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Video transcript
Hey, it’s Matt here from Style Factory, the go-to site for digital marketing and SEO advice.
Today I’m looking at Ahrefs. This is one of the best-known SEO tools available, and we use it extensively in our work.
Ahrefs gives you a huge wealth of data on keywords, backlinks, domain authority and technical SEO. However, it comes with a set of pros and cons that you’ll need to consider carefully before investing in a subscription to it.
So in this video I’m going to share 5 key reasons to use Ahrefs, and 5 key reasons to think twice about it.
Before I begin, a quick reminder to like this video, hit the subscribe button and click the notifications bell. This will give you easy access to all our SEO resources.
Right, let’s dive in, with a look at 5 key reasons to use Ahrefs.
One — it gives you data from a very wide range of search engines.
One of the biggest advantages Ahrefs has over competing SEO tools is that it gives you data from a very wide range of search engines.
While most competing solutions only provide data for Google, Ahrefs lets you perform keyword research for 8 additional search engines, including big hitters like YouTube, Bing and Amazon.
Two — You can use a lot of domains with Ahrefs.
If you need to work on multiple SEO projects involving lots of different websites, Ahrefs may be a great fit for you.
This is because it lets you work with an unlimited number of verified domains. A verified domain is one that you can prove you have access rights to — you do this by connecting your Ahrefs account to Google Search Console, adding a DNS record to your domain, or adding some HTML to your site.
Three — its ‘traffic potential’ feature lets you see the true value of ranking highly for a keyword.
A key part of keyword research is finding out how many people are searching for a particular phrase.
Now, while most SEO tools give you easy access to search volumes, Ahrefs goes one further by giving you a ‘traffic potential’ metric for keywords.
This includes traffic generated by searches which involve slight variations of those keywords.
Here’s an example of Ahrefs’ ‘traffic potential’ metric in action. You can see that although the ‘online store builder’ keyword has a search volume of around 3,000 searches per month, when keyword variations are accounted for, it has the potential to generate 18,000 visits per month to a site that ranks number one for it.
This data lets you spot juicy keywords that you might otherwise have overlooked.
Four — it’s great for broken link analysis.
Broken link building is an important SEO tactic.
It involves finding a broken link, recreating the ‘dead’ content that it used to point to, then asking anybody who used to link to the dead content to link to yours instead.
This approach allows you to build up new backlinks to your content — and the more backlinks that point to your website, the better your content is likely to perform in search.
Ahrefs makes it much easier than key competing tools to find broken links. You simply enter a domain name into its ‘Site Explorer’ section and click the Broken backlinks option. This then gives you a list of all that domain’s broken inbound links (and the sites where these links feature).
Five — it’s easy to use.
The Ahrefs interface is well thought through, clutter free and easy to use. Although using any SEO tool will involve a learning curve, Ahrefs is definitely one of the most straightforward solutions on the market.
OK, so that’s five key reasons to use Ahrefs. Now let’s look at five areas where there’s scope for improvement.
One — there’s no free trial.
Although Ahrefs does make some free tools available, it doesn’t offer a free trial of the platform. This makes it harder to assess whether it’s the right solution for your SEO needs.
Two — the reporting limits are not generous.
Ahrefs only lets you perform 500 queries per month, even on its most expensive plans. This is far less than key competing tools like Semrush and Moz.
On the plus side, Ahrefs takes a ‘pay as you go’ approach to extra queries, which can represent good value for customers whose reporting requirements vary from month to month.
Three — the entry level plan is expensive for what you get.
While the Ahrefs entry level plan is cheaper than equivalent plans offered by some competitors, it is light on functionality — it doesn’t let you access several key features, including broken backlink analysis, position history and competitive analysis tools.
Four — you can’t get daily updates on search positions without an expensive add-on.
By default Ahrefs’ rank tracking feature, which updates you on how your target keywords are performing in search results, only gives you weekly reports. To get daily ones, you’ll need to pay for a fairly pricey add-on.
Five — there’s no phone support.
Although Ahrefs is easier to use than most SEO tools, you will face a learning curve at the beginning of your subscription, and you might find yourself needing support. Unfortunately however you won’t be able to avail of this over the phone — Ahrefs’ customer service is provided via live chat and email only.
And that’s it — 5 key pros and cons of Ahrefs.
There’s lots more to learn about the platform however, so do make sure that you check out the full Ahrefs review on the Style Factory website. You’ll find a link to this in the video description.
To get more SEO resources from Style Factory, do make sure to subscribe to our channel and hit the notifications bell.
And finally, if you have any questions, just drop them in the comments section. We read them all and will do our best to help.
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