Are You Using Blacklisted Backlinks? Check Now
Summary:
Ahrefs provides everything you need to increase search engine traffic to any website. It's huge database of information combined with intelligent tools makes it easy for anyone to increase their rankings.
Ahrefs is a very popular SEO tool that was originally built to check backlinks. However over the last years it has developed into something much more with a class leading database of backlinks and keywords. Ahrefs is one of the most popular SEO tools for a reason.
And if you want to drive a TON of organic traffic to your website?
Here’s the basic formula:
- Pick a topic/keyword
- Create an exceptional piece of content
- Promote it. Build links to it. Rank it.
I’ll let you in on a little secret:
It is simple, but only if you use the right tools for the job.
What do I mean by that?
Well, there are a ton of questions you need to answer before you get started, such as:
1. Which keywords/topics should you be trying to rank for?
2. Is it even possible to outrank the competition?
3. What kind of content should you create? (e.g. blog post, infographic, interactive content, etc)
4. How many links do you need to build to rank for your chosen keywords? (and can you build that many links?)
In this post, I’ll be showing you how to answer all these questions (and more) with only one tool: Ahrefs.
Table Of Contents
What You Will Learn
Let me make one thing clear:
My aim here isn’t to list everything Ahrefs can do.
(If that’s what you want, you can find a big list of features here.)
My aim is to show actionable ways to use Ahrefs (and no other tools) to get more organic traffic to your website.
Here’s everything I’ll be teaching you:
- Getting Started: How to get started with Ahrefs and set yourself up for success (note: do not skip this stage, it is very important).
- Backlink Health Check: How to identify (and fix) any backlink issues that may be holding your website back in the SERPs. WARNING: Fixing these issues can lead to an instant rankings boost!
- Keyword Research: Ahrefs Keywords Explorer is perhaps the best keyword research tool on the market. I’ll show you how to use this tool (and a couple of other Ahrefs tools) to build an initial keyword list for your website.
- Keyword Prioritisation: How to prioritise your keywords list and identify “low-hanging” opportunities that can boost traffic FAST.
- Content Research: How to figure out EXACTLY what type of content you should be creating to rank for your chosen keywords.
- Link Building: How to build links to your website using a variety of methods (note: this is where Ahrefs really shines!)
- Site Audit: How to diagnose and fix errors with your website (note: this is highly recommended, as on-site errors can hold back your success, even if you’ve done everything right thus far!)
- Analyse your Progress/Success: How to use Ahrefs to make sure you’re on the right track and that things are improving with your website.
This means that if you follow this guide from start-to-finish…
I guarantee you will see results.
What Is Ahrefs (And Why Should You Care)?
Ahrefs is a powerful—and complete—SEO analysis tool.
It does pretty much everything you could ever need to do from an SEO standpoint, including:
- Keyword research (via Keywords Explorer)
- Content research (via Content Explorer)
- Backlink research (via Site Explorer)
- Rank tracking (via Rank Tracker)
- Competitor research (via Site Explorer, Link Intersect Tool, etc)
- Site auditing (i.e. diagnosing site health issues, etc.) (via the Site Audit tool)
Everything else is covered.
You can search a database of 4.9 million keywords in seconds with Keywords Explorer.
You can search 700+ million pieces of content to find content ideas that will generate a ton of traffic, with Content Explorer.
You can search the world’s largest index of backlinks (over 13 trillion!) to see all your competitors backlinks, with Site Explorer.
You can find and fix hundreds of on-site issues in seconds, with the Site Audit tool.
And that’s the tip of the iceberg, really.
But, impressive industry-leading stats aside, what does this mean for the average Joe?
Simple.
You have everything you need—under one roof—to grow your website traffic like crazy.
This post will walk you through the process of doing this, step-by-step.
Getting Started With My Ahrefs Review
In this short section, I’ll show you how to get started with my Ahrefs review and how to set up your account for success.
So, first things first, head over to Ahrefs and sign up for a trial.
Once you’re in, Ahrefs will prompt you to add a project (i.e. website) to your account.
This is pretty straightforward—give your project a name and hit “next”. Make sure to use the http + https naming scheme.
You’ll then be asked to add keywords that you want to track.
Ahrefs actually suggests a bunch of keywords that your website is already ranking for.
Basically, the higher up the list of suggestions they are, the more traffic those keywords are sending to your website.
I recommend adding the first 4-5 pages worth of keywords.
Why? Because this allows you to track your most important keywords (i.e. the keywords that are the most traffic to your website).
Step #3….add some competitors.
Again, you can either add competitors manually (if you know them) or choose from the suggestions Ahrefs gives.
I recommend adding 5 competitors from the suggestions Ahrefs gives.
And finally, add some branded keywords to track.
I really recommend taking a moment to set this one up. We’ll be using it later in the guide.
That’s it. You’re ready to rock!
Backlink Health Check
Backlinks from spammy, low-quality websites.
Backlinks with over-optimised anchor text.
These types of backlinks can spell disaster for your website.
At best, they’ll prevent your website from ranking as well as it should.
At worst, they’ll lead to a Google Penguin penalty.
That’s why you need to nip any “bad” backlinks in the bud before you invest time, energy, and money optimizing your website.
But: How do you do this?
Like I said earlier, Ahrefs has the largest backlink index on the planet – this makes it the perfect tool for identifying and fixing any “bad” backlinks.
#1: Look for “Dodgy” Links in the Backlinks and Referring Domains Reports
Enter your domain into Site Explorer, then navigate to the referring domains tab.
By default, this will show you all referring domains ordered by Domain Rating (DR)—highest to lowest.
But remember:
You’re looking for low-quality links, so reverse this (i.e. order by DR low to high).
Look for domains that look low-quality or suspicious, such as:
- Anything you don’t recognise
- Foreign-language websites (e.g. .ru, .dk domains, etc)
- .xyz domains
- Low-quality wiki pages
- Article directories
- [empty anchors]
But, luckily, Ahrefs has a few filters to help you out.
If you move to the Backlinks report, there are filters for both languages and platform.
I recommend filtering by languages like Russian to find spammy backlinks, as Russian sites are kind of notorious for link spam.
You can also easily uncover low-quality Wiki pages with the Wikis filter in the Backlinks report:
But remember, even if something looks super-dodgy, always check out the link manually before making a judgement.
Otherwise, you run the risk of disavowing links that may be helping your website.
If you can confirm that the link is “bad”, hit the checkbox next to the domain.
You can then simply click “disavow links” to send them to your disavow area + create a disavow file.
#2: Look for Unnatural Anchor Text Issues
Anchor text is the clickable text within a link.
Example:
The anchor text for this link is “this link here”.
Anchor text helps to tell Google (and potential visitors) what your website is about—that’s why it remains a Google ranking factor.
But: Anchor text over-optimisation (i.e. too many keyword-rich links) can trigger a Google penalty.
If your website has an unnatural link profile with tons of exact match (or partial match) anchor texts, this could be an issue.
Here’s how to identify—and fix—these issues with Ahrefs:
Enter your domain into Site Explorer, then go to the Anchors report under Backlink Profile.
This will show you exactly what anchor text is being used within the links back to your website.
If you have a healthy backlink profile, most of your anchors will probably be:
- Branded anchors (e.g. “matthew woodward”, “matthewwoodward.co.uk”, etc.)
- Generic anchors (e.g. “click here”, “this post”, etc.)
This is a sign of over-optimisation.
If you spot anything that looks dodgy, hit details > referring domains to see which sites are linking to you.
Right now, you can’t disavow these links directly from within the anchors report.
However, you can simply hit the export button then upload the file manually to the disavow area.
Learn how to disavow backlinks step by step.
#3: Look for LOTS of Links from the Same C-block IPs
Every website has its own IP address that looks something like this:
104.27.136.155
In simple terms, while you may be used to typing in matthewwoodward.co.uk to get to my blog, that’s really just a memorable way of navigating to an IP address where my website resides.
Basically:
Because humans are better at remembering website URLs than a random string of numbers, we let the browser do the work and translate a URL into an IP address behind the scenes.
Now, IP addresses are separated into blocks: A, B, C, and D blocks, like so:
AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD
If we have the following two websites:
- 104.27.136.155
- 104.27.136.7
In internet terms, these sites are neighbours.
Why does this matter?
Lots of links from the same C-block IP can be a bad sign. This is because it signals to Google that these sites may be closely related (e.g. a PBN) and therefore, not the most natural links ever.
Luckily, you can use Ahrefs’ Referring IPs report to find these.
Here’s how:
Enter your domains into Site Explorer, then hit the Referring IPs report under Backlink Profile.
Ahrefs groups referring IPs by C-blocks by default—very useful!
In the example above, you can see that the first few results look a bit dodgy—there are thousands of links, from hundreds of domains, all on the same C-block IP.
Let’s take a deeper look.
Yep, they’re spammy. They need disavowing/removing.
Again, there’s no way to disavow these directly from this report but you can export the domains to a .csv and upload them manually.
#4: Find (AND Fix) Broken Backlinks
Building backlinks is damn hard.
It’s laborious. Time consuming. And costly.
So:
It makes sense to ensure that you’re getting the full benefit of the links you build, right?
Definitely.
Unfortunately, links sometimes break. And when this happens, you won’t feel the benefit of those links.
That’s why fixing broken links is a quick way to regain some valuable link juice and increase rankings.Here’s how to do it:
Enter your domain into Site Explorer then go to Pages > Best by links.
Then, add a filter so you see only pages with a 404 status code.
You will now see all 404 pages on your website ranked by the number of referring domains they have.
Here’s how to reclaim the “link juice” for these pages:
- Restore the broken page—this should be done if there is an actual error on your part (i.e. you’ve accidentally deleted a valuable page at some point).
- Add a 301 redirect to the broken page—this should point to either the new location of the page, a suitable alternative, or the homepage.
- Reach out and asking the website owner to fix the link—this is your best bet if there’s an actual problem with the link such as incorrect formatting.
Do this for any valuable broken links and you’ll see an instant boost!
#5: Remove ALL Low-Quality (or Irrelevant) Outbound Links
Spammy inbound links are BAD.
But outbound links are also extremely important.
You, therefore, need to make sure that you’re not linking to low-quality (or totally irrelevant) websites. Here’s how to do it:
Enter your domain into Site Explorer then go to…
Outgoing links > Linked Domains > add a dofollow filter
By default, Ahrefs shows the most linked-to domains first.
Reverse this list.
When I gave this report a quick onceover for my own website, everything looked pretty above board (phew!)
BUT…this isn’t the case for all sites.
Here’s an outbound link I found on Moz.com:
This is clearly a spammy domain.
If you find anything like this, remove (or replace) the links on your website.
Also:
Sometimes, you’ll find that your website is linking to a particular URL many times.
Example:
Upon closer inspection, we can see that this is a Wordpress theme link present in the theme HTML.
In all honesty, this probably isn’t going to cause any huge issues.
However, as it’s a dofollow link across (almost) every page of the website, at the very least it’s diluting authority for no good reason.
I recommend that you remove anything like this from your website’s HTML, too.
#6: Fix Broken Outbound Links
Broken outbound links lead to a bad user experience.
Not only is it annoying to click a link on a website and be taken to a broken page but also, it leaves the visitor questioning the validity of your content.
Why?
Because they’ll assume your website hasn’t been updated in awhile.
Or that you simply don’t put much effort into your content—certainly not enough to curate resources that actually exist.
Also, if Google thinks your content is going to lead to a bad user experience, they certainly aren’t going to rank your website.
Luckily, this is easily fixable.
Here’s how:
Enter your website into Site Explorer, then go to Outgoing Links > Broken Links.
If anything shows up in this report, there are issues to be fixed.
Looks like I have 56 broken outbound links on my website :(
You should fix these links by either removing them or replacing them.
Keyword Research
Fixing the errors outlined above should be enough to give you a small traffic boost.
BUT:
Now it’s time for the big guns.
No matter what website you’re working on, your SEO strategy should follow roughly the same blueprint, which is:
- Find keywords you want to rank for (and that you already rank for)
- Prioritise keywords/topics into long-term opportunities + short-term opportunities (i.e. low-hanging fruit)
- Create some content (or improve existing content) around those keywords
- Build links to content (wherever appropriate/necessary)
- Analyse what did/didn’t work and refine your strategy/plan going forward.
- Rinse and repeat all of the above
Do those things, in that order, and I guarantee you’ll see a HUGE traffic increase.
So, let’s get started with the first step: keyword discovery.
#7: Pop a Few “Seed” Keywords into Keywords Explorer
Keywords Explorer is the first place I turn when I want to discover keywords for a new (or existing) website.
That’s because all you need is a few “seed” keywords and it’ll give you thousands of ideas.
Here’s the process:
Go to Keywords explorer and enter a few seed keyword ideas.
Hit the search button.
Go to the metrics tab.
This shows you monthly search volume, Keyword Difficulty (KD), and tons of other information.
If a keyword looks good (i.e. it has some decent search volume and is relevant to your business), save it to a keywords list.
#8: See Other Keyword Ideas (Based on Your Seed Keywords)
Right now, Ahrefs has the biggest keywords database in the industry.
Because of this, Keywords Explorer will show you with a bunch (and I really do mean a bunch!) of other keyword ideas based on your seed keywords.
Just hit one of these 6 options on the left-hand menu:
Personally, I usually just select “all”.
However, this will usually give you a few million keywords to play with (see, I told you they had a lot of data), which is pretty damn impossible to work with.
So, I tend to play with the Keyword Difficulty (KD) filter to narrow them down.
Your best bet is to filter for keywords with a KD score of less than 10.
Why? Because anything below KD 10 means that top-ranking results have less than or equal to 10 backlinks on average, so it should be fairly easy to rank for them.
I usually just tick anything that looks good and add it to my keywords list.
And if you prefer to get a little more granular with your keyword suggestions, you can learn more about what “phrase match”, “having same terms”, etc. mean here.
#9: Find the Keywords/Topics that Send the Most Traffic to Your Competitors
Enter a competitor’s domain into Site Explorer, then go to Organic search > Top Pages
Here you will see which of your competitors pages are attracting the most organic search traffic.
You’ll also see the top keyword that page ranks for, along with the search volume for that keyword.
Pretty cool, right!?
BUT it gets even better…
This report also shows you all of the other keywords these pages rank for (in order of the amount of traffic they drive to your competitors page).
This is not only useful for generating additional keyword ideas but also, finding keywords/topics/phrases that you can sprinkle into your content to increase relevance (i.e. LSI keywords).
#10: Analyse YOUR Competitors to Find Keyword “Content Gaps”
Content gaps exist when your competitors rank for keywords that you don’t rank for.
Think about it:
If you could see what those keywords are, you could create content to compete with them (and ideally outrank them).
Here’s how to find those keywords with Ahrefs:
Enter your domain into Site Explorer, then go to Organic Search > Content Gap
Now, enter the domains of (at least) three competitors plus your domain in the “but the following target doesn’t rank for” field.
Hit “show keywords”.
Bingo…here are hundreds of keywords that (at least) one of your competitors rank for, yet you don’t.
I recommend paying particular attention to any keywords where your competitors are ranking in the top 10.
Why?
Because if they’re ranking in the top 10, chances are you could, too!
Is Ahrefs out of your budget? No worries, you can use one of these free keyword research tools to find the right keywords for your business.
Keyword Prioritisation (PLUS How to Identify Low-Hanging Opportunities)
At this stage, you should have a big list of keywords that you could try to rank for.
BUT:
Just because you can target these keywords doesn’t mean you should.
1. Some will be easier to rank for than others (in fact, you may not even stand a hope in hell of ranking for some of them).
2. Some will drive a lot of traffic (while others will drive very little).
3. Some will require creating new content (others won’t).
Analysing keywords for certain attributes will allow you to prioritise your list, and divide your ideas into long-term and short-term topics.
#11: Find Keywords That You’re Already Ranking for in Positions 4-6
Already ranking in positions 4-6 for some high-volume keywords?
These are your low-hanging fruit.
Why? Because CTR increases exponentially within the top 5 positions.
Therefore, it only takes a ranking increase of one position to see BIG traffic boosts from these keywords.
And improving rankings by 1-2 positions can be as simple as building a handful of high-quality links.
But how do you find these keywords?
Simple.
Enter your site into Site Explorer, then go to Organic Search > Organic Keywords
This will show you all of the keywords your website is currently ranking for.
But here’s the trick:
Add a positions filter to show the keywords you’re currently ranking in positions 4-6.
These keywords are your low-hanging fruit—they should be prioritised when it comes to on-page optimization and link building.
#12: Find Keywords AND Topics with High Traffic Potential
Sometimes individual keywords won’t have a particularly high search volume.
Example: “best keyword research tools”
If you were to rank #1 for this keyword, you would receive roughly 30% of these clicks.
That’s a measly 75 visitors/month (approx.)
Hardly worth bothering, right!?
Not so fast.
Looking at individual search volumes for a single keyword rarely shows you the true ranking potential of that topic.
This is because pages almost always naturally rank for TONs of variations of that keyword (i.e. “long-tail keywords”).
So how do you figure out the true ranking potential of a topic?
Easy…
Check how much organic traffic the top ranking pages for that keyword are getting.
If it’s a lot, the topic/keyword has a high traffic potential.
Here’s how: Go to Keywords Explorer and enter a keyword.
Scroll down to the SERP overview and you’ll see who’s ranking in the top 10. You can also see how much organic traffic these top ranking pages are attracting (across all keywords).
These are the SERPs for “best keyword research tool” and as you can see, the top ranking pages are getting WAY more than 75 visits/month.
Content Research
Keyword research? CHECK.
Keyword prioritisation? CHECK.
(You’re off to a good start!)
But…you ain’t going to rank for any of those keywords without creating some EPIC content around them.
Obviously, some of the keywords you’ve found (e.g. the low-hanging opportunities in positions 4-6) won’t require new content. You just need to optimise—and build some extra links to—your existing content.
For others, however, you’re going to need to create something new!
BUT here’s the problem:
It’s NOT always easy to discern exactly what you should be writing about solely by looking at a keyword.
Example:
Let’s take the keyword “keyword research”.
It’s a great keyword with a ridiculously high search volume (at least for this niche).
BUT, it’s also massively competitive.
If I was to write a reasonably generic guide to keyword research, I probably wouldn’t stand a chance of ranking in the top 3 for this exact keyword.
However, that doesn’t mean that I can’t write about keyword research at all…I just need to “niche down” a little and write a UNIQUE piece of content.
Here’s how:
#13: Find UNIQUE, EASILY BEATABLE Content Ideas Using Content Explorer
Ahrefs has an index of 800+ million pieces of content on various topics.
They also add 5+ million new pieces of content to this index every 24 hours (which is absolutely INSANE).
But, data and stats aside, what benefit does this have?
Well, it means that you can enter (almost) any keyword into Content Explorer and it’ll kick back a TON of content ideas.
Example:
That’s 3900+ content ideas for “keyword research”.
And this is only results where the phrase “keyword research” is in the article title…
You can also search for content where the phrase is mentioned anywhere in the article content, which will return exponentially more results!
BUT, like I said, it would be VERY difficult to rank for this exact keyword without “niching down”.
This is because the “big guys” (e.g. Moz, Ahrefs, etc) are currently dominating the SERPs for this topic.
However, we can use the in-built filters in content Explorer to find ideas that:
- We can actually compete with
- Will actually generate traffic for us
Here’s exactly what we’re doing here (and why!):
- Filtering for only English results: Pretty self-explanatory, right!?
- Filtering ONLY for results from websites with a DR between 0-59: Because the DR of my website (matthewwoodward.co.uk) is also 59, I only want to see results for sites with the same (or lower) DR. Why? Because these are the sites I’ll be able to compete with easily.
- Filtering ONLY for pages with <5 referring domains AND >500 organic visitors per month: This is the important part! By looking for pages that are receiving 500+ organic visits AND have very few links, we can uncover pages that will be VERY easy to outrank. Stealing their traffic will most likely require nothing more than creating better content and building a handful of links (at the most)
This page talks about how to uncover keywords by looking at YouTube tags.
It receives 525 organic visits per month, has 0 referring domains, and is 183 words long.
If this isn’t easily beatable content, then I don’t know what is!
#14: Find Content Ideas That People ACTUALLY Care About with Keywords Explorer
Nobody understands search intent like Google does.
Their algorithm relies on showing users what they want to see.
Because of this, there’s no better way to understand the intent behind a search term (i.e. what people are actually looking to find) than analysing the top 10 search results.
Example:
Let’s take a keyword like “SEO tools”…
Now, there are plenty of SEO tools—some free, some paid—on the market. If we wanted to rank for this keyword, maybe a winning formula for a piece of content would be to create a list of all of these SEO tools, right!?
Again, not so fast.
Let’s go to Keywords Explorer, enter the keyword, and scroll down to the SERP overview.
This shows us the top 10 ranking results.
Instantly, I spot a pattern…
Although most of the results are lists of SEO tools, a lot of them are actually lists of free SEO tools.
In fact, 7/10 results contain the word “free” in the title tag.
This tells me that although people are generally typing in “SEO tools”, they actually appear to be looking for a list of the best free SEO tools.
It would, therefore, be much smarter to go down this route when creating a piece of content around this keyword/topic.
Also:
Keywords Explorer tells us how many links (and referring domains) each of these pages has, allowing us to quickly spot topics with great potential to attract a TON of links.
Link Building
I’ll let you in on a (sad) secret:
You ain’t going to rank for any worthwhile keyword/topic without links.
Sure, less competitive keywords may only require a handful of links whereas more competitive keywords may require many more links (sometimes even thousands) but still, the bottomline is this:
You. Need. Links.
But here’s the good news:
Ahrefs shines in this department.
Not only do they boast the largest live link index on the market, they have a TON of link building tools that can help you with the task at hand.
In fact, I don’t know any serious link builders that AREN’T using Ahrefs.
It really is that good.
Here are a few ways to use Ahrefs to build all the links you need:
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#15: Use Branded Alerts to Reclaim Backlinks
Remember those branded alerts I told you to set up at the beginning of this guide?
If you set them up correctly, you’ve most likely received an email that looks something like this:
Basically, this tells you whenever anyone mentions your name (or any other branded terms) on the web.
So:
If someone mentions you personally in a blog post, you’ll know about it.
If someone talks about your brand (e.g. Apple) in a review, you’ll know about it.
Etc.
BUT:
Just because someone has mentioned your name (or brand name) in a piece of content doesn’t necessarily mean that they remembered to link to you.
And if they didn’t…getting the link is usually as easy as reaching out and asking for it.
Example:
If you look closely at the screenshot above, you’ll see that I was recently mentioned in an article about starting a membership website.
Here’s the part where I’m mentioned:
Weirdly, they didn’t link to the tutorial they mentioned in that paragraph.
It’s highly likely that they simply forgot, or made a mistake.
So:
Getting a link from this article would likely take nothing more than a simple email asking them to add a link.
#16: Monitor TOPICAL Keyword Alerts (Then Convince People to Link to You)
Monitoring branded keywords is a good start.
BUT, that’s the tip of the iceberg…
Here’s why:
In Ahrefs Alerts, you can monitor for mentions of ANY keyword.
For example, here’s an alert I set up for “link building”:
Now, each week, I get an email from Ahrefs showing me any newly published content containing that term (i.e. link building) from the past 7 days.
Example:
That’s 93 new mentions of “link building” in just one week!
BUT…how does this help to build links?
Basically, you can use these alerts to discover content that could be improved by adding a link to your website (or a particular resource on your website).
Example:
Take a look at that 2nd article (the one by SearchEngineLand.com).
It talks about “7 Reasons Why Your Broken Link Building Campaign Isn’t Working”…
It’s a great article, BUT…
I get the feeling that readers of this article are likely struggling with link building in general.
Scrolling to the end of the post, it looks like the author also thinks this…that’s why he’s chosen to include a few links to additional link building resources.
It just so happens that I also have a TON of great link building resources on my blog, such as this list of 44 link building strategies.
Because this would also be a great additional resource to include at the end of that SEL post, I could simply reach out to the author of that post (Kevin) and suggest that he add a link to my post in that final section.
This is a great, simple way to build links to any piece of content :)
Not that this method is also commonly use for niche edits!
#17: Monitor Competitor Links AND Brand Mentions
You can learn a lot from your competitors.
BUT…
Did you know that monitoring your competitors can be a great source of link prospects?
Basically, if you can identify where your competitors are being mentioned AND linked-to, you can often steal these links/mentions from yourself.
Example:
Here are the top 3 Google results for “long tail pro”:
Right now, I’m ranking in position #3.
BUT…I’d really like to rank #1.
This means that my competitors for this keyword are:
- longtailpro.com
- dumbpassiveincome.com
Right off the bat, I could throw these URLs into Ahrefs Site Explorer, look at their backlinks, and see if there are any easily replicable links I could steal for myself.
BUT…that’s a different strategy altogether!
What I want to talk about is monitoring both competitor links AND branded keywords to give you a constant supply of link opportunities.
So, let’s start with backlink monitoring:
Like I said, one of my competitors is dumbpassiveincome.com—they have a similar Long Tail Pro review to mine.
However, I personally believe my review to be better. I also updated my review very recently, so it’s super fresh.
I, therefore, believe that anyone choosing to link to my competitors Long Tail Pro review would be better off linking to mine.
So, I want to monitor my competitors review for new links.
If they get any, I can then reach out to the person linking to them and suggest that they link to my review instead (as it’s better).
Here’s how to set up an alert for these links:
Go to the Backlinks section within Ahrefs Alerts and hit “+ New Alert”.
Enter the URL of the page you want to monitor for backlinks, choose “New backlinks” under the “Scope” option, and enter your email address.
You’ll now receive an email whenever there’s a new link to your competitor’s URL—you can then swoop in and steal the link for yourself.
BUT…competitor backlinks aren’t the only thing worth monitoring:
You can also monitor competitors branded keywords.
Example:
Because I have a review of Long Tail Pro, it would be worth setting up an alert for branded keywords like “Long Tail Pro”.
Here’s why:
If someone is mentioning Long Tail Pro on the web, their readers would find a review and tutorial for the tool rather useful.
So, whenever I see Long Tail Pro being mentioned, I can simply reach out to the website owner and suggest they add a link to my review within their post.
Easy.
Here’s how to set this up:
Go to the Mentions section of Ahrefs Alerts and hit “+ New Alert”.
Add your keyword, add any blocked domains (e.g. your own website), and your email address.
Now you’ll receive an email alert whenever your keyword (e.g. “long tail pro”) is mentioned on the web.
#18: Find “Skyscraper” Link Building Opportunities (AND Prospects)
Ahh, the infamous “skyscraper technique”…
It’s perhaps the most famous link-building technique there is!
And for good reason, too—it’s super powerful!
For those unfamiliar, here’s the basic process:
- Find a piece of content with a TON of links.
- Make something even better.
- Contact anyone linking to the old, inferior piece of content and suggest that they link to yours instead.
BUT…
How do you find “skyscraper” content (i.e. content with a TON of links that you can build upon) in the first place?
Here’s a super simple method:
Enter a well-known competitors domain into Site Explorer, then go to Pages > Best by Links
You will now see every page on the domain ordered by # of backlinks.
The two posts I’ve highlighted above have thousands of backlinks.
If I was to put-together an even better version of any of these posts, I would have thousands of prospects to pitch to!
BUT…
What if you already have an EPIC piece of content and you want to build some links to it?
Here’s a simple trick that I haven’t seen anyone talk about before:
Enter a keyword into Content Explorer, then filter ONLY for pages with 100+ referring domains.
Example:
Let’s say that I wanted to build some links to my list of 44 link building strategies.
I would enter the keyword “link building strategies” into Content Explorer and add a referring domains filter.
This gives me 76 results—all of these are (a) about link building strategies, and (b) have 100+ referring domains.
Now, the trick is then to sift through the results looking for content that is very similar—yet inferior to—your content.
Here’s a good example:
This page has 109 referring domains, yet it only lists 31 strategies where mine lists 44.
It also hasn’t been updated since 2014!
Anyone linking to this page is a prime “skyscraper” prospect for my post—I just need to reach out and suggest they change the link to my page (and tell them why they should).
#19: Broken Backlink Building (with the top pages – 404 report)
Nobody likes broken links.
You know the ones…
They take you to pages like this:
It drives me crazy whenever this happens!
BUT…
Broken links are a link-builders dream.
Why? Because if you can find a broken link with a TON of backlinks, you can build links with this simple 3-step process:
- Find out what the broken link used to be
- Create a similar—but better—piece of content
- Ask anyone linking to the broken content to link to your content instead
However, before you can do this, you need to actually find a broken link with the following attributes:
- It has a TON of links pointing to it
- It’s relevant to your website
- It can be replicated without too much work
Enter a well-known competitors domain into Site Explorer, then go to Pages > Best by Links.
This shows you the most linked-to pages on that domain.
BUT…we don’t want to see all pages—we want to see broken pages.
To do this, filter the list to show ONLY 404 errors.
Most websites will have at least a few broken links.
Simply sift through these pages looking for broken links that have a decent number of backlinks AND would be relevant to your website.
If you identify a page that meets all of the criteria mentioned above, create a similar piece of content then publish it on your website.
It’s then just a case of reaching out to anyone linking to the old broken link and suggesting that they fix the link by replacing it with your link.
#20: Find Worthwhile Guest Post Prospects
Guest posting is one of the oldest link building tactics in the book.
It goes something like this:
- Find websites that accept guest posts (in your niche)
- Reach out to them and pitch a post idea
- Write the post, land the link
Example:
Google finds 4,000+ “write for us” pages (i.e. websites that are accepting guest posts) for search term “SEO”.
That’s a LOT of prospects!
BUT there’s a problem…
While you could write for thousands of websites, it’s important to remember that guest posting takes a lot of work.
Not only do you have to pitch the websites, you also have to write a top notch article, too.
This can be pretty time-consuming (or, if you’re outsourcing it, expensive!)
And, because we want people to actually read our guest post, there’s ZERO point writing posts for websites that get little/no traffic.
So, the question is: how do you know how much traffic a website gets?
Simple…just enter the domain into Site Explorer and Ahrefs will show you an estimate of organic traffic.
BUT…what if you have a long list of prospects?
No worries, just paste the entire list into Ahrefs Batch Analysis tool like so:
Here’s the result (ordered by organic search traffic):
This is a great way to cut down your list and ensure that you’re ONLY writing for websites that actually get traffic!
Site Audit
Keyword discovery and research…DONE.
Content creation…DONE.
Link building…DONE. (well, link building is never done, but you should have at least made a start!)
Here’s the good news: that’s most of the difficult stuff out of the way.
But, even if you’ve executed everything perfectly thus far, the truth is that simple on-site errors can often hinder your success.
I’m talking about…
- Rogue “noindex” tags
- Missing meta description
- Thin content
This is where Ahrefs Site Audit tool comes in handy.
In a nutshell, it will diagnose pretty much every on-site issue you could think of, without you really having to lift a finger.
Here are a few useful things you can do with it:
#21: Find Slow Loading Pages (Using the Performance Report)
Go to Internal Pages > Performance and you will see a report that looks something like this:
At first glance, this may appear as nothing more than a myriad of pie charts.
But, this is actually showing you the number of pages on your website that are slow to load, in various ways.
I recommend paying particular attention to the “Load time” chart:
The red section of the pie chart shows the number of pages that are too slow to load (and thus, need fixing).
If you click on the red section, you will see exactly which pages these are, along with how slowly they actually load:
One cool thing to note here is that Ahrefs also shows you the amount of organic traffic these pages are receiving.
If you spot a slow loading page that is receiving a lot of traffic (like my Buzzbundle review, for example), I recommend prioritising the speeding-up of that page.
Why? Because chances are it will attract even more traffic if you improve the visitor experience.
#22: Find HTML Tag Issues (e.g. Rogue “Noindex” Tags) with the HTML Tags Report
Mistakes with HTML tags can wreak havoc on your website.
For example, if you accidentally add a noindex tag to a page, Google won’t even index that page.
This means that even if you write great content and build epic links, it ain’t going to rank.
And, while not all HTML tag errors are potentially this catastrophic, they’re still worth fixing.
Ahrefs’ Site Audit tool makes this super-easy, as it uncovers all the errors for you.
To view them, just go to Internal Pages > HTML Tags:
Here, it will list all of the issues the crawler has found with your website.
In the example above, you can see that I have a few missing meta tags, along with a few other errors.
To learn more about where these errors actually occur, just click on one of the errors:
It will then tell you more information about the errors, including the pages on which the errors occur:
Because Ahrefs does the hard work for you (i.e. the discovery of these errors), you can usually fix them pretty easily just by editing a bit of HTML code.
#23: Find Incoming and Outgoing Link Issues (e.g. Broken Outbound Links) with the Incoming/Outgoing Links Reports
Earlier in this guide, I showed you how to check for (and remove) toxic backlinks.
This is super-important.
But, there are other link-based issues that can impact the performance of your website.
I’m talking about…
- Broken outgoing links
- “Nofollow” internal links
- HTTPS pages internally linking to HTTP pages
Luckily, the Incoming and Outgoing Links reports in the Site Audit tool will help you to uncover and fix these issues.
Let’s start by taking a look at the Incoming Links report:
In this example, you can see that there are a few issues with my website—namely nofollowed internal links.
This isn’t always cause for concern but generally, your internal links should be used to send “link juice” to important and relevant pages.
Therefore, they should be dofollow links.
If you click any of these errors, you will see exactly where they reside:
Let’s take a look at the Outgoing Links report, too:
Again, we have a few errors, including:
- Pages that link out to broken pages (these should be replaced and fixed!)
- HTTPS pages linking to unsecure internal pages (this is definitely not the best practice!)
- Pages without outgoing links (some studies have found outgoing links to have a positive effect on rankings)
And this is only the tip of the iceberg—there are plenty of supporting graphs, data visualizations, and other pieces of information in these reports.
Recommended reading: This is the new Site Audit tool by Ahrefs (an overview of the Site Audit tool written by Tim Soulo from Ahrefs)
Analysing Your Progress/Success
SEO is hard work.
That’s why it’s important to keep your eye on progress and make sure that the grunt work is having a positive impact on your website.
Google Analytics will be your best bet here.
BUT…if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably end up seeing your Ahrefs dashboard much more than your Google Analytics account.
So:
Here are a few things to look for in Ahrefs to make sure you’re heading in the right direction:
#24: Increased Domain Rating (DR) AND Decreased Ahrefs Rank
Are you building a consistent flow of links to your website?
If so, you should see your Domain Rating (DR) increase over time.
Here’s what it looks like on your dashboard:
If it increases, you’ll see a green arrow appear alongside this number with the amount of points it’s increased (much like with the URL rating below).
Similarly, you should start to see your Ahrefs Rank decrease.
Basically, the lower your Ahrefs Rank is, the better, so keep an eye on it.
#25: Improved Rankings (for Your Tracked Keywords)
Remember during the Ahrefs setup process when I told you to track a bunch of your top keywords in Ahrefs?
Well, that’s because these keywords also show up in your dashboard, like this:
Basically, this shows how many of your tracked keywords are ranking in the top 1-3, 4-10, 11-20, and 21-50 search results.
As rankings improve, they’ll show up here.
This is my personal favourite way to keep an eye on what really matters—if I see improvements here, I know that my traffic is probably increasing, too.
Of course, if you want to take a more granular look at keyword rankings (with graphs and whatnot), you can use Ahrefs Rank Tracker.
This can also show you some super-cool data such as the number of featured snippets you own, and much more.
BUT:
If you need daily keyword ranking updates you might want to checkout my Accuranker review because Ahrefs only updates every 3 days.
Useful Tools (That Work with Ahrefs)
Before I wrap this up, I want to mention a handful of tools that incorporate Ahrefs data.
I know from talking to Tim Soulo that Ahrefs are very picky about which tools they allow to use their data. That’s why this list is quite short.
Here are the tools I can personally vouch for:
- URL Profiler: Pulls in a bunch of metrics (including Ahrefs metrics) for a list of URLs. This is one of my personal favourites. See my full URL Profiler review for more.
- Ninja Outreach: Use the free trial of this tool to contact thosuands of backlink opportunities/broken backlinks itc in a couple of clicks. They have a range of link building email templates built in!
- Screaming Frog: Industry-leading crawling & SEO Spider tool. A must-have for anyone who’s serious about SEO. It now also allows you to pull in metrics (e.g. DR, Ahrefs Rank, etc.) from Ahrefs directly. More details here.
- Link Miner (Chrome Extension): Analyse and extract links from any web page. Perfect for finding broken links and quickly assessing them by pulling in metrics from Ahrefs.
- SeoTools for Excel: Excel add-on that’s absolutely packed with functionality. If you want to pull Ahrefs metrics directly into your spreadsheets, this one is for you! More details here.
Wrapping It Up
Ahrefs is an incredible tool.
Not just for link-building, but for (almost) everything else, too.
Seriously, if I was limited to using only one SEO tool forever, Ahrefs would probably be my #1 choice.
BUT…enough with the praise…
Here’s a quick recap of my surefire process for increasing traffic in my Ahrefs review-
- Make sure your website is healthy (i.e. there are no bad-backlinks, broken links, etc)
- Look for “Dodgy” Links in the Backlinks and Referring Domains Reports
- Look for Unnatural Anchor Text Issues
- Look for LOTS of Links from the Same C-block IPs
- Find (AND Fix) Broken Backlinks
- Remove ALL Low-Quality (or Irrelevant) Outbound Links
- Fix Broken Outbound Links
- Look for potential issues with Ahrefsbot and fix them.
- Find all of the best keywords
- Pop a Few “Seed” Keywords into Keywords Explorer
- See Other Keyword Ideas (Based on Your Seed Keywords)
- Find the Keywords/Topics that Send the Most Traffic to Your Competitors / VIDEO TUTORIAL
- Analyse YOUR Competitors to Find Keyword “Content Gaps”
- Prioritise your keywords AND find low-hanging fruit (i.e. quick-win opportunities)
- Find Keywords That You’re Already Ranking for in Positions 4-6
- Find Keywords AND Topics with High Traffic Potential
- Research and create some EPIC content
- Find UNIQUE, EASILY BEATABLE Content Ideas Using Content Explorer
- Find Content Ideas That People ACTUALLY Care About with Keywords Explorer
- Build links to your EPIC content
- Use Branded Alerts to Reclaim Backlinks
- Monitor TOPICAL Keyword Alerts (Then Convince People to Link to You)
- Monitor Competitor Links AND Brand Mentions
- Find “Skyscraper” Link Building Opportunities (AND Prospects)
- Broken Backlink Building (with the top pages – 404 report) / VIDEO TUTORIAL
- Find Worthwhile Guest Post Prospects
- Complete a site audit and fix all outstanding issues
- Use The Site Audit Tool To Find Every SEO Problem
- Find Slow Loading Pages (Using the Performance Report)
- Find HTML Tag Issues (e.g. Rogue “Noindex” Tags) with the HTML Tags Report
- Find Incoming and Outgoing Link Issues (e.g. Broken Outbound Links) with the Incoming/Outgoing Links Reports
- Keep an eye on your progress and make sure you’re on the right track!
Do this, in this order, and you won’t go far wrong!
How do you use Ahrefs in your SEO campaigns?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Ahrefs used for?
Ahrefs is a digital marketing tool that is used to analyze websites’ link profiles, keyword rankings, and SEO health. On top of that, you can also use Ahrefs to do keyword research for Google, YouTube, and even Amazon. Many people use it as well to find content ideas by searching what content performed well (in terms of social shares and links).
Is Ahrefs worth the money?
Yes, Ahrefs is totally worth the money! Ahrefs is the best SEO tool you can get on the market right now. Indeed, with this tool, you can spy on your competitors’ SEO strategies and uncover their backlinks, keywords, and other factors that make them rank higher in the SERPs.
Can I use Ahrefs for free?
Yes. Aherfs launched a tool called “Ahrefs Webmaster Tools” which is a free tool that helps you monitor your website’s SEO health and gives you an inside look at Ahrefs reporting tools, without paying anything! However, if you want to get complete access to Ahrefs tools, you’ll have to pay. They offer a 7-day trial for only $7 so you can try out the tool and see if it’s made your you.
How reliable is Ahrefs?
At the time of writing, Aherfs is the most reliable and accurate SEO tool available. It has the biggest backlink index of any other tool which means that its data stay fresh and updated.
What does Ahrefs domain rank mean?
Ahrefs domain rank (AR) is the order in which all the websites in Ahrefs database rank in terms of the quality of the website backlink profile. The domain rating (DR) metric will be used to determine the AR. The website with an AR of 1 has the best backlink profile.
What is a good Ahrefs rank?
Ahrefs Rank (AR) is used by Ahrefs to determine the order of all websites within its database from high to low. The lower the rank, the better the backlink profile. To find out if you have a good Ahrefs rank, you should compare it to your competitors.
How is Ahrefs domain rating calculated?
To calculate the domain rating (DR), Ahrefs measures your link profiles quality and quantity against all other websites that are stored in its database then it gives you a rating between 0 – 100. The Ahrefs domain rating gives you (and others) an indication of the link popularity and the amount of traffic of a domain.
What’s a good domain rating?
Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR) works by ranking domains between 0 – 100. This shows you how strong a website’s backlink profile is. The higher your DR is the better.
Are there any good alternatives to Ahrefs?
Yes! You might want to take a look at my SEMRush review, my Serpstat review, and my SEO Powersuite review which will show you how to use each of the tools to increase your search visiblity.
If you are struggling with on-page SEO then you might want to look at my Surfer SEO review which is a much more specialised tool for on-site tasks.
401 Responses
Hi Matt, congratulations for your review, very complete as always.
Let me do one question, between Serped and ahrefs, which tool would you use?
I see ahrefs in many places into your “digital marketing tools” list, and not serped. But reading your Serped review, I thought it could be a “must have” too. Is it too much limmited for being included there?
Thanks in advance!
Thank you, Jorge.
You’re right. Both tools are great and offer outstanding features.
But I have to admit that I am a huge fan of Ahrefs. I use it quite a lot.
this article really helped me in selecting best tool for SEO. thanks
Happy you found it helpful.
Nice post! Thank you so much for sharing this information.
Happy to help Alena!
Ahref is great but seems to be a tool for those who already have a basic understanding of SEO.
If you need to get the basics down just head here – https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/seo/
Hey,
Thanks for sharing your article with us. It is very helpful for growing a business.
Regards,
Anass HEDDOUN
Freelancer Web & Mobile Developer from Morocco
No problem Anass!
lovely write up. I will surely bookmark this page
Thanks for the bookmark
A great article, it’s a very informative article, thanks for sharing with us
Happy to help, Ahrefs is my favourite tool!
Wow great article. I found all of my questions answers.Thank you so much for sharing this informative post with us.
Glad I could help – Ahrefs is a great tool!
What are my thoughts? you ask for a comment.
Uh Hmm let me see!!!
This is about the most thorough relevant A to Z guide to start, monitor and optimize an affiliate niche website in 2019 and prior. WOW!!! Great job Matthew, Your fantastic assistance and guidance is greatly appreciated. I just have to execute theses methods and processes on my end.
I am glad to be on your email list to receive all this stand out guidance. Ahrefs can be confusing to the beginner but you have laid down the map to get to the destination. Thank you!
Great news Dan! Thanks very much – it’s by far my favourite tool :)
Excellent review – I couldn’t live without Ahrefs these days, but it goes hand-in-hand with SEMrush for me.
Thanks Marty – it’s my go-to tool!
I was looking for an extensive review of Ahrefs and found this blog. Well explained, super useful post. Just bookmarked it. Thank you Matt :)
No problem, glad you found my Ahrefs review :)
I will try this strategy to increase your website ranking targeted keyword
You won’t regret it!
Thanks for sharing a very informative post with us. Please share some more information.
Plenty more to come!
This is the most effective & Nice informative post, useful information Thanks
Cheers, I hope you can invest in Ahrefs and use it to the max!
What a creative site! Just have to say writing a blog and reading it was extremely fun, hope you visit my site too and explore some interesting topic. Looking forward to it!
Thanks very much. I hope you find the blog useful.
just a amazing & Nice informative post, useful information Thanks
Ahrefs is pure gold!
Very useful It covers all information about Ahrefs.
Thanks. Ahrefs is an awesome tool with so many cool features.
Thank you so much for sharing this informative post with us.
No worries Renee.
I read that Post and got it fine and informative.
Hope it helps you to get maximum benefit from Ahrefs
now I am also using Ahref and this is very great plugin.THANKS FOR GIVING MORE INFORMATION.
No worries, Ahrefs is a tool I use everyday and I have no hesitation in recommending it to others :)
Great post. All your points are very useful
Thanks Sandra, glad the post was helpful and you should be able to get the most out of your ahrefs account.
Nice informative post, useful information Thanks
No worries Manoj, Ahrefs is such a cool tool!
Amazing knowledge and I like to share this kind of information with my friends and hope they like it.
thanks.
Hey Emma, thanks very much and cheers for the shares with your friends. I hope they find the review useful too.
The best good article I have read recently, Which was helping people who are really struggling.
Awesome …Thanks…
No problem, it’s an awesome tool.
thank you it is great content
Thanks a lot Jam!
utilizing Ahrefs to enhance the nature of my current substance, finding new third party referencing openings and sourcing focused watchwords to rank for
Ahrefs tool is awesome – so many ways it can be used.
Deeply detailed article.
your article presents detailed information about Ahref.
Thanks for sharing with us.
No worries, Ahrefs is a fantastic tool!
nice blogs thnks for sharing this type of blogs….
You are welcome :)
very nicely explained
hope it will help me out
Thanks :)
very nicely explained i have visited 10 times to this website and i love this site
That’s great, I am glad you keep coming back :)
Thanks for So much Valuable Information I just loved the way you have explained whole article. Even though I have experience with SEO but by reading your article i got more insights to use a AHREF Tool .Thanks for the time and effort you have put in the article .
Hey Vish, no problem. Ahref’s is one of my favorite tool’s
Great post. All your points are very useful. Thank you. – Lead Generation Services
Thanks, hope you put them to good use
very nice and helpful article
Good to hear it
great post.
Thanks, hope you got some useful info
very good information.
Thanks very much
fantastic work.
Thanks, I hope you found it useful
fabulous work.
Thanks
I like Ahrefs. It is by far one of the best link tracking tools I found out there. And they just keep updating it with more.
Yes AHrefs is one of my favourite tools!!
Nice Blog…
Thanks, AHrefs is awesome!
Nice Blog….
Thanks very much
Thank you so much for writing & sharing such an informative article!
No problems, there are sooo many uses for AHrefs
I am so happy to read this. This is the kind of manual that needs to be given and not the random misinformation that’s at the other blogs. Appreciate your sharing this best article.
Hello again, I’m pleased you like how the content is presented :)
Amazing list of tools for analyzing backlinks and negative SEO can harm your online reputation, so it is essential for websites to check for spammy backlinks and broken pages. Thanks for the useful resource.
Yes you a right! It doesn’t look good to have broken links
Muy buen artículo muchas gracias Me gustaría agradecerle
No hay problema, gracias por leer
This is an insanely informative post Matthew,
And like you also said in your concluding part, Ahref is indeed an incredible tool. I’ve been using it for a very long time now and ever since I started making use of it, I’ve never looked back even for a second. Although, I equally have another very handy tool I’m also fond of on the name of Serpstat. But overall, Ahref is simply the best of its kind.
I’ve pretty much used a lot of different tools that are very similar to Ahref over the years, and non can really come close to it, except that it’s quite expensive and totally unaffordable for newbie bloggers. I wish there is a way the owners will introduce a more affordable plan for starters, that will indeed go a very long way.
Indeed, search engine optimization is a very tedious and challenging game, but if you have the right tools at your disposal, it will make everything much easier for you.
Thanks a lot for sharing Matthew, and do enjoy the remaining of your week.
Hi Anil, yes I have tried many different tools too but like you say, nothing beats AHref.
This is the most comprehensive ahref review I have ever read.
Thank you very much for this great piece.
Thanks, if you are gonna do something then do it right :)
Nice Blog…
Cheers :)
Thanks for this information it’s very helpful for me.
I am glad you have found it helpful Amit
Wow what a great review ! I never knew Ahrefs could be this helpful .Would surely going to buy this after your Review .
Thanks !! Matt cheers
Yes exactly…. who knew. Thanks
A complete guide Matthew! Learning something new after reading your blog is becoming something natural.
Even though I have experience with SEO, I’m taking notes of few new things I didn’t know but also many great tools I didn’t know either.
Having the proper tools could make a huge difference. It’s hard to pick a tool when you don’t know it but when you follow someone you trust, it’s different.
Thanks a lot for the content! A favorite without a doubt for future references.
Hi Nicolas, we are always learning, keeps things interesting :)
very good article.
thank you
You are welcome Ali
I have never seen so much helpful and useful review! The best post I read for a long time, thanks! David.
Cheers David
I was going to cancel ahrefs then I saw this post!
Fantastic write up, thank you so much!
Hi Ray, glad to catch you just in time!
Love this guidee!
Thankyou bro
Hey Tom, you’re welcome
Thanks Dear Matthew. it is awesome post and very helpful for people like me.
Is a free tools like ahrefs?
No it costs hundereds of thousands of dollars per month for the infrastrucutre
I would use AHrefs to research the search volumes of keywords in my industry and how competitive they are, in order to better focus my efforts on campaigns that are likely to yield results. and will steal competitive back links.
and want to put an eagle eye
Mwahaha my favourite tricks
I need ahref tool but uts too costly…anyone give alternative option.
To do what?
Awesome content…thank you for spelling it out for us!
No problem!
What a huge post Matthew, thanks so much. Would love to use ahrefs to build out my business. Could definitely use it!
Yeah its a one stop shop!
This is the best comprehensive SEO tool that one needs for fast and guaranteed rankings but alas it is very expensive too.It is worth every penny if one can afford it.
It pays for itself
I really would like a the opportunity to use Ahrefs. It’s the best SEO tool on the planet. It has al the features you need to optimize your site and get ranked in the SERPS of Google. If you don’t know this, you must have been living in a cave!
Well I hope you put it to good use!
Thank you so much sir.. for sharing this wonderful sites list. I always follow your article. This is so incredibly helpful and I got many ideas I can implement with ease
No problem!
This looks like an interesting product. What would be the best use for starting a new website? And is the ROI worth it for a new site?
First steal your competitors keywords, then their backlinks!
Its a crazy guide about generating traffic through ahrefs, and more useful things included on this tool.
Thank you so much for your kinds.
No problem Alex
Hey Matthew,
An informative post indeed.
I really liked the concept of checking the keywords of the competitors. It always gives a better idea to generate a great content.
As you have shown broken links, I do check regularly using the broken link checker tools. Ahrefs is one of the best tools right now. The site audit feature seems really helpful.
I am definitely going to use the free trial.
Thanks a lot for this detailed article.
Cheers
~Ravi
No problem Ravi!
Ahrefs is hands down the best link research tool out there. I will use it for backlink research and keyword research. The link intersect and content gap tools look amazing!
Yeah that makes it really easy to snipe!
I use a tool like this to give me the insight I need to drive my (and my clients) onsite visibility.
Dont forget the reports!
Thank you for all info in this good report. I think ahrefs is very good to help you in your seo. You can find long tail word to rank for, you can find back link , and more.
Thanks again ^_^
No problem Hamza!
Greatest tools for link building and content marketing strategy. especially love the humour from Tim Soulo :)
He asked me to drop by and see i got my luck :)
Hahaha thanks Felix!
I will use ahrefs for analizing competitors and for keyword generation. Also for reviewing my backlinks analyzing dead and active ones
Thats a good strategy!
I will use Ahrefs for most of my research like keyword research, content research, tracking keyword rankings, researching and analysing my competition,etc.. This is the best tools for every seo’ers to have. So I would definitely love to have such kind of tools. Thank you very much for this competition. Hope i can win it. :)
No problem Thianpa!
Hey Amazing article man, Ahrefs is one of the leading tool to check the competitor’s backlink profile.and I will use it for the same as you described here.
Which is your favourite strategy
I will use ahrefs to build & strengthen my backlink profile, track my competitors backlinks and rank #1 for my target keywords on Google!
The trifecta!
Awesome lesson on Ahrefs. Till now i didn’t have knowledge on this. I will implement the tool very soon. Thanks for writing such a good article.
No problem Vijay!
Hi Matthew, great article, clearly structured, helpful graphics, easy to understand.
I will use Ahrefs for better understanding backlinks of competive websites and for building my own ones.
Thanks Uwe!
I will use Ahref for Broken Link analysis
Yeah it is great for that!
I would use AHrefs to research the search volumes of keywords in my industry and how competitive they are, in order to better focus my efforts on campaigns that are likely to yield results.
I’m also hoping we’ll find new techniques for optimising our content and onsite linking!
My favourite way to find keywords :P
I will use for pretty much all seo related tasks because Ahrefs is by far the best tool for the purpose.
Yeah they have built an all in one SEO tool over the past years
I would love to use the new site audit tool.
Yeah it’s really good!
Awesome tips and seo technique! :)
I hope i can win this Ahrefs giveaway.
Thanks Adam!
I am looking forward to winning this tool!
Good luck Jessa!
I have experience with ahrefs. Not having a membership now because I cant afford it atm. Ahrefs, I must say it’s a must tool if you are into SEO.
100% worth money if you have money to spend. :P :D
You can always plan your strategy then get the most out of the trial
I will use Ahrefs tool to grow my site, and will make it good enough to be known as one of the best websites of its time.
Well you will need good content as well to do that!
I would use it mostly for backlinks great insights
It is the VERY BEST backlink checker that is for sure
Thanks for the chance to win Ahrefs Matthew. Quite excited!!!! I’ve used their free version a fair amount, and keep meaning to get a subscription. The main thing I think the tool is useful for is researching competitor keywords and then targeting those myself. Keep up the good work :)
Thanks and good luck with your growth!
Ahrefs is most important for me plz give me
Haha it doesn’t work like that!
I love ahrefs! I had the paid version for a year, but that has run out now. I use the free version to check everything, especially to quickly look up competitors or even potential domains to buy. It’s a great tool.
Why didnt you renew?
Since am not using Google ads on my webpage, am going for affiliate marketing, and this great tool will be my gued to earn good and persuasive skills for ranking most of my keywords,
I will make sure that every article gets maximum exposure, and also make that every tutorial get to more people who are in need of it.
With this tool affiliate marketing is a breakthrough for me.
What are you using to get the job done right now?
Am sharing an Ahref account with a friend his subscription ends this month.
Ahref has helped especially last week till now.
Naughty :P
This is an amazingly comprehensive review, Matthew. Ahrefs looks super powerful and there’s a ton of stuff you can achieve with it.
I could see myself using Ahrefs to improve the quality of my existing content, finding new link building opportunities and sourcing competitive keywords to rank for.
At the moment I’m looking for an easy way to export my internal blog post links (not sidebar or footer links) to evaluate them. Do you happen to know of one?
Yes Ahrefs can do that or Screaming Frog
I’ll use it for competitor monitoring for our clients, as well as keyword and backlink research.
Thats one of my favourite uses for Ahrefs
I love using ahrefs to research and sort keywords and examine competitors.
That makes two of us!
I will use Ahrefs for tracking my competitions links so I can have a better understanding of what they’re doing to grow.
Thats my favourite use for the tool
It’s amazing what Ahrefs can do, this tool would come really handy for my health blog. The first thing I would use it for is keyword research to see whether I am missing any opportunities.
And to steal all your competitors keywords!
That will be awesome if i can get a year Ahrefs subscription, I will use it to get better insight into my SEO rankings, improve and become better with SEO in this 2018
Well that is for sure!!
I would love to use ahrefs to find better keywords to target, and get a better understanding of what my competitors are doing to rank their web pages, and blogs.
P.s. Your blog delivers amazing content and value. I personally am trying to use your buzzbundle strategy to drive traffic while my webpages get on the 1st page of google.
Thanks Jordan, glad to help :)
I’ll use AHREFs in helping me get my clients to #! I’ve never owned this tool before, so having this will be a life changer!
Oh you are missing out big time!
Want to rank my posts with this..
Well you can certainly do that
Ahrefs is one of the best tool to analyze the competitor’s backlinks but free one is not that much useful. Premium one has a lot of features for competitor analysis.
*it is THE best tool
I’ll use it for the skyscraper technique.
Yeah Aherfs is great for that
Ahrefs is awesome really, i use it for almost everything regarding SEO and keyword research and also to audit my site with that new tool, it’s just Great.
Yeah it’s an incredible tool compared to Majestic now
I have started a brand new blog. I will use ahrefs to find keywords for my articles to give my blog a great start. I will also track my competitor’s Top Pages, Backlinks with Ahrefs.
Sounds like a good strategy!
competition analysis
For keywords, backlinks or mentions?
I will use AHREFS to help me strategize a relaunch of my agency site.
What kind of agency?
I will use Ahrefs for revealing my competitor’s keyword and build my website links to outrank them
MWahahahahaah!
I will use Ahrefs for competitor research in my SEO Campaigns
Steal everything! Mwahahaha
I will use Ahrefs to analyze my competitor backlinks, I will use it to track ranks and keyword research,
Same as me!
The best of ahrefs is for tracking links of a domain. The keywords tools are also great.
And the new site auditor is kick ass as well
Great article. I’m using ahrefs for KW tracking, backlinks checker, new KW ideas, etc
Did you try the site auditor yet?
well obviously keyword and backlink reaserch these tools have become really necessary but geez they are more expensive than rent here
Wow I never thought about it like that!
I’m currently using Ahrefs for keyword analysis and tracking of referring domains for a portfolio of 10 sites.
Nice are they all in the same niche?
I can see using Ahrefs primarily for the ability to ACCURATELY see competitor information as a whole. I’ve noticed that many competitors don’t have accurate information, but Ahrefs prides itself on the data,
Yes its very upto date although still possible to find out of date data
Wow, there is a great content here.
Though most of the contents here ,i have sometimes get insights from Neil Patel, moz, and backlinlo blog. I started my blog so as to be teaching young bloggers on step by step guide to seo setups. Though, I am not well grounded as experts. This means that I am still a learner when it comes to this great content you post here.
Thanks so Much for your awesome tips to using ahrefs perfectly. More grease to your elbow.
No problem Emmanuel :)
I will use Ahrefs first of all to finally get started on getting my website known and attract more visitors. Check what my competitors are usiing and try to implement this, and use (try to) it in adwords. In which that last 2 matter will be the challenge since I making seo work for me has been such a struggle.
You would probably be better using SEMRush for Adwords stuff, take a look at my detailed SEMRush review.
Definitely used all the tools because it is essential in my SEO campaigns especially the backlink research, competitor research and site audit.
That is for sure!
This is the most comprehensive ahref review I have ever read.
Thank you very much for this great piece.
No problem Soneye!
Thanks for this great tutorial!.. I personally use Ahrefs for my keyword research and competitor analysis
Steal them keywords!!!!
I will use Ahrefs for tracking my keywords and explore new keywords with high volume and low competition.
Well its the perfect tool for that!
I have just started a new amazon affiliate site, hired a writer and just published my first piece of content (4500 words), which has sold 11 amazon products in 2 days and received 500 views (sadly not from google but from social media promotion) It’s a nice start however.
I would use Ahrefs to help track my rise to number one (I can dream right) currently using serplab (free). I’d also use Ahrefs for keywords research, article ideas and like all of your audience, I would also be looking at competitors backlink profiles. Would be nice to have such a powerful tool especially from the get go.
Well its definetly the perfect tool to develop your niche site on all fronts!
With the help of Ahrefs I can rank my Hindi website fast, as I can’t afford it at the moment but would love to get a copy of Ahrefs annual plan.
Thanks!
What language are you ranking in?
Awesome article Matthew! Indeed Ahrefs is one of top SEO tools out there. In the start they were mainly known as a backlink checker tool. But, now they provide various tools for keyword research, competitor analysis and finding most shared content on websites.
I have used Ahrefs to find most shared content on certain websites. And as far as I see, there’s correlation between ranking, social shares and backlinks!
Yeah they have made some rapid developments recently!
I will use it for keyword research and of course for analyze the competition backlink profile and also keyword they rank for.
The trifecta :)
Great content as always Matthew. I’m interested in using Ahrefs for keyword research.
Thanks Ben!
Ahrefs is best for broken link building technique
Yeah it works great!
I’ll use Ahrefs the way you described in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvyVrnpAs68
One of my favorite techniques :)
I have been reading your tutorials for a while now, and I am really looking forward to winning this tutorial.
I am in a very competitive niche, and I would be using Ahrefs to overcome the my disadvantage of running a low budget business without any premium SEO tools.
I need to check what backlinks my competitors are building, and what keywords I am not working on. These are my top 2 priorities.
That sounds like you have your priorities in order!
Well.. as a freelancer, ahrefs would be a lifesaver (especially time wise). So .. I would use it to create an all-in-one system that makes more sense to me and the clients… research, content creation, tracking, auditing… best of luck to everyone.
Oh man you could make a killing with it!
Hi Matthew, Thanks for a brilliant post. Shoo, so much training here, I need time to really go through it and apply.
In the meantime, I have a couple of questions – I currently use Jaaxy for Keyword Research and Site Rank. And I use the free version of Moz for Domain Authority and Backlinks.
Moz has the DA of my main site, Inspiring Mompreneurs at 23.
I feel am just not making enough yet from my blogs to warrant the high price tag of Ahrefs… or do you think I’m being short-sighted? Super excited about your Giveaway! I would definitely start by using Ahrefs to steal my competitor’s keywords as you showed your video. And grow my sites Domain Authority. Your Backlink Health Check sounds really cool.
Well, make an Aherfs plan of attack – take out the trial to grab all the data/reports you need
I’ll do keyword research and also monitor my competitors. It will make easier to set up my strategy to outrank them :D
Good luck Hasibul! Although probably your competitors need it more than you haha
I use Ahrefs to help me research the competition in a potential niche before pulling the trigger
Do you mean like to evaluate the actual niche?
I have used the ahref trial version and they provide very useful information to catup the compettiion.
Yeah you can grab some great data out of the trial
I’d use it to help RANK! ;-)
Kaboom!
These tools will really grow my search traffic, give me ideas about my competitors’ status and monitor how I am doing in the market.
Yeah it makes life real easy
Ahrefs is great for finding link building opportunities!
And much much more!
I Would Use Ahref to Reverse Engineer Competitors Backlink :)
Just like I do :)
Thank you for this opportunity. I will use Ahref for review the backlinks of my competitors and steal their backlinks for my clients’ sites
Good use of the tool Batu!
One of my favorite tools.
That makes two of us!
I will use Ahrefs to backlink and upgrade SEO :)
Solid plan for 2018!
Mainly I’m looking for a backlink checker for competitior back analyzing & Ahref seems it be pretty accurate
Yes they have the biggest database by far https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/seo/tools/ahrefs-vs-majestic/
I’m keen to use ahrefs to find the content that is getting the most SEO traffic for other businesses with the same target market (freelancers and digital agencies)
Good strategy!
I will use it to analyze competition and rank better
Thats what I do!
Maybe not the standard Ahrefs usage, but I like checking it’s outbound links report before pitching a website to see if they link out to spammy places (anchor text, types of domains, etc.).
Thats another great use!
I’ve got a use for every tool but the keyword and content research tools would be very handy! Ahrefs is so highly regarded but it is a chicken or egg scenario for me…. Pay for ahrefs while I’m not earning income, or wait until I earn income to pay for ahrefs? Maybe I’ll wait and see if I can win a license first…! ;)
Well thats why its called investing!
Nice and detail post. I want to use ahrefs to steal my competitors traffic source .
Mwahahahahaha!
Ahref is best tool to view organic search and backlink.
I collect many keyword from ahrefs too.
So this tool is must have for me
And a huge time saver!
I would use the ahrefs tool to help research highly searched, low competition key words. And to analyse the competitions backlink profile!!
MWahahah my favourite strategy!
I would use this awesome tool for overall SEO of my site. Starting from keyword research, to competitor research to rank tracking, everything. I think this will take my SEO to whole new level
Yeah Ahrefs will take anyones SEO to the next level if used correctly
Crikey Matthew, This isn’t an article it is a small book. Incredibly well researched and written.
I only found you recently through the webinar you did with Project Supremacy late last year. Since then I have found all your articles very helpful and full of great tips. Well done.
Thanks Ric, glad to have you on board!
Great tool. I mostly like it for checking backlink profiles, though I do like the keyword research functionality as well.
Yeah its great for quick keyword research
I think it’s time to look at my old blog posts to see where the potential for growth lies. Ahrefs sounds like a great way to do that.
Yes you can find where those posts rank and then boost them to the first page
Will be using Ahrefs for pumping up SEO of my new website.
:D
Your competition should be scared!
Use AHREFS to
1. Find out how to be listed on sites as a source for crypto currency pre-sales & pre-icos. Do competitive research and see where I can do things better and see what people are looking for (but what’s missing) and then focus on those things.
2. Increase my Merch by Amazon sales and building my own branded store(s). Designs seem to be hit or miss. EX. Someone bought 9 of the same shirt, no idea where/who/why[which & when I know] those came from, did I miss something that I could have capitalized on? I’ve done NO promos, just dependent on Amazon algos and whatever they’re doing… so I have to find out what to design, where and how to promote these niche designs/brands… especially when I start using $$ for promos
3. Start making posts to “revive” affiliate blogs… still making sales but no idea why LOL And this from making no new posts… so it’s time I posted way more content and bring in way more mainly Clickbank income!
4. Making aff $ from a stocks trading type of site w/ just an obvious aff link on one of the main social media sites in the description… time to build out an actual site! LOL
5. Build out unused domains names into real sites and sell them… some similar site has 31 tips form 2014?, well, I have 44 and it’s new and current! (^_^) Who knows. I might just keep them. Better to use AHREFS than go it alone and write what I THINK people need to read VS what they’re actually already reading and interested in (and buying!!!)!
6. Do experimental things and see what happens… cause and effect. Change something and did that boost or hurt rankings or engagement?
7. Move away from “launch jacking” and building sites of real value and long term income.
8. Gotta decide on creating more masternodes vs many nodes… one money site vs many sites for individual products/services in the same niche…
9. Use AHREFS to find better info on mining rigs and best miners for the different algos then I can do posts and even vids… it’s been extremely annoying trying to find the right info that works by yourself!!! Then I can share what works right now with my readers.
10. Forget all the above and just go after a foreign market… like mukbang in South Korea? I love to eat. And can be pretty funny. Would be great to make money from eating on cam! And get instant feedback from your fans!
Sounds like a very solid strategy for 2018!
I would use the annual subscription to get a bit more granular with my local marketing keyword research, service niche. The biggest benefit i see that i would benefit from it is having a clearer understanding of what my competition is doing. For me, most importantly, have a better view of their backlink profiles and finding broken backlink opportunities or being able to offer better content like the skyscraper technique.
Thank you Matthew for the article and opportunity as well.
Yeah you can provide some awesome reports with Ahrefs
I would use ahrefs to help take my crappy affiliate website to the next level.
Hahah why is it crappy
Haha, its basically a year and a half old with 5 OK articles on it. I wanted to take things really slow to see what actually moved the needle with a small amount of content over time.
I’m currently redesigning it based on the data I have and about to order about 10,000 words to scale it a little bit now that I have more free time. I only used it to test gray/black hat strategies without risking client sites at the agency I work for during the day but Im at the point where I see some value in it. So i’m going to scale it this year.
Its made it through algorithm updates and is starting to get traffic, though not much, so why not?
I would use Ahrefs for competitor research, backlinks and keywords research. Defo rank reporting as well for my clients :-)
Which you can automate!
Didn’t use Ahrefs yet.
Always a first time!
Would love to have this baby under my command. I would reverse engineer faster and better my competitors. Thanks for this great giveaway Matthew!
That is one of the best uses for it by far!
If I win I will be using AHREFS for improving my backlinks profile and monitoring my competitors for new link building opportunities!
Steal them linkzzz
I use ahrefs for keyword research & competitor backlink analysis. I find highly linked to content in my niche, create a better article and reach out to linking sites asking for a link to my better piece. Obviously I didn’t invent this strategy, but it works great and ahrefs is the best tool for the job.
Simple but effective!
That’s a great review, it goes so in depth. Arefs looks amazing, alot more bang for your buck than other tools!
Yeha they have made significant developments recently
1. I use Ahrefs to keep track of my own backlink profile and make sure there are no bad links comming in.
2. Linkbuilding: Finding new potential websites with high UR/DR. For example what most don´t watch: it can be a difference if you analyze a category of a directory it can have a less powerful UR than a similar category where the client might also fit in .That way you always make sure you get maximum power from any website. Same with Press releases and other links ofcource. I sometimes also use ahrefs to find expired web 2.0. but don´t want to go to deep into details now lol.
3. I also use Ahrefs to analyze the backlink profile of expired domains to define if they have got any spammy history, bad links pointing at them with chinese or cirilic anchors and other funny anchor text coming in. Or a lot of spammy and not trustworthy links for example. If you are looking for expired domains you better watch out for relevancy too! you don´t want to have a .com expired domain with lots of .ru backlinks pointing at it. Thats a flag to me and a signal that something is not right. With Ahrefs you have the possibility to dig in deep, analyze and make sure that the majority of backlinks pointing to your expired domain are also relevant to the niche. Then check whois history and if the domain did not have too many owners before you, you are pretty much good to go (ofcource thats not all). I prefer Ahrefs over every other tool out there! I tried them all and I don´t get why people go for semrush and promote it that much (ah wait the affiliate program with +/-50% recurring paychecks). Ahrefs is the most functional tool and I use it every day, with a few others though because tbh the site audit tool definitely needs some more work put into it. Cheers!
What dont you like about the site audit tool?
It’s really a great tool, if you know how to use it. It’s enough for get your site in next level
Well this tutorial should help you with that!
Hi Matthew,
I have used Ahrefs before for keyword research mainly but thanks to this post I will revisit it!
Great tips to get so much more value from Ahrefs.
Thank you.
No problem Ben!
I use Ahrefs mainly for 3 things
1. KW research.
2. Competition analysis.
3. Finding link opportunities.
The one stop shop!
Analyze competition, keywork research, backlink profiles and everything else it has to offer…
And it just keeps on getting better!
Very informative article sharing the each and everything one can do with Aherf. I was looking for such article which can explain what can wedo with Aherf.
Thanks Matthe
I will surely try this
No worrys!
I would use them to help market my wife’s new home staging company.
What is home staging?
Home Staging is the process of helping home sellers sell their house. If the house is vacant she will go in a stage furniture in the house to make it more appealing to buyers. She also consults with home sellers that are trying to sell their house. For them, she will tell them what needs to be removed or fixed in the house and even provides reputable contractors to do the repairs that are needed. She can also assist with home organization which will make the home more appealing to buyers.
I’LL USE IT FOR LINK BUILDING
GOOD STRATEGY!
I will use this subscription for competition analysis and keyword research
Don’t forget the site audit!
Great giveaway Matthew!
I’d probably use pretty much all the tools Ahrefs has but mainly for competitor backlink research, monitoring brand mentions and definitely the content research/explorer.
Thanks again
Jonny
Don’t forget the new site auditor!
I will use Ahrefs for reverse engineering backlinks and any other thing Matthew tells me to do.
MWahahahahaha :P
I’d use ahrefs to do niche research
You mean steal your competitors stuff? :P
Broken backlink building for content marketing – that is how I would use Ahrefs.
Currently our agency is on a tight budget in regards to tools, so I have to do everything the slow, manual way. A year of Ahref’s would be super rad, as I would be able to convince the team by showing improved results in less time.
And Ahrefs makes that possible in just a few clicks!
Mostly I will be using the annual subscription to Ahrefs for Analyzing my Competition, Figuring out my Keywords, and For keeping tabs on my shizola. Also, Ahrefs is a fantastic tool for helping me determine which expired domains I would like to purchase. Plus, I would love to not have to pay for a year. Thanks for this comprehensive Ahrefs review Matthew!
How do you use it to evauluate expired domains?
First I have to create a list of authority URLs to run through Domain Hunter Gatherer. Then once that is finished I use DHG to sort through and filter out crap. When I find a property that looks promising I check GoDaddy to make sure it is still for sale, then I look at Archive.org to help determine if this domain is worth my time examining further. If so then I drop it into Ahrefs where I examine the Backlinks and anchor text. I look at how many best by links pages it has (that have links). These pages are good to rebuild or redirect. So, you know, if the anchors are mostly branded or naked and there is not an overabundance of SEO looking schtuff. If there are a good number of authority links that I would not be able to build myself, and I like the DR & UR then I can feel pretty good about spending 10-12 $ on a domain that has built in authority. I feel that it is a huge time saver to buy expired domains.
I have used Ahrefs before and I love it because it helped me a lot with competition analysis and keyword analysis. The new rank tracker is just awesome.
Thank You for the giveaway!
Have you tried the new site audit tool yet?
ahrefs is a great tool. I have used to in the past to do much of what you outline in this post, however this give me quite a few more ideas to run with so thanks.
No problem Wade glad to be of service!
Hey Matt, just a heads up, not sure your Facebook or Twitter entries are registering (as least not on my end).
I think its a little delayed on the backend
I will definetly use Ahrefs to upgrade my SEO efforts. It is an awesome tool :)
And with the new site auditor it has everything you need under one roof
Would love this been using Link assistant for quite a while but not entirely happy with it, they seem to be getting left behind! And we are practically neighbours Mathew, I live in Ashford Kent! :)
Well I don’t live in the UK :)
I’d love to win to this subscription for a better rank of my French blog.
Well Ahrefs has everything you need to do that!
My goal in 2018 is to reach 60K/month unique visitors to my blog. From keyword research and content opportunities to competitor research, this would be an amazing tool to help me reach my goal.
Well you can certainly do it, take a look at some of these https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/testimonials/
what an awesome post? Hello dear, Can u tell me any method GHow do I get AHref for Free? You know it is very costly
Yes use the trial here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ9CcuQKUTQ
Ahrefs is the very best. I did try it but could not afford to pay for it so I would love to win a copy. It would take my websites to the next level.
Did you try the trial? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ9CcuQKUTQ
I like the depth and insight of the content. How does one win the giveaway?
Follow the steps at the top of the post
I love Ahrefs, We use it for sourcing new backlinks from not only our direct competitors but those in similar industries. Ahrefs is worth it for that reaon alone
Ahhh thats a nice approach!
Matt, I am going to use Ahrefs data to analyze my client’s monthy performance, as well as analzye their competition, to see what they are doing and what the client could possibly be doing better, or add to their current online marketing efforts… as well as analyzing my own online projects and doing the same as i do for my clients to help improve my rankings and online visibility…. I have used Ahrefs before, and it is a GREAT tool to have for any online marketer!
Nice that will impress your cleints for sure!
I will be focusing on #13 Find UNIQUE, EASILY BEATABLE Content Ideas Using Content Explorer
Are you having trouble with that?
I am always looking for way to improve organic ranking, don’t you believe this would be a great way to affordably rank in an extremely competitive niche?
Ahrefs has amazing features and would allow me to drop some of the other services that I am currently using to combined them all into one account. Keyword tracking, Backlinking reports, Competition reporting my list could go on and on.
Love the in-depth post here too, Matt!
Probably save you a bunch of money as well!
As always, thanks for the great article… I especially love the link building tactics, building quality links is tough for me
Well Aherfs makes it a lot easier!
I’m gonna use Ahrefs to check out all of my competitors backlinks and redirects in the adult niche as redirects still seem to be on a roll
Yeah and expired domains to redirect as well
I would loive to use Ahrefs for a site audit as I believe it’s one of the biggest elements holding back a website I work with from major growth!
Well get it done :)
I would use AHRefs to do backlink building. Specifically broken backlinks to competitors sites.
Yes that makes it really easy to do
I love the keyword difficulty measure they have, while I’m always skeptical about using them, Ahrefs is by far the best compared to other tools.
Well they have the biggest data set to work with
True – nothing compared to SEMRush in my opinion.
Keyword tracking is the biggest thing for me – most rank trackers give you a seriously low number of trackable phrases unless you upgrade to an incredibly expensive plan. Ahrefs is much better in that regard and has all the backlink research tools on top!
Yeah it can be a huge money saver for some people
I would use Ahrefs as an opportunity, a tool to further my blog status and community.
That’s a great way to look at investing in a tool
Interested to find the content gaps via ahref
Yeah that’s a great tool to instantly plan a content strategy
I would love to win this subscription to be able to dig deep into my competitors.
Did you checkout the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvyVrnpAs68
Wow… What a comprehensive review on Ahref. I heard about this tools alot but haven’t tried it. I am wondering though, is it providing keywords in Indonesian? I am from Indonesia and targeting Indonesian market also.
Thanks again for the review
They support over 100 countries so I think so!