What Is Ahrefs? And How Do I Use It?

In today’s competitive digital landscape, having the right SEO tools is essential for businesses, marketers, and content creators who want to increase their website traffic, improve search rankings, and outsmart their competition. Ahrefs is one of the most powerful and popular SEO tools available, trusted by millions worldwide for its comprehensive data and user-friendly interface.

But what exactly is Ahrefs? How does it work? And how can you leverage it to boost your website’s SEO performance? This article will provide a thorough overview of Ahrefs and a step-by-step guide on how to use it effectively.

What Is Ahrefs?

Ahrefs is an all-in-one SEO toolkit that offers a wide range of features designed to help you analyze your website’s SEO health, understand your competitors, find high-quality backlink opportunities, and optimize your content for better ranking on search engines like Google.

Founded in 2010, Ahrefs has grown into one of the leading SEO platforms by providing accurate and up-to-date data through its massive web crawler, which ranks just behind Google and Bing in size. Ahrefs continuously crawls billions of web pages to provide insights into backlinks, keyword rankings, content gaps, and more.

Key Features of Ahrefs

Ahrefs offers a robust suite of SEO tools designed to give you an in-depth understanding of your website’s performance, competitive landscape, and growth opportunities. Each feature targets a specific aspect of SEO, making Ahrefs a versatile platform suitable for comprehensive optimization. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the core features you’ll find in Ahrefs:

Site Explorer

The Site Explorer is perhaps the most popular feature of Ahrefs. It allows you to analyze any website’s backlink profile and organic search traffic with incredible depth. By entering a domain, subdomain, or specific URL, you gain access to detailed metrics about inbound links, referring domains, and the quality of those backlinks. This helps you understand which websites link to you or your competitors, the anchor texts used, and the link growth or loss over time.

Additionally, Site Explorer reveals the top-performing pages based on traffic and backlinks, giving you insight into which content resonates most with audiences. This can be invaluable for shaping your content strategy or identifying pages ripe for optimization. Competitor analysis through Site Explorer also helps uncover gaps in your own backlink profile, presenting new link-building opportunities.

Key Metrics You’ll See in Site Explorer:

• Organic Traffic: Estimated number of monthly visitors from search engines.

• Backlink Profile: Total backlinks, referring domains, and dofollow vs. nofollow breakdown.

• Top Pages: List of pages bringing in the most organic traffic.

• Top Keywords: Keywords that rank for each page, along with position and search volume.

• Traffic Value: Estimated value of the organic traffic based on paid ad equivalents.

Example Use Case: Competitor Backlink Analysis

Let’s say you run a marketing blog and want to compete with a site like backlinko.com. Plug their domain into Site Explorer.

You’ll discover:

• Over 2.5 million backlinks from 30,000+ referring domains.

• Top-performing pages like “SEO Techniques” and “Google Ranking Factors.”

• Sites linking to those pages, such as major publications, forums, and niche blogs.

This gives you a list of potential outreach targets for backlinks, or content inspiration for blog posts.

Example Use Case: Reverse-Engineering Traffic Sources

Curious how a startup is gaining traction? Enter their domain and look at the “Top Pages” and “Top Keywords”.

You might find they’re ranking on Page 1 for long-tail keywords like:

• “best CRM for small business”

• “email marketing automation tools”

With this insight, you can create targeted blog content optimized for similar search terms, or build comparison pages that are better structured.

Screenshot Suggestions:

• A screenshot of Site Explorer’s overview dashboard showing organic traffic, backlinks, and traffic value.

• A backlink report highlighting referring domains and anchor texts.

• A Top Pages list showing organic traffic and keyword counts.

Use annotations to point out key takeaways, like “This URL ranks for 200+ keywords” or “Over 5,000 backlinks from authority domains.”

Bonus Tip:

Use the “Best by links” report under Site Explorer to identify which of your (or a competitor’s) pages attract the most backlinks. These are often evergreen content pieces or link magnets. Replicating the format, topic, or structure can help you build your own authority content.

Keywords Explorer

The Keywords Explorer is a powerful keyword research tool that provides comprehensive data on search terms across more than 10 search engines, including Google, YouTube, Amazon, and more. This tool is essential for discovering keyword ideas that you might not have considered, and understanding their potential impact.

You can explore search volume, keyword difficulty, click-through rates, and even return rate (how often people search for the keyword repeatedly). Keywords Explorer also displays related keywords, phrase matches, and questions people ask about the topic, helping you generate content ideas that address real user intent.

This depth of data helps you select keywords that balance between competitiveness and opportunity, ensuring your SEO efforts target the right terms.

Supported Platforms

Ahrefs doesn’t limit you to Google. You can explore keywords for:

• Google

• YouTube

• Amazon

• Bing

• Yahoo

• Baidu

• Yandex

This multi-platform support makes it invaluable for content marketers, video creators, and e-commerce businesses.

Key Metrics You’ll See in Keywords Explorer

When you enter a keyword like “best productivity apps”, Ahrefs gives you a dashboard with:

• Search Volume: Average monthly searches for your keyword in a selected country or globally.

• Keyword Difficulty (KD): How hard it is to rank in the top 10 for this keyword, based on backlink data.

• Clicks: Estimated monthly clicks on results for this keyword.

• Clicks Per Search (CPS): How many results users click on per search (not all searches generate clicks).

• Global Volume: Search volume broken down by country.

• Parent Topic: A broader keyword that you might want to target instead.

Example Use Case: Blog Content Strategy

Let’s say you run a productivity-focused blog. Type in “time management tips” and get the following insights:

• KD: 37 – moderately competitive.

• Volume: 12,000 monthly searches in the U.S.

• Clicks: 8,100 – shows that many searchers click through results.

Ahrefs will also suggest related questions like:

• “how to improve time management skills”

• “what is the best time management app”

• “time management strategies for students”

You can use these as:

• Blog post ideas

• Subheadings for comprehensive guides

• FAQs for schema markup (to improve rich results)

Visual Suggestions

• A screenshot of the keyword overview page showing search volume, difficulty, and clicks.

• A table of related keyword suggestions with filters like Questions or Phrase Match enabled.

• A visual graph of keyword trends over the past 12 months.

These visuals make it easier to explain why a keyword is worth targeting.

Advanced Features and Filters

Keyword Ideas Section:
This section gives you thousands of keyword variations, including:

• Phrase match – Keywords that include your original keyword in the phrase.

• Having same terms – Keywords that contain all your terms, but not necessarily in order.

• Questions – Great for identifying intent-driven content.

• Also rank for – Shows other keywords the top-ranking pages are ranking for.

Filter by Keyword Difficulty, Volume, Word Count, and More:
Let’s say you’re looking for low-competition long-tail keywords. You can filter results for:

• KD: Below 20

• Word Count: 4+

• Volume: 500+

This will return easy-to-rank keywords with decent traffic potential.

Bonus Tip: Use the “Traffic Potential” Metric

Just because a keyword has 1,000 searches doesn’t mean the #1 page only gets 1,000 visits. Ahrefs shows Traffic Potential—how much total organic traffic the top-ranking page gets from all the keywords it ranks for.

For example:

• Keyword: “how to create a content calendar”

• Search Volume: 1,500

• Traffic Potential: 7,800

This means the top result also ranks for dozens of related keywords, and you can earn a lot more than the base volume.

Competitive Keyword Analysis

Want to find what keywords are working for a competitor? Go to Site Explorer > Organic Keywords and enter a competing domain. Then click “Open in Keywords Explorer” to dig into those terms.

You’ll find hidden gems: low-competition keywords they rank for that you could target and improve upon.

Suggested Use Cases for Different Professionals

• Bloggers: Find low-competition, high-intent keywords for long-form content.

• Affiliate Marketers: Uncover buyer-intent keywords like “best [product] for [audience].”

• YouTubers: Explore video-focused keywords with high demand and low video competition.

• E-commerce Sellers: Identify what shoppers are searching on Amazon and optimize your listings accordingly.

Site Audit

Maintaining a healthy website is critical for SEO success, and the Site Audit tool helps you do just that. It crawls your entire website, identifying technical issues such as broken links, slow page speeds, duplicate content, missing or duplicate meta tags, and security vulnerabilities like HTTPS problems.

By regularly running site audits, you can detect and resolve errors that might be hurting your rankings or user experience. Ahrefs presents these findings with clear explanations and prioritizes issues by their impact, allowing you to tackle the most pressing problems first. The audit reports also help track improvements over time, so you can see how your SEO health evolves.

Content Explorer

Finding content that performs well in your niche can be a game-changer for your content strategy. The Content Explorer allows you to search any topic and discover the most shared and linked-to content online.

This tool provides data on social shares, backlinks, and organic traffic estimates for articles, blog posts, videos, and more. You can analyze why certain pieces are successful and identify trending topics or formats to replicate.

Content Explorer also lets you find content gaps by comparing what you have published against the best-performing content, highlighting areas where you can improve or expand your offerings.

Rank Tracker

SEO is an ongoing effort, and keeping track of your keyword rankings is vital to understand your progress. The Rank Tracker monitors your website’s performance for targeted keywords across various locations and devices.

You can see daily or weekly ranking updates, compare your rankings against competitors, and get visual reports showing improvements or declines. This data helps refine your SEO tactics, test the impact of optimizations, and report results to clients or stakeholders.

Alerts

Staying updated on changes in your backlink profile or keyword rankings is easier with Ahrefs’ Alerts system. You can set up notifications for:

• New backlinks pointing to your site, so you can quickly engage with new linking websites.
• Lost backlinks, which helps you identify link removals or broken links that may need recovery efforts.
• Keyword ranking changes, allowing you to respond swiftly to drops or gains in rankings.

These alerts keep you proactive in managing your SEO health and seizing opportunities or addressing issues before they escalate.

Each of these features is designed to work seamlessly together, giving you a comprehensive view of your SEO landscape. Whether you’re focused on content marketing, link building, or technical SEO, Ahrefs provides the data and tools necessary to make informed decisions and drive measurable growth.

For more detailed tutorials on each feature, you can visit Ahrefs’ own Help Center or explore expert reviews and guides on popular SEO blogs like Moz and Search Engine Journal.

How Do I Use Ahrefs? A Step-by-Step Guide

1. Sign Up and Set Up Your Account

First, visit Ahrefs’ official website and sign up for a plan that fits your needs. Ahrefs offers a 7-day trial for a small fee, allowing you to explore its features before committing.

Once signed up, set up your project by adding your website’s URL. This step enables Ahrefs to start crawling your site and provide personalized insights.

2. Explore Your Website with Site Explorer

Use the Site Explorer to analyze your website. Enter your domain URL to get an overview of your backlinks, organic keywords, and traffic.

• Check your backlink profile to understand who links to you.
• Identify your top-performing pages to know what content drives the most traffic.
• Analyze your competitors by entering their URLs to find backlink opportunities and keyword gaps.

3. Perform Keyword Research with Keywords Explorer

Keyword research is crucial for SEO success. In Keywords Explorer, type in a keyword relevant to your niche to discover:

• Search volume (how many people search for this keyword monthly).
• Keyword difficulty (how hard it will be to rank for it).
• Related keywords and questions people ask.
• Click metrics showing how often search results are clicked.

Use this data to select keywords that balance search volume and difficulty for your content strategy.

4. Audit Your Website with Site Audit

Technical SEO issues can hurt your rankings. Use Site Audit to scan your site and identify problems such as:

• Broken links and redirects.
• Slow-loading pages.
• Missing meta tags.
• Duplicate content.

Fixing these issues can improve your site’s user experience and search engine rankings.

5. Discover Popular Content with Content Explorer

If you’re looking for content ideas, Content Explorer helps you find the most shared and linked-to content in your niche.

Search topics or keywords and analyze the best-performing content based on social shares and backlinks. Use this insight to create competitive content that resonates with your audience.

6. Track Your Rankings with Rank Tracker

After optimizing your content, monitor how your keywords perform using Rank Tracker.

Add your target keywords and track their positions in search results over time. This helps you evaluate your SEO efforts and adjust your strategy accordingly.

7. Set Up Alerts for Backlinks and Keywords

Stay updated by setting alerts to notify you about:

• New backlinks pointing to your site.
• Lost backlinks.
• Changes in keyword rankings.

This proactive approach helps you react quickly to SEO changes and maintain your site’s authority.

Who Should Use Ahrefs?

Ahrefs is an ideal tool for:

• SEO professionals who need deep insights and competitive analysis.
• Content marketers looking for data-driven content ideas.
• Website owners who want to monitor and improve their site’s SEO health.
• Agencies managing multiple clients’ SEO campaigns.

While Ahrefs is powerful, beginners may find the platform overwhelming initially. However, with practice and exploration, even newcomers can harness its full potential.

Pricing Overview

Ahrefs offers several pricing tiers to accommodate different needs, starting with the Lite plan for individuals and small businesses and scaling up to Enterprise plans for large organizations.

Each plan provides access to varying limits on keywords tracked, site audits, and user seats. The investment is worthwhile for those serious about SEO growth.

Final Thoughts

Ahrefs stands out as a comprehensive and reliable SEO tool with a vast array of features that cater to both beginners and experts. Its accurate data and powerful analysis capabilities enable users to improve their search rankings, discover valuable keywords, audit website health, and outperform competitors.

By learning how to navigate and use Ahrefs effectively, you can take your SEO strategy to the next level and drive more organic traffic to your website.