In an ideal world, we’d be able to get information and things done for various SEO purposes at the press of a button. Well, as it turns out, we don’t live in that specific ideal world — but we have access to some luxuries.

Google Chrome now has over one billion active users. For those of you seeking to refine your SEO strategy, Chrome’s SEO extensions should be an essential part of your attack as you look to surge up the rankings, tracking your performance, and gaining insights into how you’re doing.

However, with 100,000 extensions to choose from, where do you start looking? We’ve got you covered. We’ve digested the duds and extrapolated exceptional extensions for your SEO campaigns. Have a look at our list of crucial SEO tools for Chrome you have to start using in 2018!

1. SEO Peek

Ideal for: SEO guys and girls who have got a new client that needs an SEO audit

SEO Peek lets you quickly check the on-page SEO factors of any website, and because it checks the DOM of a page, you don’t need to bother with the HTML source.

SEO Peek sends a request to the server too, in order to understand different HTTP Response Headers and robot directives, such as HTTP Status and meta robots. It also shows you heading information, meta tags, links tags and the page title.

2. Search Simulator by Nightwatch

Ideal for: SEO amateurs and professionals — as well as agencies with a number of clients

Need to simulate unbiased search engine queries without using a VPN or a proxy? Wish you could do it from any location on Google while checking and tracking yours and your competitors’ rankings? Wish cookies weren’t getting in the way of your queries? You can do all of this with Search Simulator, a brand new free Chrome extension from Nightwatch that simplifies the way SEO professionals track their rankings and the positions of their websites.

3. SEO Quake

Ideal for: Social media managers who want more traffic from Facebook etc., as well as SEO professionals working on keyword research

SEO Quake is a free plugin that lets you analyze your major metrics, conduct a detailed analysis of your SERPs, and set parameters for search queries.

It can also be integrated with social media so that you can check your social statistics for both Google+ and Facebook. It’s bursting with tools and features that makes it one of the most accomplished tools on this list.

Useful tools include its Keyword Density report and SEO Audit.

Any cons?

• You can’t enter data into Excel
• It’s easy to get lost in all the links and data
• When you don’t want to use it, it pops up in all your SERPs regardless
  
  

4. Spark

Ideal for: Social media managers who want more traffic from Facebook

Spark is a neat tool that lets you optimize each aspect of your website’s content via the extension’s huge amount of SEO insights and data. Ideal for IT teams, merchandisers, designers, and content writers, this SEO plugin gives you access to billions of keywords, a technical audit, as well as crucial backlink authority info via Majestic.

It also lets you access the insights of competitor websites, and pulls up stats quickly.

Any cons?

• Keyword search volume/rank data feature has been removed
• The initial Walmart auto-load can be frustrating
  

5. Hunter.io

Ideal for: Individuals looking to strengthen their presence and brand on Google

Want to get in touch with website owners and swap links with them? Maybe you want to write a guest post for them or make them an offer? Either way, you need their email addresses.

How do you get those contact emails?! It used to be tricky — but not anymore now that Hunter.io is here. Finding those otherwise hard-to-find contact emails is now just a few clicks of a button away with this Chrome extension that lets you see the email addresses for any website.

Go ahead, try it on ours and say Hi!

Alternatively, use Voila Norbert to find the influencers’ correct contact information.

Any cons?

• Can’t integrate with LinkedIn

6. OpenLink Structured Data Sniffer

Ideal for: SEO professionals and agencies

If you’re a more advanced SEO user who needs to analyze the open structured data on your site, this Chrome extension does as its name suggests — exactly that.

Organic search results make up around 60% of all the clicks that occur on SERP. When you use structured data that is otherwise locked away in HTML documents, you boost your chances of popping up in different widgets on Google. This, in turn, improves your clicks.

Any cons?

• Has a frustrating tendency to stop functioning

7. Broken Link Checker

Ideal for: Anyone who needs to eradicate broken links

Broken links are not only frustrating for your customers; they also harm your SEO efforts damage your bounce rate and your site architecture, and this can have an adverse effect on your rankings.

Broken Link Checker is the easiest way to find your broken links and eradicate those pesky 404 errors before they wreak havoc with your SEO campaign. It scans your whole site and brings up a report in minutes. It doesn’t just analyze internal links — it’s good for also analyses external ones, too.

Any cons?

• The reporting box is awkwardly placed
• No blacklist, which means you can be logged out of the site you’re checking
• The icon in the toolbar is sometimes unresponsive

8. Redirect Path

Ideal for: SEO pros

Redirect Path goes a bit deeper than Broken Link Checker and uncovers all kinds of errors, including 500 and 301 HTTP Status Codes. It also flags Javascript and Meta redirects, ensuring technical issues don’t mess up your SEO campaigns.

And, hey, these problems are otherwise hard to spot, which is what makes Redirect Path such a crucial Chrome extension. Unless you clean problems up, your rankings could drop.

Any cons?

• Known to be unresponsive
• Dropdown button sometimes does not work
  
  

9. Google PageSpeed Chrome Extension

Ideal for: Everyone for beginners to SEO professionals

Page speed is important. If your pages are taking too long to load for your impatient prospect clients, your rankings can fall. Google PageSpeed from the guys at Google themselves lets you keep on top of how fast your website is loading with just one click. It’s easy to use and takes just a minute or two out of your day to check up on your page speed insights.

10. Keywords Everywhere

Ideal for: Professional affiliate marketers

Keywords Everywhere is a free keyword tool that cuts down your research time. It lets you check your costs per click data across numerous website, as well as your Google keyword search volume. It means you no longer need to copy data from different sites, thus saving you time. You can also download your keyword metrics to PDF or Excel.

Supported websites include: * Uber * Amazon * Moz Open Site Explorer * Google Analytics * Bing * Google Search Console

Conclusion

These are the top SEO Chrome extensions in 2017. Once downloaded, they’ll soon form a vital part of your SEO strategy, making your life so much easier as you climb the rankings. Do you have any favorites of your own? Let us know in the comment section!

Enjoyed the post? Don’t forget to share!