Essential in the field of natural referencing, Ahrefs is composed of a set of tools designed to help business creators, project managers or marketing professionals to achieve their objectives in terms of traffic and referencing. Ahrefs not only helps to optimize a website by performing an audit, but also to find effective keywords and content ideas to produce.
The basics of how Ahrefs works
To use Ahrefs, it is important to understand the lexicon used there before starting.
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Create a project to get started with Ahrefs
To use Ahrefs, you have to follow a precise process which is divided into 4 steps:
- The creation of a professional account: all you have to do is enter your e-mail address. A 7-day trial version is then offered by the tool.
- The creation of a project: you must indicate the URL of the website to be optimized, keeping the "http + https" protocol.
- Adding important keywords for brand positioning: Ahrefs often offers several, but you also have to add them yourself.
- Adding competitors to watch: add those already known to the brand and, possibly, those proposed by the tool.
Once these 4 steps have been completed, the project is created and the functionalities integrated into the tool are ready to be used
Understand the KPIs provided by the tool
Ahrefs makes it possible to follow the evolution of its positioning on search engines thanks to graphs. These highlight several KPIs.
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- Ahrefs Rank: this is the result of the ranking operated between different websites according to the estimated volume of traffic.
- Rank of the domain (DR): it is expressed by a score ranging from 0 to 100, which determines the solidity of a domain according to the backlinks from which it benefits.
- URL Rank (UR): This key figure indicates the strength of a single web page.
- Inbound links (backlinks), referring domains, the number of keywords a domain is listed for, and an estimate of monthly organic traffic.
- SERP: this is the results page on which the site appears on search engines, the ideal being to reach the first position of page n°1 (SERP n°1).
Analyze your website with Site Explorer
Thanks to the " Site Explorer " functionality offered by Ahrefs, it is possible to carry out an audit of a website. The objective is to highlight areas for improvement to boost its visibility. Anomalies can impact a site and this tool makes it possible to identify them.
Keyword analysis
The " Site Explorer " functionality first detects the best content present on a URL and the keywords that bring in the most traffic. The objective of this tool is to understand what Internet users prefer in order to reuse this data in its marketing strategy.
Site Explorer also provides access to:
- To the search volume of the keywords.
- To the competition present on a keyword.
- The traffic a keyword brings.
- The position occupied by a URL in Google thanks to the SERP of this keyword.
Traffic analysis:
The Site Explorer tool allows you to study the traffic of your website by highlighting several data such as:
- Monthly organic traffic obtained.
- The evolution of traffic over a specific period.
- The pages that receive the most traffic.
It is essential to analyze the traffic of your site daily: it is the best way to adapt your content strategy according to the results observed.
Backlink analysis
In SEO, the number and quality of backlinks (links that redirect to a website) must be taken into account, because they have a real influence on the referencing of a web page.
Thanks to the Ahrefs tool, it is possible to constantly analyze these links and improve the link building of a website by carrying out certain actions such as:
- View the list of all backlinks.
- Get rid of bad backlinks.
- Fix a broken link or add a 301 redirect.
Do keyword research with Keyword Explorer
For a website to be placed at the top of search engine results, it is essential to choose the right keywords.
The " Keyword Explorer " feature of the Ahrefs tool precisely allows you to analyze the statistics of a keyword. To do this, several data are accessible:
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- The difficulty level of a keyword.
- Its search volume.
- Its cost per click (CPC).
- Its click-through rate.
- The overall search volume.
- The parent topic to which it is linked.
- Keyword ideas.
The tool allows you to enter a keyword, but also to find good ideas using the “All keyword ideas” tab. It is also possible to study the keywords used by competing sites.
Good to know: a good keyword is a relevant keyword, both searched by users and little used by the competition.
Find content ideas with Content Explorer
In SEO, content is the sinews of war. To sell a product or service, you must first interest the consumer. On the web, the best way to attract a user's attention is to produce relevant content. You still have to find the right ideas for content to publish.
This is exactly the functionality offered by Ahrefs' Content Explorer tool . Indeed, it is possible to find specific ideas for new publications from a keyword.
Once the keyword is entered in the search bar of this tool, several information appears, including:
- A graph presenting the evolution of the subject for 4 years.
- The list of pages having dealt with the subject.
This list can also be filtered according to the language, the domain rating and the minimum volume of traffic obtained, in particular.
Whether through “ Site Explorer ” , “ Keyword Explorer ” or “ Content Explorer ” , Ahrefs offers multiple features designed to boost a website. It is the essential tool to improve the referencing of its website.
Download this free guide and find out how to optimize the editorial content of your website and gain visibility with keywords.
The limits of the Ahrefs tool
Ahrefs is a very good tool, you understand, but it is not the magic solution for your SEO. This tool is particularly interesting on its semantic part but it can be supplemented by specific tools. We are thinking in particular of tools specially dedicated to content optimization such as SEO Quantum. You can also use other tools to enrich your content on questions or PAA (People Also Ask). We have already mentioned it, but the Keyword Difficulty of Ahrefs is less reliable than that provided by Semrush. Thus, each tool has its strengths and weaknesses. The real mastery and knowledge of all the tools is necessary for real efficiency.
On the Netlinking part, Ahrefs is also a powerful tool, but it is not the only one. You can complete and challenge your analyzes with Majestic.
Finally, as we have presented, the traffic information is only an estimate. So you can't really draw any conclusions. On the other hand, the trends are fair enough to build a reasoning and a competitive analysis.
All you have to do is discover for yourself the potential of the Ahrefs tool to support you in the SEO optimization of your site.
Conclusion on the Achrefe tool
Benefits of Ahrefs
- Ease of use
- Large database
- Complete tool
- Possibility of working with several people on a project
- Detailed report
- Regular alert if there is a problem on the site
- Explanation of technical SEO problems present on a website
Disadvantages of Ahrefs
- The cost can be quite high
- No mobile app
- The first paid plans are limited
- tool in english
FAQs Ahrefs
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| FAQs |
1- Is it possible to use Ahrefs for free?
By signing up, you can access Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT), which is our solution to overcome the limitations of Google Search Console. It is entirely free.
2- What is the process to use Ahrefs?
To utilize Ahrefs, you need to follow a four-step process, which includes creating a professional account by entering your email address, creating a project by specifying the website's URL to optimize while maintaining the "http + https" protocol.
3- Which SEO tool is the best for free?
Yes there are free SEO tools like Panguin Tool, Wordtracker Scout, Lipperhey, Bing Webmaster Tools, Dareboost, Siteliner, KWFinder and People Ask too.
4- What is the purpose of the Ahrefs software?
Ahrefs is a comprehensive SEO toolset that helps increase search traffic and optimize websites. To achieve this, Ahrefs crawls the web, collects massive amounts of data, and makes it easily accessible through a user-friendly interface.
5- What distinguishes Semrush from Ahrefs?
Ahrefs provides search volume, CPC, and competition data, while Semrush provides a wealth of information on each term, such as search volume trends and the number of results. Whether this is advantageous or disadvantageous depends on your needs.
6- Is Ahrefs a reliable SEO tool?
Ahrefs has been our go-to SEO tool for several years. From the fundamentals like rank tracking to professional-level backlink insights, Ahrefs enables us to be more productive and efficient in our SEO practices.
7- How can Ahrefs assist with content writing?
Follow these steps to use Ahrefs for content writing:
- Go to Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer.
- Search for a topic you're writing about.
- Look at the SERP overview.
- Find a comparable article with many referring domains.
- Click on the number in the Backlinks column.
- Review the Anchor and target URL columns for commonalities.