10 of the Best Firefox Addons for SEO and Web Development

I have seen a number of great articles on the web with people’s preferred Firefox addons. I agree with some them and have also found some new ones to play with. So to return the favour, so to speak, I am going to release what i think are the most useful Firefox addons in regard to web development and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). An additional bonus is that ‘Top 10’s’ always make good link bait in SEO (there’s a tip for you SEOs and blog writers!). This list is written in no particular order so lets start…

1) ‘All in One SideBar‘ this, and it has to be said is my favorite, allows you to access and manage all your Firefox addons through a side bar which is incorporated in to your browser. This is real over kill if you are a normal web user, but for a developer it isn’t half handy. Highly recommended, therefore instead of having a link to the Firefox page, here is the link for the developers’ site to show my support. http://firefox.exxile.net/aios/index.php

2) ‘Web developer tool bar‘, I prefer this to the ever popular firebug, which i also have installed, although it doesn’t have any functions to debug javascript, it is a great tool for development and tests CSS on the fly. Keys to remember after installing are “ctrl shift f ” and “ctrl shift e”. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60

3) ‘IE Tab‘ if you are a developer, you should already be using this as it allows you to switch to what your site looks like in IE while being in your Firefox browser. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419 As for a test in later versions of IE, I recommend Multiple IE. http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

4) ‘Grease Monkey‘ this allows you to alter the way a given web page is displayed by adding bits of javascript.https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/748 For instance, you can get a script for Grease Monkey that puts numbers next to your search results in Google. From http://www.addedbytes.com/tools/ Very useful for quick SEO queries.

5) ‘Live HTTP Headers‘ for advanced SEOs/developers, lets you see the header request in regards to web 2.0 technologies. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3829

6) ‘Tabs open‘ relatively does what it says on the tin. It is very useful when you have got as many tabs open as I have! https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1956

7) ‘Delicious Bookmark’ because like many developers I use mutliple computers at home and at work. I uses Delicious so that I can easily access my bookmarks anywhere. Delicious Bookmark for Firefox, intergrates the bookmarks into Firefox so that I can quickly add favorites to my Delicious account. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3615 To use this tool, you will need a
Delicious account. https://secure.delicious.com/register

8 ) ‘ColorZilla‘ allows you to select a color from a given webpage and gives you it’s hex value. Great for design. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/271

9) ‘GA?’ This is a nice little SEO tool that allows you to see if Google Analytics is installed on a given site by a nicely colored icon in the bottom right of the screen. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5631

10) And finally, the ‘Smart Digg Button‘ this allows you to Digg articles like this straight into your Digg account.https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4878

All that is left to say is a massive thankyou to the developer of all the Firefox addons and keep up the good work, Firefox rocks ! If you think that you known of any better addons that I have missed, feel free to email me or leave a comment so other users can see what is available.