Ahrefs

Ahrefs has a simple UI but a whole suite of valuable features. As SEO Manager of Candide Ltd, I liked the following feature of the software: Their web crawler is constantly updating keyword rankings to make it as simple as possible to see how your rankings are improving over time.

It's also great for tracking new and lost backlinks, and the Domain Rating is a useful metric to measure aggregated changes to your backlink profile.

Finally, Ahrefs also has a range of tools to make link building easier. From finding a competitor's backlinks or broken links through to unearthing the pages that have earned the most links for a particular keyword, Ahrefs has got it all covered.

The marketing team of Chanty chose Ahrefs as their favorite SEO tool because it has everything in one place. From keyword research to competitor research, comprehensive backlink analysis, top page analysis, historical keyword tracking and much more, we have everything we need. I would rate Ahrefs at the top when compared to other SEO tools, although I’m sure some marketers would disagree. The only reason is the price since it’s $99 per month and many teams can’t justify this kind of cost.

A common misconception is that Ahrefs is just another keyword research tool. While it’s true that keyword research is indeed one of Ahrefs’ strong suits, At Nine Peaks Media I found that Ahrefs is—technically— a suite of various SEO tools from content research/curation, link building analytics, SEO audit, and many more.

There are at least five core features where Ahrefs really shines:

Backlink Profile Analysis: Ahrefs is often regarded as the best in the backlink analytics department, especially due to its massive link index. Simply enter any URL, and Ahrefs will give an in-depth report about the backlink profile. We can use this insight to build our own link building tactics and validate our target keywords.

Keyword Research: Probably the most important feature for any SEO tools. While some might say that Ahrefs is relatively subpar in this department (as we’ll learn while discussing Ahrefs alternatives below), Ahrefs actually offers an excellent set of keyword research features, giving you all you need to find and analyze target keyword and content ideas.

Content Insights: Analyze various topics and trending content to find out which actually produce the most backlinks, traffic, and engagement on various social media networks.

Site Audit: SEO audit is an important aspect of SEO success, analyzing your site to find possible technical errors and optimization issues, so you can make the necessary adjustments.

Rank Tracking: Track the ranking performance of your target keywords, where you can filter by device and location.

Ahrefs is probably quite expensive for some. Ahrefs offers four different plans:

Lite for $99/month, 1 user, some locked features

Standard for $179/month, 1 user, most core features unlocked

Advanced for $399/month, 3 users, more data with each analysis and report

Agency for $999/month, 5 users, even more data than the advanced plan

My most used tool is Ahrefs, although it isn't the cheapest. I usually use it for keywords research and backlink analysis, but it has pretty good site audits too. The main benefit is that it provides really accurate data in different languages. Other tools aren't as good for working with non-English speaking markets. Our team of OnlineCasinoHEX.nl works on more than 20 different markets, including Japan, Thailand, Romania, Poland and more, so we really need SEO software that is equally good in different languages.

AHREFs is great when it comes to features, specifically backlink analysis. This is why serious SEO professionals rank AHREFs as their preferred SEO tool. When you’re doing SEO, you need something that can clarify the backlink situation because it’s a powerful ranking factor and there aren’t many tools out there that nail it. AHREFs nails backlinks. It has a larger database of active links and more opportunities to find quality links that competitors have. This means if you’re looking to build backlinks, monitor your backlinks or diagnose problems with a website’s backlink profile, you’re going to want to use AHREFs. Common use cases would be bulk checking URLs for strength and IPs to identify the quality of URLs quickly. At GainTap we use the tool to identify our competitor’s best backlinks and see how much traffic those links receive. You can quickly see broken backlinks that point to 404 pages and figure out which high-quality links should be redirected. AHREFs also provides paid search (PPC) keyword and ad data which many SEOs will find useful for their PPC campaigns. AHREFs has keyword rank tracking, site auditing, and a keyword explorer to perform keyword research. I’ve used many other software tools but none have been able to replace AHREFs because of their inability to provide solid backlink data that is vital to professional SEO.

We increased traffic to our website - Fitness Savvy, by over 700% since December 2018 by using Ahrefs. While this SEO software is a little more expensive than the alternatives, the level of features makes it the best value for money. The site audit feature allows for easy technical SEO improvements, while the keyword explorer returns hundreds (or even thousands) of suggestions to expand and build on your cornerstone content. Monitoring competitors is easy, and their DR score (the equivalent of Moz’s DA - Domain Authority metric) is more reliable when seeking backlink opportunities.

There are a lot of SEO tools available but there is one that stands out above the rest. Ahrefs offers a ton of great features to track progress and find new opportunities. Keyword Explorer, their keyword research tool, gives you instant access to thousands of keywords, their search volume and competition that, in my opinion, is far more accurate than any other tool. It also offers robust link data that is extremely valuable when it comes to better understanding the link metrics of your sites and competition. As an SEO Specialist of Web Services CT, one of my favorite features of Ahrefs is its ability to show your list links that are broken. This can be a goldmine in terms of broken link reclamation. It also offers rank tracking that not only shows you Google rankings but which types of ranking feature.