SEMrush vs Ahrefs: Which SEO Tool is Best in 2023?

These are the two biggest heavyweights in the SEO Tool in the world.

Both are used by nearly every SEO pro on the planet.

Both Have their Pros and cons.

But which one is the best tool for your SEO need?

Let look in this article and compare these two popular SEO tools

Pricing and value for money

SEMrush currently has three standard monthly subscriptions starting at the following prices: 

• Pro – $99.95
• Guru – $199.95
• Business – $399.95

Check SEMrush Full Pricing and Compare plans

Ahrefs currently has four standard monthly subscriptions starting at the following prices: 

• Lite $99
• Standard $179
• Advanced $399
• Agency $999

Ahrefs Pricing and Compare Plans

Semrush Provide more projects as compared to ahrefs with 40+ advanced tools. While ahrefs focuses on UI and combines 5 main tools with different types of reports. Ahrefs is easy to understand as compared to semrush for beginners. 

Both tools Prices is very similar, SEMrush Guru plan being slightly more expensive. However, the Lite version of Ahrefs is slightly more limited than the corresponding SEMrush Pro plan.

Which Tool is best for Keyword Research?

Keyword Research is important in SEO as well PPC. So let’s compare semrush with ahrefs..

To use SEMrush just enter a seed or main keyword in the top search box. 

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as you can see in the above Image.

1. In this box, you can see the search volume of a specific country, SEO competition, CPC, and PPC competition.
2. Total Global search volume and country-wise search volume list.
3. Overview of total search results and google trend data
4. In #4, 5, and 6 sections you can find keyword ideas related to the main keyword.

When we search “Keyword research” on google, you can find your competitors. We pick a moz.com and search in the top search bar.

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As you can see in the image above. We can find 211.7k Keywords which already drive traffic to your Competitor. 

You can analyze every page of competitors and find new opportunities to drive traffic to your website.

In Ahrefs you can find keywords for 10 different search engines, including Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon,Yandex, Baidu, etc.

• Save

Ahrefs keyword tool is very simple and easy to use. You can find and prioritize the best keywords using a variety of filters

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Overall in keyword research tools, Both are good and find keywords at large-scale However, SEMrush can search PPC and PLA (Product Listing Ads) keywords, which are not available in Ahrefs. So if you are doing PPC marketing, then SEMrush will help a lot.

Which Tool is best for Backlinks Analysis?

Backlinks is still the major metric for the ranking factor of a website.

SEMrush has 22 trillion backlinks (as of Fall 2019 data) database, as compared to ahrefs has just 2.3 trillion backlinks in Index.

As you see SEMrush has more backlink data. But ahrefs has Second most active crawler after Google’s web crawler. And update the backlink index with fresh data every 15-30 minutes. 

So now I test both Tools, I enter Moz.com on both tools.

Ahrefs found a total of 135.3K referring domain links. And SEMrush found 106.1K.

And when it comes to total backlinks, Ahrefs found 58M. SEMrush found 20.6M.

So based on this tiny case study, Ahrefs shows more backlinks.

Overall in Backlink analysis,ahrefs clearly wins. But we try only for limited domains, we can not say which tool has more backlinks index, both tools are good for backlink check, but ahrefs has the upper hand.

How to get Blog Ideas that People love?

SEMrush. Content Marketing: with the help of this SEMrush Content Platform, you can easily find hot topics that people are loving as well sharing.

Just enter your niche or Competitor’s URL and see the magic of this tool.

Soon it will show all the most shared articles of their site. And then you can also create a post on that topic. Because people already loving it, the chances are they will also like yours.

This tool can also boost your content marketing campaigns.

More simply-

This tool helps you in,

• Finding topics
• Creating a content plan
• Get a template for SEO friendly content writing
• Optimizing the Content
• Analyzing mentions
• Measuring your content engagements
• And if you have any errors then help to improve it.

Ahrefs Content Explorer:

Content Explorer alone is so powerful that with the help of this tool you can find top shared and trending topics in any niche.

You can even filter appeared results in terms of publish date, language, shares, domain rating, referring domains, organic traffic, and word count.

By using language filter you can easily find Trending content other than in the English language.

Or my favorite filter referring domain helps in finding the Content topic that is trending + getting more backlinks from other domains.

Which Tool has more Features?

Now let first talk about Ahrefs

• Site Explorer
• Keywords Explorer
• Site Audit
• Rank Tracker
• Content Explorer
• Domain comparison
• Batch analysis
• Link intersect

Now Let’s Look the SEMrush

• Organic Traffic Insights
• Backlink Audit Tool
• Keyword Magic Tool
• Site Audit
• Display Advertising Tool
• CPC Map
• PPC Keyword Tool
• Ad Builder
• Content Analyzer
• SEO Writing Assistant
• Topic Research
• Social Media Tracker
• Social Media Poster
• Brand Monitoring
• On Page SEO Checker
• Domain vs. Domain

All in all, SEMrush is a great SEO tool that not only helps you spy on your competitors but also helps you increase your search traffic and sales.

So if you’re looking for a better SEO tool to get started today, try SEMrush.

SEMrush vs. Ahrefs: And The Winner Is

I took lots of factors into account:

• Link Analysis
• Keyword Research
• Support and documentation
• New feature updates
• Overall value
• PPC prospective 

I’ve personally used both tools since 2016. I happily pay for each tool.

I have personally used both SEO tools since 2016. I like both tool and both tools are useful to Every SEO Pro.

 But if you had to make me pick ONE tool to use, I’d have to go with SEMrush.

But if you have to choose one Tool, I have to go with SEMrush.

This was a REALLY hard call to make. I honestly think you can’t go wrong with either tool.

This was a really tough call to make. 

SEMrush is the Winner 

Conclusion

Many of the marketers use SEMrush and Ahrefs. If you can afford it then you can buy both tools.

You can Try Both tools and choose, which is more useful to your business.

Let me know by leaving a comment below. Which Tool is Useful in Your Business?

Must read: 11 Best SEMrush Alternatives in 2020 (Free & Paid Tools)