Note: My premium training course, "The SEO Playbook", will re-open soon. Find out more about the program and see what other students are saying here.
Looking to create high-performing SEO campaigns?
Then you need a stout SEO toolset.
The problem? The more tools you buy/subscribe-to, the more costs skyrocket.
Think about it:
Keyword research toolโฆ$100+/month.
Link analysis toolโฆ$100+/month.
Rank tracking toolโฆ$100+/month.
Site audit tool...$100+/month.
And you're just getting started. Before you know it, youโre spending $500+ a month on SEO tools.
Not to mention:
Each standalone tool comes with its own learning curve. And few, if any, of the tools will integrate with each other.
The solution?
Ahrefs (affiliate).
In this review, Iโm going to show you EVERYTHING Ahrefs can do, and walk you step-by-step through 60+ practical applications of the tool you can use to immediately boost the performance of your SEO campaigns, grow your organic traffic, and business.
Author's Note:
Ahrefs is an integral part of my SEO toolset. The backlink, keyword and content insights it delivers are invaluable when it comes to building out successful SEO & PPC campaigns for personal and client projects.
Note: This button contains an affiliate link. If you purchase a subscription to Ahrefs through this link I will receive a commission at no additional cost to you.
Ok, before we dive in let me make one thing clear...
Ahrefs is NOT a Standalone "SEO Tool"...
Ahrefs isnโt an SEO tool.
Itโs a suite of SEO tools.
Link analysis. Keyword research. Content exploration. Rank trackingโฆAhrefs can do it all.
And because all the tools are under one roof, they integrate with one-another perfectly.
While Ahrefs is most well-known for its HUGE link index....
Over the last couple years, itโs morphed into a swiss-army knife for any serious marketer or SEO practitioner. In fact, Ahrefs was voted the #1 SEO agency software.
Hereโs a look at the data:
Ahrefs Statistics (source) |
---|
Backlink Index | |
---|---|
Domains in index | 162.8 million |
Pages in index | 285.6 billion |
Internal backlinks โโโโโin index | 15.9 trillion (yes, TRILLION) |
External backlinks in index | 2.2 trillion |
Content Index (Content Explorer) | |
---|---|
Total content index size | 1.1 billion pages |
New pages discovered (every 24 hours) | 1.8 million |
Number of metrics updated (every 24 hours) | 72 million |
Full update period | Monthly |
Keywords index (Keyword Explorer) | |
---|---|
Keywords in database (total) | 7.9 billion |
Keywords in US database | 3.3 billion |
Keywords index (Site Explorer) | |
---|---|
Keywords in database (total) | 483 million |
Keywords in US database | 154 million |
Here are the 6 core areas where the tool can provide value for SEOs and marketers:
Backlink Analysis
Get an in-depth look at the backlink profile of any URL. Use the data to drive high-performing link building campaigns, and qualify keyword opportunities.
Keyword Research
Find, qualify and map keyword ideas across your funnel. Use Ahref's keyword difficulty, traffic, value and SERP overview reports to identify high-value KW opportunities.
Competitor Research
Get an unhindered behind-the-scenes view of your competitor's link building, PPC and content strategy. Use the insights to find gaps, and drive your own strategy.
Content Strategy
Quickly find out which content types and topics are driving the most traffic, links and engagement across major social networks. Use the data to inform your content strategy.
SEO Audits
Use the Site Audit tool to quickly find technical and on-page issues that are hurting your search performance.
Rank Tracking
Track the rankings of important keywords by location and device. Monitor progress against the competition.
IMPORTANT: Tools Are Great,
But They Wonโt Do The Work For You
Ahrefs provides a near endless number of potential use casesโIโve listed over 50 below.
But:
While it can do a lot, Ahrefs is only as powerful as the person using it (i.e. you!)
Truth is, many people get excited about everything the tool can do, sign up for an account (affiliate), and only get a fraction of the potential value from it.
I donโt want this to be you.
In this review, Iโm going to break down the core areas of the tool and dive into 60+ step-by-step applications of the tool. I want you to immediately harness the power of this tool in your business and/or client campaigns.
This is a monster review of Ahrefs, so I have included a table of content below so you can jump straight to a specific tool or topic of interest.
You can also download a PDF of this guide.
AHREFS REVIEW: TABLE OF CONTENTS | |
---|---|
Letโs start from the top...
How to Set Up Projects in Ahrefs...
Hereโs what youโll see when you log in to Ahrefs (affiliate)โthe Dashboard:
It gives you a high-level overview of all your web properties (i.e. any websites that you add to your account).
At a glance, it shows you:
- Ahrefs Rank: How your website stacks up against every other website in Ahrefsโ index. The lower, the better.
- Domain Rating (DR): A domain โauthorityโ rating on a scale of 0-100
- URL Rating (UR): A URL โauthorityโ rating (again, on a 100-point scale)
- Backlinks: Number of backlinks pointing to your entire website (i.e. across every page/post)
- Referring Domains: Number of unique domains linking to your domain
- Organic Keywords: Total number of organic keywords your website currently ranks for
- Tracked Keywords: The total number of tracked keywords (i.e. keywords you specifically told Ahrefs to track during the setup stage) your site is ranking for. And the positions in which each of those keywords is ranking.
You can click any of the metrics in your dashboard to see more in-depth information.
Within your dashboard, thereโs an option to add a new project.
Once a project is added, it will show up in your dashboard.
Note: Your plan will dictate the number of websites you can add to your account. But it will be somewhere between 5-100. More info on Ahrefs plans and pricing here (affiliate).
Hereโs how to do it:
Enter your domain and a project name. You should always use the โhttp + httpsโ naming convention here:
Select keywords to track. These can be entered manually, or you can select them from the list:
Add a few competitors. Again, these can be entered manually (if you have specific competitors in mind). Or you can select them from the auto-generated list:
Finally, enter any keywords or online brand mentions you want to monitor. I recommend entering at least a few branded keywords (e.g. โrobbie richardsโ, โwww.robbierichards.comโ, etc.):
And thatโs it. Youโre all set up and ready to go! ๐
An In-Depth Look at the Entire Ahrefs Toolset...
Each tool in the Ahrefs toolset has a specific use case.
We'll dive into the practical applications of each one, but here is a brief overview of the main tools you'll see in the top-level navigation bar:
Alerts (affiliate): Set up alerts (via email) for new keyword rankings, new backlinks, and online mentions. Very useful for link building (as weโll discuss later!).
Site Explorer (affiliate):
Analyze the link profile of any website or URL. Check backlinks, referring domains, anchors, organic traffic, broken links, and more.
Keywords Explorer (affiliate): Find thousands of relevant keyword ideas from a single parent topic. Gather accurate search volume data, keyword difficulty scores, and a bunch of other advanced metrics in the SERP overview report.
Content Explorer (affiliate): Find the most shared content on the web, related to any topic. Use advanced filters - referring domains, social shares, organic traffic and more - to find proven content topics for your website.
Rank Tracker (affiliate): Track the rankings of important keywords for your website and competitors. Shows where youโre ranking for tracked keywords. Also shows organic traffic estimates, SERP features, visibility, and more.
Site Audit (affiliate): Scan your website and quickly uncover hundreds of technical and on-page SEO issues.
Domain Comparison (affiliate): See how multiple domains (up to 5) stack up against each other across key SEO metrics - backlinks, domain ratings, content and more.
Link Intersect (affiliate): See whoโs linking to your competitors (up to 10), but not to you. Also, quickly find all the websites linking to your competitors multiple times. An extremely powerful tool for finding high quality link prospects.
Batch Analysis (affiliate): Upload and analyze up to 200 domains or specific URLs.
SEO Toolbar (affiliate): Analyze domain and page-level SEO metrics directly in the SERP.
Thatโs a lot of functionality.
But, this guide is about practical application. Thereโs no point in me listing a bunch of awesome features and reports. You can see all that on the Ahrefs homepage.
In this guide, Iโll walk you step-by-step through how to actually use the Ahrefs toolset to improve your efficiency and performance in keyword research, link building, content strategy, PPC and more.
Letโs go.
Site Explorer (Reports/ Practical Applications)
Want to know who is linking to a domain or webpage?
How about the amount of organic traffic going to a specific page/post?
Maybe you want to know which specific keywords are driving traffic to a certain page/post?
Or perhaps you want to look at all the PPC keywords your top competitors are bidding on?...
Site Explorer can do all of this. And a LOT more.
But, it all begins with Ahrefs' HUGE link index...
Backlinks Report
This report shows every inbound link pointing โto any domain or URL:
It also shows a bunch of other important metrics for each backlink:
- Referring page URL
- DR & UR of each referring page
- # of external backlinks on the referring page (i.e. how many backlinks your link is amongst)
- Destination URL
- Link anchor text
- Social signals for the referring page
- Date the link was first seen, last seen, or lost
This is very useful for uncovering how your competitors are building backlinks and domain/page authority.
The report has several handy filters:
- Link type: Dofollow, nofollow, educational, governmental, redirects, etc.
- Platform: Blogs, ecommerce sites, message boards, WordPress, etc.
- Language: English, Russian, etc.
Using these filters will allow you to get immediate visibility into the types of links your competitors are getting.
You can also sort by DR to quickly identify the highest authority link sources.
New Backlinks
This report shows any new backlinks acquired by a domain or specific URL.
At the top of the report, youโll see a calendar view. This shows backlinks acquired on a day-by-day basis:
And below it, youโll see a list of all the new backlinks over a certain time period:
You can filter this view across several different timeframes:
And a variety of other data points:
- Link type: Dofollow, nofollow, governmental, educational, etc.
- Platform: WordPress, Wikis, message boards, etc.
- Language: English, Russian, etc.
Use the New Backlinks report to see how and where competitors are acquiring links...and replicate their strategy in your business.
Enter a competitorโs domain (or similar competing page) into Site Explorer.
Go to Backlinks > New.
Filter for dofollow links only.
Add a 30-day filter:
BOOM. You can now see all the links your competitor acquired in the last 30 days.
Sift through the links and take note of how they were built (e.g. guest post? editorial?), and where they were built. Next, reach out and grab those links for yourself!
Note: Do this every 30 days and youโll have a never-ending supply of link prospects!
You can also use the backlink report filters to find your competitorโs most authoritative backlink sources that have the highest referral traffic potential:
Bonus Strategy
You can also use the New Backlinks report in the keyword qualification procesโs.
For example:
โ
You can use the report to see the velocity at which competing pages are acquiring new links to their content.
So, if you publish a new article and the competing assets have on average 20 referring domains pointing to them, and are acquiring 2 new links a month, you can calculate that you'll need to build 10 new links to your content for 3 months in order to catch them and aggressively compete for rankings.
This type of insight is very valuable when determining the workload that will go into targeting different keywords/topics.
Lost Backlinks
This report is the same as the new backlinks report, only it shows lost backlinks:
Again, thereโs a calendar view:
And a list-view:
And you have all the same filters as the new backlinks report:
How to use this report:
Enter your domain (or a particular page URL) into Site Explorer.
Go to Backlinks > Lost.
Filter for dofollow links only.
Add a 30-day filter.
You will now see all the links youโve lost in the last 30 days:
โ
If there are any good links in there, check out the page(s) and try to figure out why the link was dropped.
If it looks like a mistake, reach out to the site and reclaim the link!
Note: Do this every 30 days for some quick link wins.
Broken Links
This report shows any broken inbound links pointing to your website (or a particular URL):
Usually, these exist because you have 404 errors on your site.
This is bad, because youโre effectively losing link equity.
How to use this report:
Enter your domain into Site Explorer.
Go to Backlinks > Broken (this is the broken links report)
Filter for dofollow links:
Check why the link is brokenโit will usually be a 404 error:
Then you have three options:
- Reinstate the page on your website (by fixing the broken link)
- Redirect the broken link (301) to another relevant page
- Reach out to the site linking to the broken address, explain the issue, and tell them where that piece of content now resides on your website (hint: this is the option you should go for if the person linking to you made a mistake on their end)
Done! This is one of the first strategies I look at when planning link building strategies for my clients.
Referring Domains Report
This report shows all the unique referring domains pointing to any website/webpage:
Note: Youโll notice that this list is ordered by the Domain Rating, by default.
It also shows how many times each domain links to you:
And if you click the drop-down, youโll see the actual pages theyโre linking to/from:
Note: Check the anchor text looks legitimate. If you see anything fishy like a lot of over-optimized anchor text, or anything that would indicate spam, use the RDs report to drill into the source of those and potentially add to the disavow list inside Ahrefs.
How to use this report:
- Enter your domain into Site Explorer.
- Go to Referring Domains.
- Filter for Dofollow links only.
- Look for websites that have linked to you multiple timesโthese people are clearly fans of your work.
Note: Just make sure to discount sites like reddit, plus.google.com, etc.
You should reach out to these people and thank them, share their content, and start to build a relationship. Chances are these "advocates" will link out to you again in the future
Hereโs a video showing how to use the referring domains report + a Google Custom Search Engine to build a TON of links through your existing advocates:
Anchors Report
This report shows the anchor text people are using when linking to you:
You can use this report to identify unnatural, over-optimized anchor text that could put your site at risk of a potential Penguin penalty.
You should have a nicely balanced anchor text profile containing branded, generic, exact and partial match anchor text, as well as some naked URLs.
If your profile is more than 10-15% exact-match anchors (e.g. lots of people linking with โbest wireless routerโ as the anchor), it could flag spam filters:
Disavow anything that is unnatural (or at least reach out and request an anchor text change).
Hereโs a cool trick:
Look out for anchor text mentioning some kind of service or product:
If you spot this, click the drop-down arrow to reveal the actual domains/pages using this anchor text:
This is a good way to discover some quick opportunities.
Why? Because sites that link with this kind of anchor text are most likely linking to deep product/service-type pages (i.e. pages that are difficult to get links to).
Referring IPs
This report shows the IP addresses of the domains linking to any website (or webpage):
By default, the list is grouped by networks (i.e. referring c-class IPs).
And itโs sorted by the number of domains falling under each c-class IP.
This is really useful.
Why? Because you can use this report to identify low-quality, spammy links...such as links from PBNs.
How to use this report:
Enter your domain into Site Explorer.
Go to Referring IPs.
Look for links from many domains with the same c-class IP.
Example:
32 links from 8 referring domains...all of which are under the same c-class IP.
If you spot anything like this, hit the drop-down arrow to reveal the actual domains/links:
In this instance, the links are all on the same c-class IP because theyโre from .blogspot blogs.
So, itโs not really an issue.
BUT:
Sometimes youโll uncover super-spammy links, which will then need to be disavowed.
Internal Backlinks Report
The Internal Backlinks Report shows you a list of pages on your site linking to a target page.
For example, I can enter my Best Keyword Research Tool page into the search bar:
And discover which internal pages link to it:
In this example, there are 24 internal backlinks. But could there be any more?
Using the report, you can work through the list to see what links exist, and identify extra pages that could link to this topic.
You can also check on the quality of the โanchor textโ. For instance, you might spot opportunities to change the anchor text to an โexact matchโ or โpartial matchโ.
The quickest way to check all the pages is by using the filters at the top of the page.
For example, you can include/exclude pages that contain a word or phrase in the URLs, Anchors, and Surrounding text.
In this example, Iโve added a filter for โDofollowโ links only so there are no redirects, and Iโve excluded pages that contain โkeyword researchโ in any target:
Now, from the resulting list I can see I might want to change the anchor text from โThis expert roundup โฆ to โThis expert roundup of the best keyword research tools โฆโ
Best By Links Report
This is one of my favorites! The report shows you the most linked-to pages on any domain:
By default, the report is sorted by referring domains (highest to lowest).
This report can provide a treasure trove of valuable insights about your competitor's content strategy and link building campaigns.
Specifically, it's useful for finding out what types of content attracts the most links in your industry.
You can then just copy what works ๐
How to use this report:
Enter a competitors domain into Site Explorer.
Go to Pages > Best by Links
Do this for a few well-known websites in your verticalโthis will give you a sense of what content types are driving the most links.
Also:
If you spot a page with a bunch of links that could be improved...hit it with the Skyscraper Technique to steal the links for yourself!
Best By Links Growth
This report shows you which pages on a domain have attracted the most links during the past 1, 7, and 30 days:
This is useful for finding content ideas that attract links naturally...CONSISTENTLY.
Why is this helpful?
If a page is getting lots of links over a certain time period, it either:
- Ranks for keywords that journalists search for when looking for sources (and therefore attracts links naturally)
- Is a result of the site doing a lot of outreach for that piece of content (and if they're having success, you could have success too)
How to use this report:
โEnter a competitorsโ domain into Site Explorer.
Go to Pages > Best By Links Growth:
If you spot a page that has attracted a lot of links recently, take a look at the page and try to figure out why.
Note: You can also use the New Backlinks report to check out the actual source of the backlinks.
Next, publish something similar (but better) and replicate their success!
Bonus Strategy
I used this report to provide insights around what content I can "rank for links". I cover this link building strategy in detail here. But, the cliff note version is creating an asset that either:
1) Ranks for a high volume search term that will naturally acquire links over time (usually informational "how-to" type content)
2) Ranks for a topic that other cites will use as a reference (eg: a stat roundup)
Here is an example of an article we "ranked for links" for one of our clients that has passively acquired links from over 150 referring domains in the last 18 months:
Top Content Report
This report shows a domain's top content based on the number of social shares:
Again, this is a useful report for finding popular topic ideas.
How to use this report:
Enter a competitors domain into the Site Explorer.
Go to Pages > Top Content
You will now see the most popular content (ordered by number of social shares) on the domain:
These are GREAT topic ideas to steal ๐
Note: You can also filter the results by social channel to find which topics and types of content perform better on certain social media channels.
For example, a B2B company might want to sort the results by number of shares on LinkedIn.
Linked Domains Report
This report shows which domains any website is linking to:
It also shows how many times each domain is being linked-to (domain-wide). And a bunch of useful metrics.
For example, Iโve linked to Moz.com 130 times:
How to use this report:
Enter your domain into Site Explorer.
Go to Outgoing Links > Linked Domains
Filter to only show dofollow links.
Sort the list by DR (from low-to-high):
This will uncover any potential "low quality" outbound links on your websiteโthese should be removed (if theyโre irrelevant/bad).
Bonus Strategy
Go to Outgoing Links > Broken Links.
This shows you any broken outbound links on your website:
These should be fixedโthey create a poor user-experience and can negatively affect rankings.
How to Find & Disavow Spammy Backlinks
Spammy backlinks are BAD news for your website.
โHow to find and disavow links in Ahrefs:
Enter your domain into Site Explorer and go to Backlink Profile > Backlinks
Filter to only show dofollow links. Sort the list by DR (from low-to-high).
Look for anything spammy, like so:
Hit the checkbox (on the left-hand side):
Scroll back to the top. You should see these two options:
Hit one of the options to add either the URL or entire domain to a disavow file.
This guide (affiliate) will walk you through the entire process of building a disavow file with Ahrefs.
Organic Search Report
Backlink analysis...DONE.
Site Explorer isn't just backlinks and content metrics. It also provides powerful organic search insights.
In fact, Ahrefs' keywords databaseโfrom which the data in all organic reports is pulled fromโis one of the largest in the industry.
Here is an overview of the organic search reports (and how to use them):
Organic Keyword Report
This report shows all the organic keywords youโre currently ranking for:
It also tells you the Search Volume, Keyword Difficulty Score (KD), Cost-per-click (CPC), Position, and an estimate of the amount of traffic each keyword is sending to a given page each month.
How to use this report:
Enter your domain into Site Explorer.
Go to Organic Search > Organic Keywords
Add a positions filter to show only keywords where you currently in positions 5-10:
Hit apply.
You should prioritize these keywords.
Why? Because you currently rank on the first page...but not in the top 5.
Most of the traffic goes to pages ranking in positions 1-3:
If you optimize these pages, build a few links, and relaunch the content, you should be able to move up a few positions and boost your organic traffic:
I've used this exact process to drive fast organic traffic growth to this website, and my clients'.
Editorโs Note: If you want to learn the exact keyword research processes I use to scale organic traffic for my clients, check out my premium training course, The SEO Playbook.
Youโll learn how to find, qualify, prioritize and map keyword data:
Screenshots of the Aggregate and Keyword Mapping tabs in The SEO Playbook.
Bonus Strategies
You can also use this report to see which keywords are driving organic traffic to your competitorsโ websites.
Hereโs how to do it:
Enter a competitorsโ website in Site Explorer.
Go to Organic Search > Organic Keywords
You can now see which keywords are driving the most traffic to your competitors:
Select the keywords most relevant to your business, and start creating content.
Note: Pay attention to the type of content your competitor is using to rank for each search term. It's not use trying to rank a product page for a search term when the entire SERP is filled with blog posts. Listen to what Big "G" is trying to tell you ๐
Take it a step further and analyze which keywords are driving the most traffic to a certain subfolder on a competing website:
Or even a specific URL:
You can even use it to find all the keywords your competitors are ranking for in the featured snippets:
Note: Check out this in-depth guide on how to get more featured snippets.
New (Organic Keywords) Report
This report shows keywords with improved rankings in the past week:
This is a great place to spot new keywords youโre ranking for.
How to use this report:
Enter your domain into Site Explorer.
Go to Organic Search > New
Look for keywords that donโt quite align with the content that is ranking. Next, create content better matched to those keywords.
Example:
My list of recommended tools currently ranks for the keyword โgmass tutorialโ:
Yes, I mention Gmass on that list. But it isnโt a full Gmass tutorial.
It would probably be better if I created a piece of content specifically around that keyword/topic.
This is a quick and easy way to come up with relevant topic ideas.
Movements Report
This report will show you which keywords are gaining and losing traction in the SERPs:
Use the filters to quickly identify which keywords have recently fallen outside the top 5 or 10 positions:
For example:
After June algorithm update, my best SEO audit tools post dropped for most of the queries that did not contain the โbestโ modifier:
However, the queries with the modifier remained stable:
This told me the algorithm update targeted intent. i.e. where it used to show posts for terms like โseo audit toolโ, it was now serving mostly product pages because it sees this as better matching user intent.
Top Pages Report
This is another one of my favorite reports inside Ahrefs. It shows all the pages on a domain that attract the most organic traffic:
It also shows you the estimated value of the organic traffic (in $), the number of keywords the page is ranking for, the top traffic-generating keyword for each page (and its volume), and the position in which the URL ranks for each keyword.
How to use this report:
Enter a competitorsโ domain into Site Explorer.
Go to Organic Search > Top Pages
Look at their top pages to identify topics and keywords that generate a lot of organic to their site. Scan the list and make a note of the keyword/topic ad the corresponding content types that are most relevant to your business.
This is a great report that can help you quickly start mapping out your main product/service pages, and blog assets.
You can also use the report to find loads of secondary keywords for your content, and drastically increase your organic footprint:
You can also use the report to see which pages within specific subfolders are driving the most organic traffic to a website. This is helpful if youโre breaking up the keyword research process across intent buckets - informational, investigational, navigational, transactional:
This report shows that it would be a good idea to create product category pages for products such as beard oil, mustache wax, beard softener etc.
I could then use those terms as seed keywords to determine if it makes sense to build out any sub-category pages.
Similarly, you could analyze the /blogs subfolder to find hundreds of informational topic ideas to drive top-funnel organic traffic:
Use the URL filters to build a laser focused content strategy.
I've created an in-depth video walk-through of the entire process below.
Top Subfolders Report
The Top Subfolders Report sits between the Top Pages and Top Subdomains reports in Site Explorer.
You can use this report to get a top-level view of a siteโs architecture.
For example, you can see that /seo and /social are two of the subfolders on my site:
The report shows that my /seo subfolder contains 47 pages, ranks for 3,314 keywords, and accounts for 84% of my site traffic. Compared to /social which has 12 pages, ranks for 565 keywords, and drives 12% traffic.
So, itโs clear, if you hadnโt already worked it out, that my focus is on SEO!
The report is also useful if you want to drill into different areas of a site based on search intent. For instance, you could compare the informational vs commercial intent content on an ecommerce site.
For example, on Beardbrand, you have the following subfolders:
- Informational - /blogs/urbanbeardsman
- Commercial - /collections
The report shows that Beardbrand contains far more informational content (/blogs/urbanbeardsman) that gets 68% of the traffic, compared to the commercial content (/collections), which gets only 10% of the traffic.
Top Subdomains Report
The Top Subdomains is similar to Top Subfolders. The report shows the subdomains that have the most pages, rank for the most keywords, and drive the most traffic.
For example, if you look at a large site like HubSpot, you can see it has loads of subdomains. But itโs the blog subdomain that has the most pages (12,763), ranks for the most keywords (1,418,172), and drives the most traffic(86%):
Content Gap Analysis Report
This report uncovers keywords that you donโt yet rank for, but your competitors do:
You can use this to quickly uncover gaps in your content strategy (i.e. topical gaps for which you could/should create content around).
The idea:
If multiple competitors are ranking for a keyword, you should also be able to. You just need to create content around the topic.
How to use this report:
Enter your domain into Site Explorer.
Go to Organic Search > Content Gap
Add 3 (or more) of your competitors, like so:
(Oh, and make sure to select the โShow keywords that at least 2 of the below targets rank forโ optionโฆ)
Hit show keywords.
BOOM! You will now see all the keywords your competitors rank for, but you donโt. It also shows you which position theyโre ranking in:
You can see exactly which pages rank for those keywords by clicking the position number.
In a matter of minutes you'll have a list of content gaps you can immediately start filling on your site.
Bonus Strategies
Bonus 1:
You can use the Prefix filter to see which subdirectories contain content gaps. So, an ecommerce site could look to see which products they are not targeting.
For example, Beardbrand could check which commercial intent keywords โshop.beardoholic.comโ has, but โbreadbrand.com/collectionsโ does not.
Note: In this example, Iโve set the following conditions:
- At least one of the targets should rank in the top 10
- The word count is greater than 1 to avoid branded keywords
And hereโs the report, showing which commercial keywords Beardbrand is missing compared to Beardoholic:
Bonus 2:
You can analyze multiple competing URLs to find topics/ terms your competitor is ranking for, but youโre not.
For example, looking at the SERPs, you can see Beardoholic ranks in 5th position for the topic โbeard stylesโ with 1,810 keywords. But their competitor Beardbrand ranks in 9th position with 4,023 keywords:
Using the Content Gap tool, Beardoholic can find those additional keywords.
Enter the exact URL of your content in Site Explorer. Make sure you select โExact URLโ from the dropdown:
Next, in the Content Gap tool, enter the competing article from Beardbrand using the โExact URLโ option:
Note: Selecting โExact URLโ ensures you are comparing the two articles rather than the whole domain.
โ
Click โShow Keywordsโ to see a list of all the keywords the competing article from Beardbrand is ranking for, but the Beardoholic article is not:
In this example, Ahrefs found a total of 106 additional keywords โ ranking in the Top 10 and all with a high monthly volume โ that Beardoholic could add to their existing article.
Competing Domains Report
This report lists all the domains competing with the one you entered into Site Explorerโ. It orders the list based on the number of common keywords each site is ranking for.
Example:
Here are the competing domains for www.robbierichards.com:
How to use this report:
Enter your domain into Site Explorer.
Go to Organic Search > Competing Domains
You should now see a list of domains that compete with your in the SERPs.
Hit the drop-down on any one of the domains. Click either โBacklinksโ or โOrganic Keywordsโ:
You can then drill-down deeper to find both:
- Keyword opportunities
- Backlink opportunities
Bonus Strategy
BONUS:
You can also use this report to find websites to pitch guest posts to.
Hereโs how to do it:
Enter a domain (that you know accepts guest posts) into Site Explorer:
Go to Organic Search > Competing Domains
You will now see a list of other similar sitesโreach out to these and see if they accept guest posts, too!
Competing Pages Report
This report shows individual pages (not domains) competing with you in the SERPs.
Example:
All of these webpages are competing with my list of 14 killer link building strategies in Google:
You can see the number of common keywords weโre both ranking for in the โCommonโ column.
How to use this report:
Enter your domain into Site Explorer.
Go to Organic Search > Competing Pages
Hit the drop-down on any competing page (ideally the one with the most overlap) and hit Backlinks.
This shows you the backlinks pointing to that page:
Because your page is similar, chances are you can also convince those pages to link to your page.
This is an incredible (and super-quick) way to build a list of targeted outreach prospects.
Bonus Strategy
You can also click the "Unique Keywords" link to see if there are any secondary keywords or topics you are currently missing with your article:
PPC Reporting
Site Explorer isnโt limited to SEO-related use cases.
It also has PPC-related reports that sit on top of its massive keyword index.
Hereโs an overview of the reports and how you can use them:
PPC Keywords
This report finds all the keywords your competitors are using to drive traffic (via PPC ads):
It shows you the keyword, search volume, CPC, percentage of traffic your competitor is receiving from that keyword, and the landing page URL they are sending traffic to from the ads.
How to use this report:
Enter a competitors domain (i.e. a company with a similar product and/or target market) into Site Explorer.
Go to Paid Search > PPC Keywords
BOOM. You now have insights into EXACTLY what keywords your competitors are bidding on.
Bonus Strategy
Are you on a tight budget?
Then you need to target middle funnel ("best, top, alternative") keywords. Or bottom funnel direct product plays (eg. EHR software).
You can use the results search function to find these:
PPC Ads Report
This report uncovers the exact ad copy your competitors are using in their PPC ads:
Donโt forget: ad copy is perhaps THE most important part of your ad.
You can uncover the keywords your competitors are bidding on in the PPC Keywords reportโฆ
BUT:
Unless you know how to convert those impressions into actual clicks and traffic, youโll never get people to your site to convert.
This is where the PPC Ads report comes in handyโyou can see the exact ad copy your competitors are using to win the click in the SERPs and drive traffic to their campaign landing pages.
How to use this report:
Enter a competitor's domain (i.e. a company with a similar product and/or target market) into Site Explorer.
Go to Paid Search > PPC Ads
Check out their ad copy and figure out how theyโre winning the click in the SERPs.
Here are a few things to look for:
- Power words (e.g. toxic, crazy, incredible, etc)
- Numbers
- Stats (e.g. โthe #1 ranked SEO tool by SEO professionalsโ)
- Emotional hooks
Note: While Ahrefs is improving in this category, SEMrush still dominates in the PPC analysis category. If you're specifically looking at doing in-depth competitor analysis for your PPC campaigns, I recommend checking out my complete SEMrush review here.
PPC Landing Pages Report
This report uncovers the top landing pages your competitors are sending PPC traffic to:
Why is this useful?
Because once youโve won the click (see the previous report - PPC Ads), you need to convert the traffic. Otherwise it is all for nothing.
How to use this report:
Enter a competitorsโ domain into Site Explorer.
Go to Paid Search > Top Landing Pages
Look at and monitor competitor landing pages over time.
If theyโre live for consecutive months, you can likely infer it is converting well. So model your landing pages off these.
IMPORTANT: You should always start with the biggest competitors. These folks spend a lot on PPC and testing. So, you can get better insights from them since they are constantly testing to optimize their ad budget. Don't try to reinvent the wheel ๐
Additional Backlink Analysis Tools
Most of Ahrefsโ backlink analysis tools reside within Site Explorer.
But there are a few extra ones hidden under the โmoreโ subheading in the top menu:
Don't let the placement fool you. These tools are all extremely powerful.
Hereโs an overview of each of the tools (plus practical applications):
Link Intersect Tool
This report uncovers link opportunities by finding websites that are linking to competitors, but NOT to you:
NOTE: Itโs very similar to the Content Gap report, only it reports on links instead of keywords.
Basically, if a website is linking to one or more of your competitors, chances are you can probably convince them to link to you, too.
How to use this report:
Go to Ahrefsโ Link Intersect tool.
Enter 3 (or more) competitors domains. Or specific URLs.
Hit show link opportunities.
NOTE: Make sure to choose โshow keywords that ANY of the below targets rank forโ under the drop-down.
You will now see which sites are linking to 3 (or more) of your competitors...but NOT you:
You can dig deeper into exactly where these links reside by clicking the corresponding numbers under your competitors domains:
Then you can pitch your content to these websites, too.
Batch Analysis
This tool lets you get grab Ahrefsโ metrics in bulk (for up to 200 URLs/domains at a time!):
Itโs particularly useful for link-prospectingโyou can run hundreds of URLs through the tool, export the results to CSV, then quickly qualify your targets.
Hereโs how to use the tool to qualify guest post opportunities:
Paste a list of โwrite for usโ type pages into the Batch Analysis tool (hint: you can find these by scraping Google). I walk through how to do this here.
Set โmodeโ to domain/*
Hit start analysis.
You will soon get back a report that looks something like this:
This gives you a bunch of stats for each domain, including:
- Number of keywords the site ranks for
- Estimated organic traffic.
- Domain Rating (DR)
- Referring domains
- Ahrefsโ Rank
- And more
You can see how easy it would be to qualify link prospects like this.
With guest post opportunities, I usually look for sites that are receiving organic traffic, and have a DR of 30+. But, you can filter however you like ๐
Domain Comparison Tool
This final report compares up to 5 domains at a time, and shows how they stack up against each other across a range of metrics:
You can use this report to get a high-level view of how you stack up against the competition.
How to use this report:
Go to the Domain Comparison tool.
Enter your domain in the #1 spot, then up to 4 competitors.
Hit compare.
You should see how your site stacks up against the competition. Use this information to see where you need to improve.
Example:
I can see that the number of referring domains pointing to my website is a little weak, compared to the competition.
This will be an area of focus for me going forward ๐
The tool provides graphs so you can measure historical performance:
In the graph above, you can see that Ahrefs has been building a lot more links than Raven Tools over the last two years. This is a by-product of their content quality and outreach campaigns.
Keyword Explorer
There is a reason the Keywords Explorer (affiliate) is now ranked one of the best keyword research tools on the market.
Not only does is boast one of the largest keyword indexes on the planet along with a treasure trove of data, it also provides a TON of practical applications.
The report shows the search volume for each keyword (note: not only does this fill the gap in Google Keyword Planner, which no longer shows KW volumes, but itโs also calculated using clickstream data. This makes it more accurate than GKP anyway!)...
It also provides a ton of other standard metrics (e.g. Keyword Difficulty, CPC), as well as unique data points around clicks per search, return rate, and SERP history reports.
You can search for keyword ideas across multiple different search engines - Google, YouTube, Amazon, Bing etc - and save your keywords into lists (more on this later!).
How to use this report:
Go to Keywords Explorerโyou should see something that looks like this:
You have two options:
- Enter a bunch of keywords manually (separated by commas)
- Upload a list of keywords from CSV
Either way, Ahrefs will show stats and suggestions based off the keywords you enter/upload.
Letโs look at a quick example:
Hereโs what the Keyword Explorer shows you by default:
Basically, a top-level overview across ALL of the keywords youโve entered.
Hereโs an overview of all the key metrics shown here:
- Keyword Difficulty (KD) Score: An estimate as to how difficult it will be to rank for a keyword (on a scale from 0-100). KD is a reliable indicator since it is based on page-level link data, not domain level data.
- CPC: How much you would pay per click for a given keyword in paid search.
- Volume: How often a keyword is searched per month in a given country.
- Clicks: An estimate as to how many clicks the search results are likely to get (note: this is usually lower for SERPs with featured snippets etc).
- CPS (Click-per-search): An estimate as to how many different results the average person clicks on.
- Return Rate (RR): A relative metric that shows how often the same person searched for a given keyword over a 30 day period.
- SERP Features (SF): The number of different features - ads, videos, featured snippets, People Also Ask etc - that display in the SERP for a given keyword.
- Parent Topic: This shows if you can rank for your target keyword whilst also targeting a similar keyword with more search volume.
As the Keyword Explorer (affiliate) isnโt really divided into โreportsโ the same way the Site Explorer is, Iโm going to treat this section of the review a little differently.
Instead of showing actionable insights for each of the reports, Iโm going to list a few ways I use the Keyword Explorer to drive results across personal and client projects.
Here we go:
Find Keyword Ideas (based on your own keywords)
Enter some keywords into Keywords Explorer.
Go to Keyword Ideas > All (on the left-hand sidebar).
You will now see a list of keyword ideas based off of the keywords you entered:
You can see in the image above that from entering just 4 keywords, Ahrefsโ has come up with over 24,000 similar keyword ideas!
If you want to get a bit more granular with these keyword ideas, try selecting one of the following options from the left-hand sidebar:
- All: Every keyword suggestion Ahrefs finds.
- Phrase match: All keywords that contain the exact phrase(s) you entered. Example: If you entered โSEO Toolsโ into KW explorer, this report will show keywords like โbest SEO toolsโ and โSEO tools for bloggersโ.
- Having same terms: Similar to โphrase matchโ but this report doesnโt care about word order. Example: If you entered โSEO Toolsโ, it would show both โbest SEO Toolsโ and โtools for SEO that are the bestโ (similar to broad match modifiers in paid search)
- Also rank for: A list of keywords generated by looking at the other keywords pages in the top 10 (for the keywords you entered) rank for.
- Search suggestions: All keywords suggested via Autocomplete (for the keywords you entered).
- Newly discovered: Keywords that have entered the Ahrefs database recently (note: this is super useful for finding new keywords/topics that people are searching for recently).
- Questions: A list of question-based keyword ideas that can be used for top and mid-funnel content topics, or even FAQs on conversion-focused assets such as product and/or category pages.
These reports can generate thousands of quality keyword ideas in a matter of minutes:
You'll be able to use 10 different filters - keyword difficulty, word count, search volume etc - to quickly surface the best keyword opportunities for your business.
No matter which report youโre in, you can add any keywords to a list like this:
Once youโve finished building the keyword list you can export it to a .csv file for further filtering and analysis.
Use SERP History to identify Keyword Opportunities
Select any keyword within Keywords Explorer and youโll be taken to a report that looks like this:
Near the bottom of the page, you will see the SERP position history:
In simple terms, this shows results in the top 10 (for the keyword you selected) that have fluctuated over timeโit shows a visual representation of this, so you can see which results are fluctuating in and out of the top 10.
Here are two ways to identify opportunities with this:
1. Learn from pages that have recently entered the top 10
Letโs say you identify a page thatโs recently improved their rankings dramatically for your target keyword.
Theyโre now sitting in the top 10.
For example, we can see that for the keyword โSEO toolsโ, Lunametrics have recently entered the top 10...almost from nowhere!
The question to ask if you see this is: WHY?
Chances are theyโre doing something right and that there is a lot you can learn from them.
So, grab their URL and paste it into Site Explorerโmore often than not, youโll see that theyโve been doing a lot of link building, or they have epic content that is riding off the back existing domain authority.
If this is the case, you now have a ton of prospects you can reach out to in order to build links to your page, too!
2. Find keywords with volatility
Similarly, if you notice a keyword with a lot of fluctuations in the SERP history report, like this:
This means Google is constantly giving other newer assets a chance.
And if this is the case, itโs probably a keyword you stand a chance at ranking for.
Use the SERP Overview Report to Figure Out What it Will Take to Rank for a Keyword
SERP Overview gives you a comprehensive look at the top 10 ranking pages.
Hereโs an example for the keyword โbest SEO Toolsโ:
You can use this report to figure out exactly what might be required to compete with these pages and rank for this keyword.
Here are a few things to look at:
- Domain Rating (DR): This shows how each of the websites stack up in terms of link and overall domain authority. It can give a good indication as to the caliber of sites that generally rank for this keywordโif you arenโt in the same ballpark as them, youโll need to attract a lot of links directly to the page in order to compete for rankings.
- UR (URL Rating): This shows how โauthoritativeโ each of the pages are; again, the higher the average competition, the more links youโre going to need to attract directly to your page (note: I weigh page-level authority more than domain-level authority when assessing keyword competition).
- Domains: The number of referring domains pointing to each of the pages in the SERP. If this is really high, then youโre definitely going to need some serious links to stand any chance of ranking in the top 10.
- Traffic: This is an estimate as to how much organic traffic each of the pages receives each monthโthis is useful for weighing up whether or not the reward is worth the effort.
- Content Type: Pay attention to the types of content that are ranking. If you notice a lot of blog posts are ranking, don't try to target a keyword with a product page.
Mini Case Study: Last year I used the checklist above to qualify a competitive keyword for a client who sells interactive content marketing software. After looking at the domain rating, and page-level link factors I determined it was a very "gettable" keyword.
BUT:
The client was targeting the term "interactive infographics" with a product page. After looking at the SERP Overview report it became apparent that most of the content ranking for that topic were actually blog posts:
So:
We created a long form blog post targeting the term. Now, it ranks highly in the SERP and drives thousands of targeted visitors to the client's website each month.
Rank Tracker
Rank Tracker does what it says on the tinโit allows you to track rankings across your websites.
I know from experience that there are a lot of rank tracking tools out there (and some of them are pretty good...even the free ones), but in my opinion, this is yet another area Ahrefs shines.
Not only can you track actual rankings, but also:
You can track SERP featuresโฆ
You can see the estimated traffic brought in by each of the keywords...
You can see position increases/decreasesโ...
โAnd much more, across both mobile and desktop devices.
Hereโs what youโll see in your Rank Tracker dashboard when you add a website:
Hereโs a breakdown:
- Visibility: The percentage of clicks that land on your website (across all your tracked keywordsโthe higher, the better here!)
- Average position: The average position across all of your tracked keywords.
- Traffic: The amount of estimated monthly organic traffic youโre getting across the board for all of your tracked keywords.
- SERP features: Very cool reportโthis tells you how many SERP features (e.g. featured snippets) there are for your tracked keywords; and how many you own!
- Positions: Shows increases/decreases in positions across the boardโvery useful for getting a sense of how things are progressing for your target keywords.
Here are a few actionable ways to use each of the reports within Rank Tracker:
Overview Report
This report gives an overview of everything related to your rankings.
Hereโs what it looks like:
NOTE: You can toggle between each of the options at the top of the report (i.e. visibility, average position, etc.) to change the data displayed on the graph. This is useful for seeing a visual representation of the data.
If you scroll down, youโll see individualized data for each tracked keyword:
You can see:
- Position
- Traffic
- Volume
- KD
- SERP Features
- URL
- Last updated
Here are the two numbers I recommend paying most attention to:
By looking at these, you can tell two things:
- If your SEO efforts are paying off (i.e. if youโre getting increased rankings for your target keywords)
- If increased rankings are translating into actual traffic (you may have to rethink your strategy if not!)
Competitor Rankings
This report shows you how you stack up against your competitors (in terms of rankings):
But it doesnโt just give you an overviewโit shows you how you stack up on a keyword by keyword basis:
This is super-useful for seeing where your competitors have the edge. And also where they might be focusing their efforts.
Metrics Report
This report shows a TON of metrics for all of the keywords youโre tracking:
In short, this is very similar to the โmetricsโ report within Keywords Explorer, so I wonโt go into too much detail here. However, you can see this within Rank Tracker, it only shows metrics for the keywords youโre currently tracking.
Grossing Report
This report tracks position changes for the keywords youโre tracking:
It gives you an overview of changes over the past 1, 7, 30, and 90 days. And, of course, it shows stats for โall timeโ, too.
Stats are divided into both mobile and desktop views:
Content Explorer
Content Explorer (affiliate) finds the most popular content on ANY topic, and allows you to filter and sort the results by a number of different metrics - domain rating, referring domains, organic traffic, share counts by channel and more:
Enter a keyword or topic to analyze:
Before we dive into the results, here are some stats for the Content Explorer:
Ahrefs Content Explorer Stats (Source) | |
---|---|
Total content index size: | 1.1 billion pages |
Total new pages every 24hrs: | 1.8 million pages |
Amount of metric updates per day: | 72 million pages |
Full update period: | Monthly |
Yep...thatโs 1.1 billion pages in the content index!
As you would expect, this gives you a LOT of content results for pretty much any keyword/topic you could imagine.
Here are the results for โlink buildingโ:
Thatโs 123K+ results!
And for each one of these results, you will see the following metrics:
Hereโs an overview of the metrics:
- Word Count
- Publish Date
- Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Pinterest share counts
- Domain Rating
- Referring Domains
- Organic Traffic
- Traffic Value
Youโll be able to sort the results by each of the metrics listed above.
And if you hit the โdetailsโ button, youโll see a bunch of useful charts:
You'll be able to see a complete list of all the keywords a piece of content is ranking for, along with all the domains and backlinks pointing to it:
Ok:
Enough of the features, let's jump into the application...
Find Content with a Ton of Links (and โSkyscraperโ it!)
Enter any keyword into Content Explorer.
Letโs go for โkeyword researchโ.
Then filter ONLY for content with 100+ referring domains:
This will show you all results related to the topic you entered (in this case, โkeyword researchโ) with 100 or more referring domains pointing at the page:
All of this content is clearly popularโthis means itโs easy to find skyscraper content opportunities.
Go to Details >> Backlinks to see all the links pointing to each particular page:
Then, simply create something better and reach out to these people to steal the links ๐
Bonus Strategy
Content Explorer also allows you to filter for keyword position.
Here are your choices:
- Everywhere: Shows results where your chosen keyword appears either in the title OR content.
- In content: Shows results where your keyword appears in the content.
- In title: Shows results with your keyword in the title.
- In URL: Shows where your keyword or phase is in the URL string.
You can also mix and match keyword using the advanced search functions.
These filters allow you to easily uncover specific content types (e.g. infographics) that have a TON of links.
Hereโs how to do it:
- Change keyword position to โIn titleโ
- Enter the following in the search bar: โYOUR KEYWRORDโ AND โ[infographic]โ
- Hit search (then filter by referring domains, high to low)
Hereโs what the search looks like:
This will find infographics with a TON of linksโthis is super-useful for uncovering infographic content ideas that are likely to attract a lot of links.
Note: Ahrefs provides a long list of advanced search operators you can use within the Content Explorer to further refine the results:
Find Topic Ideas That Will Generate a TON of Traffic (with Very Few Links)
Most keywords with decent search volume require a TON of links to rank in the top 10, right?
True. But there are some exceptions.
Content Explorer can help you find these exceptions (low-hanging opportunities).
Hereโs how to do it:
Enter a keyword into Content Explorer.
Filter ONLY for results with 5 referring domains (or fewer):
Filter only for results with 1,000 estimated organic visitors per month (or more):
You will now see content that has at least 1000 organic visitors per month, yet has achieved this with no more than 5 referring domains pointing to the page.
NOTE: If this returns no results, try increasing the number of referring domains to 10. Or decreasing the amount of traffic to 500. Results will vary depending on your vertical and the keyword(s) you enter:
Find Broken Link Opportunities
Enter a topic into the Content Explorer and set the following filters:
- Referring Domains: From 10 (play with the filter depending on the number of results)
- Only Broken URLs
This will return a list of broken (404) posts/pages related to your target topic that have a bunch of backlinks pointing to them:
For example:
I can see that this 404 page from Brick Marketing has backlinks from some hugely authoritative industry websites and blogs:
Export a list of sites linking to the broken pages and pitch your asset as a replacement.
Alerts (Reports and Practical Applications)
Ahrefs Alerts (affiliate) allows you to trigger alerts for any of the following events:
- You get a new backlink to a particular domain (or URL).
- You rank for a new keyword on a certain domain (note: you can also choose to ONLY be alerted for keywords of a certain volume, if you like).
- A keyword is mentioned somewhere on the web.
Basically, itโs like a more granular, powerful version of Google Alerts.
Hereโs how to set up an alert:
Go to Ahrefs Alerts.
Choose between a โBacklinksโ, โKeywordsโ, or โMentionsโ alert.
Hit the โ+ New Alertโ button:
This will bring up an input box that looks something like this:
NOTE: This is the input box for a โbacklinksโ alertโit will look slightly different for the others.
Here is one of the actionable ways I use this tool:
Get Alerts When Youโre Mentioned on the Web (then Reclaim Links)
Link building is one of the most difficult and time consuming SEO tasks.
So, itโs worth making sure you have every link you deserve, and they stay live.
You can use Ahrefs Alerts to monitor brand mentions without links, and reclaim them.
Hereโs how to do it:
Add a new โmentionsโ alert:
In the โsearch queryโ box, enter a brand name (or something related to your brand):
Add your own domain in the โblocked domainsโ boxโthis will prevent Ahrefs alerts from telling you about mentions on your own domain (which are pointless):
Add a recipient email address (if you want email alerts, that isโif not, toggle the email alerts to the off position):
And finally, select the interval. There are 3 choices here:
- Real-time
- Daily
- Weekly
I recommend weekly. Otherwise you end up with a ton of emails!
Click โAddโ.
Ahrefs will now alert you when your brand name is mentioned on the web. You can check out the mention and double-check theyโre linking to you.
If they arenโt, shoot them an email and ask if theyโd kindly add your link to the article (as they already mentioned your brand name). Most people should say yes.
Thatโs itโyou just landed yourself an extra link in no time at all!
Site Audit Tool
Site Audit (affiliate) is one of the newest features in the Ahrefs toolset:
It crawls your website and identifies a range of technical and on-page SEO issues that might be negatively affecting your SEO.
Things like:
Site speed;
Missing HTML tags (e.g. title, description, etc.);
Thin/duplicate content issues;
Indexation/accessibility issues (canonicals, redirects, exclusions);
Localization (international SEO) errors;
Internal links and orphaned pages;
Coding issues...
And a LOT more.
You'll be able to see it all across the various audit reports Ahrefs generates following the site crawl:
The best part: Itโs super-easy to use.
Hereโs the basics of using the Site Audit tool:
First, go to Site Audit and hit โ+ New Projectโ.
You will be prompted to enter a domain, and name your project:
Hit โNextโ and Ahrefs will ask you to verify domain ownership:
As you can see, there are a few ways to do this.โ
NOTE: You cannot use Site Audit to audit a competitors website. It MUST be a site that you own (or at least have access to).
Youโll then have an opportunity to adjust the crawl settings:
My advice here? Leave everything as default unless you know exactly what youโre doing.
And finally, you can setup a schedule for the crawl:
This is useful if you want to stay on top of SEO issues. It automates the โentire site crawl process.
And thatโs itโyouโre ready to go.
Here are a couple of actionable ways you can use the Site Audit tool:
Uncover Missing HTML-tags
Go to Reports > Internal Pages > HTML tags.
This will show if (and how many) missing title, description, and h1 tags you have:
Click on any of these (e.g. the red meta description bar) and it will show you exactly where these issues reside:
This makes identifying on-page issues issues super easyโpreviously, you would have had to run a tool like Screaming Frog to gather these insights.
And when you consider that the Site Audit tool can be scheduled to run automatically, you can stay on top of these issues at all times without much effort.
There a dozens of practical applications of this tool I could list, but the team over at Ahrefs put together an awesome 16-step SEO audit guide here that will walk through it all. Highly recommend you check it out if you plan to do any kind of site audit.
And if you prefer to watch video, here is a great overview from Ahrefs' head of content, Josh Hardwick:
SEO Toolbar
The Ahrefs Toolbar (affiliate) is a Chrome browser add-on that lets you view data from Ahrefs directly in your web browser.
Itโs totally free to installโjust go to this page (affiliate) and hit the appropriate download link:
If the toolbar is installed correctly, you should see the following icon next to the search bar in your browser:
Click this and it will activate the toolbar, which looks like this (hint: it will appear at the top of your browser): but you have the option to position it at the bottom.
Here are the metrics it will show in the browser:
- Domain Rating (DR)
- URL Rating (UR)
- Referring Domains (RD) (at both domain-level and page-level)
- Backlinks (BL) (at both domain-level and page-level)
- Search Traffic (ST) (at both domain-level and page-level)
- Keywords (KW) (at both domain-level and page-level)
- Ahrefs Rank (AR)
This is super-useful when link prospectingโyou can simply hit the Ahrefs toolbar icon to see stats for any website. This makes decision-making super quick and easy.
Oh, and the toolbar also displays these metrics directly within the SERPs:
Plus, you can click the download icon (top-left) to export the SERP for rapid link prospecting:
Note: change your browser settings to download more than ten listings.
API Access
You will get access to the Ahrefs API with your account.
Note: API credits differ depending on the account level you have. More information here (affiliate).
The API can be used with a number of third-party tools such as Screaming Frog and URL Profiler (affiliate).
Example:
In my premium training course, The SEO Playbook, I show you how to map link data from Ahrefs to thousands of pages at a time by simply connecting the Ahrefs API key inside URL Profiler:
Once you've checked the Ahrefs box, you'll be asked to enter your API access token (from your account):
Here are the metrics you can pull back with the API:
- Domain Rating (DR)
- Backlinks
- Referring Domains
- URL Rating (UR)
- Backlinks
- Referring Domains
In the context of a content audit, I can use this link data to help make page-level strategic recommendations on whether to keep, remove, improve or consolidate existing assets.
Support
Issues will arise.
Maybe there is a technical error. No software is perfect.
โ
Maybe you're unsure about how to use a certain feature in the tool. Everything has a learning curve.
Regardless of what you're confronted with, Ahrefs will be there to help out.
Here is what they offer:
Help: Here you can find a bunch of resources written by Ahrefs team members that will help with most of the questions you have. Itโs essentially a fully-searchable knowledge base which covers issues relating to billing & account access, metrics, use cases, best practices, and more.
Live Chat: Ahrefs uses Intercom on their website. Youโll see this in the bottom right-hand corner as youโre using the tool. The support team is always only one click away. Just hit the โNew Conversationโ button to begin chatting.
Academy: Ahrefs have recently launched the Ahrefs Academy (affiliate). It contains actionable video tutorials showing how to get the most value from the tool. These videos as useful for all skill levels.
In fact, they just launched an advanced course called "Blogging for Business" that provides over 5hrs of video tutorials walking you step-by-step through how they used Ahrefs to help grow their blog to over 100,000 monthly visitors, and 8 figures in annual recurring revenue:
And, if for any reason these three options donโt solve your problem, the Ahrefsโ team members are always responsive. Iโve reached out to them many times in the past and a response is never more than a few hours away.
You can find contact details for their team members here (affiliate).
Ahrefs Pricing
By now, you know how powerful Ahrefs' insights can be for your business.
But, you probably still have one BIG question ๐
How much does it cost?
Here are the current prices and plans (affiliate):
As you can see in the screenshot, thereโs an option to start a trial of either the Lite or Standard plan for $7. I highly recommend you do this.
It's a low risk way to take the tool for a test drive and see if it is a good fit for your business.
The Final Verdict
Ahrefs is without a doubt one of the most powerful SEO/PPC/Content/Audit/Competitor Analysis "toolsets" (not tools) on the market.
While we covered a lot of practical applications of the tool in this review, we really only scratched the surface.
The fact that all the tools integrate seamlessly with one another provides an endless stream of potential use cases to help you crush the competition, and grow your business.
There is so much functionality housed under one roof:
Backlink analysis.
Keyword research.
Content analysis.
PPC research.
Competitor analysis.
Rank tracking.
Site audits.
And more...
It's now a central component of the tool stack we use to run our agency, and drive growth for our clients.
And I'm not the only fan. Many other SEOs and content marketers have voiced the same sentiment here, here, here and here.
Grab a $7 trial (affiliate) and give Ahrefs a test drive today!
Dave says
Hey Robbie,
This is by far the best Ahref review I have. The Most in-depth Guide! Congratulations! Ahref has become one of the go-to tools for our agency as well. We can’t live without it anymore ๐
Robbie says
Thanks Nirav! Appreciate it. I’m getting a ton of value from the tool these days. They’ve really come a long way on multiple fronts. Not just a link analysis tool anymore ๐
NetHustler says
Good stuff Robbie.
I’ve never actually used ahrefs that much, I mean I know about the tool for many years now, but I always used SemRush and all the Moz stuff.
I think I will have to give ahrefs a try now and see how it compares to the competition. Not really sure if I need it, but a trial run never hurts.
Robbie says
Let me know what you think!
Sanjay Sharma says
Hello Robbie Richards,
I m starting to like you
cause the information you gave is very detailed and practical ..
not everyone does such explained demonstration on how to do something like SEO or whether it something else.
Robbie says
Pumped to hear that, Sanjay! ๐
Mike Cole says
Robbie, it’s one the best review about Ahref, a small blogger like me wouldn’t afford ahref tool but you made me to buy it now.
Thanks,
Mike
Robbie says
Thanks Mike!
Christopher Chorley says
Hey Robbie, Absolute monster of a guide! Really love the blog and this and the Semrush review you have are awesome. Thank you very much ๐
Robbie says
Thanks Christopher! Glad you’re enjoying the blog ๐
alex says
Hey Robbie,
nice explanation. I am big fan of their content exploration tool. It has helped me alot to find new keywords.
i also have serpstat and kwfinder.com but AHREF is my all time fvrt.
Robbie says
Thanks Alex! I don’t use the CE tool as much as I probably should. More using it for link analysis and keyword research right now.
BALACHANDAR I says
I never used ahrefs in the past. After reading this article, I would like to give a shot in ahrefs. This is a
very long article. How many days did it take to write this article?
Robbie says
Glad you enjoyed the review ๐ This article took me over a month to put together. Chipped away at it gradually ๐
Liza Koshy says
Wow it was really amazing to know very deep about ahrefs, and i am using it from years and getting good result with the help of this tool. You have briefly explain all the things about ahrefs Thanks ๐
Robbie says
Thanks Liza!
Kalpesh Shah says
Amazing post! Thanks for sharing this useful information.
Robbie says
Thanks Kalpesh!
Venkateshkumar says
It’s a very detailed guide about Ahref tool. I am using ahref for my competitor analysis and its very helpful tool. Thanks for sharing to know more about ahref here
Robbie says
Cheers ๐
DHTax says
great post. ahrefs is so amazing
Sam says
This is THE most detailed review I have ever red about Ahrefs till today. Its simply amazing that how much information you have gathered and display that for us. Your tally of fans is just increased by one. Cheers.
Robbie says
Glad to hear it! Thanks Sam ๐
Shehry says
I loved it! I am currently on a 7 days trial and will look forward to monthly membership! However, one thing that I would like to add, I have used both SEMrush and Ahref, and I believe that SEMrush has a great UI/UX when comparing to Ahref. However, this will quickly escalate when we’ll use Ahref for at least 2 days continuously. I am now addicted to Ahref, when I started using it I remember it was really difficult to get comfortable with the tool whereas SEMrush is easy to get comfortable. But SEMrush is way behind in auditing backlinks, Ahref is very strong for keyword research and backlink findings. What do you think?
Robbie says
Thanks Shehry! I use both tools. SEMrush more for keyword research, rank tracking and PPC analysis. Ahrefs also for keyword research and heavily for backlink analysis.
Faridabad says
Ahrefs is a amazing site to check your SEO. I have used it for around a year and one of the best have found. Wonderful post.
Melly says
Wow! Such a detailed article. Appreiciate the amount of efforts went behind this post! Thanks Robbie!
Robbie says
Thanks Melly ๐
Jonny says
I’ve always thought that it would be a waste of money if I bought Ahrefs. But, after reading this article, I changed my mind. I would like to thank you for going in-detail about the tool. Keep it up man!
Robbie says
Cheers Jonny! Fantastic tool.
Milan says
Hi Robbie,
Ahrehs is a really great tool and thanks for writing this awesome guide.
Robbie says
Thanks Milan!
Afdah says
Great Post. Thanks for sharings all information about Ahrefs
Roslia santamaria says
I think this is one of the most significant information for me. And Iโm glad reading your article. Thank for sharing!
Robbie says
Thanks Roslia!
ravi says
Great Post. you have added all information about Ahrefs. This is great.
Kaushik says
Hi Robbie Richards,
We appreciate your knowledge.
People search a lot to learn SEO on the internet.
But also receive information that is not accurate. The information we provide here is accurate and in detail which is a pleasure to watch.
I hope to keep sharing such good knowledge here.
Thank You.