If you’re looking for an easy way to improve your website’s search engine visibility, then SEO Minion is the tool for you! It’s a powerful yet user-friendly SEO tool that can help you optimize your website and get more organic traffic. In this blog post, we’ll show you how to use SEO Minion. So let’s get started!

What is SEO Minion

SEO Minion is a SEO tool available for FREE on Chrome Web Store. You can download this tool via their website as well (which re-directs to the chrome web store). I stumbled across this tool a few months ago and it has made my life as an SEO a lot easier.

This tool isn’t as powerful as well known tools like Ahrefs or Semrush but, it is a great lightweight tool (browser extension) which can be very useful in your digital marketing approach. Here is an honest review of how I have used the tool to my benefit.

Features of SEO Minion

There are 7 Primary features which makes this tool a hit and a must have tool for SEOs. Here is a break down of the 7 features and how can they help with SEO.

Analyze On-Page SEO

The analyze on-page SEO feature helps in checking/optimizing the webpage in question. Once you have downloaded and installed the extension, all you need to do is open a URL and click on the SEO Minion icon which should be on the top right hand side of your browser (next to the address bar)

Here is a screenshot of my own webpage above and as you can see the extension has been activated. Notice as soon as the extension activates, you instantly are presented with useful information at the bottom which is the status code, indexable and followable.

Status Code 200 means that there is no problem with the webpage.
Indexable means that Google can index the webpage or to sound technical, the page directive is “index”
Followable means that Google (crawler) has been instructed to follow the links to the page.

Well in short this means that Google (crawler) can retrieve and index the webpage.

When we perform on page SEO checks on any webpage, there are a few common areas that we look at such as:

• Keyword in URL
• Keyword in title and the title length
• Keyword in meta description and meta description length
• The canonicalized URL
• Meta Robots directives such as “follow, index, max-snippet etc”
• The Hierarchy (H1-H6) tags and
• The Open Graph settings (social sharing)

Here is where the analyze on page SEO feature helps by crawling and displaying all of the above mentioned information in one click, on one screen and within 1 second!

Here is how it looks:

Amazing isn’t it? Within a second I have all this rich information in front of me and helps me perform a quick analysis of the webpage.

Of course I would recommend Ahrefs, Semrush or Screaming Frog for bulk analysis but for a single page, SEO Minion is the best. It’s quick, easy and to mention it once again it’s FREE!!

Highlight All Links

The next feature is called Highlight All Links which basically does what is sounds like. It highlights all the links on a webpage which can be sorted out based on your requirements.

You can choose a combination of your requirements here to find out the type of links you would like to find and highlight them. Here are useful combinations to get you quick answers:

• All + All: Literally highlights all the links on the webpage.
• All + Follow: Highlights all links (external or internal) with a dofollow attribute.
• All + NoFollow: Highlights all links (external or internal) with a nofollow attribute.
• Internal + All: Highlights all internal links on the webpage.
• Internal + Follow: Highlights all internal links with a dofollow attribute.
• Internal + NoFollow: Highlights all internal links with a nofollow attribute.
• External + All: Highlights all external links on the webpage.
• External+ Follow: Highlights all external links with a dofollow attribute.
• External+ NoFollow: Highlights all external links with a nofollow attribute.

You can also download the entire list of links using the combinations mentioned above for record keeping. Again, within a few seconds, whereas, any other SEO tool would take a few minutes to run an analysis.

Check Broken Links

Honestly, this was the feature that I was most impressed with that made me a fan of this tool. In my opinion, SEO Minion’s broken link checker is the best feature amongst the rest.

It is accurate, free and hardly takes any time for analysis. I personally use this tool on other websites rather my own, which I will get into detail later in this article.

Similar to the feature of highlight all links that we spoke about earlier, the broken link checker can be used in the same combinations to discover various types of link data that you seek. However, unlike the highlight all links feature, this one presents data in an organized manner as you can see in the image above.

You can further filter the link types based on 404, No Domain, Redirect, Server Error, Unknown and Valid. To add more, you can just scroll down and see a list of URL’s captured based on your combinations and filters.

Earlier I said that I use this tool on other websites rather than my own and here’s why.

The broken link checker feature instantly allows you to bifurcate data based on the links and it’s types. I simply use this tool on websites where I seek an opportunity to earn a backlink. It’s really simple, find and identify a webpage on someone’s website where your content (link) can be added.

Run the broken link checker on that page to identify broken links. I use the combination of External + All to highlight the identified broken links and further filter this to either 404 or No Domain.

404 means the webpage has either moved or no longer available whereas no domain means that the website itself no longer exists.

Then I write a mail to the website owner (I use hunter.io to find the emails) informing them about the broken links and offering my own article/blog link in exchange. It creates a win-win situation for both of us. All they need to do is replace the broken link with your article link.

And we have just earned a valuable relation with the website owner.

Rather than just getting a backlink (which I still got), I also had the opportunity to build a relationship with the website owner which presents an opportunity for more collaborations (links) in the future as well.

I have generated quite a few backlinks thanks to this tool and hardly invested more than 15 minutes in the entire process. From identifying the broken link, figuring out their email ID to writing them an email (I use a template which I prepared for myself) in under 10-15 minutes.

Hence, dedicating an hour would result in shooting out 4-6 emails per day. That is 28 – 42 emails a week for generating backlinks and building relations with important websites. Even if you have managed to generate no more than 6-7 links within the week, I still call it a win.

Hreflang Checker

I haven’t used this feature at all since my website is not multilingual. It basically crawls and identifies the different languages your website is indexed on SERP.

It helps you to check and confirm if your website has a “x-default” language set up which is the default language of your content. Along with the canonicalized version of the pages in another language and the return tag.

To put it simply, all this feature does is that it presents data of your multilingual website and if it has been set up properly using hreflang.

SERP Preview

SEO Minion’s SERP preview feature let’s you check how your article appears on SERP. You can make certain changes to your title and meta description from the tool (does NOT change the actual SERP snippet) to visualize how alternate versions of your title and description would look like.

As you can see, I have changed the title and description on the right which reflects the changes on the left. However, the way I use it is to check if my website would pop up using different search query combinations.

Google highlights the matching search query in bold on the meta description. I use this tool to search for different search queries to ensure I have a meta description which can reflect the possible search combinations. For example,

What is SEO
SEO techniques
SEO basics
How long does SEO take
SEO techniques for beginners

All these keywords are present in my meta description. They don’t necessarily appear together but are present somewhere in the description.

If I put in a query which results in a missing keyword, then, I try to rework on my description to see if it can be added somewhere. It doesn’t necessarily guarantee a high ranking but rather presents itself as a possibility to drive some extra traffic to the website.

SERP Location Checker and SERP Location Checker v/s

Another feature that got me hooked to SEO Minion is the SERP Location Checker! When you are trying to rank a website in a region different than yours, then, you have to heavily rely on 3rd party tools to give you the ranking information you need.

With the SERP Location Checker you can instantly check your ranking for a particular keyword in a particular region. It’s simple to use and again, the data is in front of you within seconds.

Punch in the query at the bottom and set up your website URL to see your website’s ranking position in another region. In the image above, SEO Minion has basically opened up Google USA and shows what people in the US see when they type “what is SEO”

You can select any region from the bottom and see who ranks where in the selected region for the search query. You can also check your own domain/URL rankings in different regions or use the SERP Location Checker v/s for a side by side comparison.

Here is a side by side comparison for the search query “what is SEO” in the United States and the United Kingdom.

People in the US are presented with an article from Search Engine Land whereas people in the UK are presented with a dictionary definition of SEO.

If anyone from UK is reading this, then here’s an opportunity for you. Start optimizing your content!

SEO Minion SERP Extension

Besides all the features which I have covered above, the SEO Minion tool has more features that can be used to understand SERP data more accurately. Here is how I use it to strategize my content.

After installing the extension, you will see it appear on the right hand side of your screen (will be at the bottom if you already have other active extensions) when you put in a search query.

NOTE – For this feature to work you must have default Google search settings. The results per page needs to be at 10, if you have it at 100 then please change it for this extension to be truly useful.

Here is what happens when I search for “why are cupcakes hard on top”

On the right, you can see the extension as well as some data and numbers. Let’s understand what this means.

As per my region, out of 10 there are 7 organic results for this keyword and remaining 3 are organic video listings.

There are no ads running for this keyword, no product listings, no local listings, no image listings, no fresh listings, no news listings and no FAQ snippets.

This is useful information as it directs you into the right direction for optimizing your content. Since there are only 7 organic listings, it’s going to be harder for you to rank your blog for the keyword. Alternately, there is an opportunity to create a video (YouTube) and you could rank for that.

Hence, if you are only into blogging or vlogging then ranking for this search query is going to be a bit difficult. However, if you are blogging as well as vlogging, then here is an awesome opportunity to squeeze out as much traffic as possible by ranking for both – your blog as well as your video.

No Product Listing – Because the query itself is informational in nature.
No Local Listing – Because the query is not commercial or transactional in nature.
No Image Listing – Again, doesn’t fit well with the query.
No Fresh Listing – Indicates that there are no new entries in the top 10.
No News Listing – Should I even answer this?
FAQ Snippets – Can be done. I see it as an opportunity!

Check out the search query for “best cupcakes in New York“

The picture completely changed, didn’t it?

We have 8 organic results with 4 ads plus 3 local listings and a fresh listing. Shows how competitive the keyword really is as well as different approaches we can use to rank for them.

Hence, you can take a call whether to:

• Compete with the other 8 websites for organic listing.
• Optimize for Local Listing instead, or
• Simply run ads to drive traffic.

Basically choose between on-page and off-page SEO, local SEO or PPC campaigns respectively. Optimizing for videos, product listing and image listings seems like a waste for this keyword at this point in time.

This is why I love SEO Minion, almost instantly I have extremely useful information at hand which helps me choosing the right strategy. I know exactly which areas need optimization and which areas to ignore, making me more efficient in planning and saving a ton of hours which I would have wasted trying to do the impossible.

SEO Minion URL Extraction

Another cool and useful feature is the ability to extract the desired URLs from SERP within a few seconds to a few minutes. On the tool itself (on SERP) you can instantly download a plethora of information based on your needs. I keep using it to extract the “People Also Ask” section to enhance my blogs.

As you can see in the image above, there is a lot of different types of URLs that you can extract. Depending on what you want to achieve, you can use this data in a manner which is beneficial to you.

For example, if you would like to rank on page 1 and you see a fresh listing appear on SEO Minion, the, you could simply extract that URL – open it in a new tab – run the SEO Minion extension on it and reverse engineer what worked for them.

You can also plug them into tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to spy on their link profile (for that URL only) and see if you too can win some links from the referring domains.

Conclusion

SEO Minion is a powerful tool and I am still unable to understand why is it free of charge? However, it’s a great tool to have in your arsenal as it can help you validate, modify or completely change your strategy by sharing insights and data which will push you towards the right direction.

I highly recommend this tool to all SEOs out there, especially to freelancers, as it can give you powerful insights on how to move forward with your newly acquired customers whose niche is more alien to you than an actual alien.

Thanks for taking out the time and reading!

PS – Here is an article with a few more extensions that can come handy.