Ahrefs: How to use the tool for better rankings

Whether you're an SEO professional, content marketer or operator of your own website in the area of search engine optimization: If you're working with SEO tools, you'll sooner or later come across Ahrefs. But what exactly is Ahrefs, and why are so many experts talking about one of the best all-in-one SEO tools on the market?

What is Ahrefs?

Ahrefs is a comprehensive SEO toolset that enables you to make important decisions based on real data. Among other things, it provides you with insights into the search volume of keywords, but also uncovers backlinks, referring domains, technical errors, organic traffic, and much more. Unlike many simple keyword tools, Ahrefs goes deep enough that it can even reveal the strategies of your strongest competitors.

In particular, Ahrefs' extensive database is a major advantage. The tool's internal web crawler is one of the most powerful on the market and searches billions of websites every day. As a result, the information you receive about your own website or your competitors is not only up to date, but also incredibly detailed.

But the tool is not just made for professionals. Even if you're new to SEO, you can get in quickly because the functions are clear and well explained. Do you want to know which keywords are driving traffic to your competitors? Or how many backlinks has your latest landing page already generated? With just a few clicks, Ahrefs provides you with the answers.

Ahrefs: Key tools & features at a glance

Here is an overview of the most important Ahrefs tools and features:

1. Web crawler: Ahrefs' web crawler collects millions of pages every day, ensuring that you always have up-to-date data, whether for backlink analyses, technical audits or keyword updates.
2. Site Explorer: The Swiss Army Knife for SEO: Combines analysis of organic traffic, backlinks, top pages and competitors.
3. Keyword Explorer: Perfect for your keyword strategy. Delivers ideas, data, and SERP analysis for millions of keywords.
4. Content Explorer: Find content that works, including backlink data, shares, and traffic metrics.
5. Site audit: Identify technical weaknesses on your website and proactively fix them with the help of clear recommendations for action.
6. Backlink analysis: Analyze your link profile in detail, discover new or lost links and compare your backlinks with those of the competition for targeted and sustainable link building.
7. Alerts & Reports: Always stay up to date: Get notified by email about new links, rankings or problems.
8. Dashboard: Your central overview of all projects, progress and measures.

All of these features work hand in hand. So you don't need an additional tool, because Ahrefs is your complete all-in-one tool for strategic SEO. And should you not know what to do? No problem: Ahrefs offers comprehensive help articles, tutorials, videos and support, as well as a contact form. The resources are well structured, and the customer support is also responsive and competent.

How Ahrefs helps you solve common SEO problems

When your rankings stagnate, your traffic falls, or your content simply doesn't perform, this is often due to classic SEO problems. In such cases, Ahrefs can help to systematically identify them and, more importantly, to solve them in a targeted manner.

Problem 1: Your content doesn't rank for relevant keywords

It's often because you're focusing on a specific keyword that is either too competitive or simply doesn't generate search volume. With Ahrefs' Keyword Explorer, you can quickly analyze this issue. You'll find alternative terms, long-tail variants, and semantic clusters that allow you to build your content smarter. A typical mistake in this case: keywords with no actual click intent. However, Ahrefs shows you which terms are not only searched for but also clicked on.

Problem 2: Your technical setup slows you down

Loading time, broken links, incorrect redirects or problems with the mobile view, all of this slows down not only Google, but also your users. In the site audit, however, you can see exactly which pages are affected and how you can optimize them. Prioritizing according to impact is also particularly helpful: You immediately recognize which construction sites you should tackle first.

Problem 3: You get no or only a few backlinks

Without links, your site lacks the necessary trust. In this case, Ahrefs' Site Explorer and Backlink Analysis show you which content is well linked by the competition. Use this insight to develop targeted content with high link potential. With Ahrefs, you can even prepare targeted outreach campaigns by exporting relevant domains and contacts.

Problem 4: You don't know what your target group is really looking for

That's where Content Explorer comes in. You can see which topics are currently in demand in your niche, which content is already performing well and perhaps already how you can differentiate yourself with better, more comprehensive or more up-to-date content. But above all, you get inspiration as well as real data and facts, no gut feeling and guessing game.

Problem 5: You lose rankings but don't know why

Ranking losses can have many causes, such as technical problems, new competition or a change in search intent. In this case, with Ahrefs, you can track the development of your rankings over specific periods of time, identify slip-ups and analyze them in a targeted manner. The combination of Keyword Explorer, Site Explorer and Site Audit is particularly helpful here: You get a full overview and can take countermeasures.

Site Explorer: Your introduction to SEO analysis

When you start with Ahrefs, there is almost no way around Site Explorer. This tool is at the heart of your SEO research. It shows you at a glance how visible your website is in search engine results, which backlinks point to it and which content performs particularly well. In this sense, your journey to a data-driven SEO strategy starts here.

How to check your website's backlink profile

Google regards links from other sites as recommendations. The more high-quality links point to your site, the more trustworthy your domain appears and the better it can rank. Ahrefs' Site Explorer shows you, for example, the number of incoming links as well as their quality, anchor texts, link types and origin. In the “Backlink Profiles” section, you can take a closer look at:

• Which URLs received the most links
• Which referring domains these links come from
• Which pages may have received toxic links
• How your link profile develops over time

The “Broken Links Report” is also a particularly useful feature. This allows you to find links that lead nowhere, on your site or on other sites that you could use to discover backlink opportunities.

How to analyze referring domains and domain rating (DR)

First things first: A backlink alone doesn't say anything about the quality. It is only by analyzing the referring domains and their domain rating (DR) that you get a realistic picture of the strength of your link structure. The domain rating is a metric developed by Ahrefs precisely for this purpose, which indicates how strong a website's overall backlink profile is. The scale ranges from 0 to 100 and the higher the value, the stronger the backlink profile. But beware: It's not just about quantity, but above all about quality. A single link from a DR-90 domain can be worth more than 100 links from DR-10 domains.

Site Explorer will neatly list the following data for you:

• Number of referring domains by DR value
• History of domain links
• Ratio of dofollow to nofollow links
• New and lost links

This information helps you professionally evaluate your own profile and analyze your competitors. This allows you to launch targeted link building campaigns and focus on the best in the industry.

Competitor analysis: Decipher the top rankings of your competitors

Want to learn more about your competition? No problem with Ahrefs! You simply enter a competitor's domain into Site Explorer and you'll receive all relevant data: Which pages rank best? For which keywords? With which traffic?

More specifically, you will find out exactly, among other things:

• Which pages of your competitors generate the most organic traffic
• How many backlinks do these sites have
• Which content is particularly successful
• Which keywords they use and how high their keyword difficulty (KD) is

This not only gives you inspiration for new content, but also allows you to assess your own position on the market. In this way, we often discover keyword opportunities that our customers had not previously considered. The “Content Gap” area is particularly exciting, in which you can see which keywords your competition is ranking for, but you are not. This is exactly where there is enormous potential for targeted content marketing and long-term SEO success.

Keyword Explorer: Your hub for keyword strategies

One of the most powerful areas of Ahrefs is also Keyword Explorer. Every successful keyword research starts here, because without clear data and strategies, you can quickly lose track of things in the dense SEO field. However, Keyword Explorer allows you to systematically analyze which search terms are particularly promising for your website or project, from long-tail keyword ideas to high-volume main terms. You simply start with a specific keyword and get instant access to:

• search volume
• Click forecasts
• Keyword Difficulty (KD)
• CPC (cost per click)
• SERP analyses with ranking pages

This combination allows you to develop keyword strategies that are both realistic and effective. Because what good is a keyword with 100,000 search queries if you realistically have no chance of getting into the top 10?

With the keyword research function, you can also filter, cluster and group keywords by niches. You'll also get related terms, questions that users frequently ask, and even information about the SEO metrics of the top sites about this term. What is particularly helpful is that Ahrefs rates keywords not only according to search volume, but also according to real traffic potential. This gives you a much better sense of the actual scope of a topic. And the tool is also essential for experienced SEO professionals. For example, if you manage many projects at the same time or develop complex content for customers, you can use the export function to create and analyze complete reports, ideal for agencies or teams.

Content Explorer: Discover relevant topics and content opportunities

Do you have a niche but lack ideas for content? Then Content Explorer is your new best friend. This tool within Ahref helps you find the most successful content on a topic or keyword, globally or regionally. And not only that: You get direct insights into backlinks, social shares, traffic and much more. In Content Explorer, you can do something like:

• Filter articles by language, region, or platform
• Perform content analyses based on traffic, domain rating, or social shares
• Discover thematic gaps in your content marketing strategy
• Investigate successful content from competitors

The Ahrefs database therefore shows you exactly which content is getting off to a good start on the web. Visual SEO metrics help you to better assess relevance, such as domain rating, referring domains, organic traffic, publication date, and much more. An example: You're active in the fitness niche and are looking for a new topic for your blog. In Content Explorer, with just a few clicks, you can find content that currently brings a lot of traffic, although it has little competition. This is the perfect opportunity to position yourself with a high-quality article and, at the same time, to open up new backlink analysis options.

Site audit: Uncover and solve technical SEO problems

In addition to keywords and content, the technical condition of your website is also an important factor for good rankings. This is where Ahrefs' Site Audit comes in. It analyses your entire website and uncovers technical SEO issues that can have a negative impact on your ranking. The audit runs completely in the background and delivers to you after a few minutes:

• Crawl error
• broken pages or redirects
• Loading time issues
• Mobile-friendliness
• internal linking
• HTTPS and security issues
• Duplicate content
• structured data

The results are presented clearly and including metric-based evaluation of your website. You will also receive concrete solutions and recommendations for action for every problem. This is particularly helpful if you don't have an in-house technical SEO expert. You can also schedule regular audits and automatically send reports to customers or team members via email. This allows everyone involved to keep track of things without having to make manual adjustments.

In our opinion, another nice feature is the Health Score, an assessment of website health based on real data. The higher the score, the better the technical status of your website. With Ahrefs, you can not only optimize keywords and content, but also align the basic structure of your website so that it performs in the long term.

Backlink analysis: Your path to a strong link profile

Hardly any other ranking factor is as controversial and at the same time as important as the topic of backlinks. With Ahrefs, however, you don't just get a list of links, but a complete picture of your backlink profile, including quality, structure, and growth potential. The backlink analysis shows you, among other things:

• Which pages are linked the most
• Which content represents the best “linkbait”
• Which domains link to you multiple times
• Which backlinks are potentially toxic and
• How your link profile is developing compared to the competition

With Ahrefs, you can use targeted One Tool strategies that bundle both the analysis and implementation of backlink campaigns in one tool. You can prioritize link sources, plan outreach, and measure success, all in one place. And here too, reports can be generated regularly and shared with your team or customers. This ensures transparency and is an unbeatable feature, especially for extensive SEO campaigns.

Alerts & Reports: Stay informed automatically and react faster

In SEO, it's not just what you analyze that counts, but also when. Ahrefs' Alerts & Reports help you do this: They help you to act proactively instead of just reacting to changes. Email notifications automatically inform you about important SEO developments, such as when your website receives new backlinks, a strong link is lost, rankings shift, or new content from a competing site suddenly gets a lot of visibility. You can set these alerts individually, for example for specific keywords, URLs or domains. So you decide which events you want to monitor, at what frequency you want to be notified (e.g. daily, weekly) and which projects or customers they should apply to. Like many other functions, these alerts are particularly valuable for agencies or larger teams, as they create transparency and enable quick responses, for example in the event of technical problems, link losses or sudden ranking drops.

And another tip from everyday SEO as an agency: Use alerts for your competition too, for example to be informed about new backlinks, content or top rankings of your competitors. This not only keeps you up to date, but also gives you valuable inspiration for your own content marketing or link building.

Dashboard: Your SEO center for overview, prioritization and planning

The dashboard in Ahrefs is your central hub for all SEO activities. Here you can keep an overview of all your projects, their current performance, technical conditions and potential construction sites at a glance. You can see there, among other things:

• Changes in keyword rankings
• Visibility curves
• New or lost backlinks
• Technical errors from the site audit
• URL-level traffic development

This makes it particularly easy to set priorities: Where does visibility go back? Which page has suddenly received a lot of new links? Where are there 404 errors that should be addressed urgently? This information is directly visible on the dashboard and can be further expanded with one click.

For SEO teams or agencies, the dashboard is also an important tool for communication and task management. You can set up a separate dashboard for each customer or project, assign responsibilities and derive reports from this. The ability to manage multiple projects in parallel makes Ahrefs particularly efficient, even for complex campaigns with many domains, landing pages, or language versions. When you start your SEO campaign, you can also create a project directly in the dashboard and define clear goals for it (e.g. improve rankings for 10 focus keywords, fix technical errors, build 20 new backlinks). In this way, you can track progress in the dashboard at any time and adjust it based on data.

Ahrefs in comparison: All in One SEO tool with power

Are you wondering why you should use Ahrefs and not another SEO tool like SEMrush or Sistrix? It's simple: Ahrefs is a true all-in one tool that offers everything you need for your SEO and a bit more.

What makes Ahrefs special?

• Own, extremely fast web crawler (only Google crawls anymore)
• Database with billions of keywords and billions of backlinks
• Combination of technical analysis, content tools and competitive analysis
• Clear dashboards that you can adapt to your needs
• Outstanding support and regular product updates

The Ahrefs tools also work together perfectly. So you don't have to switch between 5 tools to manage your SEO. You have everything in one product, from keyword research to content analysis to SEO audits. What we particularly appreciate as an SEO agency is that Ahrefs is constantly evolving. New features, better filters and faster reports make it possible to carry out work as efficiently and professionally as possible at any time. And the user interface is also intuitive, which makes the tool attractive for users of all levels of experience.

Ahrefs as an SEO tool: Practical tips for keyword research

How do you actually find the right keywords that really bring traffic? This is exactly where Ahrefs shines with practical functions and intelligent data preparation. With Keyword Explorer, you can go far beyond simply entering a keyword. You'll get keyword ideas based on real user queries, including detailed SEO metrics such as:

• search volume
• click-through rate
• Keyword Difficulty
• Potential for featured snippets
• Cost per click

But that's just the start. The real advantage lies in the ability to group keywords thematically. You can therefore cluster terms, identify related questions and thus compile complete keyword sets for new pages or optimizations of existing content. The “Parent Topics” filter is particularly helpful here, which allows you to identify main topics and associated long-tail keywords.

Another tip: Use the “Also rank for” function to find out which keywords a particular page still ranks for, because this shows you thematic proximity and possible opportunities to expand your content. An example: A provider in the pet food sector wanted to rank for the keyword “grain-free dog food.” By researching with Ahrefs, he found related terms such as “natural dog food,” “hypoallergenic,” and “dog food for allergies.” The result: A comprehensive article that was not only designed for a keyword, but also for an entire keyword strategy, with a clear goal: a top ranking.

Ahrefs: Pricing & Packages

Regardless of whether you're just starting out with SEO, working as a freelancer, or implementing a comprehensive in-house strategy: There is a suitable setup for every level. Ahrefs currently offers the following packages (as of 07/2025):

Starter (27 €/month): A cost-effective start for anyone who wants to gain initial experience with SEO tools. Includes basic access to Site Explorer, Keyword Explorer and Site Audit, making it particularly suitable for side projects or individuals with a limited budget.

Lite (119 €/month): The ideal package for small businesses or personal projects. Includes 5 projects, 6 months of historical data, 750 tracked keywords and 100,000 crawl credits. It includes central tools such as the Dashboard, Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Brand Radar, Site Audit and Rank Tracker.

Standard (229 €/month): Recommended for SEO freelancers, consultants, and smaller marketing teams. Compared to the Lite plan, you get 20 projects, 2 years of data history, 2,000 keywords to track, 500,000 crawl credits and significantly advanced features, such as Content Explorer, SERP comparison, batch analysis, keyword clusters and more.

Advanced (419 €/month): Ideal for medium-sized in-house teams or agencies with a high need for analysis. With 50 projects, 5 years of historical data, 5,000 keywords, 1.5 million crawl credits and advanced tools such as Web Explorer, Looker Studio integration and HTTP authentication, you get maximum depth and flexibility in SEO work.

Enterprise (1,394 €/month, annual commitment): For companies with the highest standards of scalability, customization, and control. In addition to all advanced features, you get API access, SSO, individual access management, unlimited historical data, forecasting tools, and advanced export options. Here, Ahrefs becomes the central data platform for your entire digital strategy.

For website owners, Ahrefs also offers free Webmaster Tools with limited access to Site Explorer and Site Audit, a good start to make initial technical improvements. As an experienced SEO agency, we are of course happy to help you select and use the right package for your projects, your team and your goals.

The current prices can be found on the Ahrefs' pricing page.

Conclusion: Ahrefs is a must-have for your SEO strategy

If you want to do SEO seriously, you need a tool that not only provides you with data, but also allows you to draw the right conclusions from it. That's exactly what Ahrefs offers you as an all-in-one tool that goes far beyond simple keyword analysis. With features such as Keyword Explorer, Content Explorer, Backlink Analysis and Site Audit, you get a complete package that covers all aspects of modern search engine optimization. This allows you to plan strategically, operationally and measurably optimize, all in one place!

In any case, the combination of depth and clarity is particularly convincing for us as an agency. Whether you're managing a single project or a variety of customers, Ahrefs gives you the scalability you need. You can plan campaigns, automate reports, and efficiently engage your team. And Ahrefs is also accessible to beginners. With a clearly structured interface, helpful resources, and strong support, you can get started right away and see rapid progress.

Our recommendation is therefore: Test Ahrefs on your own project. Start with a specific keyword, analyze your existing site and build a data-based SEO strategy on that. You'll be surprised how much potential your website has and how easily you can make it visible with Ahrefs.

As an experienced SEO agency, we are also happy to advise you on your SEO goals and potential alternative tools that are better suited to your plans.

FAQ: The most common questions about Ahrefs

Below you'll find answers to the most common questions about Ahrefs.

How much does Ahrefs cost per month?

The prices vary depending on the range of functions, projects, keyword limits and number of users, but start at just 27 €/month in the starter plan. This is followed by the Lite Plan (119€), Standard (229€) as well as Advanced (419€) and Enterprise (from 1,394€, annual commitment).

Can you try Ahrefs for free?

There is currently no classic free trial account, but Ahrefs offers a very limited free account. However, you must take out a paid subscription for full use.

What are the alternatives to Ahrefs?

The most well-known Ahrefs alternatives include SEMrush, Moz, Sistrix, and Ubersuggest. Nevertheless, many SEO professionals value Ahrefs as the most reliable solution because of its extensive database and strong web crawler.

How often should you do keyword research with Ahrefs?

Ideally before creating new content, during relaunches and regularly updating existing pages. Ongoing research is also useful to identify new trends in your niche.

Is Ahrefs also suitable for small businesses or individual entrepreneurs?

Yes, Ahrefs is also suitable for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs. The Lite Plan in particular is perfect for smaller projects or lone fighters. But SMEs who regularly create content or want to position themselves better in search engines in the long term also benefit from Ahrefs.

‍