A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Ahrefs

Check a domain’s backlink profile in Ahrefs’ ‘Site Explorer.’ The dashboard will show you the number of backlinks and the number of referring domains pointing at the website.

Check Growth in Referring Domains 

Scroll down, and you’ll see a graph that displays the growth of referring domains.

That’s relatively easy, isn’t it? Now let’s explore further:

Head over to the Backlinks option in the sidebar, and you’ll see the backlinks’ details.

Make a List of Do-Follow Links 

Use the dropdown to check the Do-follow backlinks. Considering that Do-Follow backlinks carry more value, it’s the metric that you want to check first.

Now use this tool to analyze competitor backlinks. 

I used this feature to find the backlinks of a top competitor of Salesforce. I used the filters to check for Do-Follow links from blogs only. In the platform filter, I selected ‘Blogs’.

I found that HubSpot has 32,395 Do-Follow links from unique domains, all from blog posts. 

It’s easy to export this list and explore potential link-building opportunities.

Link Intersect Tool

Use the ‘Link Intersect’ feature to generate a list of common links between two or more domains.

For generating a bunch of link opportunities, I included three competitors and excluded Salesforce from the report.

I found 45,509 new link prospects for Salesforce!

Best By Links

Now here’s the most exciting feature – ‘Best By Links.’ You can use it to learn which type of content is fetching your competitors the most links! 

How? 

The tool gives you a list of a domain’s most linked-to-pages. 

Cool, isn’t it? 

This way, you get to compare some of the top competitor content pieces to yours and see what you can do to create highly linkable content assets. 

Let’s understand this with the help of an example. Here’s HubSpot’s ‘Best By Links’ report.

If you observe closely, you’ll find that some of HubSpot’s highly linked pages are trend reports, free tools, and guides. 

As a business selling a CRM software, you can strive to produce better tools, guides, and research reports. These content assets might fetch you more links!

Analyze Internal Links

Getting higher search rankings may not be about external backlinks alone. You can use the ‘Best By Links’ report to get a list of site pages by the number of internal links. Use the ‘Internal’ tab to generate this report.

Click on the numbers to see the linking pages and the respective anchor texts. This way you can review internal links and make the necessary adjustments.

Explore New Links of Competitors

If you want to learn about the latest backlinks of a domain, you can use the ‘New Links’ tool to generate a quick report. Within the Backlinks profile, you need to select ‘New’ on the left sidebar.

Check out new links of competing domains, and know about publications and blogs interested in linking to sites like yours. 

Here’s HubSpot’s list of new Do-Follow backlinks from blogs.

The marketing tool got 1,087 new links in just seven days. 

You can repeat for other competitors to make a list of the newest competitor links. 

Keep track of Lost Links

Sites often end up shuffling and removing some links. If you’re an SEO manager, then link removals can be painful. Tracking lost links manually could be even more stressful. The good news is that you can use Ahrefs to track all of your lost backlinks. 

Within the ‘Backlink Profile,’ go over to the ‘Lost’ option on the sidebar.

I chose to find all the lost ‘Do-Follow’ links from ‘Blogs’ by selecting the relevant filters’ in the above report. I also decided to look at the lost backlinks in the last 30 days. 

Salesforce’s lost backlink report showed a loss of 3,269 links.

You can export the list of domains that have chosen to remove your backlink. Write a personalized email to reclaim the removed backlink.

Here’s another useful tactic:

Check for your competitors’ lost backlinks, and you never know there could be many new opportunities to pitch your content assets. 

Here’s a look at HubSpot’s lost backlinks in the last 30 days:

I can see an evil grin on your face >:D

Ok, let’s go further. 

Links to Broken Pages

As a marketer, you put in lots of effort in building backlinks. What if some of these backlinks pointed to broken pages on your site. 

That would be awful, right? 

But don’t worry, you can track all of your broken backlinks using Ahrefs’ ‘Site Explorer.’

Use the following steps to find the broken links and fix them:

Site Explorer > enter your site > Best by links > add 404 filter

The best way is to repair the broken pages or redirect the users to the most relevant alternatives. 

Use the following steps to find broken backlinks of competing sites, and voila, you’ll have many new link-building opportunities!

Head over to Broken Links in the sidebar to enlist all of your competitor’s broken backlinks.

Analyze Anchor Text In Links

The anchor text of your backlinks plays a critical role in search rankings. You can generate a quick report to see a list of anchor texts used in backlinks.

Use the different tabs in this report to see anchors with two words, three words, and four words, respectively. Get a glimpse of anchors to steer your anchor text strategy in the right direction. 

Finding Link Opportunities with Ahrefs’ Alerts

You can use the Alerts feature to find a ton of valuable link prospects. 

Brand Mentions

Start by heading over to Alerts on the main menu.

Add your brand name.

As you can see, I have included two variations, including “Salesforce” and “Salesforce.com.”

You can include multiple variations separated by a search operator like OR in the upper case. 

In the filters, it’s preferable to choose Everywhere and All Languages. You can change the Mode to In Content, and that works too. 

It’s a terrific way to get email alerts for unlinked mentions of your brand. 

You can reach out to the relevant journalists and influencers, asking them for a link. The tactic will help you start a relationship with media outlets who’re already interested in your business. 

Competitor Mentions

Similarly, you can set up alerts for mentions of two or more competing brands. 

Remember to exclude your brand name from the results.

With the above query, you’ll be able to get alerts every time a website mentions either HubSpot or Pipedrive but not Salesforce. 

Put all these domains in your prospect list and find a way to reach out to them.

Track Competitor Reviews 

Here is another easy method to find influencers and bloggers talking about competitors. 

Set up an alert that fetches you any new competitor reviews as and when they’re published. Here’s how it looks:

Can you start talking to these bloggers and get them to publish reviews of your product?

Finding Link Opportunities in Content Explorer

Let’s now look at some cool ways to scout for link opportunities using Ahrefs’ Content Explorer. 

Look for Broken Pages with Lots of Backlinks

We will learn about how to research content in Content Explorer in an upcoming section. For now, let’s understand how to use it to find link prospects. 

Within Content Explorer, you can find a filter that shows you either live or broken content pieces on a specific topic.

Now here is the exciting part.

Finding a list of broken pages on a given topic paves the way for more link-building opportunities. How?

Suppose you found 100 broken pages on a given topic with more than a total of 500 referring domains.

It means that 500 sites are linking to pages that aren’t live anymore!

Make a list of these domains to pitch an alternative content piece and earn yourself a link. 

Here’s another intelligent way to look for link opportunities using Ahrefs’ Content Explorer.

Find Old Pages with Lots of Backlinks

• Type your topic in Content Explorer.
• Explore old content pieces with lots of backlinks. 
• You can look for niche content pieces with more than 90 referring domains.
• Make sure they’re old and published only once.

In the above example, I typed ‘content marketing’ in the search, and with all the filters, I found 278 pages with more than 90 referring domains. 

If I click on the referring domains, I see a list of domains linking to an old piece. I can create an updated, more meaty version of such a content piece and reach out to all the sites linking to it. 

That’s extremely smart, isn’t it?

Using Content Explorer to Find Guest Blogging Opportunities

Guest blogging is a popular link building technique. It’s also an excellent way to build an online reputation. 

But you’ve got to be persistent with your efforts. 

Ahrefs can help you browse through some worthy guest blogging sites.

Let’s learn how:

Head over to Content Explorer and type your topic as a phrase match.

Use the filter one article per domain. 

Now use the ‘Highlight unlinked domains’ filter. Within this option, add your domain. 

Now you’ll get many content pieces that have never been linked to your site.

The above result shows 122,430 unlinked domains to Salesforce. 

Another interesting way to find guest posting opportunities is to stalk famous guest bloggers in your niche.

Pop a guest blogger’s name in the Content Explorer, and you’ll see all of her published pieces. Remember to use the ‘author’ search operator while adding your query.

The report showed 15 unique domains where this author published guest articles. That could be 15 new guest posting opportunities!

You can repeat this for other niche authors to find more unique guest blogging sites. 

The idea behind creating backlinks is to build site authority. While you’re working hard to find opportunities and links to prominent sites, you also wish to track a site’s web pages’ authority level. That’s how you qualify from a big list and reach out to the most relevant and the best niche websites. 

Ahrefs breaks it down into some easy-to-understand metrics that you’ll see across the reports in this tool. Let’s briefly understand some of these terms:

URL Rating: This metric tells you about the authority of a web page. It’s based on the number and quality of backlinks that point to it.

Domain Rating: Displays the authority of the domain.

Referring Domains: Tells you about the number of unique sites pointing at a web page or a website.

Anchors: Shows a list of anchor texts used in the links pointing at a site.

Ahrefs Rank: This is your site’s global ranking based on its link profile.

CLTDs Distribution: Showcases a list of a website’s link by top-level domain. 

So whether you’re analyzing backlinks or anchor texts, fixing broken ones, or hunting and qualifying new backlink opportunities, Ahrefs can make it all look like child’s play. 

Chapter 3