Chrome Extensions for SEO

Webmasters, Internet Marketers and SEO specialists like myself frequently enlist the help of browser extensions to make our jobs a bit easier.

Because everyone should be using extensions in Google Chrome, and because it’s about time I gave these extensions in particular some recognition, I’ve listed some of my favorite extensions that I use on a daily basis.

Check My Links

I quite often have to deal with the problem of “link rot”, or websites and their content expiring or not being updated over time, or other webmasters who don’t bother to do 301 redirects. There are certainly many free tools that crawl the links on the URL or domain you submit to them, and generally they are quite accurate. The typical problem with them is that they are messy and there is nothing visual about the results. You also may need to know the location or anchor text of the bad link in order to make the necessary corrections.

Check My Links will quickly scan the links on your page, highlight the links in green for the links that work without any problems, highlight red ones that have a status code error, and highlight links in black are timed out. What makes it unique from other similar on page link checkers is that it is both fast and accurate.

Mozbar

This one might be a bit upscale, as it really helps to have a SEOMoz subscription account. However, there are plenty of bonuses without a subscription plan, so it’s a must have regardless. The extension is great if you want to learn the basic SEO elements of a single page in an instant, such as the page title, Meta Description, headers and alt tags. It’s great when making edits to a website, or for making sure a page is optimized for a particular keyword.

Domain Hunter Plus

For those who spend time checking a links page looking for a dead domain that they can register on GoDaddy.com, there’s a three-step process. First, you have to identify the links on a links or resources page that are dead domains, then you need to figure out if any of them are worth registering by taking a look at their backlink stats, and then you have to figure out if they are actually available to register in a website like Godaddy.com.

Domain Hunter Plus cuts all that time and effort down to one step. Similar to Check My Links, with one click it crawls all the links on a page, displays which ones are available to register, and then shows you backlink stats from Open Site Explorer. It is something to add to your arsenal if you’d like to own some new domains, but don’t have the time for the tedious three-step process of finding good ones.

Zemanta

Zemanta is the perfect assistant for any blogger. Once installed, Zemanta fits right in with a variety of blogging platforms, and provides suggested images, links, related articles and tags based on what you are writing.

You can also create an account and include a list of favorite websites that Zemanta will always crawl and display as options for related articles and image sources. It can be perfect for reminding you to include an internal link where appropriate, or link to a relevant article that you or a friend wrote.

Markup

When working with a client or coworker and trying to specify where exactly on a website you are referring to, you have a few options:

A. Take a screenshot, edit it in some way (most likely in word or paint) and email it to them in the form of an image file.

B. Write out in excruciating detail what you’re referring to exactly, which will most likely result in both parties being confused and frustrated.

C. Use Markup to draw, add boxes, arrows and text, and send off your piece of art in the form of a URL link.

It takes less than 30 seconds to put together, and it doesn’t fill your Downloads folder with images you’ll never need again.

Mike Hall is an Online Marketing Specialist at Netvantage Marketing. Netvantage specializes in SEO, paid search and social media management. You can follow Mike on Twitter: @allmikehall

Post Tags: chrome extensions, Mozbar, search engine optimization, Zemanta