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Chrome extensions are a dime a dozen. If you’re anything like me, you try a new one every week. Extension Monitor saw the count at over 188,000 extensions a few years ago.
That is a lot of extensions to try out. There are also a lot of duds out there.
Luckily, I’ve done much of the legwork for anyone in the SEO and link building world looking to streamline their workflow using Chrome extensions. (We also reviewed digital PR tools, link building tools, AI PR tools, blogger outreach tools, and content marketing tools.)
Whether adjusting your website’s copy or checking out the competition, the right extension can shave off time from menial tasks and let you focus on the actionable ones.
These are the best SEO extensions to help you finish your work quickly and efficiently.
Extensions for Link Building and Outreach
Let’s start here since many customers play in the link building space. This section will look at some Chrome extensions that make building easier. These tools help you find link opportunities and effectively manage your outreach efforts.
1. BuzzStream BuzzMarker – Efficient Link Building and Outreach
The BuzzMarker Chrome Extension enhances the BuzzStream app and streamlines the outreach process.
Open the BuzzMarker, and it will display information about the page you are on, including contact information like the email address. Then, link builders and digital PRs can use BuzzMarker to add contacts to projects and, more importantly, email them without leaving the page they are on. (This is a game-changer for someone who compulsively opens new tabs like myself.)
Feature Highlight:
Since BuzzMarker integrates directly with your BuzzStream database, you can see previous messages and connections with contacts you or your team have had. With this feature, you get more strategic about how and when you send email outreach when building links.
For instance, if you planned on emailing out to a contact but realized that your teammate reached out just the day before, you can schedule your email to be later a week later. These insights are key to avoiding spam reports from prospects — which is integral to Google and Yahoo’s new email requirements.
This extension is a must-have for users of the BuzzStream platform.
Pricing: Free as part of the BuzzStream subscription
2. Hunter Chrome Extension – Find Emails Fast
The Hunter Chrome extension simplifies finding email addresses associated with a website. One of Hunter’s standout features is its ability to find individual email addresses and provide data on company employees’ most common email format. With the correct email, you can significantly increase the efficiency and success rate of your outreach efforts.
Feature Highlight:
Hunter works directly within BuzzStream’s app or BuzzMarker Chrome extension, increasing the efficiency of finding email addresses.
Pricing: Free to use with limited searches per month. Paid plans start at $49/mo.
Alternative:
- Voila Norbert: Another powerful tool for finding emails; useful for lead generation and outreach.
3. BuzzSumo Chrome Extension – Content Insights in a Click
BuzzSumo’s Chrome Extension, now updated to a more powerful V2 version, is part of the BuzzSumo feature set. We’ve also included it on our blogger outreach tools post. It offers an extensive range of features for analyzing content across virtually all platforms, including blogs, social media sites like Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and even TikTok.
Feature Highlight:
The SERP overlay shows quick metrics for posts as you surf the web, making it a lot easier to uncover posts that are getting a lot of links and shares without needing to leave the SERP. The first step in building better relevant links is identifying the right type of content to build, and BuzzSumo’s quick link metrics are a big help.
Pricing: Free 30 day trial, but more advanced features require a BuzzSumo Pro account (starting at $99/mo).
4. Siege Media Outreach Scorecard – Streamlining Outreach Evaluation
The Siege Media Outreach Scorecard is a unique Chrome extension designed for digital PR and link-building by link building and digital professionals. It offers a structured approach to evaluating the effectiveness of outreach emails, scoring them based on criteria such as the number of no-follow links and mentions of words like “contribute” or “write for us.” Siege Media based these signals on years of first-hand experience from their link building teams.
Feature Highlight:
The app highlights any criteria for evaluating a website, making it easy to find what may or may not be necessary for your link building project.
Pricing: Free
5. Search The Current Site – Focused Website Search
The Search The Current Site extension is a simple tool that performs a Google search restricted to the current website they are visiting, making it easier to find specific content or references within a site.
When talking about efficiency, fewer clicks are better. If you can save yourself the trouble of opening a new tab and/or typing into a search bar, you do it. It may not seem like much, but those extra clicks add up if you evaluate hundreds of sites.
Pricing: Free
Alternative: Content Site Search Guru will also help you search the contents of the specific site.
6. Nofollow Chrome Extension – Identifying Nofollow Links
The Nofollow Chrome extension is critical for assessing link value and understanding the link profile of a page or domain.
The simple extension automatically highlights nofollow, UGC, and sponsored links in red, making them easily identifiable. Upon installation, the extension is always on, allowing you to click to evaluate a page. (You can also exclude from pages if it gets in the way.)
Pricing: Free
7. CheckMyLinks Chrome Extension – Find Broken Links
CheckMyLinks is a convenient tool for web developers, SEO specialists, and content editors. It quickly scans a webpage and identifies broken links, which is crucial for SEO and user experience.
I’ve used it primarily for broken link building campaigns, but it can be helpful for your on-page analyses. However, in the next section, you’ll find better, broader extension tools.
Feature Highlight:
CheckMyLinks has a handy counter tool that you can use to diagnose your page and easily identify broken links on a page for link-building campaigns.
Pricing: Free
Alternatives:
- Broken Link Checker: Another Chrome extension tool for checking broken links.
Keyword Research Extensions
There is a fair amount of overlap with the keyword research tools, as many have the same features, but there are basically three All-in-One tools that are paid and then a few free versions.
8. Ahrefs SEO Toolbar Chrome Extension – All-In-One SEO Insights and Analysis
The Ahrefs SEO Toolbar Chrome Extension is a powerful all-in-one SEO tool.
This is one of my favorite content marketing tools in general.
It essentially combines all of the best features needed for site and SERP evaluation directly into the browser. The toolbar helps uncover insights into backlink profiles, domain ratings, traffic value, and other helpful metrics for link building or keyword research. It also includes information like header tags, word count, structured data, and more.
Feature Highlight:
The extension’s “Search Tools” overlays the SERP with metrics, making it way easier to evaluate a website’s organic traffic or number of referring domains when sizing up the competition.
Pricing: The extension is free to install, but full access an Ahrefs plan, starting at $99/mo.
Alternatives:
- MozBar: Moz’s MozBar displays similar data to Ahrefs, like links and search traffic. It also displays it’s proprietary Domain Authority and Page Authority, which is helpful if you or your client rely on those metrics instead of Ahref’s Domain Rating.
- Majestic: The Majestic extension offers access to Majestic’s metrics, including Trust Flow and Citation Flow, which help evaluate a site’s link profile.
9. Keyword Surfer – Free Chrome Extension for Keyword Analysis
Ideal for quick, keyword insights, Keyword Surfer is a free Chrome extension. It provides real-time data on keyword search volumes and related search queries right in Google’s search results.
When comparing to Ahrefs or SEMRush, the keyword data is different but can be directionally helpful, though it has recently updated its system to help provide more precise data.
Feature Highlight:
The extension displays the word count and the number of times the keyword appears on the page, which can be very helpful for quick analysis without needing to click into the post itself.
Pricing: Free
Alternative:
- Keywords Everywhere – This extension works very similarly to Keyword Surfer. It’s free version has access to limited features, but to access search volume, you need to pay (and it’s very cheap at $1.25/mo).
Chrome Extensions for Technical and On-Page SEO
A wide variety of technical and on-page issues can arise on a website. Since many overlap, I’ve grouped them into the same section.
10. WAVE Accessibility Plugin
Use the WAVE extension to focus on improving your website’s accessibility. The WAVE interface will quickly check your website against Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Accessibility lawsuits are still very prevalent in the industry and this plugin is a great way to keep your website in line with accessibility guidelines.
The tool points out elements you may not even be aware of like elements being too close together or colors that don’t contrast enough.
These elements all impact Page Experience, which impacts ranking.
Feature Highlight:
The extension will strip away the styling so you can experience your site like a screen reader.
Pricing: Free
11. Meta SEO Inspector Chrome Extension – Analyzing Meta Data
Meta SEO Inspector is tailored for SEO professionals who need a quick and efficient way to analyze the metadata of web pages. This extension provides what is essentially a mini-audit of your page. You can find detailed insights into meta tags, structured data, internal links, hidden content, and more. The interface isn’t the prettiest of plugins but it gets the job done.
Feature Highlight:
The Meta SEO Inspector displays helpful tips and hints on the importance of specific errors and how to fix them.
Pricing: Free
Alternative:
- SEOquake: Provides a broad range of SEO analysis tools, including metadata inspection.
12. Redirect Path Chrome Extension – Tracing URL Redirects
Redirect Path is a must-have tool for SEO specialists and web developers. It flags up HTTP status codes and redirects, making it easier to identify issues like broken redirects or incorrect URL structures.
The SEO extension shows the complete path of redirects from the clicked URL to the final destination, helping to diagnose redirect chains and loops, which can be absolute killers for page ranking.
Pricing: Free
13. View Rendered Source Chrome Extension – Comparing Source and Rendered HTML
View Rendered Source is an invaluable tool for front-end developers, web designers, and, of course, SEOs. It allows users to quickly compare the raw HTML source code with the rendered DOM (Document Object Model), which is what search engines and users ultimately see.
Feature Highlight:
The feedback you receive from the extension is color-coded so that you can quickly point out code that has been added (or removed).
Pricing: Free
14. User Agent Switcher Chrome Extension – Testing Across Different User Agents
The User Agent Switcher extension is useful for SEOs who must understand how their site appears across browsers and devices. User Agent Switcher lets you to switch between user agents like Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc.
Pricing: Free
15. MobileView Chrome Extension – Simulating Mobile Browser
The MobileView Chrome Extension is a simple yet essential tool for web developers and SEOs. It allows users to simulate how a website looks and functions on different mobile devices directly from the Chrome browser.
These views are crucial in an era where mobile responsiveness significantly affects user experience and SEO.
Feature Highlight:
If you enable multiple browser types, you can see them all side by side to compare the displays.
Pricing: Free
Alternative Tools:
- Chrome DevTools Device Mode: Although technically not an “extension,” the built-in Chrome tool can simulate different devices, and they are typically a little more recent than MobileView, although not by much.
16. WordCounter Plus Chrome Extension – Quick Word and Character Count
Ideal for content creators, WordCounter Plus is a simple tool that helps to count words and characters in selected text quickly. A particularly handy for on-page SEO, WordCounter Plus can help ensure content meets any length criteria you or your clients may want to hit. Once installed, you can right-click on any text and you’ll see the option to check the word count for the selected text in your toolbar.
Pricing: Free
Alternatives:
- Character Count Tool: Another straightforward tool for counting characters and words.
Bonus Extensions
These two remaining extensions are must-haves in my book but tangentially related to SEO, so they get their own section.
17. Microsoft Clarity Chrome Extension – User Behavior Insights and Analytics
Microsoft Clarity is a powerful analytics tool that no one I talk to knows about. This Chrome extension is a free user insight tool with features like heatmaps, session recordings, and user journey insights.
Feature Highlight:
The extension’s session recordings are unique insights into how users interact with your content. Do they linger? Do they click around?
Pricing: Free
18. Grammarly Chrome Extension – Enhancing Writing Quality and Correctness
Grammarly’s Chrome Extension is a widely used tool for improving writing quality across the web and one of my favorite digital PR tools as well. Ideal for content creators, marketers, and anyone who writes online, it checks spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, engagement, and more in real time.
Grammarly not only corrects mistakes but also offers suggestions to improve the overall clarity and tone of your writing.
Feature Highlight:
With the Chrome Extension, Grammarly integrates with your Gmail and Google Docs, so you don’t have to worry about opening up the app (although the app provides more features.)
Pricing: Basic service is free; Premium plans with advanced features start at $12/mo.
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