SEO

Semrush vs Ahrefs: Which SEO Tool is Right for You in 2023?

It’s 2023, but digital marketers are still participating in the Semrush vs Ahrefs debate.

Both of these tools dominate the SEO landscape. Unsurprisingly, they also happen to be our favorite SEO tools.

Semrush and Ahrefs can help you conduct keyword research, audit your website, find new backlinks, and more. The scope is endless.

If money wasn’t one of the key deciding factors, we would highly recommend investing in both of these tools. However, doing that will set you back almost $220 per month. And that’s considering you’re signing up for the most basic plans.

Neither of these tools is cheap.

So, assuming you had to invest in just one, which of the tools would you go for?

This is the question you’ll have an answer to by the end of this Semrush vs Ahrefs review.

Let’s get started.

Try Semrush for Free!
Try Ahrefs Now

 

Semrush vs Ahrefs: The Summary Box
Semrush Ahrefs
Semrush is an online visibility management platform. From keyword research to rank tracking and everything in between, Semrush is a spectacular all-in-one SEO tool that can help you get on top of the Google SERP. Ahrefs is one of the leading SEO tools that rose to fame because of its unbeatable backlink analysis tool. However, just like Semrush, it can also perform other SEO-related tasks such as keyword research, link building, and more.

Semrush

  • Semrush is an online visibility management platform. From keyword research to rank tracking and everything in between, Semrush is a spectacular all-in-one SEO tool that can help you get on top of the Google SERP.

Ahrefs

  • Ahrefs is one of the leading SEO tools that rose to fame because of its unbeatable backlink analysis tool. However, just like Semrush, it can also perform other SEO-related tasks such as keyword research, link building, and more.

Product Ratings (Out of 5-stars)

Semrush Ahrefs
Overall
Support
Features
User-Friendliness
Value for Money

Semrush

  • Overall:
  • Support:
  • Features:
  • User-Friendliness:
  • Value for Money:

Ahrefs

  • Overall:
  • Support:
  • Features:
  • User-Friendliness:
  • Value for Money:

Pros and Cons: Semrush

 

Pros Cons
Wide range of features Time-consuming
Free version available UI has scope for improvement
Several guides and resources for new users
On-page, off-page, and technical SEO audits
Fantastic site audit tool
Regular updates
Great customer support

Pros

  • Wide range of features
  • Free version available
  • Several guides and resources for new users
  • On-page, off-page, and technical SEO audits
  • Fantastic site audit tool
  • Regular updates
  • Great customer support

Cons

  • Time-consuming
  • UI has scope for improvement

Pros and Cons: Ahrefs

 

Pros Cons
An extremely user-friendly interface No free plan
Prompt customer support No free trial
Massive backlink database Doesn’t integrate with Google Analytics
Conducts on-page, off-page, and technical SEO audits
Video tutorials for users
Competitor spying

Pros

  • An extremely user-friendly interface
  • Prompt customer support
  • Massive backlink database
  • Conducts on-page, off-page, and technical SEO audits
  • Video tutorials for users
  • Competitor spying

Cons

  • No free plan
  • No free trial
  • Doesn’t integrate with Google Analytics

Pricing Details: Semrush

Pricing Plan Price
Freemium Free
Pro $119.95/month
Guru $229.95/month
Business $449.95/month
  • Freemium: Free
  • Pro: $119.95/month
  • Guru: $229.95/month
  • Business: $449.95/month

Try it for Free Today!

Pricing Details: Ahrefs

Pricing Plan Cost (Per Month)
Lite $99/month
Standard $199 per month
Advanced $399 per month
Enterprise $999/month
  • Lite: $99/month
  • Standard: $199/month
  • Advanced: $399/month
  • Enterprise: $999/month

Try Ahrefs!

Verdict: Unlike Ahrefs, Semrush offers both – a free plan, and a free trial. What’s more, its higher-tier plans are more affordable. That being said, both the tools are loaded with features. It’s all about finding which one works better for you.


Who is it For?

Semrush Ahrefs
Small and medium-sized businesses Small and medium-sized businesses
Bloggers Bloggers
Enterprises Enterprises
Freelancers Freelancers
Startups Startups
Marketing agencies Marketing agencies
Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurs

Semrush

  • Small and medium-sized businesses
  • Bloggers
  • Enterprises
  • Freelancers
  • Startups
  • Marketing agencies
  • Entrepreneurs

Ahrefs

  • Small and medium-sized businesses
  • Bloggers
  • Enterprises
  • Freelancers
  • Startups
  • Marketing agencies
  • Entrepreneurs

Features Comparison: Semrush vs Ahrefs

Semrush Ahrefs
Keyword Overview
Keyword Search
Keyword Research Keyword Sorting
Keyword Difficulty Scores
Keyword Manager
Site Auditing
On-Page and Technical SEO Competitor Benchmarking
Content Ideation
Link Building
Off-Page SEO Backlinks Audit
Rank Tracking
Keyword Management
Ads PPC Keyword Tool
Ad Builder
Content Audit and Analytics
Content Marketing Market Research
Writing Assistant
Social Media Marketing Social Media Scheduler
Social Media Ads
Traffic Analytics
Competitor Analysis Organic Search
Brand Monitoring
Free trial
Payment and Plans No credit card for the trial
Money-back guarantee
Customized plan

Semrush

  • Keyword Research
    • Keyword Overview
    • Keyword Search
    • Keyword Sorting
    • Keyword Difficulty Scores
    • Keyword Manager
  • On-Page and Technical SEO
    • Site Auditing
    • Competitor Benchmarking
    • Content Ideation
  • Off-Page SEO
    • Link Building
    • Backlinks Audit
    • Rank Tracking
  • Ads
    • Keyword Management
    • PPC Keyword Tool
    • Ad Builder
  • Content Marketing
    • Content Audit and Analytics
    • Market Research
    • Writing Assistant
  • Social Media Marketing
    • Social Media Scheduler
    • Social Media Ads
  • Competitor Analysis
    • Traffic Analytics
    • Organic Search
    • Brand Monitoring
  • Payment and Plans
    • Free trial
    • Money-back guarantee
    • Customized plan

Ahrefs

  • Keyword Research
    • Keyword Overview
    • Keyword Search
    • Keyword Sorting
    • Keyword Difficulty Scores
    • Keyword Manager
  • On-Page and Technical SEO
    • Site Auditing
    • Competitor Benchmarking
  • Off-Page SEO
    • Link Building
    • Backlinks Audit
    • Rank Tracking
  • Ads
    • Keyword Management
    • PPC Keyword Tool
  • Content Marketing
    • Content Audit and Analytics
    • Market Research
  • Competitor Analysis
    • Traffic Analytics
    • Organic Search
    • Brand Monitoring

 

Verdict: Both Semrush and Ahrefs are loaded with robust features. However, Semrush has a slight edge since it also offers tools for social media marketing and advertising.

Disclaimer: This content contains some affiliate links for which we will earn a commission (at no additional cost to you). This is to ensure that we can keep creating free content for you.

Detailed Review: Semrush

One of Semrush’s most popular claims to fame is the diverse set of tools it offers.

Despite the huge number of features, Semrush continues to be extremely easy to use for beginners and experts alike.

That’s something, right?

Now, without further ado, let’s review the platform’s primary features and find out if it’s worth your time and investment.

Keyword Research

Primarily known for its keyword research abilities, Semrush offers 6 different tools for the purpose. These are:

  • Keyword Overview
  • Organic Research
  • Keyword Magic Tool
  • Keyword Gap
  • Keyword Manager
  • Organic Traffic Insights

That’s a lot, right?

Don’t be overwhelmed—let me walk you through each of these one at a time.

Keyword Overview

The Keyword Overview tool lets you run a full analysis of your target keywords in just a few clicks.

All you need to do is enter the keyword and the country.

Image via Semrush

So, what information does Semrush generate for you?

The tool will display metrics such as search volume, keyword difficulty, cost per click (CPC), global volume, and search trends.


Image via Semrush

As you can see, Semrush keyword research tool gives you in-depth data including:

  • Monthly search volume
  • Paid search data
  • Total number of organic results
  • CPC distribution
  • Keyword trends
  • Keyword suggestions
  • Phrase match keywords
  • Queries and related keyword ideas

And that’s not it.

Here are some of the other things the tool can do:

  • Easily export and import keyword lists
  • Analyze up to 100 URLs for your keyword
  • Generate millions of kickass content ideas
  • Build custom keyword lists

But the reason Semrush really wins here is its massive keyword database—21 billion words and counting.

Image via Semrush

(See the magic for yourself with a 7-day free trial of Semrush)

Organic Research

We all want to be let in on our competitors’ keyword strategies, right?

Semrush’s Organic Research tool will help you do exactly that.

With it, you can discover your competitors’ best keywords, keep close tabs on the way your rivals’ rankings are changing, and even find new organic competitors.

Keyword Magic Tool

This keyword research tool pretty much works like magic.

It generates spectacular keyword suggestions by scouring 142 geodatabases.

To further narrow down your search, you can also use modifiers such as Broad Match, Phrase Match, Exact Match, or Related.

Image via Semrush

The best part of the tool?

Its auto-grouping feature.

This lets you create automatic groups based on shared stems. The stem is a common root word amongst a group of phrases. For instance, “shoes for rains,” “shoes for football,” and “shoes on sale” share the stem “shoes.”

These groups allow you to deepen your search, enabling you to access more relevant keyword ideas.

Keyword Gap

As the name suggests, this tool will help you identify SEO gaps by comparing your keyword profile to competitors’.

You can specify up to 5 domains, subdomains, folders, or exact URLs of your choice.

You can also go the extra mile to switch between keyword types—organic, paid search, and PLA.

The best part is that you can compare keywords for URLs, subdomains, mobile, desktop, and subfolders.

You can also see how keywords overlap between competing domains in the niche.

Image via Semrush

Eventually, you can use the missing and weak keywords to feed your SEO campaigns.

Keyword Manager

You’re probably going to want to save your favorite keywords in one place.

Thanks to Semrush’s Keyword Manager, you can list all your essential keywords and their metrics into XLSX or CSV files. It’s also extremely easy exporting them to other Semrush tools.

Image via Semrush

Try Semrush for Free Today

Organic Traffic Insights

This is just the tool you need to monitor your organic search traffic performance.

It put together information from Semrush, Google Analytics, and Google Search Console in a single dashboard.

Image via Semrush

This tool helps you review your website’s performance based on metrics such as total users, new users, average session duration, bounce rate, etc.

Backlink Analysis

Now, on to the trickiest, yet most rewarding part of SEO.

Semrush provides a suite of robust tools for backlink management. From unearthing backlink opportunities to auditing them to tracking your progress, Semrush will do all the heavy lifting for you.

Semrush offers five backlink tools:

  • Backlink Analytics
  • Backlink Audit Tool
  • Backlink Gap
  • Bulk Backlink Analysis
  • Link Building Tool

Now, let’s find out how each one of them fares.

Backlink Analytics

Backlink Analytics on Semrush makes it easy for you to study your and your competitors’ backlink profiles.

And how is that?

You simply need to enter the domain or URL in the search box and press enter.

The tool will then show you data on a number of metrics including the website’s authority, referring domains, backlinks, authority scores, etc.

Image via Semrush

Backlink Audit Tool

This tool gives you a complete overview of your backlink profile.

It helps you weed out potentially harmful backlinks by displaying toxic scores based on over 45 markers.

Image via Semrush

What’s more?

You can easily analyze the performance of your backlinks for the last 60 days.

Based on the analysis, you can audit, remove, and disavow links to avoid Google penalties.

(What are you waiting for? Claim your free 7-day trial today!)

Backlink Gap

The Backlink Gap tool allows you to compare the backlink profiles of up to five websites at once.

This is what the tool looks like:

Image via Semrush

You can alter the time frame to view backlinks from over the past 3 months, the past year, or all time.

This will help you identify new link-building opportunities.

Bulk Backlink Analysis

Want to compare the backlink profiles of several websites at once?

Semrush has just the right solution for you!

The bulk backlink analysis tool lets you enter up to 200 URLs, domains, subdomains, or folders at once.

Image via Semrush

To further dissect your rivals’ backlink strategy patterns, you can even sort the backlinks by text, image, form, frame, etc.

Here’s what the results will look like:

Image via Semrush

Link Building Tool

This is a handy tool for furthering your link-building efforts.

So, what exactly does it do?

For starters, it gives you a quick view of all your link-building activities.

It will also generate a list of potential websites for backlinking based on a target keyword.

Image via Semrush

Start Your Semrush Pro Free Trial Today!
Now, let’s take a look at the rest of Semrush’s features.

Technical SEO Audit

Semrush also lets you look into your website’s health score.

It has one of the best SEO audit tools, that scans your website for more than 140 technical and SEO mistakes.

It then offers actionable tips for improving your website. These can include:

  • Keyword suggestions
  • Internal linking strategies
  • Ideas on how to improve content

With this tool, you’ll also receive updates on the crawlability of your website.

Based on the severity of the SEO issues, they are categorized into three groups of warnings, errors, and notices. While identifying the frequency of issues, Semrush informs you of the issue that requires your immediate attention.

The Site Audit tool automatically crawls your website on a weekly basis once you schedule the audit.

Once the crawl is complete, Semrush’s Site Audit tool generates in-depth SEO audit reports on:

Website crawlability: Site Audit analyzes your site to check its crawlability and indexability.

Loading speed: You will get a weekly report on your site’s performance in terms of page loading speed that impacts user experience in a major way.

Issues with internal links: Right from broken links, too many links, to nofollow attributes, the SEO audit report gives you an overview of internal linking issues. By fixing these issues, you can optimize the website structure and PageRank distribution.

Security: The HTTPS report helps you monitor the status of your website’s security.

International SEO: Running a website in multiple regions and languages? If you have a multilingual site, Google should ideally show content to users in the local language.

For instance, for a Dutch user, the Dutch version of your web pages should be shown. The technical solution that ensures this happens, are the hreflang tags.

Semrush’s Site Audit tool detects if the hreflang tags are being implemented correctly. If they are not implemented appropriately, the right local version of your web pages may not be shown by Google.

Compare Crawls: Progress reports and Compare Crawls help you analyze and compare the results of various SEO audits and monitor progress over time.

Image via Semrush

When comparing Semrush vs Ahrefs, you need to evaluate not only the technical SEO audit capabilities of these tools but also the on-page SEO audit features.

As you can expect, Semrush offers in-depth on-page SEO audit reports apart from technical SEO. These include:

Semantic ideas: You can rely on the SEO Checker tool to discover topics and keywords that are related to your target keyword. By using these semantic ideas, you can enrich the content of your website..This, in turn, translates to improved Google rankings.

Content analysis: Semrush’s on-page SEO capabilities extend to content analysis. The tool checks the content of top performers to offer content suggestions. For instance, you can gain insights on your content’s readability, whether it is informative, and if it suffers from keyword overstuffing.

UX state: The page checker tool identifies the user experience state of your web pages by analyzing the data from Google Analytics.

Understand how to get your website showcased in one of Google’s SERP Features. The tool sorts through data of your top 10 competitors, analyzes the keywords that trigger SERP features, and recommends actions.

Links: You can discover quality backlinks by leveraging the SEO audit tool.

Optimize ranking: The SEO Checker detects the top-performing web pages and gives you suggestions on optimizing them further with specific keywords.

Isn’t that great?

In a nutshell, Semrush’s SEO Audit tool will point out issues on your website that need work, thus helping you climb up the Google search results page.

Position Tracking

The next aspect to cover in this comparison of Semrush vs Ahrefs is the position tracking feature. In the end, the impact of your SEO efforts boils down to your position on the SERP.

Semrush makes rank tracking a breeze.

It requires you to select your target keywords, following which it does all the work.

This tool tracks your campaign progress, fixes cannibalization, and optimizes your targeting efforts.

Image via Semrush

The best part?

It updates its data every single day.

The position tracking tool also shows you the best performing keywords for your website, along with those with positive impact (improved rankings) and negative (declined rankings).

Many marketers really struggle to stay up to date with is the constant Google algorithm updates.

But Semrush has one of the best rank tracker tools, making it extremely easy to monitor these changes.

(Don’t believe me? Grab your free trial and see for yourself.)

Support

We haven’t needed much support with Semrush.

And that’s a great thing!

That being said, you can contact the Semrush support team at any time.

They offer three channels of support—chat, phone, and email.

You can also reach out to them by filling out an online form and stating your query/requirement.

Additional Features

Semrush is not just an SEO tool.

Let’s take a quick look at some of its other cool features.

Content Marketing

Semrush offers an all-encompassing content marketing platform.

It is armed with tools that help you conduct topic research, create content plans, write articles, optimize them, analyze mentions, measure performance, and eventually, improve it.

Image via Semrush

Social Media Platform

Semrush comes equipped with a social media scheduler for various platforms.

Image via Semrush

What else?

You can use the platform to track competitors, understand your audience, boost your posts, as well as create and manage ad campaigns.

Yes, you read that right.

And again, this was just to scratch the surface. Semrush also offers an affiliate program, detailed analytics reports, and more.

Clearly, Semrush is a beast of a tool!

Get Started Today!
Now, it’s time to put Ahrefs to the test.

Detailed Review: Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a popular SEO tool that’s widely touted for its ease of use.

Like Semrush, Ahrefs also offers tools to perform keyword research, backlink analysis, SEO audits, and position tracking.

But the question is—when it comes to Semrush vs Ahrefs, is Ahrefs better than Semrush?

Keep reading to find out.

Keyword Explorer

Ahrefs is armed with one of the most powerful keyword research tools.

Its Keywords Explorer tool can inform your keyword strategy from start to end.

Let’s find out all that it can do.

Keyword Ideas and Analysis

Just like most other SEO tools, Ahrefs will generate thousands of keyword ideas in just a few clicks.

Simply enter your target keyword, a search engine, and a country, and voilà! Ahrefs will present you with a list of keyword ideas.

Image via Ahrefs

You can also see the keyword difficulty, search volumes, cost per click (CPC), parent keywords, etc.

The kicker?

You can analyze up to 10,000 keywords in one run.

What’s more, Ahrefs realizes that Google isn’t the only search engine out there. And so, it generates keyword ideas for nine other search engines including YouTube, Amazon, and Yandex.

Now, moving on to competitor keyword analysis.

Does Ahrefs offer that feature?

Yes!

Simply click on ‘Organic Search’ under the ‘Site Explorer’ tab.

Then, enter your competitors’ domain name, and wait for the magic to unfold.

Ahrefs will feed you with all the keywords your competitors are ranking for, across different countries.

Image via Ahrefs

Remember—Ahrefs is equipped with data from 243 countries!

(Don’t miss out. Claim your 7-day trial now.)

Here’s the list of useful data Ahref’s Keyword Explorer offers:

  • All keyword ideas including all the terms
  • Phrases that contain your keyword
  • Keyword ideas with the same terms as the target keyword
  • Search suggestions including queries that come up in ‘autocomplete’ during the keyword search
  • Newly discovered keywords and search queries
  • Top-ranking pages for the keyword you want to target

Advanced Metrics for Deeper Insights

If you want to dive deeper into the ‘why’ of your keyword difficulty score, Ahrefs’ advanced metrics will help you immensely.

It shows you data for metrics such as:

  • Clicks Per Search: The number of search results people click on average for a particular keyword.
  • % of Paid Clicks vs Organic Clicks: Displays how clicks on the search results are distributed between paid and organic.
  • Return Rate: A Unique Ahrefs metric that analyzes which keyword gets more repeat searches.

Analyzing this data will help you get on the first page of Google quickly.

SERP Overview

Ahrefs’ SERP Overview report is a feature that’s one of its kind.

It lets you see the top-ranking results for any keyword along with all their SEO metrics at a glance.

Image via Ahrefs

The tool brings together crucial SEO metrics such as organic traffic, organic keywords, and backlinks together.

I’ve used this tool time and again to understand why certain pages rank where they do.

Now, here, you might wonder at this stage of the Semrush vs Ahrefs review, which tool is better for keyword research.

If we are going to judge solely on the tools’ keyword research capabilities, Semrush goes a step beyond Ahrefs.

While Ahrefs shows you keyword difficulty, search volume, CPC, and clicks for seed keywords, Semrush also shows you keyword trends and competitive density.

This doesn’t mean Ahrefs is bad! The area where Ahrefs scores over Semrush is that it shows you data from ten search engines, while Semrush focuses only on Google.

Also, Ahrefs may be a better tool to use if you want clickstream based metrics.

In terms of the keyword database, Ahrefs and Semrush are neck to neck. Ahrefs has 20.8 billion keywords across 10 search engines in 243 countries.

Semrush’s Keyword Magic tool has over 21.1 billion keywords across 142 geographic databases.

Above all, the fact that Ahrefs offers some free keyword research tools may also play a role when determining which tool to opt for after reading the Semrush vs Ahrefs review.

Backlink Analysis

In terms of backlink analysis, Ahrefs has two main tools. They are:

  • Site Explorer
  • Content Explorer

While these aren’t inherently backlink analysis tools, you can use them for the purpose seamlessly.

Let’s find out how.

Site Explorer

Through the Site Explorer tool, you can dissect any domain’s backlink profile to the core.

All you need to do is enter a domain on the tool.

Ahrefs will then generate a list of all the referring domains, along with data on metrics such as DR (Domain Rating), UR (URL Rating), keywords, inbound and outbound links, anchor text used for the backlink, etc.

You can also see the amount of traffic each page is getting.

Image via Ahrefs

How does this help, you may ask?

These metrics can help you identify which websites are driving the most traffic to your competitors. Eventually, you can figure out which of them you should reach out to.

BTW, do you know what makes Ahrefs’ backlink data so reliable?

The fact that it boasts the world’s largest index of live backlinks—over 14 trillion links!

Content Explorer

To be able to receive backlinks naturally, your content needs to be strong and engaging.

This is what the Ahrefs Content Explorer tool can help you with.

It lets you discover the most popular articles on any topic. You can further filter the results by organic traffic, referring domains, social shares, etc.

This way, you can easily gauge if there are certain topics that are attracting more backlinks. If there are, you must consider writing about those.

Image via Ahrefs

What else can the Content Explorer do?

It can help you unearth broken link-building opportunities.

In simple words, you can find dead pages with backlinks on any given topic.

Then, you can recreate the dead page, and ask those linking to the dead page to link to you instead.

Neat, right?

Technical SEO Audit

Ahrefs’ site audit tool will help you point out what is holding your website back from ranking.

For starters, it will give your website an overall SEO health score by crawling all of its web pages.

What’s more?

It offers a range of free audit tools such as:

  • Site Audit
  • Backlink Checker
  • Broken Link Checker
  • Website Authority Checker
  • SEO Checker
  • Website Checker

While these are not standalone tools, they come as value-adds for those with Ahref’s subscription. For instance, if you have subscribed to one of Ahref’s paid plans, you will get 5,000 additional monthly crawl credits.

However, in the battle between Semrush vs Ahrefs, Semrush has a slight edge because it offers a free plan, unlike Ahrefs.

Site Audit extracts printable reports after grouping by issues. These reports are colored charts that let you visualize data in an easy way.

It checks your website for over 100 pre-defined SEO issues relating to these issues:

  • Performance including too-large HTML or CSS,: slow pages
  • Missing or duplicate HTML tags
  • Non-optimal length of H1,  title tags, and meta descriptions
  • Low word counts, duplicate pages, etc.
  • Missing social tags
  • Incoming links and orphan pages
  • Links to broken pages
  • Issues with JavaScript and images
  • External pages

You can schedule the site crawls on a daily, weekly or monthly basis to stay on top of your site’s SEO.

The Ahrefs SEO Toolbar is compatible with both Firefox and Chrome. You can add it as a browser extension to get rich SEO data on websites and pages you visit. Not surprisingly, thousands of professionals leverage this tool from Ahrefs to boost their SEO.

Its free features are:

  • On-page SEO
  • SERP positions
  • Redirect tracer
  • Country changer
  • Outgoing links report along with broken link checker and link highlighter

All in all, these tools help you know exactly where your (and your competitors’) website stands, and what to do to make it better.

Image via Ahrefs

For SEO professionals that want to go beyond the pre-defined issues, Ahrefs also offers a powerful Data Explorer tool. With it, one can make custom filters based on various parameters, and completely personalize the site auditing process.

The best part about Ahrefs’ site audit tool?

It is completely cloud-based!

Try Ahrefs Now.
As you know by now after reading the Semrush vs Ahrefs review so far, that both the tools have robust SEO auditing features.

You can use any of these tools to assess your site’s on-page and technical SEO. Both tools search for issues that impact your site’s SEO including:

  • Slow-loading content
  • Duplicate content
  • Missing headers and meta-descriptions
  • SSL problems
  • Crawl errors
  • Overuse of keywords
  • Large image files
  • Broken links

Semrush’s audit tool automatically provides a simple list that you can use to fix your SEO issues. With Ahrefs, you’ll have to manually analyze the audit reports to create your own ‘to-do’ lists. However, you can create custom filters and segment your data using Ahref’s Data Explorer tool.

Rank Tracking

Now, we come to the rank tracking feature in this section of the Semrush vs Ahrefs blog post. The Ahrefs Rank Tracker helps you monitor your Google rankings across 170 countries.

What do you need to do?

Simply input a list of keywords, add multiple countries for each keyword, and type in your competitors’ URLs.

Hereon, Ahrefs will start tracking data and send you consistent updates.

The tool also churns out interactive graphs that will give you a history of metrics such as visibility, average position, and traffic.

Image via Ahrefs

And that’s not it.

You can also compare your keyword ranking side-by-side with your competitors’. This will help you comprehend where you’re lagging and over time, improve your SEO results.

The best part is that Ahrefs sends you regular email reports highlighting notable changes in your keyword rankings, so that you never miss a beat.

Support

Ahrefs makes it pretty easy for users to reach out for help. You can reach the customer support team via chat or email. Unfortunately, the platform doesn’t offer phone support yet.

Image via Ahrefs

However, their support is generally pretty prompt, and they respond to queries within minutes. The team is available around the clock from Monday to Friday.

Semrush Pricing Plans

Semrush offers four plans you can choose from:

  • Free
  • Pro: $119.95/month
  • Guru: $229.95/month
  • Business: $449.95/month

So, which one is right for you?

While you may be tempted to opt for the free plan, note that it comes with several limitations on its features and relatively weak campaign capabilities. That being said, if you’re only starting off or simply testing the platform’s UI, the free plan might work well for you!

The Pro plan is a great pick for startups, freelancers, and small in-house teams.

The Guru plan, which is also the most sought-after plan, is perfect for SMEs, growing agencies, and marketing professionals.

The Business plan is designed for large agencies and enterprises with a substantial online presence.

Finally, you can also contact the sales team at Semrush and get a plan customized for yourself!

Ahrefs Pricing Plans

Like Semrush, Ahrefs also comes with four pricing plans:

  • Lite: $99/month
  • Standard: $199/month
  • Advanced: $399/month
  • Enterprise: $999/month

The Lite plan gives access to many great features and is a steal at that price. It’s perfectly designed for freelancers and beginners.

The Standard plan is best for small to medium-sized businesses and agencies.

If you’re a professional SEO expert with the need for advanced features, put your faith in the Advanced plan.

Need more?

Check out the Ahrefs Agency plan.

What Do Their Customers Say About Them?

Semrush
Ahrefs
“If you ask an agency to deliver 10x organic search growth through content, they will assign a large team to your project. Our content team, in contrast, runs activities with Semrush without having an army of people specialized in SEO.”

– Fabrizio Ballarini, Organic Growth, Wise.

“Our company's SEO strategy is fully based on Ahrefs' tools and tutorials. Last year we increased organic traffic to our website by 250%.”

– Evaldas Mockus, SEO team lead, Omnisend.

“When it comes to pure value, Semrush wins. That's mostly because you get a fully-featured SEO software suite AND Google Ads software for the same monthly price.”

– Brian Dean, Founder, Backlinko.

“Ahrefs provides us with detailed and in-depth data that we need to make strategic decisions. Plus, it is fun and always getting better.”

– Viola Eva, Founder, Flow SEO.

 

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FAQs

Semrush

Q1. Is Semrush a free tool?

A. No, Semrush is a paid tool. While the platform does offer a free plan, there’s a catch. It comes with limited functionality. For instance, you can only manage one project and track 10 keywords per day. So, if your needs go beyond that, you should subscribe to one of its paid plans.

Q2. Does Semrush offer a free trial?

A. Yes! Semrush offers a free 7-day trial with its Pro and Guru plans. It’s a great way to test out the platform’s features and UI.

And while Semrush requires you to register with your credit card, you can rest assured that it won’t be charged until your free trial is over.

Q3. Is Semrush worth the money?

A. Semrush is 100% worth the money. While it’s anything but cheap with its lowest plan costing $99, the investment definitely pays off in the long run.

Semrush offers a number of premium SEO tools for keyword research, backlink analysis, position tracking, etc.

What’s more?

It also doubles up as a content marketing and social media marketing platform, giving users more bang for the buck.

Q4. What is Semrush’s refund policy?

A. Semrush offers a 7-day money-back guarantee. This means that if you request a refund within 7 days of signing up or renewing, Semrush will refund your net price. No questions asked.

Q5. How many people can use Semrush?

A. Semrush follows a one-owner-per-subscription model. However, if you’re using Semrush for your team, you can always add new users as per your needs. Based on your plan, there’s an additional cost for the same.

With the Pro plan, a new user costs $45/month, whereas, with the Guru and Business plans, the cost is $80/month and $100/month respectively.

Get Semrush Free Trial Now!

Ahrefs

Q1. Is Ahrefs free?

A. No. Ahrefs is a paid tool. Unlike Semrush, it doesn’t offer a free trial or a free plan. However, you can enjoy 2 months free if you choose to pay annually.

What’s more?

Ahrefs does offer a bunch of SEO tools for free, such as a broken link checker, a website authority checker, a keyword rank checker, etc.

Q2. Does Ahrefs come with a free trial?

A. No, Ahrefs doesn’t come with a free trial. However, they offer free access to Webmaster tools including the Site Audit and Site Explorer tools.

Q3. Is Ahrefs easy to use for beginners?

A. Ahrefs is an easy-to-use SEO tool for beginners and experts alike. In fact, its clean and intuitive user interface is one of its biggest claims to fame.

In addition, Ahrefs provides users with a number of blog articles, guides, and other resources so that they’re never left in the dark. You can also reach out to their customer support team in case of any queries.

Q4. How many users can use an Ahrefs account?

A. Ahrefs’ Lite and Standard plan only allow a single user per subscription. On the other hand, its Advanced and Enterprise plans allow three and five users per subscription respectively.

However, no matter which plan you choose, you can add more users to your account at a cost ranging from $20 to $50 per user per month depending on the features.

Q5. What can Ahrefs do?

A. Ahrefs comes with premium tools that empower you to improve your site’s SEO. To scratch the surface, it can help you do keyword research for 10 search engines, conduct site audits and local SEO, and win more backlinks. The scope of the tool is endless.

Subscribe to Ahrefs Now!

Final Verdict

The Semrush vs Ahrefs debate can go on forever.

And by now, you can probably see why. They’re both spectacular SEO platforms that bring a suite of robust tools to the table.

And while Semrush’s tools for keyword research are impeccable, Ahrefs offers the best backlink analysis features.

But we’ll level with you. Given its massive databases and the additional features it offers, we would choose Semrush. We’ve been using the tool for years now, and it has helped us unravel unmatched insights for ourselves and our clients.

That being said, no tool is the wrong choice. Both Semrush and Ahrefs can help you improve your SEO rankings greatly.

Which tool are you leaning towards? Have you tried any of them? Do you have an obvious preference? Please share your experience in the comments section.

Disclaimer: This content contains some affiliate links for which we will earn a commission (at no additional cost to you). This is to ensure that we can keep creating free content for you.

Gaurav Sharma

Gaurav Sharma is the Founder and CEO of Attrock, a results-driven digital marketing company. Grew an agency from 5-figure to 7-figure revenue in just two years | 10X leads | 2.8X conversions | 300K organic monthly traffic | 5K keywords on page 1. He also contributes to top publications like HuffPost, Adweek, Business2Community, TechCrunch, and more.

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