Ahrefs is a feature-packed suite of different search engine optimization (SEO) tools that help users, i.e. professional marketers and marketing specialists, SMBs, large enterprises, marketing firms and agencies with the ins and outs of the content marketing process. It allows users to perform competitor research to identify high-ranking pay-per-click (PPC) keywords, backlink strategies and more.
The software suite also provides you with an overview of your competitor’s strategies, which can significantly help with the creation and implementation of new, more efficient marketing campaigns. Ahrefs’ backlink solution gives you the ability to build additional links for other websites or blogs and it allows you to determine the effects of your existing backlinks on current websites. This is good as it will help you improve upon your current approach.
With Ahrefs’ on-page analysis tool, you will have the power to analyze every link based on target keywords. The software solution audits each and every page of a particular website and then identifies potential issues that can influence or affect the site’s search engine rankings negatively. Then there’s the keyword analysis tool, which is meant to help you find the most appropriate keywords to enrich your content, driving more traffic to your website.
Keeping track of the progress of your website and pitting it against your competitor’s is made possible through Ahrefs’ competitive comparison tool. This solution should let you know exactly where you stand when compared to your competitor’s website when it comes to overall performance, web traffic, search engine rankings and other relevant metrics.
Ahrefs Features
Ahrefs is a robust system that offers digital marketers with one of the world’s largest and most diverse pools of live backlinks. The cloud-based service provides businesses and organizations of all sizes, freelance marketing specialists and agencies with a stable and dependable backlink checker tool as well as other useful features you’ll soon find very beneficial to your own situation.
Ahrefs Site Explorer
Ahrefs’ site explorer tool gives you an in-depth view of the organic search traffic as well as the backlink profile of any given URL or website. Site Explorer plays the role of the competitive research tool by effectively combining three robust SEO solutions in a single easy-to-use interface: organic traffic research, backlink checker and paid traffic research.
Organic traffic research is an SEO tool that enables you to see which keywords or key phrases your competitors are using on their content. It also allows you to determine which pages receive the most web traffic from search engines. Paid traffic research, on the other hand, gives you the ability to figure out whether your competitors are investing in paid search advertising and where they are funneling said paid traffic.
The backlink checker is used to properly gauge the integrity or the quality of the backlink profiles. It also lets you see which sites link to your competitors’ websites.
Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
This feature is basically designed to help you find great keyword ideas to seamlessly incorporate into your content. The tool gives you access to thousands of keyword and/or key phrase possibilities. It will enable you to analyze the ranking difficulty of each of the keywords and then calculate their potential to bring in more traffic to your website.
Ahrefs claims to have to most comprehensive keyword research tool on the market. With the variety of features and capabilities the tool possesses, it’s not difficult to see why. The fact of the matter is Keywords Explorer actually runs on arguably the world’s largest third-party database of search queries. The tool supports 171 countries worldwide when it comes to search query data. It also supports up to 10 different search engines, not just Google and it is capable of processing huge volumes of clickstream data for Amazon, Baidu, Bing, YouTube and more.
With Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer, you will never run out of keyword ideas as it can put out literally thousands of keyword possibilities and suggestions. This is made possible due to the fact that the tool operates on a large database populated by over seven billion keywords, regularly updated with new data on a monthly basis.
Ahrefs Site Audit tool
Ahrefs’ Site Audit tool gives you the ability to see the inner workings of your website’s on-page SEO performance. You can stop wondering whether or not your previous SEO efforts are working and figure out exactly what is keeping your pages from reaching the top of the search engine rankings. With this feature, you can expect to get a more comprehensive website analysis as Site Audit crawls every page and content it can find on your website in order to provide a more accurate overall SEO health score.
The tool visualizes relevant data using charts so they are easy to understand. It then flags all potential issues related to your SEO and offers up recommendations on how you or your team should address them. You can easily run an audit on your website for more than 100 pre-defined SEO issues. The tool automatically groups all detected issues by type and then generates printable reports, complete with colored charts and other visuals.
Some of the key SEO components you can check for include page performance, social tags, incoming and outgoing links, content quality, HTML tags, all localization issues with Hreflang, potential problems with your resources, external pages and more.
Ahrefs Rank Tracker
Rank Tracker lets you monitor your page rankings over a period of time. The tool then charts your performance and compares it alongside your competitors’. You will get scheduled reports and ranking updates for both mobile and desktop, straight to your inbox so you will always be up-to-date on the potential changes of your rankings and the goings-on of your SEO efforts.
Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker tool allows you to keep track of your Google rankings on mobile and desktop devices across more than 170 countries. You also have the ability to visualize your SEO progress through the software solution’s interactive graphs. Get useful data regarding your visibility history, such as how many of the clicks you’re getting are actually from organic search traffic.
Ahrefs Content Explorer
This feature is all about the content you’re putting out there and its impact on your SEO and page rankings. With Ahrefs’ Content Explorer tool, you can discover the best performing content within your niche and subject it to proper analysis to gain valuable insights. You have the capability to acquire SEO and social metrics, as well as other crucial data by researching more than a billion webpages.
Run comprehensive searches online of the most relevant and popular articles related to your niche and then sort the results by traffic value, domain rating, organic traffic, social shares and referring domains. Content Explorer is fully capable of running advanced search operators, which means you can refine your search with the right combinations. Discover link building prospects, partnership opportunities, low competition topics and more.
Ahrefs Benefits
There are many benefits to choosing Ahrefs as your SEO solution. For one, the platform boasts the best backlink checker in its category. With just a few clicks, you will instantly get a complete picture of any URL or website, from its overall performance to web traffic, page rankings and other critical metrics.
The software suite also provides you with data regarding backlink strength, status and growth over time. You can use all the information you’re getting to perhaps alter your approach and improve your future marketing and SEO campaigns.
Ahrefs is also a very useful tool for researching your competitors’ search traffic, the keywords they’re using in their content, their PPCs, backlinks as well as the results they’re getting from their SEO strategies and approaches. Using the software solution, you will be able to easily see which keywords the competition is ranking for in the top search engines. You can uncover which keywords they’re investing in and paying for with their PPC advertising and other paid marketing campaigns.
With Ahrefs, you also have the ability to get a clear view of the flow of organic versus paid traffic your competitors are receiving. Even today, Ahrefs believes that content is still king. This is why the software is equipped with tools that let you know what kind of content is generating most of your income. You can determine which type of content is getting shared the most by your followers. You can also identify every website that is linking to trending and/or popular content.
Ahrefs Pricing
Ahrefs’ plans and pricing are divided into four different subscription packages: Lite, Standard, Advanced and Agency. Payment can be made on a monthly or annual basis, but the latter option gives you two months free. All plans come with every tool in the Ahrefs arsenal, i.e. Rank Tracker, Site Audit, Site Explorer, Content Explorer, Keywords Explorer, alerts and a few additional tools. The differences between each package are mostly the number of users and the capacity or the amount of work each tool is assigned to do.
Lite starts at $99 per month with a trial fee of $7, good for up to 7 days. The Standard plan starts at $179 per month with the same trial fee and duration as Lite. The annual billing brings down the prices for both plans to $82 and $149 per month, respectively.
You can subscribe to the Advanced plan for $399 per month or $3,990 per year ($332 per month). The Agency subscription fee starts at $999 per month or $9,990 per year ($832). You may visit the company’s official website for more information about their plans and pricing.
Conclusion
Ahrefs is a robust and comprehensive SEO suite equipped with top-tier features like backlink indexing and web crawling capabilities. Its tools for competitive research, keyword research, website analysis, rank tracking and content discovery and performance analysis are quite impressive, to say the least. But, this SEO suite is not cheap. You really have to be ready in making a serious investment, if you want to utilize this SEO solution.
