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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.

Polling rate is how many times per second your keyboard reports its key states to the computer, measured in Hz. A 1000Hz keyboard sends a report every 1ms; a 125Hz keyboard sends one every 8ms. Higher polling rate reduces the maximum delay between a keypress and the computer receiving it, but it does not eliminate input latency on its own — the total delay also includes switch debounce, firmware processing, USB transfer, OS handling, and display refresh. If you are troubleshooting lag, test polling rate alongside latency, rollover, and chatter rather than treating it as the single cause.

Polling rate vs. input latency: what actually changes

Polling rate sets the interval at which reports are sent. Latency is the total time from physical actuation to the effect appearing on screen.

The key word is worst-case. If a keypress lands just after a report is sent, it waits nearly a full interval before the next one. At 1000Hz that wait is at most 1ms; at 125Hz it can be 8ms. That 7ms difference is real but small compared with other links in the chain — a 60Hz monitor alone adds up to ~16.7ms between frames, and switch debounce commonly adds several milliseconds.

So a higher polling rate shrinks one component of latency. It does not make a slow keyboard fast if the bottleneck is elsewhere.

Polling rate is not the same as NKRO or ghosting

These three terms get mixed up constantly, and they describe different things:

• Polling rate — how often the keyboard reports to the host. A timing/spec number in Hz.
• NKRO (N-Key Rollover) — how many keys the keyboard can register simultaneously without dropping any. A 6KRO board may fail when you hold many keys at once; an NKRO board registers them all.
• Ghosting — phantom or missing key registrations caused by the keyboard's matrix wiring when multiple keys are pressed together. It is a correctness problem, not a timing one.

A keyboard can have 1000Hz polling and still ghost. It can have full NKRO and only 125Hz polling. When you test, check them separately: press keys one at a time for dead switches, press combinations (e.g. WASD + Space) for rollover and ghosting, and use a latency or polling measurement for timing.

How to check polling rate and latency with an online tester

KeyboardTest.io runs in the browser with no drivers or software, and states that all tests are performed locally — key content is not recorded or uploaded. Its suite covers rollover (NKRO), input latency, polling rate, and chatter detection.

A practical sequence:

1. Basic function test — press each physical key and confirm the matching on-screen key lights up. This catches dead switches and unresponsive keys.
2. Rollover detection — hold several keys at once (e.g. WASD + Space). If some keys don't light up, the board may have ghosting or a rollover limit.
3. Latency / polling measurement — use the latency test to evaluate input response speed. The tool measures system-to-browser input latency from event timestamps, which is the practical number that matters for gaming.
4. Chatter test — if a single press registers twice, the switch may be aging. The chatter detection flags abnormal secondary triggers.

Expected result: a healthy keyboard lights every key, registers all simultaneous presses you make, and shows stable timing without double-triggers. If a key fails to light, that points to hardware; if timing is erratic, that points to polling, firmware, or a busy system.

Does a higher polling rate actually help gaming?

Sometimes, and less than marketing suggests.

• Where it helps: competitive play where every millisecond of input delay compounds with reaction time, and on high-refresh displays (144Hz+) where frame times are short enough that a 1ms vs. 8ms reporting gap is a meaningful fraction of a frame.
• Where it doesn't: if your monitor is 60Hz, your total latency is dominated by frame pacing, and going from 1000Hz to 8000Hz changes almost nothing perceptible. CPU load also rises with very high polling rates, which can increase latency if the system is already busy.
• Diminishing returns: the jump from 125Hz to 1000Hz is the big one (8ms → 1ms worst case). Beyond 1000Hz the gains shrink fast and depend on the rest of your chain.

A reasonable rule: 1000Hz is plenty for most users. Consider higher only if you have a high-refresh monitor, a fast CPU, and you're chasing the last fraction of a millisecond in competitive titles. If your current board already polls at 1000Hz, upgrading for polling rate alone is rarely worth it — check latency, chatter, and rollover first, since those often cause more noticeable problems.