Using an SEO tool can massively increase your traffic and revenue. SEMrush is one of the most popular tools experts are using today, and for good reason. It’s labeled as an ‘all in one marketing platform’ and it doesn’t fail to deliver.
In this review we’re going to be discussing every feature in detail, the pricing, how to use SEMrush, and answering the most commonly asked questions about the tool so be sure to read on!
What Is Semrush?
SEMrush is software created in 2008 by Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikov. It’s used for multiple different things in such as keyword research, competitor analysis, backlinking analysis, PPC, SEO, and improving the overall traffic of a website.
This is just a brief overview of the things SEMrush can be used for. In the next section, we’ll cover these features in more detail.
SEMrush Main Features
Keyword Research
SEMrush’s keyword research feature is made up of 5 sub-categories, they are :
- Keyword overview
- Keyword magic tool
- Keyword manager
- Position tracking
- Organic traffic insights
The majority of your time will likely be spent in the overview section. Here you can find out everything you need about a certain keyword.
Once we have our chosen keyword, SEMrush is able to instantly provide you with an array of important information about that keyword. It includes things like keyword volume, keyword difficulty, related keywords, keyword intent, and monthly trends.
Once you go an extra layer deep into your keyword research you’ll likely find yourself using the keyword research magic tool.
This is an incredibly helpful tool for finding long-tail versions of a keyword and adding different filters such as exact match keywords, broad matches, and related ones.
You can also filter the volume, intent, and keyword difficulty of your chosen keywords making them suit your website. For example, if you have a website with a low authority score then adding a KD filter of 0-14% might be beneficial.
If you are happy with the keyword list the magic tool has given you then it also has a feature that allows you to export the keywords. This is extremely helpful for organizing your keywords so you have a clear plan of what to target.
Domain Analysis
You can use the domain analysis tool on SEMrush to gain information about your own website or a competitor’s website.
A domain analysis on your own website would be beneficial to see where you can make improvements, this includes things like monitoring how many keywords you’re ranking for or spotting any patterns in traffic.
A domain analysis on a competitor’s website would be beneficial to gain some insight into how much traffic they have, and more importantly what keywords they are ranking for.
Using SEMrush’s domain analysis you can find so much information instantly at the click of a button. It includes things such as :
- Authority score
- Organic traffic
- Organic keywords
- Number of backlinks
The information is also laid out super simple. Within a few minutes of searching a domain, you’ll have an idea of how old the website is, how hard it is to beat, and how much backlinks and traffic it has.
Remember to take the traffic estimates with a grain of salt, after all, they are estimates. SEMrush (along with every other SEO tool) can’t predict with 100% accuracy the traffic a website is getting.
The domain overview feature also contains information about the keyword intent and a website’s main organic competitors.
You can use the keyword intent feature to figure out what kind of keywords a certain website is ranking for. For example, if a website ranks for a lot of commercial keywords then it’s likely an affiliate review website.
The main organic competitors feature is a great way to get a comprehensive list of all the competitors in your niche. It’s almost like going down a rabbit hole. Once you find one competitor, you go onto their domain overview and find a list of their main organic competitors.
If you do this a few times you’ll have a list of competitors and all their keywords that you can target.
Backlink Analysis
Anyone involved in SEO will know how crucial backlink analysis is when it comes to increasing your traffic and ranking online.
This is where SEMrush’s backlink analysis feature comes to your aid. It includes :
- Backlink analytics
- Backlink audit
- Link building tool
- Bulk analysis
This is the main overview of the SEMrush backlink analysis feature. Here you’re able to find out the authority score, the number of referring domains, total backlinks, and outbound domains.
You can use this feature on your own domain to keep track of the number of backlinks you currently have, as well as using it to inspect a competitor’s backlinking profile. If you scope out a competitor’s backlinking profile SEMrush is able to tell you exactly who is linking to them.
Through this, you can find out their link-building strategy and replicate it.
The backlink feature is also able to tell you what text anchors are used for backlinks, which pages have the most backlinks pointed at them, and what type of links they are (follow, no-follow, UGC or sponsored).
Site Auditing
SEMrush also has a feature that allows you to perform an audit on your site. A website audit is a full analysis of things like performance, speed, and overall health of the site.
It looks for things like duplicate content, missing meta-descriptions, crawl problems, missing headers, and a number of other things.
If you don’t have all of these things in order it can negatively affect your website, which will prevent you from ranking.
On-Page SEO
A feature I personally love is the SEMrush on-page SEO feature. It’s often overlooked by webmasters as they focus entirely on off-page SEO like backlinks, but a good on-page SEO strategy can be the difference in your website ranking at the bottom of page one or the top of it.
The SEMrush on-page SEO features give you access to seven different helpful analysis tools, they include :
- Strategy ideas
- Backlink ideas
- Technical SEO ideas
- Semantic ideas
- Content ideas
- User-experience ideas
- SERP features ideas
The on-page SEO feature will do a scan of all your website’s content and come back with a detailed report on suggestions to help you rank higher. It includes things like keyword frequency, recommended word count, internal linking ideas, and ways you can grab the google snippet among some other actionable tips.
Rank Tracking
Next up we have the SEMrush rank tracking feature. This tool allows you to accurately track all of your keywords and where they currently lie in the SERPS. Rank tracking is incredibly helpful as it allows you to monitor how well certain pages are performing.
For example, if a keyword drops down in the SERPs, you’ll be able to clearly identify it using the rank tracker and hopefully regain the position.
It’s easy to set up, simply enter your domain into the search bar, you’ll then get a list of keywords you can choose to track.
You’re also able to enter a competitor’s domain into the position tracking tool. This allows you to see how you are competing against them for certain keywords.
Benefits of Using SEMrush
Great For Keyword Research & Domain Analysis
In my opinion, SEMrush thrives when it comes to helping with keyword research and domain analysis.
For keyword research, once your keyword has been identified SEMrush lays out all of the information concisely on one page, providing you with all the information you need about that keyword.
For domain analysis, it’s the same thing. Whether it’s your own domain or a competitor’s, once a domain is loaded into SEMrush in seconds you have access to multiple pieces of information that can help you.
Provides You With Link-Building Opportunities
Want to increase your website’s authority score? SEMrush is excellent at helping you with link-building outreach due to its CRM features.
Easy-To-Understand Interface
When you first use SEMrush all of the information can be overwhelming, but once you break each section down it’s very easy to understand and you’ll be grateful that all the information you need is displayed on one page.
Great For Auditing Your Site
Manually checking your website every week would be just too time-consuming. With SEMrush using their site auditing tool you can have a report on your website back in minutes telling you about any problems that need to be fixed.
Disadvantages Of Using SEMrush
It’s Expensive
The most apparent disadvantage of SEMrush is the price. With the cheapest plan being $119 a month it’s relatively expensive, especially for those on a budget. The quality of the tool makes it that price, but SEMrush isn’t a must-have tool and you can improve at SEO without it.
Not Very Mobile Friendly
If you want to perform some keyword research or domain analysis on the go using your smartphone, it won’t be the easiest task in the world. This is because SEMrush’s interface isn’t responsive making it difficult to use on mobile.
A mobile version of the tool would be useful to those who can’t always get access to a desktop or laptop.
They Only Use Data From Google
SEMrush strictly pulls all of the data they use from one search engine – Google. While it is the largest search engine they could use other search engines such as DuckDuck Go, Bing, and Yahoo in order to provide more data.
This is something Ahrefs beats SEMrush at as they use more than just Google to pull data from.
SEMrush Pricing
SEMrush isn’t the cheapest tool available on the market right now, but you get what you pay for and it couldn’t be any more true for SEMrush. There are currently three pricing tiers available :
Want to try it before you commit to paying over $100 a month? SEMrush currently has a 7-day free trial which is more than enough time for you to play around and decide if the tool is for you.
You can also use SEMrush for free, but you are limited to 10 requests a day and not all features will be unlocked.
SEMrush – Frequently Asked Questions
Is SEMrush Expensive?
The cheapest SEMrush plan costs will cost you $119.95 a month making it a fairly expensive SEO tool. The value you get for your $199.95 however is outstanding as SEMrush is an all-in-one tool which means if you buy it, you won’t need to spend money on anything else.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eThere is a free version of SEMrush which has limited features and allows up to 10 searches a day, but if you want to use it regularly then you’ll need to buy it.
Is SEMrush Accurate?
No SEO tool is 100% accurate and SEMrush is no different. When it comes to estimated traffic and keyword volume you should use SEMrush as a rough estimate as it won’t always be correct. u003cbru003eu003cbru003eAccording to a study of 25 websites, u003ca href=u0022https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/how-accurate-are-website-traffic-estimators/#:~:text=SEMRush%20underestimated%20total%20traffic%20for,average%20underestimated%20traffic%20by%2042%25.u0022u003eSEMrush underestimate the trafficu003c/au003e by around 30% (9.4m estimated visits compared to 13.4m actual visits).
Is SEMrush Worth It?
If you can afford to pay the price then SEMrush is absolutely worth it. If it’s used correctly SEMrush will end up paying for itself over the coming months as you should be able to use it to increase traffic, which means more revenue. u003cbru003eu003cbru003eUltimately it comes down to what your needs are, if you’re new to SEO then it might be too big of an investment at first, however, if you run an agency then SEMrush is worth its weight in gold.
What Is SEMrush Good For?
SEMrush is a complete SEO tool, which means it’s good for every aspect of SEO. This includes keyword research, backlinking analysis, SEO auditing, competitor analysis, and much more. u003cbru003eu003cbru003eOverall SEMrush is good for increasing your website’s presence online and improving visibility.
Is SEMrush Hard To Use?
At first, SEMrush can be a bit overwhelming due to the number of features it has, you might not know where to start. However, after using each feature for a while, it becomes second nature and you can become quite efficient at using it.
SEMrush Conclusion – Is It Worth It?
If you can afford the price then yes, SEMrush is 100% worth it in my opinion. It’s got everything you need to succeed at SEO, whether it’s keyword research, backlink analysis, link-building help, or performing site auditing SEMrush has it all.
The interface can be pretty overwhelming if you’ve never used it before but if you break it down, it’s incredibly easy to understand and use. The majority of the features have all the information you need packed onto one page which seems daunting, but after a while, you’ll be thankful you don’t have to jump page to page trying to find what you’re looking for.
SEMrush is the closest thing to a must-have tool in SEO right now, if you’re not using it then you’re missing out on traffic and revenue.
