SEO Browser Toolbars Showdown
Social media marketing is a full time job. Some of the responsibilities include creating social profiles, blogging, managing posts, responding to followers… and the list goes on. Often times, marketers need to analyze a website while managing all of the above. It can get quite overwhelming! However, that’s where SEO browser toolsets come in handy! So, let’s see which Chrome toolsets for SEOs are out there in 2017. And more importantly, which are worth using.
This SEO toolbar is backed by the exclusive crawling index of Ahrefs. To use it, you need to have an Ahrefs account and be logged in with your details. It can be a free trial account though. Once logged in, you get access to all the backlink and page analysis data on the fly.
What it shows you:
- All of the backlinks of a page;
- Rankings of domains and urls so you know if you can outrank it;
- Keywords page ranks for;
- On-page optimization elements;
- Numbers of social shares.
The toolbar is easy to operate and doesn’t take up much space in your browser. Yet, all of the features are on the surface. Plus, you can easily choose which metrics to display in the toolbar.
You gotta give it to the classic, the good old Alexa. When you try to install the toolbar, it warns you about collecting your browsing data and asks to fill out a form with your personal data. Seriously, Alexa, what does my ethnicity have to do with SEO? Why do you need to know if I have children or not?
When I decided to share my personal info and submitted the form, you know what I saw? Heartwarming “File not found” page.
Anyhow, back in the day, Alexa ranking was important for a website. So let’s evaluate the extension in comparison to dynamic competitors.
Today it gives you the website’s ranking and shows competitors rather accurately. But from what I noticed, search and speed analytics are far off. Alexa still does what it did a couple of years ago; but, it looks like it didn’t learn any new tricks since then.
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I haven’t used this one for a while and was pleased to see an updated interface and a neat walkthrough you get after installing the extension to your browser.
After combining efforts with SemRush, SEOquake managed to create a really convenient tool. The data is well-organized and the toolbar is fully customizable. Nevertheless, to dig deep into data like backlinks and traffic analytics, you need to have a SemRush account.
You get a decent amount of tools for free with SEOquake. Shares, internal and external links, rankings of a website in different systems, etc. However, to see most of the data, you’re either redirected to SEOquake or SemRush websites. This makes it a lot less comfortable when you have a couple dozen tabs open already.
On the other hand, I really like how they handled the data in search results:
The design is clean and settings are intuitive. The more I looked into the revamped tool, the more I liked it. So kudos to SEOquake.
This tool from WooRank doesn’t look like the others on the list. It’s not rocket science, I get it, but some kind of hint system on what’s what would be nice.
WooRank’s toolset is kind of a guide as to what can be improved on a page from SEO perspective.
In comparison to other tools that are devoted to competitive research, this one is designed to help you tweak little things on your own website. Basically, the tool pulls some numbers about a website, analyzes the text on it, and gives you an idea of how it’s doing. For example, extension says, your backlink score is bad. But, it doesn’t give you a way to fix it.
WooRank also cannot find out who links to your competitors. I wish it would so that you could use it as an outreach opportunity. Sadly, it just states facts. Because of this, I felt quite lost as to what I should be doing with the data provided. Also, some tools like Crawl Errors aren’t available unless you register for a free trial.Verdict:
Verdict: You get a clean interface. This, for me, felt rather confusing and was not enough data.
Sometimes a tool should stick to performing one job great, instead of trying to perform a wide range of jobs mediocrity. Unfortunately, that is what I feel SimilarWeb is doing.
As always, you can’t expect this kind of data to be 100% accurate.
It stays a mystery – how much of a guessing game these kind of services play. And, like always, you can’t expect this kind of data to be 100% accurate, but Similar Web did very well in tests compared to other traffic prediction tools. Also quite often you see a “Verified by Google Analytics” highlight next to metrics, so those are probably solid.
What it shows:
- Comparatively accurate traffic numbers;
- Sources of traffic a website has;
- What countries the audience comes from;
- What social networks work best for a website;
- Keywords a website ranks for;
- What competitors it has.
I thought this was really good for a free tool!
In addition to some exclusive Moz data provided for free, this toolbar has its characteristic Moz design. The functions are rather standard. You’ve got your backlink profile, domain authority, on-page analysis, etc. What I liked most about it is a really intuitive highlighting tool which shows internal, external, do-follow and no-follow links.
What I liked most about this toolbar is that it has a really intuitive highlighting tool which shows internal, external, do-follow and no-follow links. As to cons, it feels like Mozbar lacks some social media stats. Also, the walkthrough is nicely designed but is a bit too intrusive.
In a rather minimalistic and old-fashioned design, you get a standard set of tools. Extension lets you see what’s going on, on a website and what it is worth overall.
What data you can get from it:
- Domain rankings from different indexes;
- Neatly organized information about on-page SEO, if you’re still into it. Stuff like headings, anchor texts, image tags, bold text, etc.
- Links to WhoIs services to check who domain belongs to;
- Advice and suggestions for on-page optimization;
There is also a Social Media tab in the toolset, but it didn’t work once for me.
Would I use it if I had Ahrefs SEO Toolbar or SEOquake at hand? Probably not.
The design of the toolset from the start strikes you as a little outdated. But old means reliable, right?
What it can do:
- Gives you numbers of internal, external, dofollow and nofollow links;
- Shows traffic stats from Alexa, which isn’t the most accurate source as we’ve established earlier;
- Redirect you to websites like archive.org and Keyword Planner from Tools section;
- Standard on-page optimization info.
Overall, it didn’t feel like it lives up to the competition.
Finalists:
Your Chrome browser can’t handle too many extensions at a time. You need to make hard choices sometimes. As much as I love many of the toolsets listed above, I can keep not more than two of them.
What is most important for me in an SEO browser extension is accuracy and amount of data available. And after using each of these tools for a while, I’ve kept Ahrefs SEO toolbar and Similar Web installed.
In my opinion, Similar Web doesn’t have any alternatives in terms of traffic data and convenience at the moment. Ahrefs SEO Toolbar can be used alongside or replaced with SEOquake.
Each of the tools requires the user to have an account with either Ahrefs or SemRush to work at full capacity. When it comes to functionality and convenience, they are a lot alike.
But after considering the amount of data, integration into the parent-interfaces, accuracy, and reliability; I stuck with Ahrefs.
Do you have any more toolbars for Chrome specifically developed for marketers like you and I? Let me know in the comment section below!
