nomads.com

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.

Joining Nomads.com is promoted as free: the site's main call to action is "Join Nomads.com free," and it also advertises a "free account + 50% off by email" offer. That free account gives you access to the community side of the site — chat, favorites, member discovery, meetups, and travel tracking. The site also maintains a separate Billing page, which indicates that paid options exist alongside the free tier, but the available information does not specify what those paid options cost or include.

What the free account includes

According to the site's own description, a free membership is built around finding and connecting with other digital nomads:

• Global community access — the site describes itself as the "#1 Nomad Community Since 2014" and frames joining as a way to "find your people."
• Chat — a members' chat for finding community while traveling.
• Meetups — the site advertises 194 meetups per year across 100+ cities.
• Dating and friend-finding — separate community features for meeting people for dating and for friends.
• Favorites — save cities you're interested in.
• Travel tracking — record where you've been and keep track of your trips.
• Members map — see where other members are.

The sign-up flow is a single entry point: the "Join Nomads.com free" button also serves existing users, since the site notes that if you already have an account, it will log you in.

Research and planning tools on the site

Beyond the community features, the site lists a broad set of tools for choosing where to live and work. These are presented as part of the site's offering rather than as account-gated features, so treat the list below as what the site provides, not as a confirmed breakdown of free versus paid access:

The site's stated purpose is to help you "research destinations and find your best place to live and work," using metrics such as cost of living, internet speed, and weather.

What the Billing page suggests

The presence of a Billing link in the site navigation is the clearest signal that not everything is free. It tells you two things:

1. Some features or membership levels likely involve payment. A billing page exists to manage charges.
2. The free tier is a real entry point, not a trial. The site leads with "free" repeatedly and offers a discount incentive for signing up by email, which is typical of a freemium model where the free account is the default.

What the available information does not tell you: the price of any paid tier, which specific tools require payment, or whether the "50% off" applies to a subscription. If cost matters to your decision, check the Billing page directly after creating an account rather than assuming the free tier covers everything.

How to join and what to expect

1. Go to nomads.com and select "Join Nomads.com free."
2. Enter your email — the site's sign-up is email-based, and the same flow logs in returning members.
3. Expect to land in the community area — chat, favorites, and your profile are the natural first stops.
4. Verify access to the tools you need — if a specific tool (for example, the API or NomadGPT) is central to your use case, confirm it's available on your account before relying on it.

A practical note on the meetup and city numbers: the site shows large "going" counts for cities like Bangkok (55,608+), Chiang Mai (27,622+), and Lisbon (23,380+) for specific date windows. These are community signals of where nomads are gathering, useful for timing a trip, but they reflect interest rather than a confirmed attendance list.

Who this suits

A free Nomads.com account makes sense if your priority is community — meeting other nomads, joining chat, finding meetups, and tracking your own travels. If your priority is destination data (cost of living, internet speed, climate), the site offers those tools, but confirm which ones your free account unlocks before committing to it as your primary research source.

Nomads.com offers a free global community for digital nomads, built around chat, a friend finder, a members map, a dating app, city meetups, and travel tracking. These features sit alongside the site's destination research tools, so you can use the same account to decide where to go and to find people once you arrive. The community is open to anyone who joins, and the site describes membership as free.

Chat and Finding People

The core of the community is the site's chat, which the homepage presents as the place to "find your community on the road." Alongside general chat, Nomads.com lists two dedicated people-finding tools:

• Friend finder — for meeting other members for friendship and social connection.
• Dating app — a separate feature aimed at members looking to date.

There is also a members map, which shows where members are located. For anyone deciding whether the community is active enough to be useful, the map and chat are the quickest things to check after signing up.

Meetups in Cities Around the World

Nomads.com organizes meetups, and the homepage states that members can attend 194 meetups per year in 100+ cities. The site also lists city-level activity with counts of people "going" during specific date windows, which gives a sense of how many members are in a place at a given time. Examples from the homepage include:

These figures are the site's own reported counts for the listed date ranges, so treat them as an indicator of interest in each city rather than a guaranteed attendance number. If you are choosing between destinations, comparing these counts for your travel dates is a practical way to judge where the community is most concentrated.

Tracking Your Travels

The community side of the site also includes a way to keep track of your travels and record where you've been. This is useful if you want a personal record of the places you've visited as a nomad, and it pairs naturally with the city research tools: you can explore destinations, then log the ones you actually go to.

How to Get Started

1. Go to nomads.com and choose Join Nomads.com free (the site notes that if you already have an account, you'll be logged in).
2. Once in, open Chat to see the community conversation, and check the members map to see where people are.
3. Use Friend finder or the dating app depending on what you're looking for.
4. Check Meetups for events in cities you plan to visit, and compare the "going" counts for your dates.
5. Record places as you travel to build your own history.

The main thing to verify yourself is activity level: the homepage promotes large going-counts, but whether chat and meetups feel active for your specific city and dates is best judged after joining. Since the site describes the community as free, you can test it without committing to anything beyond creating an account.

Nomads.com is a community and research site for digital nomads, and it helps you pick a place to live by combining destination data with member activity. You can explore cities by cost of living, internet speed, weather, and other metrics, then cross-check your shortlist against tools like Best value cities, Fastest internet, Climate finder, and Best place now. It suits remote workers who want to compare several destinations before committing, rather than anyone looking for a single definitive answer.

What the site gives you to compare places

The site describes itself as the "#1 Nomad Community Since 2014" and frames its purpose around three jobs: finding your people, researching destinations, and keeping track of your travels. For location decisions, the research side is the relevant part.

Its stated metrics for exploring places are:

• Cost of living
• Internet speed
• Weather
• Other metrics the site groups under destination research

These are the dimensions you would use to build a shortlist. For example, if you need reliable video calls, internet speed becomes a filter before cost; if you are planning a three-month stay in a hot season, weather moves up.

Tools that turn metrics into a decision

The site's navigation lists several tools that each answer a different question. The table below maps the tool to the decision it supports, based only on what the site names and describes.

A practical sequence is to start with Explore to gather candidates, narrow with Fastest internet and Housing affordability against your hard requirements, then use Climate finder and Best place now to check timing. Best value cities works well as a final sort once your must-haves are set.

Community signals as a second layer

The homepage shows city-level counts of members "going" to each place within a date window, for example Bangkok at 55,608+ going from Oct 25 to Dec 6, Chiang Mai at 27,622+, Lisbon at 23,380+, and smaller counts for cities like Medellín at 11,663+ and Istanbul at 11,236+. These numbers are a signal of where the community is concentrating in a given period, not a quality ranking. A high count can mean more meetups and easier social contact; it can also mean more competition for housing.

The site also lists community features that support the decision after you arrive: a members map, chat, a friend finder, a dating app, and meetups (it states 194 meetups per year in 100+ cities). If social infrastructure matters to you, checking a city's activity level alongside its metrics is a reasonable way to compare.

How to use it before you decide

1. Define your hard constraints first. Write down your minimum internet speed, maximum monthly housing cost, and acceptable climate range. Without these, the tool list becomes overwhelming.
2. Build a candidate list in Explore. Search cities and note their cost of living, internet speed, and weather.
3. Filter with the specialist tools. Use Fastest internet and Housing affordability to cut anything that fails a constraint, then Climate finder to check the season you plan to travel.
4. Check timing and momentum. Compare Best place now and Fastest growing against your dates, and look at the "going" counts for your window.
5. Verify before booking. Metrics are community-sourced and can lag reality; confirm current internet and housing prices with a short-term booking or local contact before committing to a long stay.

What to keep in mind

The site offers a free account path ("Join Nomads.com free") and also references billing and login, so some features may sit behind an account or paid tier. The page does not state which tools are free, so treat access as something to confirm after signing up rather than assumed.

The counts and metrics are community data, useful for narrowing options but not a substitute for your own checks. Use Nomads.com to get from "anywhere" to a ranked shortlist, then validate the top two or three places directly.

Nomads.com offers a set of research tools for comparing places to live and work remotely: an Explore browser, ranking pages (Best value cities, Fastest internet, Fastest growing, Housing affordability, Best place now), finders and calculators (Climate finder, FIRE calculator), and research resources (Nomad stats, State of remote work, History of nomads, Network graph). Most of these are listed in the site's Tools menu and are aimed at helping you shortlist destinations by cost, internet speed, weather, and community activity. The site also states that joining the community is free, and its signup page mentions a free account plus 50% off by email; specific paid tiers or feature limits aren't described in the available page content, so check the Billing page before relying on any assumption about what a free account includes.

Browsing and shortlisting places

The Explore tool is the starting point for browsing destinations. The site describes its purpose as exploring places "based on cost of living, internet speed, weather and other metrics," which tells you the comparison dimensions to expect. A practical workflow:

1. Open Explore and browse cities broadly.
2. Note the metrics shown for each place (cost, internet, weather, and similar).
3. Move candidates into the ranking pages below to compare them on a single dimension.

The homepage also surfaces a live list of cities with dates and "going" counts (for example, Bangkok Oct 25 – Dec 6 with 55,608+ going, and Chiang Mai with 27,622+ going). Treat these as signals of where members are gathering in a given window, not as a quality ranking.

Ranking pages for one-dimension comparisons

These pages let you sort places by a single criterion, which is useful once you know what matters most to you:

Because each page isolates one dimension, the reliable method is to pick two or three criteria, check the same cities across those pages, and only then read the individual city pages. A city that tops Fastest internet may not appear near the top of Housing affordability, and that trade-off is the actual decision.

Finders and calculators

• Climate finder — narrows places by weather preferences. Useful if you already know you want a specific climate band and want to avoid manually checking each city.
• FIRE calculator — a financial-independence calculator. It's a planning tool rather than a destination filter; use it to sanity-check whether a lower-cost city actually changes your timeline.
• Residence calendar — helps track time spent in places, which matters if visa or tax residency rules apply to you. Confirm those rules with official sources, since the site doesn't provide legal or tax advice.

Research and community data

• Nomad stats and State of remote work — aggregate data on the nomad population and remote work trends. Good for context when you're deciding whether a destination's community is large enough for you.
• History of nomads — background reading on how the community and locations have shifted over time.
• Network graph — a visual view of connections between places or members; useful for spotting clusters rather than single cities.
• Members map, Chat, Meetups, Friend finder, Dating app — community tools rather than research tools, but they let you check whether a shortlisted city has active members before you commit. The site claims 194 meetups per year in 100+ cities.

A workable research sequence

1. Browse Explore to build a list of 8–10 candidate cities.
2. Filter with Climate finder if weather is a hard requirement.
3. Compare the survivors on Best value cities, Fastest internet, and Housing affordability.
4. Check Nomad stats and the Members map to confirm each city has an active community in your travel window.
5. Use the Residence calendar to track your time and verify visa rules independently.

Common sticking points: the ranking pages each measure one thing, so a city can look excellent on one page and poor on another; the "going" counts on the homepage reflect declared travel dates, not permanent population; and account features versus free browsing aren't fully specified in the available content, so confirm on the Billing page before planning around member-only tools.