useanimations.com

useAnimations ships every icon with one of six built-in interactions, and you can swap the default for another with a single interaction prop. The six options are loop, click-toggle, click-replay, hover, hover-loop, and hover-replay. Pick based on what should trigger the motion and whether the icon needs to hold a state or just give feedback.

The six interactions

Each icon "ships with the interaction it was designed for," so the default already fits the icon's purpose — you only change it when your context calls for something different.

How to choose

• No user action needed? Use loop. It runs on its own, which suits loaders and status indicators.
• Two visual states? Use click-toggle. The icon flips between them on each click — the natural fit for menu/close or play/pause.
• One-shot feedback on click? Use click-replay. It restarts the animation every time, so the user sees a response to their action.
• Motion tied to pointing? The three hover variants differ in how they end: hover reverses back on leave, hover-loop completes its current cycle after you move away, and hover-replay restarts on each new enter.

Switching the interaction

Set the interaction prop to any of the six values. For example, to make an icon loop continuously:

<SomeIcon interaction="loop" />

The prop is the single point of control — the icon component, its animation data, and its styling stay the same.

What you get alongside the interactions

• 300 icons, hand-crafted, with the interaction built in.
• Zero dependencies, and the player is about 8 kB gzipped.
• MIT licensed, so you can use and modify them freely.
• Multiple delivery formats: a React component, shadcn/ui integration, or downloadable SVG and Lottie JSON (plus ZIP). Install via npm i react-useanimations.
• Customizable: color and size are adjustable, and the icons are described as accessible and yours to style.

If you want to see the motion before committing, the site lets you hover or click icons in the library and open any icon for its code and downloads.

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.

Install the package with npm i react-useanimations, import the icon component you want, and render it with an interaction prop. That's the whole loop for React. For shadcn/ui, you add the icon the same way — it's a standard React component, so it drops into any shadcn component tree. If you're not on React at all, you can skip the package and download the SVG or Lottie JSON directly from the site.

What you're working with

useAnimations is a library of 300 hand-crafted micro animations for UI. Each icon ships with the interaction it was designed for, so you don't wire up animation logic yourself — you pick an interaction and it works. The library is MIT licensed, has zero dependencies, and the player is about 8 kB gzipped.

The icons are distributed three ways:

• React component — via the react-useanimations package
• shadcn/ui — added as a component in your shadcn setup
• Raw files — SVG and Lottie JSON downloads for any other environment

Install and render in React

Step 1 — Install the package.

npm i react-useanimations

Step 2 — Import the icon you need. Each icon is its own component, so you import by name rather than pulling the whole set.

Step 3 — Render it with an interaction prop. The interaction prop controls the behavior. If you don't pass one, the icon uses the interaction it was designed for.

import { AlertCircle } from 'react-useanimations';

export default function Status() {
  return <AlertCircle interaction="loop" />;
}

Expected result: the icon renders and plays according to the interaction you set. Change the prop to switch behavior — no extra wiring.

The six built-in interactions

Every icon supports these, and you select one with a single prop.

The prop is the only thing you change to move between these — the icon itself stays the same.

Using icons in a shadcn/ui project

Because each icon is a plain React component, it composes into shadcn/ui the same way any other component does. Add it inside your shadcn components (buttons, dropdown items, nav links) and pass the interaction prop where you want motion.

The practical difference from a bare React app is placement, not setup: you're dropping the animated icon into slots that shadcn already styles, so check that the icon's size and color fit the surrounding component. The library supports custom color and size, so you can match it to your theme rather than fighting the defaults.

Using SVG or Lottie outside React

If your project isn't React, you don't need the npm package. Open any icon on the site and you get its code plus downloads:

• SVG — for static or CSS-driven use
• Lottie JSON — for players like lottie-web in any framework
• ZIP — bundled assets

This is the path for Vue, Svelte, plain HTML, or design handoff.

Finding the right icon

The library is browsable by interaction type and by category. Categories include Alerts, Notifications, Navigation, Action, Content, Form, Media, Text editing, Communication, Devices, Weather, Maps & location, Commerce, Charts, Development, Design & layout, Shapes & math, Loading, Social media, and Other.

To narrow down:

1. Filter by interaction if the behavior matters more than the glyph (e.g. everything that loops).
2. Filter by category if you know the semantic slot (e.g. Navigation).
3. Use search for a specific concept.
4. Open an icon to get its code and downloads.

Common snags

• Wrong interaction for the context. A loop icon in a static toolbar reads as a loading state. Match the interaction to intent — hover for affordances, click-toggle for state switches.
• Assuming you must use the package. You don't. SVG and Lottie JSON cover non-React stacks.
• Ignoring size and color. The icons are styleable; set these to fit your UI instead of accepting defaults that clash.
• Forgetting the license is permissive. MIT means you can use and modify them, but keep attribution expectations in mind for your own distribution.

The fastest way to find an icon on useAnimations is to combine three tools on the library page: the search box for name matching, the Interaction filter for behavior, and the category list for browsing. If you already know the icon name, search it directly. If you know how it should behave but not what it looks like, filter by interaction first. If you're exploring, browse by category. Once you open an icon, you get its code and download options (Lottie JSON, SVG, and ZIP).

Search by icon name

Use the search box when you have a specific icon in mind — for example, a notification bell or a burger menu.

1. Go to the library section of useAnimations.
2. Type the icon name into the Search icons field.
3. Scan the results, which show the icon, its name, and its interaction type.

The results list labels each icon with its interaction (for example, "Loop," "Click," or "Hover"), so you can confirm you've found the right behavior before opening it.

Filter by interaction type

If your decision is driven by how the icon should move rather than what it depicts, filter by interaction. useAnimations ships six built-in interactions, and each icon is designed around one of them:

To filter: open the Interaction dropdown and select one option (or All interactions to see everything). The grid updates to show only icons with that behavior.

A practical note: the interaction is built in, but you can override it with a single prop when using the React component — so an icon's default interaction isn't a hard constraint. Filtering is still the quickest way to find icons that were designed for the motion you want.

Browse by category

When you don't have a name or behavior in mind, browse by category. useAnimations organizes its 300 icons into groups including:

• Alerts
• Notifications
• Navigation
• Action
• Content
• Form
• Media
• Text editing
• Communication
• Devices
• Weather
• Maps & location
• Commerce
• Charts
• Development
• Design & layout
• Shapes & math
• Loading
• Social media
• Other

Pick the category closest to your UI context, then scan the grid. Each card shows the icon and its interaction label, so you can judge both look and motion at a glance.

Open an icon for code and downloads

Clicking any icon card opens its detail view. This is where you get what you actually need to ship it:

• Code — the snippet for using the icon (for example, as a React component or via shadcn/ui).
• Downloads — Lottie JSON, SVG, and a ZIP.

If you're working in React, the package install command shown on the site is:

npm i react-useanimations

The library is MIT licensed, has zero dependencies, and the player is about 8 kB gzipped — useful context if bundle size is part of your decision.

A quick decision path

• Know the name? → Search.
• Know the behavior? → Filter by Interaction.
• Know the context but not the icon? → Browse by category.
• Ready to use it? → Open the icon for code and downloads.

One caveat worth checking yourself: the site lists 300 icons and six interactions, but not every category is guaranteed to contain every interaction. If you need a specific combination (say, a hover-loop icon in Commerce), filter by interaction first and then scan the categories in the results rather than the other way around.

Yes on all three counts, based on the site's own description. useAnimations ships 300 animated icons under the MIT license, with a player that is about 8 kB gzipped and has zero dependencies, and the icons support custom color and size. The MIT license is the part that matters most for commercial work: it permits use, modification, and redistribution, typically requiring only that the copyright notice and license text are preserved. If you need a permissive, no-cost animated icon set for a React or shadcn/ui project, this fits. If you need guaranteed long-term support, a formal SLA, or a vendor to hold accountable, a free MIT library is not that — you would be relying on the community and the repository.

License: what MIT means for your project

The site states the library is MIT licensed. In practice that means:

• You can use the icons in personal and commercial projects.
• You can modify them and redistribute them.
• You generally must keep the license and copyright notice with the code.

The site does not describe any paid tier, account requirement, or usage cap, so there is no indication of a commercial-use restriction. It also does not state anything about attribution requirements beyond the license itself, so treat the standard MIT notice as the requirement rather than assuming attribution is optional.

Size: what the 8 kB figure covers

The published numbers are:

The 8 kB applies to the player, not to every icon you import. That distinction matters: the player is the shared runtime, and individual icons are separate assets. Zero dependencies means the library does not pull in a chain of transitive packages, which keeps your bundle predictable and avoids version conflicts.

For a concrete sense of scale: adding the player plus a handful of icons is a small addition next to most UI libraries. If you import many icons, check your bundler's output rather than assuming the total stays at 8 kB.

Customization: color, size, and styling

The library exposes custom color and size controls, and the site describes the icons as "yours to style." That means you can match them to your design tokens instead of being locked to a fixed palette.

The icons are also described as accessible. The site does not detail the specific accessibility implementation, so verify the rendered markup in your own project — particularly whether icons that convey meaning have appropriate labels and whether purely decorative ones are hidden from assistive technology.

Interactions you get without extra code

Each icon ships with the interaction it was designed for, and you can switch interactions with a single prop. The documented set:

• loop — plays continuously, for loaders and ambient status.
• click-toggle — switches between two states, such as menu and close, or play and pause.
• click-replay — replays from the start on every click, as feedback.
• hover — plays forward on enter and back on leave.
• hover-loop — loops while hovered and finishes its cycle on leave.
• hover-replay — plays once from the start on every enter.

The practical benefit is that you are not wiring animation state by hand for common cases. The trade-off is that these are the built-in behaviors; anything more custom means working with the underlying SVG or Lottie assets.

Formats and integration paths

The site lists three ways to consume the icons:

1. React component — install via npm i react-useanimations, then import.
2. shadcn/ui — add icons through the shadcn workflow.
3. Raw assets — download SVG and Lottie JSON, or a ZIP, per icon.

If you are not on React, the SVG and Lottie downloads are the relevant path. Lottie JSON works with Lottie players across platforms; SVG gives you a static or hand-animatable asset.

When this is the right choice — and when it isn't

Choose useAnimations if you want a permissive license, a small dependency-free player, built-in hover/click/loop behaviors, and easy color and size control for a React or shadcn/ui interface.

Look elsewhere if you need vendor support with commitments, a large icon count beyond 300, or animation behaviors that go well past the six built-in interactions. The site does not publish pricing, so there is no paid tier described here to compare against — the offering as documented is the free MIT library.