One question we often get asked by clients is “what’s the easiest way for us to check important elements of page”. While there are a plethora of SEO tools out there, we often find that browser extensions are the most simple solution to quickly verify or check specific aspects of a page. They can also be a good workaround option for those unfamiliar with navigating through code.
The Google chrome extensions below are some of our most used, each providing a slightly different use case – from checking meta content, core web vitals, headings, image tags, code structure, rendered code or analytics tags.
SEO Pro
SEO Pro provides some particularly handy information about a page, allowing you to quickly check the meta content, canonical links and meta robots tag. On top of that, it can also display core web vitals scores, check schema markup, HTTP status/redirects and highlight missing alt tags.
Available here: SEO Pro Extension
Web Developer
This extension has been around for what seems like forever and I think I’ve had it installed for over 10 years at a guess. It provides a raft of handy features to help you understand specific page elements and coding. I find it particularly useful for disabling Javascript (to see what is presented on a page and how it responds), disabling CSS, outlining heading tags, displaying link details and overlaying alt text on all images.
Available here: Web Developer Extension
Page-oscope by MobileMoxie
Given the wide use of Javascript frameworks and responsive design, it’s often important to check the code rendered on mobile devices to validate what is being presented (or not presented). This is particularly important for SEO, where search engines like Google use mobile first indexing.
This extension makes things very easy by showing the visual page rendering alongside views for rendered HTML and JavaScript, unrendered HTML and a Difference Checker view which will highlight what is added and what is removed after JavaScript is executed.
Available here: Page-oscope by MobileMoxie
Google Tag Assistant (Legacy)
If you’re wanting to quickly check for Google Analytics and/or Tag Manager code on a page, this extension can be a real time saver. It will list all tags fired on the page and highlight any potential errors.
Available here: Google Tag Assistant (Legacy)
Note – their is also a newer version called Tag Assistant Companion which is a better option if you’re looking to debug Tag Manager.
Other SEO Extensions
There are a raft of other Google Chrome extensions available in the webstore. If you are interested in reading more, there are a few “best of” lists out there which detail some other SEO extensions:
- 26 Best Free Chrome Extensions for SEOs (Tried & Tested) – ahrefs
- 13 Best Chrome Extensions for Digital Marketing and SEO – Search Engine Journal
- The 23 Best Google Chrome Extensions for SEO – HubSpot
