If you're looking for an SEO tool, the choice between Ahrefs and Semrush is probably the most important for your SEO. Both are powerful tools that offer a lot of useful features, but they don't have everything in common.
In this post, I'll explain the pros and cons of each SEO software, so that you can make an informed decision about which one to use in 2022.
Semrush is better for beginner users, while Ahrefs is better for experienced professionals.
Semrush is a good tool for beginners. It has a clean interface and provides you with the right information at the right time.
Ahrefs is also a good tool for beginners and experienced professionals alike, but it is not as intuitive as Semrush. Ahrefs has an interface that looks like an Excel spreadsheet, which makes it hard to use for people who are not familiar with Excel.
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Semrush is a keyword research tool and Ahrefs is a content marketing tool. Both tools are very popular in the market.
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Semrush is a much more popular tool for searching and analyzing the web. It provides search results based on keywords, which are very useful for beginners and experts alike.
Ahrefs is a better tool for advanced users who want to track their competitors' ranking, as well as their competitors' links.
It allows you to do a deep analysis of your competitor's website and see how they rank in terms of keywords so that you can get an idea about what works best for them.
Semrush is a keyword research tool and Ahrefs is a content marketing tool. Both tools are very popular in the market. Semrush is better for beginner users, while Ahrefs is better for experienced professionals.
Feature Overview
SEMrush and Ahrefs each feature a number of different tools that can be used to conduct SEO research and online marketing campaigns.
Below, you'll find a quick overview of the most useful features offered by both services:
Keyword Research
Ahrefs offers an incredibly detailed keyword research tool that allows users to get information on search volume, competitiveness, CPC (cost per click), expected traffic, and more.
SEMrush's Keyword Explorer also provides similar data points but doesn't do as good a job at summarising all the information in one place—you have to click through each section individually to see everything relevant for each keyword.
Backlink Analysis & Link Building
While Ahrefs does have a backlink analysis tool (called Site Explorer), its functionality is limited compared with what you get from SEMrush's Backlinks Checker module—it can only be used for checking links from one website at a time.
The latter gives you page-by-page reports that include link metrics such as Domain Authority, Trust Flow and Citation Flow scores as well as other essential data like Google PageRank value and anchor text distribution breakdowns for pages analyzed in your report.
Semrush
Semrush is a great tool for researching keywords, finding backlinks, and performing competitive analysis.
The free version of Semrush has some limitations. You can only do 100 searches per day, you can’t export to CSV or PDF format, and you don’t get access to the Rank Tracker feature.
The paid version of Semrush removes those limitations and offers other features like social media monitoring and download reports as PDFs/CSVs.
There are multiple ways to access the software: via a web app; mobile app; or Chrome extension (for desktop users who prefer using Chrome).
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is more expensive but has more features. If you’re looking for a comprehensive SEO tool, Ahrefs is the one to choose.
It offers both a keyword research tool and backlink analysis capabilities that can help you optimize content and build relationships with influencers to improve your organic search presence.
Semrush is more affordable but doesn't have as many features as Ahrefs or Moz Pro. Semrush excels at competitive analysis and keyword research (it was actually named one of our top picks for keyword research), but it lacks some of the other tools that you'll find in Moz Pro or Ahrefs—including social media influence tracking capabilities, an industry report builder (to keep track of your competitors' strategies), or even keyword rank tracking functionality outside of its main package price tier options.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is essential to SEO. Many of the tools we have discussed have a similar feature set when it comes to keyword research, but there are some key differences you should be aware of.
Semrush has a lot of data (more than Ahrefs), but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily more accurate or useful for your purposes. In fact, there are several things about Ahrefs that I like better than Semrush:
The Keyword Difficulty tool lets you see how difficult it is for someone to rank on a specific search engine result page (SERP). This can help you determine which keywords are worth targeting and which ones aren’t worth your time.
The Content Gap feature tells you what percentage of SERP results currently rank above yours—and it gives suggestions on how to improve your ranking by increasing the quality and authority of your website content in areas where competitors aren't as strong as yours.
Ahrefs has its own keyword research tool called Keywords Explorer which allows users to discover new long-tail keywords based on their topic interests; this makes it easier for marketers to look at topics such as "organic gardening" rather than just searching "gardening."
Backlink Analysis & Link Building
Semrush has a more detailed backlink analysis tool, and they also have the most backlinks in their database. This means you can dig deep into your link profile and get an in-depth view of every single one of your links.
If you’re looking for new opportunities to grow your backlink profile, Semrush will help with that too—it makes it easy for you to find sites linking out to competitors or similar websites in the same niche.
Ahrefs has a much bigger database than Semrush does (over 2 billion pages), which means there are plenty of opportunities for link prospecting—especially if you want to target high-authority sites outside of your industry (which I recommend doing).
SEO Audit & Content Optimization
As we’ve seen, both SEMrush and Ahrefs make it easy for you to perform an SEO audit on your site. The key difference is that Semrush has a limited number of SEO audits and content optimization features. It also doesn’t have any keyword research tools.
Ahrefs, on the other hand, provides a more extensive set of SEO audits and content optimization features than SEMrush does—and it has several different keyword research tools where you can analyze your site’s performance in relation to competitors' sites (including Domain Comparison).
The takeaway here: if you need help with link building or analyzing keywords related to certain topics/industries, then I recommend using SEMrush; if not—or if you want more than just link-building suggestions—then I recommend using Ahrefs instead!
Social Media Tools & Rank Tracking
Ahrefs has a social media monitoring tool that is well-liked by many users.
Semrush also has a social media monitoring tool and can show you which sites are linking to your competitors' websites.
Ahrefs offers better rank tracking capabilities than Semrush, but Semrush offers better social media monitoring tools than Ahrefs does.
Both tools have their strengths and weaknesses. In the end, it comes down to your specific needs and budget.
Ahrefs and Semrush are two of the most popular SEO tools out there, but which one should you use?
Ahrefs is more expensive than Semrush, but it has more features. On the other hand, Semrush is cheaper than Ahrefs and has fewer features.
which SEO tool is best for your needs?
Well...you need to decide which features are important to you. For example: if you want an easy-to-use keyword research tool with a lot of data about how often specific keywords are searched every month across Google Search, Bing Search (MSN), Yahoo Search, AOL Search and Ask Jeeves (Ask), then Ahrefs might be right up your alley!
Conclusion
We’ve covered a lot of ground here, but our overall advice is to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all SEO tool.
Even if you find yourself in the position of having to choose between Semrush and Ahrefs, we recommend going with whichever one offers more value at your current stage. Don’t get bogged down by features you don’t need right now—you can always add them later!
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