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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.

1. Open Site Explorer from the top navigation.
2. In the search box, paste your domain (e.g., example.com).
3. 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.
4. Press Enter.

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

Reading the Overview Snapshot

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:

1. Your top performers — understand what topics and formats work. Can you create more content like this?
2. 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.

1. Click Site Audit → New project.
2. Enter your domain and set crawl settings (default is usually fine for a small site).
3. 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:

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:

1. Fix 3 broken links found in Site Audit.
2. Rewrite title tags on 5 pages with duplicate titles.
3. Improve 4 pages ranking in positions 6–12 by adding missing subtopics and internal links.
4. 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.

Collection management databases for botanical gardens and arboreta are not all built for the same job. The biggest divide is between systems designed specifically for living collections (plants in the ground, glasshouse, or nursery) and systems built for preserved specimens (herbarium sheets, spirit collections, seed bank vouchers). A second divide runs between all-in-one platforms and modular or open-source tools that you assemble yourself. Which side of those divides you land on depends on what you actually need to record, who needs to see it, and how much internal technical capacity you have.

Start With the Record Types You Manage

Before comparing products, list what your garden actually tracks. Most living-collection systems are organised around a small set of interlocking records:

• Accession — the permanent number given when plant material enters the collection, usually with source, date, and material type (seed, cutting, division, wild-collected).
• Taxon / name — the scientific name, including synonyms and name changes as taxonomy is revised.
• Provenance — where the material came from: wild origin with locality data, another garden, a nursery, or unknown.
• Plant / individual — the specific plant or group of plants derived from an accession.
• Location — bed, grid reference, garden area, glasshouse bay, or map coordinates, plus a history of moves.
• Propagation and events — sowing, germination, potting on, deaths, deaccessions, and material sent to other institutions.

If your records are mostly herbarium sheets with label data and storage locations, a preserved-specimen database will fit better. If your records are mostly "this tree, in this bed, from this wild locality," you need a living-collection system. Many gardens run both, which is why integration between the two matters.

Living-Collection Platforms vs General-Purpose Databases

The practical question is not "which is best" but "how much of the living-collection model do I want to build versus buy?" A platform that already understands accessions, individuals, and locations saves months of design work. A general-purpose tool gives you freedom but shifts the burden onto your staff.

How Public Sharing and Secure Access Shape the Choice

Gardens increasingly publish collection data — on websites, in plant-finding tools, or through biodiversity networks. This creates two requirements that a plain database often misses:

1. A public-facing view that shows what you want shown (often taxon, general location, provenance summary) without exposing sensitive data such as exact coordinates of rare species.
2. Role-based access so that curators, horticulturists, volunteers, and the public see different things.

When evaluating a system, ask specifically: can I mark fields as public or private? Can I publish a subset without exporting and re-importing? Can I restrict who edits versus who only views? Systems that treat public sharing as an afterthought usually mean manual exports and a second copy of your data to maintain.

Adaptability and Cost Structure

Cost and flexibility tend to trade off in predictable ways:

• Configuration-based platforms let you rename fields, add picklists, and adjust forms within the product. This is cheaper and faster, but you accept the vendor's underlying model.
• Custom development gives you exactly what you want, but you pay for it up front and again at every upgrade.
• Open-source tools remove licence fees but not costs — hosting, upgrades, security, and staff time are real expenses.

Be wary of comparing only licence prices. Total cost includes data migration, training, ongoing support, and the staff hours to keep records clean. Ask each vendor or project how upgrades are handled and whether your customisations survive them.

Practical Evaluation Criteria

Work through these before committing:

1. Data migration — can you import existing records from spreadsheets or an old system, and who does the mapping?
2. Staff skill level — will your team manage it, or do you need a database administrator?
3. Long-term maintenance — who fixes problems in five years? Is there a user community or paid support?
4. Standards — does it support accepted taxonomic and provenance conventions, and can it exchange data with other institutions?
5. Public sharing — can you publish securely without duplicating data?
6. Exit plan — can you export everything in a usable format if you switch?

A Reasonable Way to Decide

If your priority is getting living-collection records under control quickly with limited technical staff, a living-collection-focused platform is usually the lower-risk choice. If you have unusual record types, strong in-house technical capacity, or a mandate to integrate with a broader institutional database, a modular or general-purpose approach may serve you better. If you mainly hold preserved specimens, choose a specimen-oriented system and treat living plants as a separate concern.

Whichever route you take, pilot with a real subset of your data — a few hundred accessions, including messy provenance and a few name changes — before signing anything. The system that handles your messiest records gracefully is the one worth keeping.