In the era of digitization and the fast-paced proliferation of mobile devices, 93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine. Additionally, 81% of consumers now conduct some kind of online research before they make a purchase. As a result, the fight to get to the top of the ‘Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs)’ has become cut-throat.
To build a powerful web presence and gain improved visibility with top search engine rankings, more and more businesses are now understanding the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In fact, 57% of B2B marketers state that SEO helps drive more leads than any other form of digital marketing.
Today, there are several advanced SEO tools that help streamline the process of Search Engine Optimization and achieve desired results. One such robust and intuitive SEO tool is AHREFS. It is powered by a fairly comprehensive suite of features – from keyword analysis & management to competitive research, website optimization, and analytics.
Wondering if this SEO tool is worth your time or money? To help you make an informed choice, here is a comprehensive review of AHREFS. So, let’s get started.
Ahrefs Overview
Ahrefs is an all-in-one SEO software suite with a host of powerful tools for keyword research, link building, competitor analysis, site audits, content marketing, and rank tracking. The easy-to-use and intuitive interface is designed for beginners, but also makes a great choice for professional digital marketers.
The SaaS-based, fully-featured SEO toolset cuts a competitive edge by providing you the option to check literally any domain, including that of your competitors, so you can keep an eye on what your competitors are doing, their SEO strategies, keyword usage, backlinks, and other elements. Competitor research is more important when the website is top-ranking on Google.
Additionally, Ahrefs has one of the largest backlink indexes on the web. It has over 6 billion web pages crawled and 12 trillion historical backlinks. Overall, it does a little bit of everything you would want from an SEO tool.
Ahrefs is a widely-used SEO tool that both beginners and pro SEO experts use to rank higher on Google search engines and drive quality leads.
Ahrefs is best for
With a full suite of SEO tools, Ahrefs is best for website owners, SEO agencies, digital marketers, enterprises, and in-house marketing teams.
Read further to learn what is Ahrefs and how does it work.
How Does Ahrefs Work: Key Features
To understand how the tool works, let’s have a look at some of the key features of Ahrefs.
#1 - Keywords Explorer
Ahrefs Keyword Explorer is one of the most comprehensive keyword research tools that run on the “world’s largest third-party database of search queries.” It has a database of over 7 billion keywords that are updated every month. Ahrefs processes vast amounts of clickstream data for ten different search engines and refines the search volumes every month for more accurate results.
A useful feature of Keywords Explorer is the “Clicks” metric that also shows the number of clicks your keywords are estimated to generate. This is helpful because high search volume for a keyword does not indicate that users will click on the search result. Having an estimate of the keyword’s click-through rate will help you determine whether it is worth paying for the keyword.
Ahrefs also does a great job providing advanced SEO metrics, something they guarantee that no other SEO tool offers. So, you can have a bunch of actionable insights for your keywords, such as return rate, % of clicks, clicks per search, % of paid clicks, and much more.
#2 - Site Explorer
If you have a website or URL, the Ahrefs Site Explorer tool provides a comprehensive view of its backlink profile and organic search traffic. It combines three SEO feature in a single interface:
- Backlink checker: Using this feature, you can get a view of websites that link to the competitors’ sites and check the quality of backlink profiles.
- Organic traffic research: This feature allows you to see which keywords the competitors are getting higher search rankings for and which pages are driving the most traffic.
- Paid traffic research: This Site Explorer provides insight if the competitors are engaged in paid search advertising and how they channelize the paid traffic.
#3 - Site Audit
If you want to have an in-depth insight into your site’s on-page SEO performance, the Site Audit feature in Ahrefs can be very useful. This feature allows the tool to crawl the web pages it finds and then provides an exhaustive analysis report. The tool provides an overall health SEO score, flags potential SEO issues, visualizes data, and provides actionable insights. Interestingly, you can also check your site for more than 100 pre-defined SEO issues.
Using the Data Explorer feature, you can seamlessly find every detail of each URL you want to audit, This includes pagination, hreflang tags, incoming and outgoing links, resources, and duplicates. Site Audit is fully cloud-based and therefore does not need any installation. The tool automatically updates the software and saves each crawl. You can also schedule monthly, weekly, daily crawl for your URLs. Site Audit will run the audits automatically and save the crawls.
#4 - Content Explorer
Ahrefs has an intuitive SEO feature that allows you to discover and analyze the best-performing content relevant to your niche. You can research more than a billion web pages on the Internet and discover the most popular content on any topic. Easily sort the results based on organic traffic, referring domains, social shares, domain rating, and traffic value.
Content Explorer tool also supports advanced operators that help refine the search. Using the right combinations, you can find low competition topics, link building prospects, partnership opportunities, etc. Finding and filtering content results also becomes simpler with this tool. Content Explorer provides 12 filters to help you find content that specifically matches the criteria.
#5 - Rank Tracker
Merely getting your website to the top search engine ranking is not enough. To stay competitive, you want to hold that position. Hence, it is important to regularly monitor the rankings and take informed decisions. Rank Tracker is an SEO feature that Ahrefs offers to help you get comprehensive Google ranking updates for mobile and desktop across 170 countries.
The process is simple and straightforward. You need to import or input a set of keywords, provide competitor URLs, and add countries for each keyword. Rank Tracker will then start tracking your data and send regular updates. Through interactive graphs, you can visualize and track your SEO efforts. This enables you to track ranking positions that are segmented based on groups.
Through Rank Tracker, you can also track average traffic and position over time. At the same time, you can have an estimate of what percentage of organic search clicks actually land on your website as traffic. Since it is important for any website to rank for SERP features, Ahrefs provides you website ranking data on 13 features. Some of these are sitelinks, featured snippets, image packs, top stories, thumbnails, videos, a tweet box, and AdWords bottom.
There is also one handy feature that allows you to find keywords that have lost or gained on SERP features. You can segment and sort your keyword list with tags and filters – Rank Tracker will easily visualize everything for you. And if you want to know how you are performing against your competitors, then this tool can be helpful too. It will list your data against ten competitors and provide insights on three primary areas – SERP features, ranking progress, and search traffic.
In addition to the above main tools, Ahrefs also provides a gamut of free tools like Backlink Checker, Webmaster Tools, Keyword Generator, Website Authority Checker, Keyword Rank Checker, SERP Checker, WordPress Plugin, Website Checker, and many others. Together, these help you take a comprehensive approach to Search Engine Optimization, improve your search engine rankings, and monitor your results.
Ahrefs Analytics and Reporting Capabilities
Ahrefs is a professional-grade SEO toolset that primarily focuses on delivering results. The development team behind the tool have worked really hard on analytics and reporting, that is evident from the large number of reports they provide with in-depth visualizations and analytics. For every embedded SEO feature, Ahrefs provides a bunch of reports that can help you track the performance of your keywords, links, content, and in some cases, the entire website.
The charts and tables are self-explanatory and provide actionable insights to help boost SEO progress.
Is Ahrefs Easy to Use?
When it comes to ease of use, Ahrefs is relatively simple and straightforward as compared to other SEO tools. For most of its features, Ahrefs provides powerful filters that help refine the search process and enable you to sort the data. This makes the toolset even easier. They also provide excellent support via phone, email, and chat. If you ever find yourself stuck with any issue, be assured there is a team of professionals eager to help you out quickly.
Ahrefs: Plans & Pricing
Ahrefs offers four different plans for you to choose from depending on your SEO needs. They do not provide a free trial, but gives access to all its features under “Lite” and “Standard” plans for 7 days at just $7. So, even if it is not free, you can at least have an idea of how Ahrefs works by signing up for $7.
The basic “Lite” plan is priced at $99 monthly. But you can get 2 months free when you sign up annually. This discount offer is applicable for all plans.
Even though the monthly pricing seems a bit expensive, Ahrefs is worth the value because it is one of the best SEO tools today with all the basics covered. Depending on your SEO needs, you can choose to upgrade or downgrade your Ahrefs pricing plan at any time.
Key Competitors
The primary competitors of Ahrefs are SEMrush, Moz, and SpyFu.
SEMrush a powerful content marketing and online visibility SaaS platform with keyword monitoring and rank tracking that are far better than any other SEO tool on the market today. On the other hand, Moz Pro stands out with its keyword management and SEO reporting capabilities, while SpyFu has an excellent UX that Ahrefs still cannot match.
Ahrefs: Pros & Cons
Conclusion - Comprehensive Review of Ahrefs
A frequently asked question is – is Ahrefs the best keyword tool for SEO? Our verdict is – if not the best, it is definitely one of the best SEO tool in the market today. If you are a beginner in the field of digital marketing or search engine optimization, Ahrefs is a good choice, to begin with. It smartly covers all basic SEO features, is the best web crawler in the market, and has the largest backlink index than any other tool. Therefore, it can be an excellent addition to your company’s SEO tool suite.
Despite being designed for beginners, Ahrefs makes an excellent choice for professional digital marketers as well – thanks to its powerful features and great customer support. More importantly, the SEO plans are competitively priced and you can enjoy a whole lot of features at just $99 per month, to begin with. Overall, Ahrefs is an all-in-one SEO tool that offers one of the best value for beginners and expert digital marketers alike.
