SEMrush Vs Ahrefs: Which Tool Is Better?
SEMrush and Ahrefs happen to be the two most dominating tools in the SEO world. If you are acquainted with the digital marketing field, you must have come across one of these tools.
Both the tools offer a myriad of fantastic features that enable you to optimize your site for various search engines.
Whether you want to deeply analyze your website, track your competitors, or just want to dig deeper into your search engine choice, these two tools can help you with all your SEO needs.
Improving your search engine traffic can instantly boost your conversion rate and sales. If you are wondering how you can increase your search engine traffic, these two tools can help you.
However, since both tools offer various functionalities, people find it challenging to buy the one that suits their needs. Well, if you fall into the exact same category, worry not! We have rendered a list of features and a detailed Ahrefs vs. SEMrush review to make your decision easy. So, let’s get started.
Ahrefs vs. SEMrush: The Difference Between The Two
| SEMrush | Ahrefs |
| Ø This tool is best for the Google search engine. | Ø The tool can be used for a range of search engines, including Google, Yahoo, Bing, Amazon, YouTube, etc. |
| Ø Much larger domain database | Ø Ahrefs’ domain database is smaller than that of SEMrush. |
| Ø Broken link analysis is complicated with SEMrush. | Ø The tool is best for broken link analysis. |
| Ø SEMrush can understand your target audience and give you solutions accordingly. | Ø This tool has no such feature. |
| Ø You will have to dig deeper for options because of the wide variety of features. | Ø Ahrefs gives you more at-a-glance information. |
| Ø Site auditing features are easier to use | Ø It takes an extended time to examine the website. |
| Ø Offers fantastic data visualization features | Ø It lacks such features |
| Ø It offers up to 5 domains for side by side comparison between keyword profiles. | Ø It offers up to 10 domains for side by side comparison between keyword profiles. |
| Ø The tool offers mobile SERP rankings. | Ø Ahrefs doesn’t have this functionality. |
| Ø SEMrush can check the originality and SEO potential of content in real-time. | Ø This tool has no such feature. |
| Ø It offers SMM tools. | Ø No SMM tools are there. |
| Ø The tool is good for content audit, post tracking, brand monitoring, and on-page SEO checker. | Ø Ahrefs offer no such features. |
Now, let’s dive into the specific details of SEMrush & Ahrefs:
- Keyword Database To Perform Effective Research:
SEMrush and Ahrefs have outstanding keyword research capabilities, an essential metric for both PPC and SEO campaigns. SEMrush offers you a powerful 20 billion keyword database that provides you with accurate data for search volume. Meanwhile, Ahrefs offers 10.2 billion keywords. Having more keywords within your database will allow you to get more ideas to enrich your SEO and PPC campaigns.
Whenever you type a keyword in the search box of SEMrush, you will be provided with several crucial metrics including keyword difficulty, monthly search volume, PPC competition, CPC, top-ranking pages, ad copy, keyword ad history, and more. If you have an active PPC campaign on Google or Bing Ads, you may want to apply your best converting keywords to your SEO strategy.
Although Ahrefs offer a great keyword research tool, SEMrush is at a whole different level when it comes to keyword research.
- Accurate Search Volume Data
Having accurate search volume data is crucial for conducting keyword research. SEMrush is regarded as having the most accurate and complete keyword database.
- A Tool For Analyzing & Monitoring Backlinks
Link building is a critical point of SEO. Though it can provide you with relevant data on your competitor’s profile, Ahrefs offers you tons of useful search data in a straightforward way.
SEMrush has a larger link index that Ahrefs. After this, Ahrefs can easily defeat SEMrush in backlink analysis because of the ease through which it can easily let you obtain data.
However, SEMrush redeems itself when it comes to evaluating toxic backlinks. You can receive a detailed analysis of how healthy each of your links is through SEMrush so you can efficiently make decisions on what links you should disavow. While Ahrefs will not provide detailed information about potential toxic factors of your backlinks.
- Competitor Research
With regards to competitor analysis, SEMrush is outstanding as it actually can be utilized as a Google Analytics device to take your rivals to top-performing keywords, paid promotions, backlinks, etc. Ahrefs is extraordinary because you need to appraise any domain’s traffic and examine their paid and organic search results.
- SEO Audit Feature
SEMrush’s Site Audit tool is better than Ahrefs. Despite the fact that Ahrefs works admirably, giving a genuinely exact image of the errors that influence your website’s SEO, it takes a long time to examine your site and create a review report.
Plus, SEMrush’s tool is intuitive and straightforward to use and contains extra highlights, such as historical charts, crawl comparisons, etc.
- Most Accurate Position Tracking Tool In The Market
Both SEMrush and Ahrefs offer incredible position tracking. You can easily track your search performance with any of the mentioned tools. Both tools will provide you with highly accurate tracking data. Though, SEMrush goes one step further and provides local positioning data so that you can effectively make effective decisions as all users receive daily updates. With SEMRush, you need to upgrade to Advanced plan at $399/month or their Rank Tracker Pro which costs $50 extra per 500 keywords. Otherwise, data updates every 5-7 days.
- Broken Link Analysis
While Ahrefs makes it super easy to find broken links, SEMrush makes it challenging to discover outbound broken links as you will have to perform a full site audit on the website of a competitor.
The tools can help you find broken outbound links, but the broken inbound links can be easily found using Ahrefs.
- Pricing Plans
SEMrush offers a free trial, whereas there is no free plan or demo version is available with Ahrefs. The pricing plan of SEMrush starts from $99.95 per month, and Ahrefs starts its plans from $99 per month.
Get the free 7-day trial of SEMrush here.
- SEO Reporting
SEMrush allows custom, visually appealing reports that are white-labeled. It is easy to organize your data in one place while tracking all the KPIs you need. Meanwhile, Ahrefs doesn’t support the ability to create and schedule custom reports.
- Content Marketing Platform
SEM Rush has a leading content marketing platform, which includes an SEO writing assistant, an on-page SEO checker, an SEO content template, a content audit tool, post tracking, and brand monitoring. Ahrefs has a very robust content research tool that helps you find top performing articles in your niche and understand why a piece of content performs as it does.
- Interface
Both the tools offer intuitive dashboard and easy to use dashboard. But, if you are not a technophile, Ahrefs is a useful tool for you as it has everything on the screen, whereas with SEMrush, you will have to dig a little deeper to find the things you need.
This doesn’t mean SEMrush is challenging to use. It has more menus and buttons because it offers more functionality than Ahrefs.
Ahrefs vs. SEMrush: Which One Is Better?
This is it! Now, you have all the features SEMrush and Ahrefs have to offer. Despite the fact that both tools are quite similar, when it comes down to choosing the one, SEMrush has some distinct advantages..
If you want technical SEO, robust keyword research, and content marketing, you should go with SEMrush.
While you can’t go wrong with choosing either of them, we highly suggest taking a trial the free 7-day trial of SEMrush here for you to see for yourself.
