Question 1

How to Use Ahrefs for Your First SEO Audit: A Step-by-Step Tutorial

Accepted Answer

If you're new to Ahrefs and want to run your first SEO audit, the fastest path is: open Site Explorer, enter your target URL, review the Overview for a health snapshot, then dig into Organic Keywords, Top Pages, and Site Audit to find specific problems. From there, build a short prioritized to-do list instead of trying to fix everything at once.

This tutorial walks through that workflow using a realistic starting scenario, explains what the numbers mean, and shows how to turn findings into actions.

Before You Start: Pick a Narrow Scope

A common beginner mistake is auditing an entire large website on day one. The reports become overwhelming, and you can't tell which issues matter.

Instead, choose one of these starting points:

A single important page (your homepage or a key product/service page)
A small site (under ~50 pages, e.g., a personal blog or small business site)
One section of a bigger site (e.g., /blog/)

For this tutorial, assume you're auditing a small business site with about 30 pages. The same steps scale up later.

You'll need an Ahrefs account to follow along. Ahrefs offers paid plans, and pricing and feature limits change over time, so check the current Pricing page for what's included in each tier before committing.

Step 1: Enter Your Target in Site Explorer

Site Explorer is Ahrefs' core tool for analyzing any website or URL.

Open Site Explorer from the top navigation.
In the search box, paste your domain (e.g., example.com).
Choose the Exact URL or Domain mode depending on scope. For a full-site view, use Domain or Prefix; for a single page, use Exact URL.
Press Enter.

You'll land on the Overview report. Don't try to absorb everything — focus on four numbers first.

Reading the Overview Snapshot

Metric	What it tells you	How to use it
Ahrefs Rank (AR)	Relative strength of the site's backlink profile vs. others in the database	Useful for comparing against competitors, not as a standalone goal
Organic traffic	Estimated monthly visits from search	A rough trend indicator, not exact analytics
Organic keywords	Estimated number of keywords the site ranks for	Shows breadth of visibility
Backlinks / Referring domains	Total links and unique sites linking to you	Referring domains matter more than raw backlink count

Important caveat: Ahrefs' traffic and keyword numbers are estimates based on its own data. They won't match Google Search Console or your analytics exactly. Treat them as directional, not absolute.

Step 2: See What You Already Rank For

Go to Organic Keywords in the left sidebar. This shows queries where your site appears in search results.

Sort by Traffic (descending) to see which pages bring the most estimated visitors. Then look for:

Keywords ranking in positions 4–15 — these are often the easiest wins. A small content or on-page improvement can push them onto page one.
Keywords with high volume but low position — potential opportunities if the topic is relevant.
Irrelevant keywords — if you rank for something off-topic, it may signal thin or mismatched content.

Write down 5–10 of the position 4–15 keywords. These become your first optimization targets.

Step 3: Find Your Best and Weakest Pages

Open Top Pages. This ranks your URLs by estimated organic traffic.

Look for two things:

Your top performers — understand what topics and formats work. Can you create more content like this?
Pages with traffic but poor rankings — these may need on-page fixes (title, headings, internal links).

If a page gets zero traffic and targets a topic you care about, it's a candidate for a rewrite or consolidation.

Step 4: Run a Technical Site Audit

Now move to Site Audit. This crawls your site and flags technical and on-page issues.

Click Site Audit → New project.
Enter your domain and set crawl settings (default is usually fine for a small site).
Start the crawl and wait for it to finish.

Once complete, you'll see a Health Score and a list of issues grouped by category.

Which Issues to Fix First

Not all issues are equal. Prioritize in this order:

Priority	Issue type	Why it matters
1	Broken links (404s)	Bad for users and crawl efficiency
2	Pages blocked from indexing	They can't rank at all
3	Missing or duplicate title tags	Directly affects click-through and relevance
4	Slow-loading pages	Affects experience and rankings
5	Thin content	Low value to users and search engines

Ignore low-impact warnings (like minor meta description length) until the big items are handled.

Step 5: Turn Findings Into a To-Do List

You now have raw data. Convert it into a short, actionable list. Example:

Fix 3 broken links found in Site Audit.
Rewrite title tags on 5 pages with duplicate titles.
Improve 4 pages ranking in positions 6–12 by adding missing subtopics and internal links.
Remove or update 2 thin pages with no traffic.

Keep the list to 5–10 items max for your first audit. Finishing a short list beats starting a long one.

Common Beginner Mistakes

Chasing every red flag. Site Audit flags many minor issues. Fix what affects rankings and users first.
Trusting estimates as exact numbers. Ahrefs data is modeled, not measured from your analytics.
Auditing a huge site too early. Start small to learn the interface.
Ignoring search intent. A page can be technically perfect but still fail if it doesn't match what searchers want.
Forgetting to re-crawl. After fixes, run Site Audit again to confirm improvements.

Where to Go Next

Once your first audit is done:

Compare with competitors using Site Explorer's Competing Domains and Content Gap reports.
Track keyword rankings over time with Rank Tracker.
Explore backlink opportunities in the Backlinks and Link Intersect reports.
Set up recurring Site Audit crawls so new issues surface automatically.

Your first audit isn't about perfection — it's about building a repeatable habit: enter a target, read the key reports, pick the highest-impact fixes, and act. Do that once a month and your site's health compounds.

Question 2

How to Compress Images for the Web Without Losing Visible Quality

Accepted Answer

You can cut most images to a fraction of their original file size without any visible quality loss by doing three things in the right order: resize the image to the dimensions it will actually display at, pick the right format for the content, then apply compression at a quality level that survives a side-by-side check. The single biggest mistake is skipping step one — an oversized image compressed at maximum quality is still far heavier than a correctly sized one.

Why file size and quality are a trade-off, not a fixed setting

Every compressed image is a negotiation between three variables: how many pixels you keep, how precisely each pixel is described, and how much the format is allowed to guess.

Dimensions decide how many pixels exist at all. Halving width and height removes 75% of the pixel data before any compression happens.
Quality level decides how aggressively the encoder discards detail it thinks you won't notice.
Format decides the kind of discarding allowed — some formats throw away color precision, others only remove redundancy.

Because these interact, "quality 80" means something different on a 4000px photo than on a 600px thumbnail. Tune dimensions first, then quality.

Pick the format before you touch the quality slider

Format	Best for	Compression type	Transparency	Notes
JPEG	Photographs, gradients, complex scenes	Lossy	No	Smallest for photos; artifacts appear around sharp edges and text
PNG	Logos, icons, screenshots, flat color, anything needing transparency	Lossless (or lossy via quantization)	Yes	Often 5–10× larger than JPEG for photos; excellent for flat graphics
WEBP	Almost everything, as a modern default	Both lossy and lossless	Yes	Typically 25–35% smaller than JPEG at comparable quality; broad browser support
SVG	Logos, icons, diagrams, charts	Vector (resolution-independent)	Yes	Stays crisp at any size; not suitable for photos
GIF	Short simple animations only	Lossless, 256 colors	Yes (1-bit)	Superseded by WEBP/MP4 for animation in nearly all cases

Practical rule: photos → JPEG or lossy WEBP; flat graphics and transparency → PNG or lossless WEBP; anything vector → SVG.

The four levers, in the order you should pull them

1. Resize to display size (biggest win, zero quality cost)

If your layout renders an image at 800px wide, serving a 2400px original wastes roughly 89% of the pixels. Resize to the largest size it will ever be displayed at, and add a 2× version only if you need retina sharpness.

2. Choose the format

Match the format to the content type using the table above. Converting a photographic PNG to JPEG or WEBP alone can shrink it by 80% or more.

3. Set the quality level

For JPEG and lossy WEBP, most photographs hold up well between quality 70 and 85. Below ~60, banding appears in skies and blur around text. Above ~90, file size climbs steeply for gains nobody can see.

4. Strip metadata

EXIF data, camera info, and embedded thumbnails can add tens of kilobytes. Remove them unless you specifically need copyright or orientation data — and note that stripping orientation can rotate an image, so verify after export.

When lossy compression is fine, and when it isn't

Lossy is acceptable when:

The image is a photograph or has natural texture.
It's decorative or below the fold.
Slight softening won't be noticed at final display size.

Use lossless or vector instead when:

The image contains text, UI elements, or thin lines (lossy creates ringing artifacts).
It's a logo, icon, or diagram — SVG or PNG keeps edges clean.
It will be edited again later; repeated lossy saves compound degradation.
It's a screenshot of code or a chart where color accuracy matters.

Compressing vs. resizing: don't confuse them

Compressing reduces the bytes needed to describe the same pixels. Resizing reduces the number of pixels. They're independent, and resizing usually delivers the larger saving. A 3000×2000 photo at quality 95 might be 2 MB; the same photo resized to 1200×800 at quality 80 might be 180 KB. Doing only the quality reduction gets you maybe 40% off; doing both gets you over 90%.

A repeatable workflow

Determine the maximum display width in your layout (inspect the element or check your CSS).
Export at that width (plus a 2× variant if needed).
Convert to the right format — WEBP as a modern default, JPEG as a fallback, PNG/SVG for graphics.
Apply quality 75–85 for lossy formats and compare against the original.
Strip metadata and re-check orientation.
Verify before publishing (see below).
Serve the right file with srcset so small screens don't download the large variant.

How to verify quality before you publish

View at 100% at final display size, not zoomed in — artifacts you can't see at real size don't matter.
Toggle between original and compressed in a viewer or an online compressor's before/after preview.
Check the worst-case areas: skies, smooth gradients, sharp edges, and any text.
Compare file sizes and ask whether the extra kilobytes buy visible improvement. If not, go smaller.
Test on a mid-range phone, where banding and blur are often more obvious than on a desktop monitor.

Common mistakes

Compressing a full-resolution image and calling it optimized.
Using PNG for photographs.
Setting quality to 100 "to be safe" — it inflates size with no visible benefit.
Re-saving a JPEG repeatedly, stacking artifacts each time.
Forgetting that GIF animations are usually better as WEBP or video.
Ignoring metadata, which can silently add weight.

Quick reference

Goal	Do this
Photo on a webpage	Resize to display width → WEBP (fallback JPEG) → quality 75–85
Logo or icon	SVG; fall back to PNG if vector isn't possible
Screenshot with text	PNG or lossless WEBP
Transparent photo cutout	Lossy WEBP or PNG
Short animation	WEBP or MP4, not GIF

The order matters more than any single setting: resize, then choose format, then tune quality, then strip metadata, then verify at real display size. Follow that sequence and you'll routinely land at 10–20% of the original file size with no quality your visitors can detect.

Situation	Why manual brushing helps
Logo overlaps a detailed subject	You limit the removal to the logo, not the face or texture beneath it
Faint or partial watermark	You can cover exactly the visible fragments the AI might overlook
Several small marks	You mark each one deliberately instead of relying on detection
Watermark near an edge or text	A precise brush avoids clipping surrounding content

Registrar	GoDaddy.com, LLC
Registered	2024-09-04
Expires	2027-09-04
Domain status	autoRenewPeriod https://icann.org/epp#autoRenewPeriod、clientDeleteProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited、clientRenewProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited、clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited、clientUpdateProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
Nameservers	denver.ns.cloudflare.com、dina.ns.cloudflare.com
DNSSEC	unsigned

Type	Name	Value	TTL	Priority
A	aiwatermarkremover.io	104.21.82.71	300	—
A	aiwatermarkremover.io	172.67.197.189	300	—
AAAA	aiwatermarkremover.io	2606:4700:3031::6815:5247	300	—
AAAA	aiwatermarkremover.io	2606:4700:3032::ac43:c5bd	300	—
NS	aiwatermarkremover.io	denver.ns.cloudflare.com	86400	—
NS	aiwatermarkremover.io	dina.ns.cloudflare.com	86400	—

Assessment	Normal configuration
Supported protocols	TLSv1.2、TLSv1.3
Negotiated protocol	TLSv1.3
Certificate subject	aiwatermarkremover.io
Issuer	Google Trust Services
Valid until	2026-11-16T07:57 · Remaining when checked: 46 days
Verification details	Certificate trust: Passed · Hostname match: Passed

Header	Value
content-type	text/html; charset=UTF-8
server	cloudflare

Meta description	Easily remove watermark from photo & video with our AI Watermark Remover.
Canonical URL	https://aiwatermarkremover.io/
Language	English (default)
Twitter Card	summary_large_image

og:url	https://aiwatermarkremover.io/(opens in a new tab)
og:type	website
og:title	AI Watermark Remover Free Online for Photos & Videos
og:locale	en_US
og:site_name	AI Watermark Remover
og:description	Easily remove watermark from photo & video with our AI Watermark Remover.
twitter:card	summary_large_image

At a glance

Website review

What is AI Watermark Remover?

What it actually does

Who it suits

How do I remove a watermark from a photo using this tool?

Is this AI watermark remover completely free and does it add its own watermark?

Can I use it to remove watermarks from videos like TikTok or YouTube?

How does the manual brush feature let me target specific watermarks or logos?

Does the tool store my uploaded images or videos, and how is my privacy protected?

What this means in practice

A concrete scenario

Decision criterion

Related questions