SEO Minion
    7. Keyword surfer
    8. Keywords Everywhere
    9. FATRANK by FatJoe
    10. SERPTrends SEO extension
    11. Ayima Redirect Path Extension
    12. Automatic Backlink Checker
    13. Link Redirect Trace
    14. Ahrefs Google Chrome extension
    15. Nightwatch’s SEO Search Simulator
    16. Mangools SEO extension
    17. Bonus: SEO extensions for better content

    Editor’s note: Get a complete picture of your SEO performance with this SEO Overview Dashboard Template that shows your organic sessions, clicks, CTR, position, impressions, and more on one dashboard.

    SEO Overview Dashboard Template

    1. SEO Quake by SEMrush

    SEO Quake is a popular choice among our contributors for optimizing on-page SEO. Quick refresh: on-page SEO involves taking measures on your site to optimize it for better ranking. For instance, adding the right keywords, writing meta descriptions, and so on.

    Essentially, SEO Quake by SEMrush “offers a simple overview of key on-page and technical SEO metrics like header tags, metadata, canonicals, and sitemaps in an approachable way,” notes Digital 22’s Tiffany Payne.

    “It’s also great to evaluate potential link outreach partners with a really handy and, as far as I can tell, accurate summary of site traffic statistics,” John Donnachie from ClydeBank Media adds.  “With full reports on hand, great at-a-glance info, and the ability to compare URLs right from my browser bar it does everything I need and more.”

    Related: How to Build a Comprehensive SEO Keyword Ranking Report

    Andy Kolodgie of SEO Meets Real Estate Investors notes another benefit of the SEO extension: “It displays the relevant data (backlinks, domain and page authority, monthly traffic, etc.) directly on the SERP.”

    “You can also determine what metrics Google is focusing on when it comes to a specific SERP such as the importance of the content, page authority, etc.,” Kolodgie explains. “When it comes to marketing via SEO, this extra data can be what you need to rank higher than your competition.”

    In short, “It’s a must for all marketers that need a quick reference to get an understanding of the SEO ‘score’ of a page!” Payne summarizes.

    2. Ubersuggest

    Ubersuggest is another useful chrome extension for improving your SEO game.

    Mid Florida Material Handling’s Devin Ahern goes on to recommend it for the variety of uses it offers. Ahern enlists, “It provides great insight of:

    • Keyword ranking
    • Keyword volume
    • Keyword CPC
    • Backlinks and
    • Domain authority.”

    Put simply, “it covers many (if not all) the critical features I’m looking for in an SEO extension,” Ahern notes.

    Cocodoc’s Alina Clark also points out Ubersuggest’s live visualization feature. In fact, Clark calls it the “the best extension when it comes to live visualization on search metrics.”

    “Easy to set up, easy to use, and an absolute must-have for the flawless understanding of the keyword performance,” Clark elaborates.

    3. MozBar

    Clark also recommends MozBar – “a plugin that shows you search metrics, website ranking and virtually every other facet of on-page SEO.”

    But there’s more to Clark’s love for this SEO Chrome extension. “Moz or Mozbar gives you the Doman authority for any site on your search results,” writes Clark. This makes it “a useful tool if you want to understand the competition landscape without leaving the search results page.”

    Clark further shares, “In my case, Mozbar works like a charm every other time. Every search done with Moz in place is a deep dive into the SEO landscape. You get DA rankings, web traffic and link information all in one go.

    Also, I love Mozbar [that] doesn’t interfere with the appearance of the search page. You also don’t have to click on it, or switch it one since it’s automated. It makes SEO work easy.”

    Marcie Lord from Digital Dynamo LLC. also shares their experience using the MozBar SEO extension. “I can quickly view the metadata on a web page: the title tag, meta tag, the H1s and H2s and more, plus see the site’s domain authority (and the DAs of other websites when I look at a SERP).”

    For agencies, consultants, and SEO freelancers, MozBar can help make convincing cases to win clients over. Take a page from Lord’s book: “It has been hugely beneficial when showing clients how they can optimize their on-page elements – right-clicking and hitting Inspect usually confuses clients, but showing them the clean data helps them understand what’s impacting their site’s SEO.”

    4. Detailed SEO Extension

    Wolfate’s Carlos Castro adds another suggestion to this list of top SEO chrome extensions. Detailed SEO Extension “allows you to see at a glance the title and meta description contents and length, URL indexability, canonical URL, heading structure and many more insights that can be useful to identify improvement opportunities,” Castro outlines.

    Put another way, you can easily identify ways to optimize on-page SEO using this SEO extension.

    5. META SEO Inspector extension

    Next up is Forma Life Science Marketing’s Jordan Eller’s recommendation.

    “The META SEO Inspector extension is one of my all-time favorites,” Eller comments. “It’s incredibly useful for getting at-a-glance information on the metadata of a URL.”

    Here’s what you see with a single click according to Eller: “a host of technical info crucial for SEO, such as canonical tags, schema, header structures, meta descriptions, image alt text, and others.”

    And here’s something that none of the recommended top SEO Chrome extensions shared so far offer: “You can also export the results for easy sharing with your team or clients,” Eller adds. What’s more, the extension “doesn’t require payment or subscription, and it’s incredibly easy to use, so it’s the perfect choice for a quick scan of a site.”

    6. SEO Minion

    Another recommendation that helps you spice up your on-page SEO is the SEO Minion Chrome extension.

    “When you’re looking at a website, and you want to see quick info at a glance, you can use the SEO minion to check out on-page elements like alt text, metas, links, and broken links, etc.,” points out Elizabeth Weatherby from Northern IL Vein Clinic.

    “It’s super helpful to be able to read this information in an extension, right on your screen, without having to open your SEO reporting software/platforms and dig in deep. I truly recommend it!”

    7. Keyword surfer

    With the on-page SEO optimizing extensions out of the way, let’s look at top SEO Chrome extensions that help with keyword research. 

    A highly recommended name in this category is that of Keyword Surfer. Chris Hutty of Jellyfish Training calls it a “handy tool” that “imports keyword search data directly into the Google interface.”

    Prismatic’s Kristin Ides Hope explains, “Surfer adds monthly traffic and keyword counts beneath Google search results, plus a sidebar that generates related keyword ideas and volume.”

    Since “all marketers, search and otherwise, should be doing keyword research on Google,” but most don’t have “the time or resources to perform a full keyword research project” Hutty recommends this extension.

    “If you want quick data on what people are searching for around core products or services, this is a great tool,” Hutty comments. “It’s a quick way to size up competitors, broaden your keyword planning strategy and analyze keyword density. Google looks strange to me without Surfer’s stats on the SERP!” Hope adds.

    Plus, “It’s also completely free!” Hutty notes.

    8. Keywords Everywhere

    Another popular SEO extension for keyword research among our contributors is the Keywords Everywhere extension.

    In simple words, “Keywords Everywhere determines which words and phrases are the most popular when doing keyword research for articles,” Shana Haynie from Hearst Bay Area shares.

    “Once you have the extension installed (and are on the free version),” explains Niles Koenigsberg of Real FiG Advertising + Marketing “just head to Google and search for a query. When the results page shows up, KE will pull up lists of related keywords, long-tail phrases, and keywords that ‘people also search for.’”

    This makes the extension a good choice for identifying and creating a list of long-tail and related keywords to add to your content. If you’re only just getting started and your site’s domain authority is low, you’ll want to rely on these keywords to start ranking.

    Related: 37 Ways High-Ranking Marketers Improve Their Website Domain Authority

    In fact, the ‘people also search for’ entries can spark ideas for new content to add to your editorial calendar.

    On top of this, “[the extension] will also display a graph of the global ‘trend data’ of that keyword dating back to 2004, so you can have a better idea of how the keyword has become more and less popular over time,” Koenigsberg emphasizes.

    “To make things even better, Keywords Everywhere will also analyze the websites on those results pages and list the average organic traffic they receive per month (for that URL and the entire site) and the total number of keywords that the URLs and the sites rank for.

    That kind of data can be invaluable when you are trying to improve your SEO strategy and figure out how your competitors are outranking you on Google.”

    That said, “when you decide to pay for credits with KE, you’ll be able to see a LOT more information about specific search queries,” quips Koenigsberg.

    In fact, the paid version can help:

    • “Provide you with data about monthly search volume for that phrase over the last 12 months
    • The CPC for that keyword, and
    • A gauge on the Adwords competition for that phrase.

    All that data is incredibly valuable as you select keywords to target on your website and through your PPC ads,” in Koenigsberg’s words.

    And a heads up: “Just make sure you are cognizant of the available funds that are left on your account when doing your research.

    Remember to turn off the extension when doing other searches that are not related to keyword research! You don’t want to waste those credits on irrelevant keywords.”

    9. FATRANK by FatJoe

    This one’s a rank checker browser extension. Digital Cake’s Autumn Blakeman recommends it for “input [on] any keyword and checking real-time rankings by country for any website.”

    Same as Marcie Lord uses MozBar to win clients, Blakeman leverages this extension for “client meetings and showing competitor/client site performance in real-time.”

    To add, Blakeman also “uses this when prospecting for new SEO clients as having information on a brands current rankings/performance often has good shock factor!”

    Editor’s note: Track your site’s ranking with the help of this free Improve Your Google Search Position dashboard template. It gives you your page positions, average search position, and search impressions as well as clicks – all on one screen.

     Improve Your Google Search Position dashboard template

    10. SERPTrends SEO extension

    OuterBox’s team finds this Chrome extension pretty valuable. Justin Smith shares, “This handy extension tracks your searches and if you perform the same search multiple times, it will display the ranking movement directly in the search engine results.”

    This makes it a great extension for “spot checking some of your most critical keywords and doing competitors analysis on the fly.”

    11. Ayima Redirect Path Extension

    An essential aspect of doing SEO right is ensuring all pages open correctly while redirects navigating to the correct page. It’s for this purpose that the Ayima Redirect Path Extension is a useful one.

    Lorna Franklin of Shaw Academy observes, “As SEO’s we all know that tech teams make changes all the time without you realizing, the Redirect Path extension helps in not only quickly checking if a redirect is working properly, but it’s great for spotting incorrectly implemented or accidental redirects. As well as this, it’s a really quick way to flag redirect chains that you may have missed.”

    “It brings potential issues such as meta and javascript redirects, as well as redirect chains that may not otherwise be seen immediately,” adds Juliette Tholey from Juliette Tholey SEO consulting.

    12. Automatic Backlink Checker

    Another useful addition to the top SEO chrome extensions list is this extension that helps you check a link’s do-follow status – making it a great tool for those into link building.

    Related: 30 Free Link Building Tips for Building Links On Little-to-No Budget

    Passive Income Superstars’ Leanne Scott shares they use the extension to identify no-follow links. “If I find someone has linked to my site with a no-follow link, I can get in touch and ask them if they’d mind changing it so I can get the link juice!”

    Here’s how the Automatic Backlink Checker works: “It works by highlighting links as blue (do-follow) or red (no-follow) when you toggle it on.

    There is also the option to scan a page for broken links. This can help to find opportunities to gain backlinks by recommending one of your own URLs as a replacement for a broken link.”

    Related: Broken Link Building Tips for Increasing Search Rankings, Authority, & Traffic

    13. Link Redirect Trace

    “Link Redirect Trace is definitely the most helpful,” comments Robert Taylor of AVX Digital.

    And what does it do? Taylor explains, “Its main function is when landing on a page, it shows the path to that current URL along with HTTP response codes. This helps identify redirects that are unnecessary, redirects using wrong codes, redirect chains, and overall indexability.”

    What’s more, “the extension shows whether the URL is indexable, crawlable, canonicalized, HTTP response time, and even shows number of backlinks to each URL.”

    This makes it another helpful SEO extension for backlink builders. It’s also “incredibly helpful when visiting a page as the icon in the toolbar will change depending on the page status, and there are 16 statues that can show, so it’s easy to quickly diagnose any issues,” says Taylor.

    Here’s an example from Databox’s post: 9 Ways to Increase Your Branded Search Traffic for High-Quality Leads.

    Taylor outlines, “I was able to find a shortlink to this post, see that it redirected 3 times, and the final URL was indexable by every bot, and has a self-referencing canonical.”

    See for yourself:

    Link Redirect Trace

    14. Ahrefs Google Chrome extension

    Afrefs extension is another one of top SEO Chrome extensions to check out. “It displays the most pertinent SEO metrics right below the SERPs, and allows for easy analysis and segmentation of data,” writes MobStac’s Akshay Deogiri.

    15. Nightwatch’s SEO Search Simulator

    This one’s a recommendation by Konstantinos Ntoukakis of Studio for Digital Growth. “Google’s search results are highly personalized and location-dependent,” observes Ntoukakis.

    “The Search Simulator extension makes it easy to perform search queries from any country and receive non personalized search results.” This makes it a reasonable choice for local search optimization and “for a quick rankings check and search competitor analysis across locations.”

    16. Mangools SEO extension

    The Mangools Chrome extension is quick to give you a summary of each site’s ranking data and metrics such as backlinks.

    Blogging Wizard’s Adam Connell admits being a “big fan” of the extension as “it gives me a quick snap shot of top-level website metrics such as DA, referring IP’s, social shares, etc.

    I can also see which keywords the website is ranking for, their top backlinks, and SEO data.

    One particularly neat feature is that I can easily pull keywords directly into the Mangools rank tracking tool.”

    Nathan Sebastian from GoodFirms also commends the same extension. “Whether a digital marketer is budding or a seasoned player, Mangools will prove to be their best buddy in all analyses they need to get done.”

    “This Google Chrome extension is a very structured tool, and their accurate categorization of page elements and data instills instant cognizance,” Sebastian says.

    “From page authority overview to backlinks data along with SERP and On-page SEO analysis, you get your own small window with all assessment and data to win the search game.”

    That said, the extension is a neatly organized one as “it is a page within the page tool and is broadly classified into five categories. One of its groups which is ‘On-page SEO’ is the winsome feature in the app.

    Here you get sub-categories namely SERP Presence, Meta tags, Structured data, Headings, On-page Keywords, Outbound Links, Social (review look for social media posts) and Page Speed, mostly not included in such tools and you need to perform a separate Google search for, all under one roof in a very integrated and ordered manner.”

    Note that Mangools extension offers the unique feature of peeking at a site’s social shares – something that other top SEO Chrome extensions covered so far don’t offer.

    Editors’s note: Looking for all-in-one SEO reporting tool?

    16. GA Debugger

    Last (almost) on this list is this Chrome extension –a Google Analytics tool.

    “You can easily audit a Google Analytics setup on any page and see which events are triggered” with the help of GA Debugger Blissfully’s Alex Birkett suggests.

    “This can help you identify tracking errors as well as perform quality assurance on marketing campaign attribution (such as whether or not a link is dofollow, if it has the proper UTM parameters, or if internal links are stripping any values and messing up your data).”

    “This is stuff that your analysts assuredly don’t want to spend too much time on, so being able to quickly identify and diagnose tracking errors is very powerful,” concludes Birkett.

    Bonus: SEO extensions for better content

    All marketers know that writing quality content is an essential prerequisite for ranking and keeping traffic on your site. To this end, our experts recommend two SEO extensions that’ll help you polish your content. These are:

    • TextOptimizer

    “TextOptimizer is a useful Chrome extension with over 20,000 users that scans a webpage and suggests missing words that can be added to the content. This information is also helpful for identifying entire concepts that can be added to existing content.” – Bruce Hogan, SoftwarePundit.

    • Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader

    “Creating good content can be very tedious as you most often have to be your own editor and proofreader. This Chrome extension makes it easy to create good content by reading the content aloud to you. This can help in editing, proofreading, and overall better content creation. It will directly impact SEO as content is widely regarded as the most important ranking signal.” – Mfon Ekene, TargetTrend.

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    With these top SEO Chrome extensions, you have a solution for all SEO aspects. From keyword research to on-page SEO and competitor analysis, you can find a solution to everything. So what are you waiting for? Explore away.

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    Masooma Memon

    Masooma is a freelance writer for SaaS and a lover to-do lists. When she's not writing, she usually has her head buried in a business book or fantasy novel.

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