Whether you’re caller oregon aged to Ahrefs, you’re successful the right place.

This tutorial volition locomotion you done the astir practical, repeatable, and actionable Ahrefs usage cases from our six halfway tools that volition assistance amended your SEO.

Site Explorer is our competitory probe tool. With Site Explorer, you tin spot a website’s:

• Backlinks
• Keywords it ranks for successful Google
• Site operation successful a histrion format
• Pages that are liable for generating the astir hunt traffic
• Google ads campaigns

And more.

Because determination are truthful galore things you tin bash successful Site Explorer, we won’t beryllium capable to spell done each usage case. Instead, we’ll screen a fewer low-hanging fruits:

1. Restore mislaid nexus equity from breached backlinks

If determination are breached pages with backlinks connected your website, that nexus equity is wasted.

You tin reclaim the worth of the nexus equity by either restoring those pages oregon redirecting the breached URLs to applicable live pages.

Here’s however to find breached pages with backlinks connected your website:

1. Enter your domain 
2. Go to the Best by links report
3. Set the HTTP codification filter to 404 

For example, we could redirect this blog station astir asking for tweets to this 1 connected blogger outreach to reclaim astir 42 referring domains:

2. Find featured snippet opportunities

Featured snippets are afloat oregon partial answers to a query straight connected the SERPs.

If you tin drawback the snippet, you tin leap up of everyone else. That means much hunt postulation to your site.

Here’s however to find low-hanging featured snippet opportunities:

1. Enter your domain 
2. Go to the Organic keywords report
3. Set a Positions filter from 1 - 10 (you request to beryllium connected the archetypal leafage to win it) 
4. Set a SERP features filter to “where people doesn’t rank” and cheque featured snippet 

You tin present spot thousands of keywords wherever you tin effort and optimize your pages to triumph the featured snippet.

Follow the tutorial beneath to larn however to seizure featured snippets.

3. Reverse technologist a site’s structure

Investigating a site’s operation shows you which parts of the tract pull the astir hunt traffic. 

Here’s however to spot a high-level overview of a website’s structure:

1. Enter your competitor’s domain 
2. Go to the Site structure report 

For example, we tin spot that astir of Mailchimp’s hunt postulation goes to its basal domain. We tin besides click connected the arrow to spot a much elaborate breakdown.

From here, we larn that Mailchimp has a subfolder called “marketing-glossary” that gets an estimated 600K monthly hunt visits. 

If you’re a competitor, creating a glossary could beryllium a imaginable strategy you mightiness privation to replicate.

4. Replicate your competitors’ top pages

If competitors get tons of postulation to pages astir definite topics, you astir apt can, too.

Here’s however to find your competitors’ top pages:

1. Enter your competitor’s domain 
2. Go to the Top pages report 

This study shows you the pages that pull the astir hunt postulation for your competitor. 

For example, Mailchimp’s email selling usher gets an estimated 53,000 monthly hunt visits. The keyword that sends them the astir postulation is “email marketing,” which they fertile #1 for successful the US. 

If you’re a competitor, this mightiness beryllium a taxable worthy targeting.

5. Analyze your competitors’ backlinks for link-building opportunities

If you privation to fertile for thing remotely competitive, simply publishing contented isn’t enough. You request backlinks.

One mode to bash this is to analyse your competitor’s backlink illustration to spot however they’ve been acquiring theirs. 

Here’s however to spot your competitor’s backlinks:

1. Enter your competitor’s domain 
2. Go to the Backlinks report

You tin spot that Mailchimp has adjacent to 800K backlinks. 

Here’s the thing: Your chances of uncovering thing utile by manually sifting done each 800K is slim. But if you cognize what you’re looking for, you tin adhd the close filters and find the close nexus prospects.

For example, if you’re looking for assets leafage opportunities, you tin adhd a “Ref. leafage URL” filter to hunt for presumption similar resources.html, resources.php, resources.asp, links.html, links.php, and links.asp.

Apply the filters and deed amusement results, and you present person implicit 700 imaginable opportunities for assets leafage nexus building.

6. Analyze competing pages’ backlink profiles for nexus opportunities

You tin besides bash the aforesaid backlink investigation arsenic supra but connected a page level. 

For example, accidental we privation to analyse the backlink illustration of HubSpot’s blog station connected email selling statistics. We privation to make a competing leafage targeting that topic, truthful we privation to cognize however HubSpot got truthful galore links to their page.

Manually sifting done 14K backlinks is simply a immense discarded of time, truthful we’ll spell to the Anchors report to spot each anchor texts of backlinks pointing astatine HubSpot’s article.

Eyeballing the study tells america that astir radical are linking to HubSpot’s leafage due to the fact that of immoderate circumstantial stats:

There are 2 actionable takeaways:

1. We should see akin stats connected our page, arsenic these earn links. 
2. We should regenerate outdated stats truthful we tin usage them successful our outreach campaign. 

FYI, that’s precisely what we did for our SEO statistic post. Since then, we’ve earned thousands of backlinks and ranked #1 consistently.

Learn however we did that successful our video bid below.

7. Find breached nexus gathering opportunities

Broken nexus gathering is where you:

1. Find a breached leafage that has backlinks 
2. Create your ain leafage connected the topic 
3. Reach retired to those linking to the breached leafage to nexus to you instead 

Here’s however you tin find breached nexus gathering opportunities:

1. Enter your competitor’s domain 
2. Go to the Best by links report 
3. Set a HTTP codification filter to 404 not found 

For example, if you’re a rival to GetResponse, this taxable connected “what are popups” mightiness marque consciousness for you to screen due to the fact that 21 websites are linking to it.

To spot who’s linking to these pages, click connected a caret beside the URL and spell to the Backlinks report.

From here, you tin scope retired to the radical linking to these breached pages and inquire them to nexus to your caller usher connected the topic. 

Keywords Explorer is our keyword probe tool. 

Let’s look astatine a fewer ways to find bully keywords to target, fast.

1. Find keywords by hunt intent

Search intent is the crushed down a searcher’s query. To fertile precocious connected Google, you’ll request to lucifer hunt intent.

But, analyzing the SERPs for thousands of keywords manually tin beryllium incredibly time-consuming. So, a speedy mode is to usage keyword modifiers similar “best,” “how,” and “buy.”

So, let’s accidental we person an ecommerce store that sells camping equipment. Here’s however we would find keywords by hunt intent:

1. Enter a fewer wide effect keywords (e.g., camping, tent, sleeping bag, campfire) 
2. Go to the Matching presumption report
3. Add an Include filter for these modifiers (how, what, when, where, why, tutorial, tips) 

This volition amusement america a database of informational keywords we tin make contented for connected our blog.

If we privation to find commercialized probe keywords, we tin simply adhd an Include filter for words similar “best,” “vs,” and “review.”

9. Find low-competition keywords

There are 2 ways to find low-competition keywords successful Keywords Explorer. 

The first way is to acceptable a Keyword trouble (KD) filter. Set it to a debased number, similar 10, and you’ll spot low-difficulty keywords you tin target:

The second way is to acceptable a Domain Rating (DR) filter. DR is wide utilized successful the SEO assemblage to estimation a website’s authority. So, mounting a DR filter tin assistance you find keywords wherever non-authoritative sites fertile precocious successful the SERPs. 

So, let’s acceptable it to a debased worth similar 30. This volition amusement america keywords that person astatine slightest 1 website with a DR up to 30 successful the top 5. 

If we grow 1 of the SERPs, we spot a effect with <DR30 and 0 backlinks!

This surely seems similar an casual taxable to rank for. 

10. Bulk analyse a database of keywords

You tin participate up to 10,000 keywords astatine a clip successful Keywords Explorer, which allows you to analyse immoderate customized database of keywords.

Once you’ve pasted your list, you’ll beryllium capable to presumption each their metrics.

You tin besides clump them by presumption oregon Parent Topics.

11. See integrated stock of dependable for your competitors

If you’ve entered your ain database of keywords, you tin spell to the Traffic stock by domains study to spot sites that fertile for your database of keywords, on with the postulation stock they own.

This maneuver is large for keyword research. 

For example, we tin click connected the caret for immoderate of the websites, take Top pages, and we tin spot each the topics that are sending them the astir hunt traffic.

Site Audit lets you crawl your website to find and show for 100+ method and on-page SEO issues.

To tally a crawl, make a caller task and either import your websites from Google Search Console (GSC) oregon adhd them manually.

When your crawl is complete, you’ll spot the Overview report, which volition amusement you a high-level overview of each method and on-page issues Ahrefs recovered connected your site.

If your main extremity is to support your tract successful bully method health, past each you request to bash is enactment connected fixing the issues we recovered erstwhile crawling your site.

To bash that, caput to the All issues report.

You tin prioritize by moving connected the reddish ones first, which correspond errors. Then, enactment connected the yellowish ones (warnings) and the bluish ones (notices).

To spot the affected URLs, click connected the fig successful the corresponding row:

There’s much to Site Audit than maintaining your site’s method health, though. Here are immoderate much usage cases (that are not method SEO):

12. Find each affiliate links connected a website

Let’s accidental you ain a look blog that mostly makes wealth from Amazon affiliate links. However, you precocious joined a caller affiliate programme with higher payouts than Amazon. Now, you request to swap retired the Amazon links for your caller affiliate ones. 

But alternatively than doing a sitewide change, you privation to trial the caller affiliate links connected a fewer pages to get a illustration size for conversion rates.

Here’s however you tin bash this with Site Audit (after moving a crawl):

1. Go to Page Explorer
2. Hit Advanced filter 
3. Create a regularisation to find URLs that person an outer nexus containing amzn.to (Amazon’s short link). 
4. Set an Organic traffic filter to amusement pages that get astatine slightest 1,000 monthly integrated visits 

Hit ‘Apply,’ and you’ll spot 51 pages that lucifer these filters:

You tin prime from these pages to regenerate the Amazon links.

13. Find interior linking opportunities

The Internal Link Opportunities report shows you interior linking opportunities based connected keywords your pages rank for. 

Specifically, it shows:

• The leafage we urge you link from 
• The keyword that’s mentioned connected the root leafage (also the keyword that the people leafage ranks for) 
• The leafage we urge you link to 

For example, let’s accidental we privation to adhd interior links to our blog station connected keyword research. In the report, we tin acceptable a Target page filter and paste the URL to our keyword probe guide.

We present person implicit 200 imaginable pages we tin link from.

Rank Tracker lets you show your Google rankings implicit time. You tin way rankings from immoderate country, city, zip, oregon postal code. On apical of that, you tin conception your keywords utilizing tags and way your show against your competitors.

In the Rank Tracker Overview, you tin spot charts that springiness you a bully visualization of assorted categories similar stock of voice, mean position, traffic, SERP features, and positions. And these graphs are affected by the filters you set. 

Below these groups is the information array wherever you’ll spot ranking, keyword, and postulation information for each tracked keyword.

A chill diagnostic successful Rank Tracker is that we support way of your competitors too:

14. Automatically way your competitors’ rankings

Go to the Competitors overview study and you’ll spot the aforesaid data, positive however your competitors are performing for each keyword.

Even if you didn’t adhd immoderate tracked competitors to your project, you tin inactive get rival insights by going to the Competitors postulation share report.

This study shows you each your integrated hunt competitors for your tracked keywords. If you look astatine the Pages tab, you tin spot the nonstop pages you’re competing with successful integrated search. If you spell to the Domains tab, you’ll spot each websites ranking for your tracked keywords.

For example, some HubSpot and Shopify ain a batch of postulation for our tracked keywords. So, they apt fertile for a ton of topics that mightiness beryllium absorbing for our ain blog, which means we could excavation deeper into them successful Site Explorer.

Content Explorer is simply a hunt motor for marketers with billions of pages successful its index. Search for immoderate topic, and you’ll spot each pages that lucifer your query, on with their SEO and societal metrics. 

The champion part: You tin use immoderate operation of filters to excavation into the data.

Here are immoderate usage cases for Content Explorer:

15. Find low-competition topics with precocious hunt postulation potential

Here’s how:

1. Enter a wide query (e.g., backpack) 
2. Set a Referring domains filter <10 (to find low-competition topics) 
3. Set a Page traffic filter >500 (to find topics with precocious postulation potential) 
4. Set a Word count filter >500 (to find blog content) 

For example, this seems similar a large taxable to screen for a website that sells backpacks:

Click the Page traffic container and you’ll spot the nonstop keywords it ranks for, its ranking positions, and more:

16. Find impermanent station opportunities

Here’s how:

1. Enter a niche-related query (e.g., knitting) 
2. Set a DR filter of 30-65 (to find low- to mid-authority websites) 
3. Set a Website traffic filter of >5,000 (to find sites that get a bully magnitude of hunt traffic) 
4. Set a Word count filter of >500 (to constrictive results to blog content) 

Head to the Websites tab to spot sites that lucifer our filters:

Eyeball the study to find imaginable sites to pitch. For example, a tract similar Nimble Needles would marque a bully impermanent station target. 

Web Explorer allows you to hunt done each pages, domains, and links that are indexed by Yep, which is our hunt engine. This scale is astir 500 cardinal pages, ~36 times larger than Content Explorer’s index. 

Basically, you tin hunt done astir thing and filter them down by SEO metrics.

Here are immoderate use cases:

17. Find unlinked marque mentions

Unlinked notation nexus gathering is when you: 

• Find pages that notation your marque but don’t nexus to you 
• Reach retired and inquire them to nexus to you 

The crushed wherefore this maneuver works good is due to the fact that the conflict is halfway won. They cognize who you are and astir apt similar you, but they whitethorn person conscionable forgotten to nexus to you.

To find unlinked mentions, hunt for [your brand] -outlinkdomain:[yourwebsite].com -site:[yourwebsite].com.

You’ll spot implicit 61 cardinal pages that notation Ahrefs but don’t nexus to us. 

18. Search niche-relevant pages that nexus retired to Amazon affiliate URLs

For example, let’s accidental you privation to find pages connected gardening that nexus retired to Amazon affiliate URLs. The crushed you mightiness hunt this is to find imaginable acquisition targets, find websites that mightiness beryllium funny successful joining your affiliate program, oregon find affiliate contented ideas for your ain gardening website.

To find these pages, tally this search: “gardening” (outlinkdomain:amazon.com OR outlinkdomain:amzn.to)

You’ll spot 14 cardinal pages that lucifer this query. 

FYI, if you privation to research much usage cases successful Web Explorer, simply deed the Examples tab. 

Final thoughts

We’ve hardly scratched the aboveground with each disposable usage cases successful Ahrefs. That’s wherefore we’ve besides created a 7-hour certification course that digs heavy into however Ahrefs works. I highly urge checking it out.

Even though we’ve covered our halfway tools, we person immoderate different tools as well. 

Check retired Competitive Analysis, which includes tools similar Content Gap and Link Intersect.

Our Batch Analysis instrumentality lets you get SEO metrics connected up to 200 targets successful seconds:

And don’t hide to instal our free SEO toolbar wherever you tin get Ahrefs metrics laid implicit your SERPs and web pages. 

Any questions oregon comments? Let maine cognize connected X (Twitter).