Even if you’re acquainted with Ahrefs, you astir apt usage 1 oregon 2 tools connected a regular basis. But determination are much you’re missing out on.

To assistance you get the astir retired of Ahrefs, we’ve enactment unneurotic 20 lesser-known usage cases that tin instantly heighten your SEO efforts.

Are you wondering what radical astir the satellite are searching for the most?

Run an bare hunt successful Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer and summation entree to 19.2 cardinal keywords crossed 200+ countries and regions. The U.S. keyword database unsocial counts ~4.5 cardinal keywords (the largest 1 successful the full industry).

From here, you tin usage a mates of filters to find high-volume, low-competition keywords successful a substance of seconds.

For example, let’s hunt for topics with these:

• Keyword Difficulty: up to 20
• Search volume: betwixt 5,000 and 10,000 visits/month
• Word count: max. 3 words

Once we’ve done so, our database is narrowed down to ~198,000 lucrative keywords. 

Rinse and repetition for your people country.

Let’s accidental you person the pursuing keywords:

They look to beryllium the aforesaid topic. But however bash you cognize whether you should people them with a azygous leafage oregon make abstracted pages?

We tin find retired by checking whether Google ranks akin hunt results for them.

There are 2 casual ways to spot however their SERPs overlap:

A. Put the keywords successful Keywords Explorer and spell to the Traffic stock by pages report.

B. Use the SERP examination instrumentality under the SERP overview.

It looks similar the top-ranking pages for some keywords are astir identical (7/10 communal results). Something besides indicated by our SERP similarity score.

This apt means that Google sees “whipped java recipe” arsenic a subtopic of a much wide query, “whipped coffee.” Which means you tin apt fertile for some keywords with a azygous page.

If your competitors people a ton of contented frequently, it whitethorn beryllium hard to vie with them.

You tin find retired if that is the lawsuit by utilizing the Top pages study successful Site Explorer: (1) filter for recently created pages, past (2) usage the examination mode to comparison the existent output of pages with, say, the 1 from 3 months ago.

By pursuing these nonstop steps, it looks similar our contented writers person created implicit 200 pages for the Ahrefs blog successful the past 3 months.

You tin besides see utilizing this arsenic an statement to inquire for a fund rise and physique a larger contented team.

If you’re a nexus builder, 1 of your main strategies is apt to reverse technologist your competitors’ nexus gathering tactics.

Rather than going done each backlink your rival has, you tin get quicker wins by filtering the backlinks by domain traffic. This weeds retired links from low-quality websites.

For example, determination are 760 links pointing astatine HubSpot’s #1 effect for the keyword “seo tools”:

We person a station targeting the aforesaid taxable ranking #3. If we privation to fertile higher connected Google, we tin prioritize our nexus gathering efforts by reaching retired lone to the websites that get astatine slightest 5,000 hunt visits per month. This gives america a manageable database of 90 websites. 

Podcasts are a large mode to physique some backlinks and authorization successful your industry. 

To find imaginable podcasts to beryllium interviewed on, participate the Twitter URL of a regular podcast impermanent successful your industry. 

We’re utilizing Twitter profiles due to the fact that the big usually links to a guest’s societal accounts.

For example, Rand Fishkin is simply a fashionable marketer and entrepreneur who has been featured connected galore podcasts. So I’ll paste his Twitter illustration URL into Site Explorer and caput to the Backlinks report. 

To constrictive successful lone connected podcasts, acceptable a filter to amusement referring leafage titles that incorporate words similar “episode” oregon “podcast.” And close away, we’ve recovered implicit 160 podcasts!

Repeat this for different regular podcast interviewees successful your manufacture and find tons of podcasts to transportation yourself to.

Thanks to its simplicity and scalability, assets leafage nexus gathering is inactive 1 of the astir fashionable nexus gathering tactics.

The maneuver works by acquiring backlinks from webpages that curate utile manufacture resources. 

And what amended mode to find them than to look astatine what assets pages your rival has links to?

For example, let’s cheque moz.com’s backlink illustration nether the Backlinks report. But this time, I volition filter for the referring leafage URLs that incorporate “resources.html” and “resources.php.”

Here, we person 250 links; we tin perchance scope retired to their tract owners and petition them to see Ahrefs arsenic a resource.

Gain invaluable insights connected what pages (product pages, class pages, etc.) bring the astir integrated postulation to your competitors.

Use the Organic pages by traffic illustration nether Overview 2.0 to spot pages distributed by their integrated hunt traffic.

For example, six pages are liable for astir 25% of the postulation coming to Ahrefs’ blog. If you were a nonstop competitor, you could perchance vie with america and replicate those pages.

Low-competition topics with precocious postulation imaginable are the imagination of each contented marketer (especially those successful saturated markets). But however tin you observe specified low-hanging fruits?

Just unfastened Ahrefs’ Content Explorer, hunt for a wide taxable similar “backpacking,” and use these 2 filters:

• Referring domains: Up to 5
• Page traffic: At slightest 1,000

This gives maine a database of applicable pages that get tons of integrated postulation and are casual to rank for.

From here, you tin excavation further into the keywords driving the integrated postulation and capable your contented calendar for months to come.

Tip

You tin besides find low-competition keywords with precocious postulation imaginable by going to the Top pages study nether Site Explorer and mounting a maximum KD filter of 20.

To get much views for your videos and amended their rankings connected Google, the cardinal is to people topics with video intent. If Google is showing videos for a peculiar hunt query, it means searchers similar to ticker a video alternatively than read.

To find specified topics, unfastened Content Explorer and paste the pursuing query:

site:youtube.com inurl:watch title:[your topic]

We’ll spell for “makeup.” From here, benignant the pages by Page traffic and find video topics with postulation potential.

Note

Pay adjacent attraction to leafage postulation numbers, arsenic immoderate of them mightiness beryllium cached. In specified cases, look astatine the integrated postulation trends alternatively to cheque the consistency of the postulation implicit longer periods of clip (6+ months).

What’s near is to cheque the keywords the leafage ranks for to get guidance connected some on-page and video optimizations.

Most SEOs slumber connected interior linking and neglect to recognize what a invaluable maneuver it is.

Perhaps, its astir noticeable payment among galore ones—from helping Google observe your pages to passing nexus equity—is that you power the people determination of the nexus itself.

But uncovering imaginable interior linking opportunities is clip consuming. Wouldn’t it beryllium large to get interior linking suggestions connected autopilot? You can, acknowledgment to Ahrefs’ Site Audit. 

Run a tract crawl, and the Internal nexus opportunities report volition place interior nexus opportunities by taking the apical 10 keywords for your ranking pages—then find mentions of them connected your different pages. This includes important keyword metrics and the keyword context.

We won’t suggest a nexus if 1 already exists betwixt the pages. 

A bully signifier to amended your section SEO is to get section citations. Those are mentions of your business’s name, address, oregon telephone fig connected fashionable directories that assistance searchers find your concern online.

To find them, cheque the directories wherever your competitors’ concern profiles are mentioned.

Let’s accidental we ain a plumbing institution successful Toronto. 

If you already cognize your contention (if not, Google your niche followed by the metropolis you unrecorded in), spell to Site Explorer and unfastened the Link Intersect report.

Paste your competitors’ websites successful the apical conception and yours astatine the bottom.

This volition amusement you each the websites that nexus to your competitors’ URLs, but not to yours. Usually, the much targets the referring domains are linking to, the much apt it’s a concern directory. As is the lawsuit with websites.ca.

Next, scope retired to them.

Missed keyword opportunities are those keywords wherever your competitors fertile for, but you don’t.

To summation your chances of ranking higher successful hunt results, you request to adjacent this contented spread betwixt you and the top-ranking pages (aka your integrated hunt competitors).

To bash so, unfastened Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer and hunt for a keyword that you cognize you don’t fertile for successful the apical three. For us, this would beryllium “affiliate marketing,” arsenic seen successful the SERP overview below.

Next, prime each the top-ranking pages and nonstop them to our Content Gap tool, which volition springiness you a database of lucrative keywords that your website should beryllium ranking for.

And we’ve got ~1,550 keywords that we tin perchance people successful our affiliate selling post.

The Site structure study nether Site Explorer breaks down a website’s operation into a tree-like format to assistance you marque utile discoveries.

For example, 3 of our translated blogs (Italian, German, Spanish) make astir arsenic overmuch postulation arsenic our apical blog nonfiction successful English.

You tin spell 1 measurement further and prime the Columns dropdown to see definite metrics, similar paid ones, which volition pb to further discoveries.

Let’s spell this clip with monday.com. If we comparison the paid metrics with those from 3 months ago, we tin really show the advertisement walk implicit clip for each apical folder.

It looks similar astir of the advertisement walk went toward the blog, peculiarly the “task management” subfolder.

The champion mode to shortcut your mode to the apical presumption successful Google without gathering backlinks is to people featured snippet opportunities.

To summation your chances of ranking for them, unfastened the Organic keywords study nether Site Explorer and filter for integrated keywords successful positions 2–8. Then cheque the filter “SERP features: wherever people doesn’t rank for.”

For the Ahrefs Blog, determination are 4,803 keywords with precocious chances of ranking for a featured snippet—which requires little effort than ranking astatine presumption #1.

If you’re looking for affiliates, this is for you. This works champion erstwhile you cognize the affiliate URL for a product. Most affiliate links person a “?” followed by the vendor’s ID, which whitethorn oregon whitethorn not beryllium repeatable. 

If you already cognize it, (1) paste the repeating portion of it into Site Explorer successful the Path mode, (2) spell to the Backlinks report, and (3) benignant by Page traffic.

In return, you’ll get the apical SEO affiliates for a fixed product. If you were a rival of this product, you mightiness summation your scope by partnering with them.

A “weak” leafage is simply a leafage that ranks successful the apical 10 but has a little authority—aka less referring domains.

This means that if you already person a website with higher authority, you tin (in theory) easy outrank it.

To find specified links, hunt for a keyword with high concern potential successful Keywords Explorer and unfastened the Matching terms report. I’ll spell with “marketing.”

Then use the adjacent filters:

• Keyword Difficulty: Minimum 50
• Lowest DR: Up to 50 successful top 5

With these filters, we’re specifically looking for outlier pages that are ranking for a competitory keyword contempt a little website authority. 

For example, we’ve recovered a listicle from mastermilk.com ranking #2 for “marketing courses” with lone 11 referring domains.

If you’ve created unsocial images for your website (charts, graphs, infographics), chances are radical are linking to them and not to the pages wherever they were initially featured.

To find and assertion improper representation attributions, participate your website into Site Explorer and caput implicit to the Backlinks report. Then hunt for .PNG oregon .JPG successful the “Target URL” filter.

Broken nexus gathering involves uncovering a dormant leafage with tons of backlinks and asking those linking to the leafage to swap the nexus to 1 of your website’s pages.

To enactment this maneuver to work:

• Check the Best by links study nether Site Explorer for your competitor’s website
• Set the “HTTP code” filter to 404 Not found
• Sort by Referring domains

For example, if you are a rival of Canva (the plan tool), you tin perchance make a amended assets for “zoom virtual backgrounds” oregon “resumes.”

After you’ve created the content, you tin inquire linkers to the breached leafage to nexus to you instead.

Publishers whitethorn favour immoderate solutions oregon websites, which leads to much visibility (and yet leads) for them.

Your occupation is to place specified publishers and physique amended relationships with them.

To comparison however galore times a website links to different website, spell to the Linked domains report successful Site Explorer.

Then adhd your and your competitor’s website URLs nether the “Linked domains name” filter.

Example: thedigitalprojectmanager.com, 1 of the largest assets websites for integer task managers, links to 103 pages from monday.com and lone astir a 3rd of that to asana.com.

Asana tin perchance scope retired and enactment with this website to spot if it tin summation its visibility connected this platform. 

Conceived by SEO Kevin Indig, the True Internal PageRank (TIPR) exemplary is simply a mode to amended interior linking by identifying anemic points, specifically: 

• PageRank “wasters” – Pages with tons of interior links that don’t nexus retired too much.
• PageRank “hoarders” – Pages with fewer interior links that nexus retired a lot.

He past came up with the TIPR lite model that is overmuch easier to execute.

Here’s however to acceptable it up successful Ahrefs:

1. Crawl your website utilizing Ahrefs’ Site Audit. Then caput implicit to the Page explorer report to presumption each the earthy information collected from the past crawl.

2. Apply a filter Is valid (200) interior HTML page to amusement lone links with 200 (OK) HTTP presumption codes. This has narrowed down our crawled pages from ~50,000 to ~8,000.

3. Click connected Columns to customize the report.

Add the pursuing columns successful this order:

• No. of inlinks dofollow
• No. of interior outlinks dofollow
• No. of backlinks dofollow
• No. of referring domains

Then deed Apply. The past 2 mentioned columns are not indispensable but utile for filtering retired spammy/low-quality links, according to Kevin. 

4. What’s near is to cheque for PageRank “wasters” and “hoarders” to either adhd oregon region links.

To bash so, export the Page explorer study into a spreadsheet.

Add an further file for deltas betwixt inlinks and outlinks. Then benignant by the highest oregon lowest delta.

From here, comparison the deltas with the fig of backlinks.

A leafage with tons of incoming links and fewer outgoing links whitethorn nexus to different applicable pages. While a leafage with fewer incoming links and fewer outgoing links that has a batch of backlinks tin beryllium a large discovery.

Final thoughts

Without doubt, you tin bash adjacent much with Ahrefs. But these useful usage cases should assistance you crush your SEO tasks with little effort.

Have much Ahrefs hacks to stock with us? Ping maine on Twitter. 😊