Those working in SEO are expected to carry out multiple tasks each day in order to ensure that their websites are performing to the best of their ability. From link building and providing excellent usability to managing and organising content, it can be overwhelming trying to fit everything in. However, there are many ways to manage time efficiently, and this is where the wonderful benefits of automation can play a part.
If you’re not making use of the powerful functionality of extensions, you’re losing time each day carrying out tedious tasks that could be automated for you. In this guide, we will be sharing some of the best productivity-enhancing plugins and extensions available that no website or digital marketer should be without.
Grammarly
Grammarly offers free and paid versions of its much-loved plugin, and it’s a must for anyone working within content marketing. The tool underlines any errors in your copy, including grammar, spelling and punctuation, to ensure your text is faultless. It also provides you with synonym suggestions to help you improve your copy, which is an excellent asset to marketers who want to give their content an edge. The free version is great but to get the maximum benefit and for access to the most critical of issues, the paid version is the way to go. You’ll soon be creating fool-proof content that has been thoroughly examined by an expert eye before going live.
MozBar
Moz has long been a favourite within the industry and their SEO toolbar, MozBar, is essential for any SEO professional. It provides valuable information and data, from metrics and DomainAuthority to various onsite elements, as well as page-level share counts and other attributes of the page that you can then use to your advantage. This tool also has a highlighting feature that will identify different types of links, including internal backlinks, no-follow and followed links. So, whether you’re looking to check out some quick onsite elements or struggling to find a particular link, MozBar will be there to help.
Majestic Backlink Analyser
Majestic Backlink Analyser is a useful Chrome extension that, as the name suggests, focuses specifically on backlinks & off-page SEO rather than other elements of the page. The tool gives you a summary of metrics, with a list of the sites top backlinks and the anchor text associated with them so you can keep up to date with what’s happening each day. If you’re analysing multiple sites in order to find the strongest one or wish to examine a competitors backlink activity, a simple click of the backlink analyser will give you all you need to know.
WordPress SEO by Yoast
If you’re using WordPress, then Yoast is recommended to help all on-site SEO needs. Yoast allows you to add and amend meta keywords and descriptions, analyse your on-page SEO, see what snippets look like for each page and provide you with clearer navigation for crawlers and users alike. It has an easy to use interface and allows you to create an SEO-friendly site quickly and efficiently. It’s also pretty epic for blog posts, as it will assess the readability of your content and check to see whether its SEO-friendly. You’ll be kept in line at all times!
BuiltWith
BuiltWith gives you information on what the site you’re visiting has been built with. It is ideal for developers and designers who want to analyse the technologies other sites are using, as this can be very beneficial when it comes to working on their own site. From widgets and frameworks to analytics, hosting, and document standards, this extension provides a wealth of information that will also help you gain global trends on certain technologies.
Spark Content Optimiser
Spark Content Optimiser will help you enhance the search functionality of your website, giving you access to data such as the performance of specific keywords, backlink authority, monthly traffic stats and even an audit of 40 difficult to locate issues to help you improve the overall user experience. In larger corporations where different teams may be getting involved with incorporating SEO into their daily routines, this extension is a great help that will benefit everyone from developers to copywriters.
Serpstat Plugin
The free extension, Serpstat Plugin, enables you to conduct an SEO audit of each page, focusing on keywords, traffic and visibility. It also delivers reports on the top 10 keywords each page ranks for. With Serpstat, you can analyse the visibility trends over the course of a year, search results for Google, Baidu and Bing, your page speed, meta tags, Alexa Rank and more, providing you with access to critical parameters for improving the performance of your site.
Open SEO Stats
Open SEO Stats delivers speedy access to the most vital statistics, including graphs from Compete Rank and Alexa Rank, backlink information, cached and indexed pages, geolocation such as IP addresses and country data, and also shares results on social networks. It’s also incredibly useful for looking at meta information such as canonical tags, internal and external links, and meta keywords.
Velvet Blues
Free WordPress plugin, Velvet Blues, is great for businesses who have changed their site URL but still have loads of old links knocking around. This plugin changes old links on your site and scans URLs within the WordPress database without you having to use phpMyAdmin directly. With this tool, you can choose whether you want to update the links for attachments, see a list of the items which have been updated and also update links embedded in content or custom fields. However, bear in mind this plugin treats everything it finds, so you only need to install it when something needs fixing, after which it should be uninstalled. It’s also worth completely backing up your site before using this tool.
PageSpeed Insights
Load times and page speed can dramatically impact the experience of your site, and even Google monitors site speed as one of the 200 signals in its ranking algorithm. Even just a one-second delay in loading time can lower conversions by 7%, so it’s well worth keeping on top of wherever possible. The PageSpeed Insights plugin helps you to explore how your site is performing in this area, showing you the elements that are decreasing load times and providing users with a less than perfect mobile experience. Once you’ve analysed your site using the tool, it will provide you with recommendations on how to fix the issues, making it really easy to know how to move forward and improve your website for both desktop and mobile. Combine this feature with a thorough SEO audit and your site will be invincible.
Its time to get downloading!
With these plugins and extensions sitting neatly in your toolbar and browsers, you’ll be ready to watch your SEO campaign reach new heights. Are you ready?
