How to use Ahrefs for SEO (search engine optimisation)?

There are a lot of SEO tools available for online marketers. It can certainly be challenging to know which tool to use and when. Especially since most tools offer similar solutions, such as keyword analysis, backlink analysis and competitive analysis. The question "What is the best tool for SEO?" is therefore difficult to answer. However, we can say that we like using Ahrefs. In this knowledge base article, we tell you how we use Ahrefs and for what purposes. Do you want your website to rank higher in Google? Then Ahrefs is a valuable tool that gives you useful insights. 

What is Ahrefs?

Ahrefs is one of the most powerful and popular SEO tools on the market. It is also one of the most expensive, so it is useful to understand how to use Ahrefs before investing money in it. To find out, Ahrefs offers a free trial. You can test the tool and see if it's something for your business. Ahrefs analyses billions of pages and has a wide selection of reports and statistics. It is a powerful SEO tool that helps you with keyword onder search, competition analysis and finding powerful backlinks for link building. 

There are many reasons why SEO specialists like to use Ahrefs. For one thing, it is comprehensive. It can collect backlinks, keywords and social media data. You can also track a comprehensive site audit with Ahrefs. Furthermore, Ahrefs is user-friendly and has a simple design that is easy to navigate through. Even for people less experienced with SEO, Ahrefs is a fine programme. Finally, Ahrefs has an awful lot of web data, if you compare it to some other SEO tools. 

How to use Ahrefs for SEO: Keywords ondersearch

Incorporating the right keywords on a website is important to be found well. Ahrefs is onder other a very useful keyword tool. Potential customers search Google with a particular query. Ahrefs makes it possible to find out how much search volume there is on the searches and how much competition there is. Ahrefs is ideal to use in search analysis. When we start for a new client, we always begin with a keyword probe. The SEO advice that we give is based on multiple tools and our own insights. We favour a data-driven approach and always include this in our advice. Want to know more? Then also read: How do you build a SEO business case?

How to do a keyword onder search in Ahrefs? 

To find good search terms, go to the keyword explorer in Ahrefs. You can enter one or more keywords here, e.g. 'SEO'. At the time of writing, this has a monthly search volume of 12,000 and a keyword difficulty (KD) of 57. The keyword difficulty is the degree of difficulty of a search term. This means there is a lot of competition if you optimise your page for the search term 'SEO'. This makes it harder to rank high. See also onder screenshot below. 

Do you choose to optimise your page for 'What is SEO?'? Then the search volume is a lot lower, but so is the competition. For a keyword onder search, we look for relevant search terms, prioritising those with high search volume/low competition.

In onderthe screenshot below you can see that "what is SEO?" has a search volume of 1400 and a keyword difficulty of 23. Furthermore, it is noticeable that the search demand is rising considerably. So this way, you can see which search terms might offer opportunities in the future. Do you expect search demand to decrease (e.g. due to a trend)? Then it might be better to focus on other search terms that will also be relevant in the future. Want to know more? Take a look at our SEO services page and find out how we can help you. 

How to use Ahrefs for SEO: Backlinks

The number of backlinks of a website is important to rank well. The more valuable backlinks your website has, the more Google trusts your website. This is why it is so important to find ways to get more backlinks to your website. If you don't have the budget to hire a team of PR specialists, you can do it yourself with the help of Ahrefs. 

Backlink explorer

The Backlinks Explorer can help you find and see your competitors' backlinks. This can help you find websites that might be willing to link to your website. By approaching these websites (outreach), you can get new links, which will help your strengthen link profile. However, you should bear in mind that link placement usually charges money. You can also use Ahrefs broken links find out. This is useful, for example, after a SEO website migration, where you want all links to lead to a new relevant page. 

How to use Ahrefs for SEO: Competitive analysis 

With the competition analysis tool within Ahrefs, you can see how your website is performing compared to its competitors. For example, you can see how many similar keywords the websites rank for and which search terms are unique for both websites. You can also see an intersection graph, clearly showing the overlap in search terms. This data helps you better understand your audience and why a competitor performs better/worse than your website. You can also use the site explorer to see on which search terms competitors bring in the most traffic. 

Using Ahrefs for a website audit

A SEO website audit is an in-depth analysis of a website to improve search engine optimisation. During the audit, various aspects of the website are evaluated, including technical data, content quality, usability and backlinks. The aim is to identify problems that may affect the website's performance in the search engines and recommend improvements. The audit can also help define goals and create a plan to achieve them. Ahrefs is a powerful tool for website audits because it provides a lot of information about a website's backlinks, organic keywords, traffic and technical data. To use Ahrefs for a website audit, you can follow the following steps:

1. Create an account with Ahrefs and enter the URL of the website you want to audit.
2. Review the website's backlinks. Go to the "Backlinks" tab and look at the quality of the backlinks to the website. Look for low-quality backlinks or spammy websites that you may want to remove.
3. Look at the website's organic keywords. Go to the "Organic keywords" tab and see which keywords the website ranks the most. Look for keywords for which the website has low positions and try to improve them.
4. View the website's traffic. Go to the "Traffic" tab and see how much traffic the website receives and what sources this traffic comes from. Look for ways to increase traffic, for example by offering valuable content or performing search engine optimisation.
5. View the technical data of the website. Go to the "Site explorer" tab and click on "Technical data". Look at the meta tags, header tags, page load time and other technical aspects of the website. Look for ways to improve the technical data, such as resizing images or using compressed files.

Want to know more? Get in touch with us!

At SEO agency Onder, Ahrefs is one of the tools we like to use. We do this because Ahrefs is very comprehensive and because Ahrefs bases its data on data from multiple search engines. Billions of pages are analysed and Ahrefs' data is frequently updated. Wondering what we can do for you? Then do a live Live SEO analysis.

As a SEO agency, we are experts in optimising websites for search engines and offer comprehensive training. Are you interested in a SEO audit To improve the performance of your website? Our specialists can help you with technical SEO, paying attention to issues such as load time, URL structure and mobile-friendliness.

We are happy to share our technical SEO tips to strengthen your skills. Whether you choose in-depth training or Online SEO training, we are ready to onder support you in the world of search engine optimisation.c