Are you more confused about choosing the right SEO tools between Semrush vs Ahrefs?
So today in this article, we’re going to compare Semrush vs Ahrefs. Which will help you in selecting a better SEO tool between Ahrefs or Semrush?
If you are looking for a deep comparison of these two most popular SEO tools then you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, I’m going compare Semrush vs Ahrefs in the following parameters of:
- Keyword research
- Backlink analytics tools
- Technical SEO audit
- Pricing plans
- Additional features
If you want to start with a limited budget then it isn’t possible for you to spend on these both tools. Because for both, you have to pay a huge amount of $200 per month.
If you’ve a budget for only one, which of these two tools should you take? To choose the right SEO tool, I will like to tell you in this post ahead.
Overview: Semrush
Semrush is one of the most popular marketing toolkits for digital marketing professionals. They use it to manage their website’s SEO, PPC, Content, advertising, and social media marketing.
It isn’t only limited to this, but it helps to pull you up to Google’s top rank by completing all the steps from keyword search to link building. Semrush is truly an all-purpose SEO tool that also provides excellent competitor analysis to defeat your competitors.
SEMrush was launched in 2008 by small groups of SEO and IT specialists. Its purpose then was to make online competition fair and transparent with equal opportunities for all. After 12 years, Semrush is one of the world’s foremost competitive research services in online marketing.
I started Semrush with 7-day Free Trial at the end of 2018. After 6 days of usage, I liked the Semrush toolkit. Nowadays, I am using the Semrush Guru plan for keyword research, link building, and other competitor analysis for my website.
My personal experience with Semrush is very good. So we recommend the use of Semrush for every digital marketer.
Overview: Ahrefs
Ahrefs are a very popular SEO tools that was originally designed to perform backlink checks. However, over the last some year it has developed with leading databases and keyword research in the market.
Ahrefs can not equal Semrush in every way, but they are definitely trying. Ahrefs doesn’t offer a 7-day free trial. Such as Semrush is designed for modern agencies. However, Ahrefs has some distinct features that make it popular for small industries.
Ahrefs was launched in 2011 as a backlink analysis. However, in the last few years, Ahrefs has included all those SEO features which are required for each digital marketers. And its headquarters are established in Singapore.
Ahrefs continued to add new features and developed itself into full SEO tools that enable you to do more than creating backlinks. And you can also use the site audit to find and fix SEO technical issues with your site.
Everything cannot be explained in words, get start a 7-days trial for $7 of Ahrefs that you can get to know its features deeply with practically.
Keyword Research:
Keyword research is the most important aspect of SEO. Based on which targeted visitors come to your website. There is also the only keyword that helps you to know what is being searched by people in Google search.
Semrush
If we talk about Semrush keyword research, then Semrush is basically known for keyword research features. Semrush has the largest keyword database of 20 billion which will help you find the exact keyword with high volume.
To check the Keyword Research capabilities of Semrush, you must create a 7-days Free Trial account. And type a keyword in the Keyword Explorer. It shows your keywords along with CPC, PPC competition, keyword difficulty, monthly search volume, and other important metrics.
You can use the following features to deeply use Semrush keyword research capabilities:
- Topic research
- Keyword magic tool
Topic Research helps you generate a ton of content ideas on a given topic. Which are commonly asked by people in search engines. With the Topic Search features, you can search the subtopic list includes headings, questions, related searches, and more.
Keyword Magic Tool is the second advanced keyword research feature of Semrush. With Keyword Magic Tool, you can find the right keyword to use for your article in a few seconds. For this, you just enter a main (seed) keyword that you need to rank. In a few seconds, you will get a comprehensive table of all possible relevant keywords and variations.
It’s a unique feature of Semrush that enables you to provide everything in one place. Now, it supports 118 databases with over 18.9 billion keywords in total.
Semrush keyword magic tool helps you find a successful keyword to make you SEO-friendly content. With which you are able to get your content to rank the highest in search results.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs are a good SEO tool. In addition, it can also be used for keyword research.
Ahrefs has two main keyword research features:
- Keyword explorer
- Organic keyword
Keyword Explorer is like other keyword tools in the market. With Ahrefs, you can search thousands of keyword ideas, analyze their difficulty, and calculate their traffic capacity.
With Ahrefs keyword explorer, simply enter keywords in the search box and get thousands of keyword ideas.
This not only enables you to estimate keyword volume for Google search engine, but it also enables you to estimate keyword volume in places such as YouTube, Amazon, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
In addition to showing you the search volume for the target keywords, it also shows you the click metrics. Because high search volume does not mean that people click on search results.
With Ahrefs, see SEO metrics and ranking history of top pages. The SERP assessment enables you to understand why this page ranks at the top.
In addition, you can extract organic keywords by exploring any competing site. And catch their successful keywords.
Result: Which are the Best Tool for Keyword Research?
If we evaluate both (Semrush vs Ahrefs) tools only for keyword research, then Semrush comes out as results.
Based on the keyword data, Ahrefs shows only some limited metrics such as search volume, keyword difficulty, clicks, and CPC. While, Semrush beyond this point provides keywords with advanced metrics such as competitive density, trend, and SERP features.
It is enough to understand that Semrush has the largest keyword (20 billion) database in the industry, which is almost double (10.2billion) of Ahrefs.
Semrush gives you the opportunity to identify the exact keywords for your content.
Backlink Analysis:
How can I skip the backlink analytics when we are publishing for you a comparative article between Semrush vs Ahrefs tools?
Based on backlinks, you are able to track your competitors if they are one rank higher in the search result.
Although backlink building is a challenging aspect of SEO.
Backlinks plays the important role in search engine algorithms, SEO, and overall strategy for growing your website.
In this comparative article, we will learn how these tools work for backlinks.
Semrush
Semrush backlink analytics is no longer the same. However, backlink has been a weak part of the Semrush toolkit in the past day.
But now everything has changed. Semrush has continuously made major improvements in the quality of its backlink data since 2019. As a result, today it is included in the top list of backlink analytics.
Exploring backlink possibilities can be a long-drawn process. Semrush’s backlink feature shows you your backlink profile as well as your competitor’s backlink profile with important metrics.
To analyze your backlink in Semrush, go to Domain Analytics » Backlink from the left side menu and type domain or URL (For which you want to check backlinks) in the search box and click on ‘Check it’ button. Now, it’ll give you an overview of the overall backlink profile of the domain or URL that contains the number of backlinks and referring domains.
Apart from backlink and referring domains, you can see many more important metrics such as backlink type (text, image, etc), top anchor, and link attributes (follow, nofollow).
In the same way, you can get important information on your competitor’s link building strategy. And you can also do something better to get ahead of them.
Semrush will not only allow you to see backlinks but will also provide you more opportunities for link building for your website.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs has the largest backlink database in the industry. It includes 25.66 trillion known links, 170 million unique domains and 7.15 billion pages crawled each day.
If you’re using ahrefs tool. To analyze backlink , navigate to the ‘Site Explorer’ from your Ahrefs dashboard. Here, enter the domain for which you want to see the backlink. It’ll open the overview page for those domain.
The Overview report will provide a high-level view of the website you’re looking for. Many metrics for the website will appear on this page. However, we’re working on website’s backlinks, we will focus on only two metric- Referring domains and Backlinks.
You can click on the number of backlinks and referring domains to get deeper information into site that links to your & your competitor’s domain.
The Referring domain report shows you the sites that are linking to your domain. So, it is important for this issue.
With the help of Ahrefs’ Link Intersect tool, you can easily find the sites that link to your competitors but don’t link to you (yet).
Result: Which is Best for Backlink Analytics
These tools have their own specialty, which make them unique from each other. However, despite all the features when it comes to backlink analysis, Semrush is still the second to Ahrefs.
If I talk about my personal experience, it is easier to analyze backlinks with Ahrefs. Although, I don’t recommend spending money on both tool. If you have already taken any tool, don’t buy any other tool for backlink analysis.
Semrush’s newly expanded index is very good and it is capable of meeting all the needs of your backlink building.
Ahrefs is the best for backlink analysis.
Technical Site Audit: Semrush vs Ahrefs
Site audits are one of the most difficult aspects of SEO. It’s useful for evaluating every aspect of your website’s health and user experience.
Under this, you can see the technical SEO, external links, internal links and especially broken links and more for your website. In addition, you can see some factors that affect the health of your website.
Let’s examine which tools are better for technical SEO audit between Semrush vs Ahrefs:
Semrush Site Audit
Website SEO audit is the most frequently used tools in Semrush toolkit. It also allows you to conduct a complete SEO audit of your website.
Semrush easily allows for a overall analysis of your site’s health. This gives you a list of all the issues on your site that your site is currently facing. In addition, it also provides you with recommendations to fix these issues.
Investigation of over 130 SEO issues are included within Semrush. All issues are divided into three groups according to their severity: errors, warnings and notices.
You need to pay attention to improve the health of your website. The SEMrush SEO audit report will regularly monitor your site and show you on dashboard.
The Semrush Site Audit is a powerful website crawler that brings all the issues of your website to you and right guidelines you to fix them.
Overall, these are the essential features to move and maintain a high rank in your site SERPs.
Ahrefs Site Audit
Site audit are an important feature of Ahrefs that provides health scores for your site. In addition, it displays all possible problems with your site and recommends to fix them.
To start a site audit with ahrefs you need to login to your ahrefs account. Next, go to Site Audit » New Project page, now enter the domain here and then proceed to the Continue button.
If you associate your site with this feature ahrefs Site Audit) and it provides status daily of your site via notification in your email.
Ahrefs includes a special feature called To-Do, with these features you can mark any problem as a task. You can later export it to Excel format.
So, crawl your entire website for issues that can hurt ranking. Check health score for a high-level view of your site’s SEO health.
Result: Which is Best for SEO Audit
When it comes to technical SEO features, Semrush comes on top. In my opinion there is many reasons to say that these are better tools.
Site audit are much easier to use in Semrush. Furthermore, it provides more accurate data with features like crawl comparison, historical charts, etc.
However, Ahrefs easily track the errors that affecting your site’s SEO, but it takes longer time to scan your site and generate audit report.
If you are looking for tools to use site audit with ease, then I would recommend SEMrush. Because, Semrush is friendly for beginners.
Try Semrush site audit and check your website health.
Pricing Plans: Semrush vs Ahrefs
In term of pricing, There isn’t much difference between the prices of both Semrush and Ahrefs. Because, Semrush plans start at $99.95 per month whileas Ahrefs plan starts at $99 per month.
The basic plans of these two are bound by limits, but Ahrefs are higher restrictions on the basic plan than Semrush.
So let’s take a look at their pricing and plans:
Semrush Pricing Plans
Semrush has three plans set out with different pricing and limits. If you go on annual billing, you can save 16% on the total billing.
- Pro (starts at $99.95 per month and best for starters)
- Guru (starts at 199.95 per month and best suited for small business)
- Business (starts at 399.95 per month and best suited for agencies)
All Semrush offer you a 7-day money back guarantee. In addition, Semrush offers 7-day free trial.
Ahrefs Pricing Plans
Ahrefs is offering four monthly pricing plan. By opting annual billing, you can find 2 month free on your total bill amount.
Let’s have a look at the monthly plans in list below:
- Lite (starts at $99 per month and best for beginners)
- Standard (starts at $179 per month and best suited for blogger)
- Advanced (starts at $332 per month and great for SEOs)
- Agency ( starts at $999 per month and best for agencies)
As we have said earlier, Ahrefs doesn’t offer a free trial. To use any of their plans, you have to pay $7 for 7-days.
The table below provides you glimpse some of the features of the basic plan of SEMrush vs Ahrefs:
| Basic Plan | Semrush Pro | Ahrefs Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $99.95/mo | $99/mo |
| Users | 1 | 1 |
| Projects | 3 | 5 |
| Pages to crawl per month | 100,000 | 10,000 |
| Scheduled PDF reports | 5 | NA |
| Keywords to track | 500 | 500 |
| Mobile ranking | Yes | No |
| Free offer | Yes | No |
| Free Trial | 7-day free trial | 7-day trial for $7 |
Position Tracking Features
Position tracking allows you to track website ranking for target keyword in the Google search result. In addition, you can also track your competitors ranking in the SERPs. By tracking the position of keywords in the SERPs, you can measure your SEO functions.
Both Semrush and Ahrefs provide position tracking features. So let’s check it one by one:
Semrush Position Tracking
Semrush allow you to track keyword with position tracking tool. These features make Semrush special, which makes it even more unique by the fact that it can also be seen on mobile.
With this features, you can create a list of keywords to be used in your content, based on which you will be able to see the position in the SERPs of those pages. Not only this, but you can also see the comparative situation with your competitors.
Semrush allows you to track the positions for these keyword for different location and multiple devices such as desktop, tablet and mobile.
To set up, just choose a domain or subdomain, target keyword, location, and device. Once set up, the tool starts collecting data from your specified search engine and provide you with fresh data on that domain position for the target keyword.
The position tracking reports show the main three metrics visibility, estimated traffic, and average position for each keyword that you’ve added.
It provides you daily up-to-date data on the progress of your keyword ranking, your favorable efforts in paid and organic search. Furthermore, you can keep in mind your competitor’s keywords to compare your strengths and weaknesses.
Ahrefs Rank Tracker
Ahrefs Rank Tracker helps you monitor the list of target search keywords in 170 countries on both desktop and mobile devices.
It is easy to setup with ahrefs, just enter or import the keywords and add the country for the keywords you want to see. Also enter your competitor’s URL. Now, Ahrefs will send you an updates with regular tracking data.
If you want to keep an eye on what and how your competitors are doing. The Ahrefs Rank Tracker provides you with comparative data against ten competitors.
For this, ahrefs report in three key areas:
- Rank progress
- Search traffic
- SERPs features
Ahrefs Rank Tracker send regular email reports of the most notable changes in your keyword ranking.
Result: Which Tool is Better for Position Tracking
In both of these position tracking tool, SEMrush is my top choice for checking keyword position in Google and Bing Search. I’m sure you’ll like it as well.
However, both of these tools are useful in tracking search performance. But if you come with Semrush then you get some advanced features. Because position tracking is not enough, but recommendations are also important to improve them.
Result: Semrush is one of the best position tracking tool for you.
Final Thoughts: Semrush vs Ahrefs
Do you still have the confusion of getting the most accurate SEO tool in the Semrush vs Ahrefs? So this section is going to be important for you because it is helpful in removing all the confusion.
If your priority is link building and backlink analysis, then Ahrefs are perfect choice for your needs.
Furthermore, if your requirement is for keyword research, technical SEO and content marketing, then Semrush will be a better option for you.
If your needs are from both the sides then you can spend on both the tools if it is in your budget. Because both have their own unique features that make them different from each other. But if you have the budget for just one, And your requirement is more, I would recommend Semrush.
Because Semrush comes with maximum features that enable you to meet your maximum needs.
I hope that this article will help you in choosing the one right according to your needs between the two best SEO tools Semrush and Ahrefs.
If you like this article of ours, then you should share it to your friends, as well as give us your feedback through comments. Furthermore, you can also find us on Facebook and Twitter.
