SEO add-ins for Excel: op­ti­miz­ing and editing all in one

When taking a universal approach to SEO, the fee-based add-in SeoTools for Excel by Niels Bosma will have you covered for multiple SEO in­te­gra­tions. The tool offers different pro­gram­ing in­ter­faces or APIs (ap­pli­ca­tion pro­gram­ming in­ter­faces) for typical SEO analysis tools. These include Ahrefs, Google AdWords, Google Analytics, Majestic, Moz, Search­metrics, SEMrush, SISTRIX, and SE­Olyitics. Through its toolbar, the add-in allows users to access the program’s in­di­vid­ual com­po­nents and determine via commands the CELL functions for analyzing SEO data. The tool can be down­loaded free of charge upon reg­is­ter­ing on Seo-Tools-for-Excel’s website. But the complete, ad-free version is only available to users who first purchase the fee-based Pro version. For help with in­stal­la­tion, there’s a tutorial video on the product’s website. SeoTools for Excel allows semantic labeling (page titles, headlines, meta de­scrip­tions, and keywords) to be clearly displayed in Excel. This provides users with a compact overview of the content structure of their own website.

The API from Google Adwords also makes it possible to run keyword analyses within your own website.

The add-in SEO Gadget provides a good free al­ter­na­tive to other fee-based options. While it is also based on Windows, Mac and Ubuntu users aren’t without options here, as the program can also be installed via ex­ten­sions like Paralles or Vir­tu­al­box. SEO Gadget uses the pro­gram­ming interface of analysis tools like Moz, the link database Majestic and the keyword tool GrepWords to evaluate SEO data. While the add-in is offered as a freeware, some costs may still apply, depending on how the tool is used. Once you’ve finished in­stalling the program via the API key (more ex­haus­tive in­struc­tions on this can be found on the SEO Gadget website, the con­nec­tion can be directly used. SEO Gadget allows users to read out URL metrics directly in their own Excel table. With the help of the Moz API, this allows you to determine the quality of your own domain, sub­do­mains, external links, and backlinks (backlink analysis). What’s more, anchor text data can also be evaluated in order to obtain more in­for­ma­tion about the semantic con­nec­tion between anchor texts and linked content.

The Majestic API gives users access to important index sta­tis­tics from the Majestic data base; this includes in­for­ma­tion on backlink history, as well as domains that refer to one’s own website.

As a keyword research tool, the GrepWords in­te­gra­tion offers useful tips on how to create more complete search terms when looking for suitable long and short-tail keywords.

In addition to the extensive, universal Excel add-ins, there are also al­ter­na­tives available for ad­di­tion­al SEO areas:

The fee-based add-in e4seo connects Excel with Search­metrics data in order to create SEO reports; this feature also includes graphical display options. A 30-day test version is available for download on the e4seo website.

The simply designed Analytics Edge Basic add-in on the other hand, is free-of-charge and is able to connect Excel with SEO data from Google Analytics. Con­nec­tors in the Excel toolbar allow unlimited requests to take place; fur­ther­more, they enable Google Analytics data as well as the social share counts (like and share data) of pages like Facebook, Pinterest, and Google+ to be directly updated. A video in­tro­duc­tion on the website explains the ap­pli­ca­tion.

And when it comes to keyword research, there are al­ter­na­tive SEO plugins for Excel. Those who prefer using Bing instead of Google and wish to dock their data in Excel can use Microsoft’s free extension Bing Ads In­tel­li­gence. Besides an Excel version from 2007 or later, Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office is also required. This tool allows users to plan and optimize their own keyword campaigns via the Bing Ads database. What’s more, Bing Ads allow users to check the daily, weekly, and monthly traffic of their search requests, as well as the per­for­mance of specific keywords (among other pa­ra­me­ters such as clicks, im­pres­sions, and costs). They can then connect this data with existing Bing Ads campaigns. Research options for search processes can also be aligned with specific user data, such as user location and age groups.