Are there any SEO tools useful for developers and not just marketers

Discussion
1

Most SEO tools seem aimed at marketers, but what about developers? I’m looking for tools that assist with technical SEO like site audits, structured data, page speed analysis, and indexation issue detection. What tools do you use for SEO as a developer?

2

I recommend using GTmetrix, Screaming Frog, and Lighthouse for developer-focused SEO.

3

Lyle said:
I recommend using GTmetrix, Screaming Frog, and Lighthouse for developer-focused SEO.

We use Screaming Frog and Lighthouse from Chrome DevTools too.
Edit: We also use Google Search Console, but to a lesser extent.

4

I found keysearch.co (not affiliated) recently. It’s affordable compared to Ahrefs and Moz.

5

SEO tools are often made for marketers since they typically care more about it. For developers, the best tools provide real data. Google Search Console is a must. Lighthouse in Chrome is useful for performance and accessibility. Screaming Frog is excellent for crawling your site. If you want more detailed analysis, Ahrefs and Semrush offer solid technical audits. It’s best to choose tools that tell you what’s actually wrong, not just ones that give scores.

6

Siteimprove is worth checking out

7

I end up dealing with this a good bit, not by choice, but I find myself working with designers and developers using Wordpress and no-code platforms. I help with sites that are mostly raw HTML, CSS, and JS.

Here’s my usual process for most projects:

  • Check the source or filesystem for basics like the meta tag structure, sitemap presence, and robots.txt issues.
  • Verify the site/domain in Google Search Console to spot major indexing issues.
  • For keyword ideas, depending on the project, I use Ahrefs, Moz Keyword Tool, or sometimes Google Trends. Quite often, these keywords are provided for me from upstream with guidance on what to change (like page text, meta tags, etc.).
  • I run a scan with a PageSpeed Tool or GTmetrix. These tools help identify focus areas like image formats, minifying JS/CSS, and adding async/defer tags to JS.
8

@Cedar
Well explained. I follow a similar approach, and it gets the job done.

9

Have you checked out Vite