Article thumbnail

Improving SEO with Ahrefs

8m
seo
improvements

Intro

We'll look at how to improve your SEO using the Ahrefs tool and we'll play with the reports that are available in the free plan.

Prelude

If you've ever read about SEO, you've probably come to the same conclusion as I have - it's not a simple subject. It can be incredibly frustrating...

Website positioning requires the knowledge of good practices and a lot of experience. My knowledge in this area is rather basic. I've spent a lot of time reading. The Internet is full of tips and tricks on how to improve SEO, but testing whether they make sense takes too much time.

One lovely morning the tool fell into my hands, which removed the most of the ills. Above all, it saved time and relieved me from manually testing the site's metadata. About this invention in today's entry.

I am greedy! Instead of learning or hiring someone, I found a ready-made solution.

1. Why Ahrefs?

Well... It has everything I was looking for. Reports, knowledge, notifications to email and a free plan. Let's check out what a sample report looks like.

Loading

Everything simple and easy to read

How does it work? When you upload a new version of your site to the server, you can generate a report. The tool will create a summary. Then, it will compare the new and old versions. It will show you potential regression and allow you to understand which sites are problematic.

Here's something else. Reports are generated in cycles from time to time. So you can track progress on your site. After the generation of cyclic report you will receive an email with the summary.

Loading

Good morning from Ahrefs

If you are filthy rich then take a peek at pricing and see the full features.

2. How to start with Ahrefs?

  • Create an account
  • Connect the site
  • Sign in
  • Go to Side Audit tab
  • Generate first report

If you have any problems, I refer you to this video, that explains how to do it. I skip it because it's not what the article is about.

3. Auditing my site with Ahrefs

I'm sitting and playing "Path of Exile", a kitten on my knees and a coffee next to me. Suddenly, a notification arrives on my email.

Loading

Looks like some kind of problem :/

Holy cow. It shows that I have 0 errors, 50 warnings and 42 suggestions. What it means?

  • Errors will definitely affect your site negatively
  • Warnings may affect your site negatively
  • Suggestions are additional improvements for SEO purists

Also you can see that compared to the last version of the page I have one warning less (this value -1 in green).

Somehow I got something right. Kudos to me.

4. Let's analyse the report

I clicked the link to the full report and then I started checking. The first problem as you can see is that the page descriptions are too short.

Loading

Description too short

So I click and it shows me a list of sites affected by this particular problem. Let's focus on the first one (the home page).

Loading

Some SEO problems

When we click on it, we can see an additional panel where we have displayed the reason and a possible solution. My description is only 65 characters long, while it should be in the 110-160 characters range.

Loading

1 warning and 1 suggestion

I added 70 spaces and the problem solved. Of course, I'm just kidding. I added a fancy description from a buddy (124 characters).

5. Let's check the fix

I published a new version of the site. It wasn't something urgent. So I spent the week doing other useful things - I have played the "Path of Exile." After some time, the report came in.

Loading

Now better

The new report shows that there is one warning less, so the fix worked.

Summary

After reading this post, you already know how to improve SEO with the Ahrefs tool. In that case, is it enough to have a good tool and the problem is over? No! It's just a helper, but further we have to learn on our own. Now it is much much easier, but this is the tip of the iceberg.

If you enjoyed it, be sure to visit us on Linkedin where we regularly upload content from programming.

I didn't get a single shilling for Ahrefs advertising.

I create content regularly!

I hope you found my post interesting. If so, maybe you'll take a peek at my LinkedIn, where I publish posts daily.

Comments

Add your honest opinion about this article and help us improve the content.

created: 14-04-2023
updated: 21-04-2023