Semrush Review 2021: The Summary Box
Semrush is an all-in-one suite of digital marketing tools to help you grow your online footprint. From optimizing your website to boost organic search traffic to managing your social media accounts, it really can do it all.
Product Ratings
Overall: Support: Effectiveness: User-Friendliness: Value for Money:
- Overall:
- Support:
- Effectiveness:
- User-Friendliness:
- Value for Money:
Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
| Makes competitor analysis easy | Requires some technical knowledge |
| One-stop solution for all SEO needs | Too many features can confuse new users |
| Powerful keyword research tool | Ease of use can be enhanced |
| Suitable for all types of businesses and agencies | |
| Has a comprehensive suite of digital marketing tools | |
| Provides a free trial option | |
| Add-on products to complement the core toolkits |
Pros
-
- Makes competitor analysis easy
- One-stop solution for all SEO needs
- Powerful keyword research tool
- Suitable for all types of businesses and agencies
- Has a comprehensive suite of digital marketing tools
- Provides a free trial option
- Add-on products to complement the core toolkits
Cons
- Requires some technical knowledge
- Too many features can confuse new users
- Add-on products to complement the core toolkits
Pricing Details
| Pricing Plan | Cost (Billed Annually) |
| Pro | $99.95 per month |
| Guru | $191.62 per month |
| Business | $374.95 per month |
| Enterprise | Customized |
- Pricing Plan: Cost (Billed Annually)
- Pro Plan: $99.95 Per Month
- Guru Plan: $191.62 Per Month
- Business Plan: $374.95 Per Month
- Enterprise Plan: Customized
Quick Review
Semrush is a great digital marketing and SEO tool, but the most distinguishing feature of Semrush is its versatility.
One moment, you’re using it to conduct a site audit and track website analytics. The next, it turns into a writing assistant. It can help you with SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, market analysis, and competitive analysis.
I use Semrush for so many purposes that I have lost count. It has helped me get more organic traffic and higher engagement on my content across platforms.
I think that is the beauty of Semrush—it really can do it all.
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Disclosure: This content has a few affiliate links, which means if you click on them, I will get a commission (without any extra cost to you).
Semrush Review: Key Features
| Extensive keyword analysis and research | Advertising research and management |
| On-page and technical SEO | Ads builder |
| Link building and rank tracking | Social media content optimization |
| Competitive research and analysis | Social media management |
| Extensive website analytics | Content ideas and topic research |
| SEO-friendly writing assistant | Market research and trends analysis |
| In-depth site audit for SEO | Content audit and analytics |
| Exclusive toolkit for agencies | On-demand content marketplace |
- Extensive keyword research
- Advertising research and management
- On-page and technical SEO
- Ads builder
- Link building and rank tracking
- Social media content optimization
- Competitive research and analysis
- Social media management
- Extensive website analytics
- Content ideas and topic research
- SEO-friendly writing assistant
- Market research and trends analysis
- In-depth site audit for SEO
- Content audit and analytics
- Exclusive toolkit for agencies
- On-demand content marketplace
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Who is it Designed For?
| Bloggers and influencers |
| Businesses |
| Marketing agencies |
| Anyone who wants to grow their online business |
- Bloggers and influencers
- Businesses
- Marketing agencies
- Anyone who wants to grow their online business
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Why Do I Like Semrush?
Before I do this Semrush review, I think that it is important to mention how long I have been using the tool and how my experience has been.
Well, I have been using Semrush for several years now.
In fact, I would go as far as to say that my day-to-day operations would come to a halt if Semrush wasn’t there anymore.
My team and I use Semrush on a daily basis to find keywords, get content ideas, keep track of my website’s performance, monitor my competitors, and more.
Want to know the best feature of this tool?
In my opinion, it is the multi-functionality of this tool that makes it irreplaceable. I often wonder how a single tool can help me in almost every aspect of my business.
Plus, it has some very unique features too that make it stand out from the competition.
I’ll elaborate on all the main features of the tool in the next section.
But first I am going to list some killer features that impressed me
- Accurate Search Volume Data: Semrush updates their data regularly, so the numbers you see on their platform are up-to-date and accurate.
- Huge Keyword Database for Google: Semrush’s keyword database is ENORMOUS. Their Keyword Magic Tool has over 20 BILLION keywords! That makes it the biggest keyword database out there.
- Accurate Position Tracking: Semrush enables you to get data updates daily as well as the latest mobile rankings. Plus, you can buy more keywords without additional add-ons or payments. Even with a low-tier plan, you can also get access to volume data on a local level.
- Custom SEO Reports: You can create your own reports for your team, boss, or clients with Semrush. It enables you to create PDF reports, which include White Label reports as well as Branded reports. Plus, it also has options for report scheduling as well as integration with Google Analytics, Google My Business, and Google Search Console.
- Toxic Link Monitoring: You can get a detailed analysis of toxic backlinks that you have. Based on that, they assign a toxic score for each backlink.
- Multiple Tools For Content Marketing: Semrush comes with content marketing tools like Brand Monitoring, SEO Writing Assistant, SEO Content Template, Post Tracking, Content Audit, and more.
That’s just an overview.
I have a lot more ground to cover here.
That is why I am writing this Semrush review to cover all of the details. If you are planning to subscribe to Semrush, my advice is to go through this review once. This is not like other Semrush reviews that you have read and is definitely the most comprehensive.
Before you dive in, acquaint yourself with all of the available features by trying the plan you like for free.
The website provides a 7-day free trial option, but they have given us an exclusive 14-day trial link for the Guru plan and a 30-day trial of the Pro plan.
Try Guru Plan Free for 14 Days!
Detailed Review: What are the Best Features That Semrush Offers?
This Semrush review was long overdue as a lot of my readers have been asking about this tool and whether I think it’s worth investing in.
I am a regular user and a big proponent of this SEO tool and the numerous features that it includes. However, it would not be fair if I simply advise people to use it without reviewing each feature in detail.
So, I decided to do a detailed review of the features, pros, and cons of Semrush.
Semrush has so many tools and features that it is not practically possible to cover them all, but I will still try my best. In this Semrush review, I will discuss the five main toolkits that it provides, along with the details about the tools, features, and dashboards within each.
In this Semrush review, I will discuss the five main toolkits that it provides, along with some other tools and features. I will also provide details about the tools, features, and dashboards within each toolkit.
Ready to learn more?
Let’s get started.
1. SEO Toolkit
The first and the biggest toolkit within Semrush’s suite of tools is the search engine optimization or SEO toolkit. It covers several functionalities to manage the on-page, off-page, and technical SEO of your website.
Want to know what this SEO toolkit includes?
Read on to find out.
Keyword Research
No Semrush review is complete without the mention of its famous keyword research tool. In fact, a lot of you probably know Semrush for this very functionality. Semrush has the largest keyword database in the world with over 20 billion keywords.
While there is a lot more to Semrush, I still need to cover each feature and that includes keyword research.
Let’s start with the dashboard for keyword research that Semrush provides—Keyword Overview.
Here, you can get a detailed report for any keyword, including metrics like volume, SERP results, SERP features, volume trend, etc. The Global Volume metric provided by Semrush shows you a keyword’s search volume across all countries.
This helps you decide whether to compete for a particular keyword or not.
You will also find related keywords, keyword variations, and questions that people ask about a particular keyword. These metrics help you choose and target the right keywords for your business.
Image via Semrush
The next and most important keyword research tool by Semrush is the Keyword Magic Tool. This is the SEO tool that you need to use to find keywords in your niche and relevant to your brand.
It is fairly easy to use as you simply need to type a keyword or niche in the search bar and enter. It will show you an extensive list of keywords matching that keyword, topic, or niche.
One unique feature of Semrush is keyword clustering. It shows you a cluster of keywords on the left sidebar and you can click on any of them to dig deeper into related keywords.
To find keywords for ads, you can look at broad match, exact match, and phrase match. However, for SEO purposes, you can simply look at the list of related keywords.
You can also use this SEO tool to find long-tail keywords. It is a good strategy to focus on long-tail keywords as they are usually more effective when it comes to search engine optimization.
This SEO tool also provides key metrics like difficulty score and volume for each keyword.
Want to know the best part?
You can compare different keywords based on these metrics at one glance. The tabular format makes it easy to analyze this data and shortlist keywords.
That’s not all!
You can also build keyword lists from here by selecting the shortlisted keywords and adding them to a custom list. If you already have a list, you can simply use the + button to add a keyword to it.
Simple, isn’t it?
Image via Semrush
The next dashboard under the “Keyword Research” tab of Semrush’s SEO toolkit is the Keyword Manager. This is where you can create custom keyword lists.
Want to know how?
First, click to create a new list as shown below. Second, add a name for your list and click on create.
That’s it. Your list will be created.
Image via Semrush
My review of Semrush’s keyword research functionality is not over yet. There is yet another powerful SEO tool that Semrush provides— the Keyword Difficulty Tool.
This is the SEO tool that you need to use when making the final decision when selecting keywords.
Want to know why?
Because you need to compare and contrast your keywords based on different metrics to make the final decision. And, this dashboard focuses more on the difficulty or competitiveness of keywords, thus informing you if a keyword is worth investing in or not.
Image via Semrush
There has been a new addition to SEMrushSemrush’s SEO toolkit: Organic Traffic Insights. This is a brilliant SEO tool that combines SEMrushSemrush data with your Google Analytics and Google Search Console data.
Why is this important?
It basically means that you can consolidate all your organic traffic insights and analyze it from a single dashboard. Here, you will find a comprehensive list of keywords that drive your organic search traffic.
Overall, Semrush is one of the best tools for keyword research for different purposes including content marketing, search engine optimization, and advertising.
Pro Tip: Start with the Keyword Magic Tool to find and shortlist keywords, then use the Keyword Difficulty Tool to make the final decision.
On-Page SEO and Technical SEO
This tab in the Semrush SEO toolkit is useful for analyzing the technical and on-page SEO aspects of your website. For this Semrush review, I will cover some of the most used tools in this category.
The first and most popular SEO tool in the category of on-page SEO checker is the Site Audit.
Semrush can crawl your website’s pages just like a search engine would and identifies problem areas.
Want to know how you can perform a site audit using this SEO tool?
Here’s the process:
- Click on the “New Site Audit” button at the top-right corner.
- Enter the website domain and the project name (which could simply be your brand name).
- Customize your settings for how many pages to crawl and crawl source
Image via Semrush
- Select “Crawler Settings” to further customize your site audit
Image via Semrush
- You can also choose to audit only certain types of URLs or remove URL parameters before the site audit.
- Finally, select a schedule for your site audits and start your audit.
- This will create a new project.
- Once it appears on the main dashboard, just click on the project to see a detailed site audit report.
Curious to know which metrics it reports?
Here you go.
Image via Semrush
As evident from the screenshot, Semrush provides a thorough site audit report showing the overall health of your website and identifying problem areas.
One specific report that I would like to mention is the Markup report. This gives you an overview of your markup use and implementation errors that you need to resolve.
Image via Semrush
Go through each of these issues, one by one, and correct them to get a higher website health score.
And, if you simply want an overview of the different websites that you’re tracking, then you can look at your main dashboard. It will show you all your projects and the most important metrics for each, as shown below.
Image via Semrush
If you are an agency tracking multiple client websites, then this tool is a must-have for you.
The next feature in this category is the SEO Content Template.
You can use this to optimize your website content to get higher SERP rankings and more organic traffic.
Ready to find out how it works?
Here you go:
- Enter the target keywords that you want to incorporate into your website content.
- Semrush will analyze the content in the top-ten pages that rank for that keyword.
- If you want suggestions at a country or city level, then it can do that as well.
- It provides you with suggestions on how to create SEO-friendly content for those keywords.
Now, coming to the kind of recommendations it provides, here’s a sample.
Image via Semrush
Semrush’s On-Page SEO Checker is a useful tool that provides you with various ideas for improving your on-page SEO. You can get semantically-related keywords to add to your pages, ideas to improve content length and readability, backlink prospects, and more.
This tool compares your website to your top ten rivals for each of your target keywords. It then provides you with useful insights on:
- Which SERP features to target
- How to create a user-friendly workflow
- Your performance as compared with your competitors
- Which tasks to prioritize first for maximum impact
- And more!
Image via Semrush
Another useful addition to Semrush’s SEO toolkit is the Log File Analyzer. This tool will tell you, in great detail, exactly what search engines see when they crawl your website. You will get tons of useful information like:
- Errors found during the crawl
- Pages that were not crawled
- Most crawled pages
- Efficacy of crawl budget spend
- And more
Pro Tip: Conduct regular site audits at fixed intervals to maintain optimum site health.
Local SEO
The first feature that I want to discuss under this category is Listing Management. This is a brilliant local SEO tool that you can use to get business listings on the most authoritative directories in your region.
How is this helpful?
You can edit all of your business information, for all directories, from a single dashboard. This makes it easy to ensure that you have the correct information in all your listings.
Image via Semrush
You will also get a Local Rankings report where you can find your rankings in Google Local Finder. You can also get your local rankings in a heatmap format, making it easy to analyze.
Image via Semrush
Review Management is another useful tool that allows you to respond to your Google My Business and Facebook reviews directly from the tool.
Pro Tip: Use the Listing Management tool to keep all your business listings accurate and up to date, instead of managing each listing manually.
Link Building
This is the one feature, apart from keyword research, that I use the most. I have a blog and need to regularly keep a check on my backlinks profile and this tool provides me with everything that I need.
Want to know what it offers?
Let’s find out.
Let me first start with the review of Semrush’s Backlink Analytics functionality. You can use this to analyze all the backlinks of your or a competitor’s website.
It provides data on your website’s authority score, the total number of backlinks, type and quality of referring domains, and a lot more.
Here’s an example of my website’s backlink analytics.
Image via Semrush
This is just an overview and there are numerous tabs and reports that you can explore. This has all the essential features that specialized backlink analysis tools have.
Want to know the best part?
You can add up to four competitor domains and have a side-by-side comparison of your backlink profile against theirs.
Another useful tool that Semrush provides is the Backlink Audit tool. This is a more functional tool than backlink analytics as it focuses on identifying the toxicity of your backlinks and improving it.
Semrush also has many toxic markers for each link, thus providing an in-depth analysis of the toxicity of each backlink. This helps you avoid getting Google penalties for toxic backlinks.
You can use this backlink audit tool to disavow toxic backlinks and improve your backlinks profile.
Semrush doesn’t just analyze your backlinks but also helps you build new ones through its Link Building tool.
It basically identifies the most relevant prospects for you to gain backlinks from. You can go through the list of prospects and do some outreach to get backlinks from them.
Image via Semrush
You can also use the >Backlink Gap tool to compare multiple domains and find backlink opportunities. This compares your website to those of your competitors and finds prospects for gaining new backlinks.
If you want to analyze numerous domains at once, then you can use the Bulk Analysis feature. You can add up to 200 domains and get their backlinks overviews in one dashboard.
Pro Tip: Most people just use backlink analytics and audit functionalities, but you should also try the link-building tool to identify and reach out to prospects.
Rank Tracking
Now that I have covered on-page, off-page (backlinks), and technical SEO tools, let’s discuss the tool that shows the results of your efforts—Position Tracking. You can find this in your Semrush SEO toolkit’s Rank Tracking tab.
When you open the Position Tracking tool, you will see a list of all your projects. You can click on any one of them to see the detailed report.
This basically analyzes your website’s ranking changes for all of your target keywords. You can find out the number of keywords for which your website is ranking well and vice-versa.
You can also find out your top keywords, competitors, pages, and SERP features.
Why do you need position tracking?
If you want a holistic view of your website’s performance, then this is the best tool for you. Any change that you see here could be attributed to your SEO initiatives.
Therefore, if you want to measure the impact of your SEO efforts, it will be reflected here.
Image via Semrush
But, that’s not all!
The rank tracking dashboard has some more unique reports that I would like to inform you about in this review. Semrush provides a Share of Voice (SoV) metric that tells you the share of the market that you hold for a particular keyword.
You also get a Cannibalization report where you can see your own pages that are competing against each other and can be merged to get better rankings.
The next feature is Semrush Rank, which uses a proprietary algorithm to rank the domains that get the highest organic search traffic. Semrush has a huge database of over 825 million domains that you can analyze.
The best way to use this feature is to compare your website with those of your competitors.
It can also be used for prospecting, as you can find out which websites get the highest paid traffic and have the most paid keywords. Overall, it is a good competitor analysis tool that you should explore.
Image via Semrush
Semrush Sensor is a new feature that tracks Google SERPs volatility based on day-to-day changes in rankings. You can use it to stay updated on algorithm changes by Google and make the required changes in your SEO strategy from time to time.
Image via Semrush
You can also find out if your industry or niche is more volatile than others and how volatile your target keyword rankings are.
Pro Tip: Set up alerts in Semrush Sensor to get notified in case of any major algorithm changes.
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2. Advertising Toolkit
Semrush is most popular for its keyword research and SEO functionalities, but it also has a powerful suite of advertising tools as well. In this section of the Semrush review 2021, I will discuss some of these tools that you can use for your paid search and Google Display Network (GDN) campaigns.
Ready to learn more about these tools?
Let’s get started.
Market Analysis
The first thing that you need to do before you start any campaign is to your research. Advertising Research can help you research the advertising strategies of your competitors to improve your own strategy.
You simply have to enter your competitor’s domain and Semrush will provide you with all the details about their advertising campaigns and strategy. You can find their paid search rankings, ad history, paid pages, and a lot more.
One of the most important, however, is the section on ad copy. This is where you can look at their winning creatives and get inspiration for your own campaigns.
Image via Semrush
One of the most basic tools in this toolkit is Domain Overview, which you can use to find out all important information about a competitor. You can get a complete overview of a website’s advertising performance, target audience, and more.
Want to know the best part?
You can compare up to five domains side-by-side and perform a thorough competitive analysis using this tool.
Image via Semrush
Semrush offers another competitive research feature under the tab Display Advertising. There, you can find all the display ads within your industry or for specific competitors. This can be used to get inspiration for your own ad campaigns as you can see the top-performing ad’s images and copy.
Wondering how to use it?
Well, it is fairly easy to use. All you have to do is type in a domain and it will give you a complete list of ads that it is currently running.
Image via Semrush
If you have an ecommerce business, then this next feature, PLA Research, is just for you. You can use this to find product listing ads for specific keywords and find out who your competitors are for those keywords.
The level of information that this tool provides is unmatched. You can even see how many search queries trigger a competitor’s product listing ads.
Pro Tip: Use the last two Semrush features to optimize your Google Shopping and Google Display Network campaigns.
Keyword Research
Another important aspect of planning your paid campaigns is keyword research. You can use the Keyword Magic and Keyword Gap tools for this purpose.
With the Keyword Gap tool, you simply need to enter your domain and your competitors’ domains and select “paid keywords”. The tool will then analyze your paid keywords against those of your competitors.
You can find find keyword opportunities by looking under the “Untapped” tab. These are the keywords that your competitors use, but you don’t.
Image via Semrush
With the Keyword Magic tool, you simply need to enter a topic or keyword to get a list of keyword suggestions. You can use advanced filters to further narrow down your search results to find the most relevant keywords for your campaign.
Image via Semrush
Another useful report that I would like to mention in this Semrush review is the Ad History report. This is basically a trends report for all the ads on a specific keyword.
You can use this to analyze past ad performance data and see what works and what doesn’t. This, in turn, can help you improve your search ads on any given keyword.
Pro Tip: Add competitors’ domains to find keywords that they are targeting but you aren’t.
Keyword Grouping and Management
Running paid campaigns requires more than just finding keywords. You also need to clean your keyword lists and group keywords for your ad groups.
But, how do you do that?
Fret not! Semrush has a specific tool designed just for this purpose—PPC Keyword Tool. It performs three main tasks:
- Collect Keywords – You can import keywords from your lists or search for new keywords for your paid campaigns.
- Manage and Optimize – It has advanced filters to clean your list and filter out irrelevant keywords. It also has options to organize and group keywords for your ads.
- You can choose the auto-grouping option where there is only one keyword per group.
- It also has the option to optimize for negative keywords.
- Remove Conflicting Keywords – It also helps you remove conflicting keywords so that no keyword is repeated in your ad groups.
Pro Tip: Don’t use the same keyword for multiple ad groups as it will cause unnecessary competition between your own ads.
Ad Builder
After you have done your keywords and creatives research, it’s time to actually create your ad copy. There should be no surprise when I say that you can use Semrush for that as well.
Wondering how you can do that?
By using their Ad Builder tool.
You can use this tool to design both text and display ads. Here are some features of the ad builder tool:
- It warns you when you exceed character limits for titles or descriptions.
- You can use your competitors’ winning ads as a template for your own.
- It generates an automatic tracking code for each ad that you create.
- You can preview your ad and then export it as a .CSV file for text ads and .ZIP file for GDN ads.
Image via Semrush
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3. Social Media Toolkit
Did you know that Semrush also has a social media toolkit?
I bet not.
Most people know it just as an SEO software solution with content marketing functionalities, but that’s not all that it offers.
Semrush also provides a full suite of social media management tools to help you manage all your social profiles from one place. In this section of the Semrush review, I will discuss the various social media management tools that Semrush provides.
Ready to learn more about these tools?
Let’s get right to it.
Social Performance Analysis and Benchmarking
The Social Media Tracker tool by Semrush provides you an overview of the performance of your social media profiles. You can track and manage your accounts on different platforms from one interface.
You also get key analytics data like follower growth, engagement rates, number of posts, etc.
Image via Semrush
You can also use this tool to track the performance of your competitors on social media. Moreover, you can do a side-by-side comparison with them as well.
Pro Tip: Add one or two main competitors and benchmark your performance against theirs on a regular basis, instead of doing it sporadically.
Content Scheduling and Posting
Semrush’sSocial Media Poster allows you to upload your posts on Semrush and schedule them to be posted at designated dates and times. The tool will then automatically post according to your schedule.
You can also set a recurring schedule and bulk upload posts so that you don’t have to manually take care of posting your social media content.
This tool also suggests the best times to post your content and allows you to add UTM codes for better tracking.
Image via Semrush
You can also create an editorial calendar within the Semrush interface. If you prefer the excel-based calendar format, then simply import posts from your CSV file.
Pro Tip: Prepare and schedule social media content for one week in advance to avoid last-minute challenges.
Trends Identification
The Social Media Poster tool also has an analytics section where you can get insights on your content’s performance.
You can identify trends on which content works for your audience and which doesn’t. You can also track your audience’s demographics and growth over time.
Image via Semrush
Pro Tip: Use these insights to fuel your social media content strategy and see better engagement on your content.
Facebook Post Booster
The versatile Social Media Poster tool also provides a special feature to boost your Facebook posts. You can basically pay money to enhance the reach of your Facebook posts and target them to a relevant audience.
It also provides detailed statistics on your boosted posts’ performance.
Image via Semrush
Pro Tip: Use the custom audience feature to control who you want to show your ads to and get the best results from this tool.
Social Media Ads Creation
This is a new feature that Semrush launched and is currently being beta tested. This allows you to create and manage ads for Facebook and Instagram.
It provides several useful features that streamline and optimize your ad creation process.
Image via Semrush
Pro Tip: Use this tool in tandem with the Facebook Ads Manager to get the best results.
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4. Content Marketing Toolkit
Semrush’s content marketing toolkit can help you with all aspects of your content planning, creation, and distribution.
From suggesting which topics to write about to analyzing the performance of your content, it can do it all. It can also provide you with competitive intelligence to boost your content marketing strategy.
Let’s discuss each feature in detail.
Content Ideas
The first content marketing tool in Semrush’s arsenal is Topic Research. This is a powerful tool with extensive features to help you find the best topic ideas for your content.
This is my personal favorite and I use this tool to research and plan the content for my blog.
Curious to find out why?
Here are some of the reasons why:
- It is extremely simple to use. All you need to do is enter a topic or keyword and it will give you numerous content ideas around that topic.
- You will also get a detailed list of all the sub-topics related to your main topic or keyword.
- Moreover, it gives you suggestions on the best titles for your content, along with metrics to decide which one works better.
Want to know the best part?
It also gives you a detailed list of “how,” “what,” “why,” and other questions that people ask about that topic. This essentially serves you your target audience’s needs and challenges on a platter.
Image via Semrush
Pro Tip: Create content that answers the most-asked questions by people on a topic as that will get you more engagement.
Content Optimization
Not many people know about this, but Semrush also has an SEO Writing Assistant. This SEO Writing Assistant, basically, is like an online editor that corrects grammatical errors, improves readability, etc.
But how is SEO Writing Assistant different from other language editors?
Well, it provides almost the same features but with a special focus on SEO. This tool not only helps you improve your writing quality but also makes sure that search engines consider it as high-quality content as well.
Does it integrate with your preferred writing platforms?
I know that’s the question on your mind right now. The answer is yes.
It integrates with popular platforms like Google Docs and WordPress so that you can optimize your content as you write it.
Image via Semrush
Pro Tip: Change your tone of voice for different platforms and target audiences.
Performance Analysis
Once you have created and posted content, you can use the Post Tracking tool by Semrush to measure each post’s performance.
You can track the performance of up to 50 posts at a time and this includes your competitors’ posts as well. Here are the metrics that it shows.
Image via Semrush
Pro Tip: Set a time limit after which you stop tracking a post to make way for your more recent posts.
Content Audit
While the Post Tracking tool is only for a limited number of posts, the Content Analyzer provides a more holistic view of your content’s performance.
This has the capability to analyze thousands of posts and provide analytics data on their performance. It also provides suggestions on which posts need to be updated or rewrote.
Image via Semrush
This brilliant tool by Semrush can easily replace any other content analytics tools that you may be using.
Pro Tip: Use the post tracking tool regularly and content audit at regular intervals to keep your content relevant and updated.
Content Marketplace
Content Marketplace is a new addition to Semrush’s content marketing toolkit and a much-needed one at that. It is a platform where you can get on-demand content, at a reasonable price.
You can get different types of content at different prices or can subscribe to their monthly or annual subscription plans to get discounted rates.
Image via Semrush
Here, you will also find a database or Media Stock of visual content like pictures, videos, icons, vector images, etc. With the Premium plan, you will also get the Shared Workspaces feature that allows you to collaborate with up to 3 team members using this platform.
Pro Tip: Get an annual subscription to get these services at a 17% discount, instead of paying by service or per month.
5. Competitive Research Toolkit
Semrush does not just help you enhance your marketing strategy but also enables you to spy on your competitors. You can use Semrush to find out everything there is to know about your competitors’ websites, traffic sources, keywords, etc.
Want to know the best part?
It lets you compare data for different competitors, alongside your own, to get a more holistic picture of your performance against competitors. Let’s take a more detailed look at and review the competitive analysis features of Semrush.
Traffic Analytics
Semrush provides a powerful traffic analytics tool that gives detailed insights into the key metrics for any website. You simply have to enter the domain and press enter to get this traffic data for competitor research.
The first tab that you will see is the Overview tab that gives a summary of all the traffic analytics data. You can compare your website with that of competitors on key metrics like unique website visitors, average visit duration, etc.
What’s more?
You can review and analyze this traffic data using the numerous visualization options provided by Semrush. You can also save this information in the form of a PNG file.
Image via Semrush
There are more tabs that provide a comprehensive competitor benchmarking. These include audience overlap, traffic journey, top pages, geo-distribution, subdomains, and bulk analysis.
Two specific reports that I want to focus on for this Semrush review are: Audience Insights and Traffic Journey.
In the Audience Insights section, you can see exactly how your audience overlaps with those of your competitors and other domains. This can help you find the best co-marketing partners who share the same target audience as yours.
Image via Semrush
In the Traffic Journey report, you can see which websites users visit before and after they visit your website. You can even do this analysis for any website. You can use these insights to better understand and engage your website visitors and keep them on your website longer.
Image via Semrush
To access these detailed reports you need to buy the competitive intelligence (CI) add-on for Semrush.
Pro Tip: If you are in a highly competitive niche or need to analyze more than 4 competitors at a time, then you should get the CI add-on to keep tabs on your key competitors.
Keyword Gap Tool – Side-by-Side Domain Comparisons
This is, in my opinion, the most useful feature of Semrush. You can look at tons of competitive intelligence data in silos and still not be able to extract the right insights from it. The best way to do competitive analysis is to compare and contrast data for different competitors side by side.
This is exactly what Semrush offers. With Semrush, you can compare up to five domains side by side. You can also compare subdomains, subfolders, and URLs.
Image via Semrush
You can do this in three easy steps.
- Enter the domains of up to four competitors and your own domain in the boxes shown above to get the domain overview. Remember that you have to add your own domain in the first (root domain) box).
- Select the type of keywords that you want to analyze—organic, paid, and PLA.
- Click on “Compare.”
This will show you a detailed analytics dashboard comparing your domain with others.
The first thing that you’ll see is a list of missing keyword opportunities. These are the keywords with high search volume that your competitors are using but you are not.
Next, you will see weak keyword opportunities, i.e. keywords for which you rank lower than your competitors.
Image via Semrush
You will also see a Venn diagram showing how many keywords overlap between the different domains added for comparison.
This entire section aims to show you keyword opportunities that you can tap into.
Next, you will see a detailed list of keywords, along with each domain’s rank for each keyword, and keyword performance metrics as shown in the image below.
Image via Semrush
Overall, this feature lets you find keyword opportunities and improvement areas based on a comparison with your competitors.
Pro Tip: Use this tool while conducting your keyword search and building keyword lists to make sure you don’t miss important keywords.
Market Explorer
Market Explorer is another useful tool that comes with the CI add-on package. You can use it to get an overview of the market trends and players.
This is especially useful for businesses that want to expand into new markets as it can help you assess the market and see how competitive it is and who you will compete against.
Wondering if this is useful for you too?
Well, the short answer is yes. This tool can be used by anyone who wants to analyze industry trends and competition in their niche.
Here are some of the things that you can do using this tool:
- Get key traffic metrics at an industry level
- Benchmark your performance with the industry average and against competitors (up to 5)
- Identify and analyze the performance metric of all market players
- Create your own custom markets by adding a list of domains (up to 20) and then analyze their performance and trends
You can do all this and a lot more using the Market Explorer tool from Semrush.
Pro Tip: Use the custom markets feature if you want to benchmark your performance against a specific set of competitors and not the entire industry.
6. Other Tools and Features
Apart from the five toolkits mentioned above, Semrush offers a number of standalone products and tools that you can buy. In this section of my Semrush review, I will mention some of the most useful tools that work well as an add-on to the core platform and SEO tools.
Ready to learn more about these tools?
Keep reading
Agency Growth Kit
This kit includes a complete set of tools and Semrush features that are especially useful for agencies. This includes:
- Access to Agency Partners Platform where you can get discovered by brands or potential clients for your agency.
- the agency kit, you will also get access to advanced reporting capabilities within the My Reports dashboard.
- You will also get access to an unlimited Client Manager that you can use to manage your client data, projects, reports, etc.
Overall, you will get all the Semrush features and tools that are useful for an agency.
Pro Tip: Sign-Up as Semrush’s agency partner to get more leads and clients for your agency.
Sellerly
This is a useful toolkit that Semrush provides for Amazon sellers to manage and optimize their product listings and get more conversions.
Image via Semrush
You can use Sellerly’s Traffic Insights to analyze traffic sources for competing products. This can help you find new customer sources.
Use the Listing Quality Check to check and optimize your current product listings. Listing Protection is another brilliant feature that tells you when there is a traffic loss for a particular listing. It also informs you about listing changes by competitors that might be causing this loss.
Pro Tip: If you sell on Amazon, use this tool in tandem with the core Semrush platform to grow your business.
Prowly
This is a digital PR tool that Semrush acquired in 2020 to expand its marketing offerings. You can use this to get access to over 1 million journalists and influencers.
Other features include tailored online newsrooms, email campaigns, sophisticated PR analytics, and CRM functionality.
Image via Semrush
Pro Tip: This is a separate product, so buy this only if you have the need for a PR and media management tool.
Other Features
Semrush provides excellent customer support and their team is always ready to help you out with any queries or challenges you may have.
Semrush also provides multiple integrations with other platforms, making it really easy to combine your SEO and marketing efforts. It also helps you get the most out of each tool.
Semrush recently integrated with Yoast SEO, a WordPress plugin, making it possible for Yoast users to benefit from Semrush’s brilliant SEO features.
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What Are Others Saying About Semrush?
| “By using Semrush, my team saves a lot of time by working on the right content and in a more data-driven way. Everything we do here is backed up with data, and your tool is giving us more ammunition..”
— Idan Segal, Organic Growth Lead, Wix |
| “In the first 5 years of Rock Content’s existence Semrush has helped us to become Brazil’s biggest digital marketing blog.”
— Vitor Peçanha, Co-Founder, Rock Content |
| “The most important thing I can have really is data. Data is my currency. I need to support initiatives, business cases – any tools that give me insight I find incredibly useful. Semrush is a very solid package that delivers exactly that.”
— Nick Wilsdon, Product Owner, Search, Vodafone Group |
| “Encouraged by our successes with Semrush, I was asked to rollout Semrush to the rest of the university. With the help of Semrush, we empowered every single marketing team in the university to do what was done for the central sites.”
— Shefali Joshi, Marketing Optimization Analyst, Monash University |
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- “By using Semrush, my team saves a lot of time by working on the right content and in a more data-driven way. Everything we do here is backed up with data, and your tool is giving us more ammunition..” — Idan Segal, Organic Growth Lead, Wix
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- “In the first 5 years of Rock Content’s existence Semrush has helped us to become Brazil’s biggest digital marketing blog.” — Vitor Peçanha, Co-Founder, Rock Content
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- “The most important thing I can have really is data. Data is my currency. I need to support initiatives, business cases – any tools that give me insight I find incredibly useful. Semrush is a very solid package that delivers exactly that.” — Nick Wilsdon, Product Owner, Search, Vodafone Group
- “Encouraged by our successes with Semrush, I was asked to rollout Semrush to the rest of the university. With the help of Semrush, we empowered every single marketing team in the university to do what was done for the central sites.” — Shefali Joshi, Marketing Optimization Analyst, Monash University
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FAQs
Q1. Which features are available with the free trial option?
A. Semrush offers a free trial that allows you to try out the tool with certain limitations. This article details the list of things that you can do when trying the tool for free.
Q2. How can I edit my subscription and add/delete additional limits?
A. Semrush subscriptions come with certain limits for the number of projects/users/social profiles that you can add and other things. But, you can edit your subscription and increase or decrease the limit for each.
For this, you need to go to the subscription info tab at the top right corner of your account. Your plan’s price will be automatically modified based on the changes that you make.
You can also go to this tab to check out your current subscription plan and the limits that it allows.
Q3. I can’t figure out how to use this tool. What do I do?
A. Semrush is not a platform that is very easy to use. Luckily for you, they provide a detailed course explaining all its features and tools. Take this course to learn how to use Semrush.
Q4. Why should I pay for Semrush when I have Google Analytics?
A. The biggest advantage that Semrush provides over Google Analytics is that you can use this to find information on your competitors’ as well. And, Semrush has so many features that GA does not even come anywhere close compared to it.
That said, Semrush is supposed to be used in conjunction with GA and is not there to replace it.
Check out this resource to find out the differences between Google Analytics and Semrush in detail.
Q5. Can I change plans or cancel my subscription after buying?
A. Yes, you can change your plan or cancel your subscription anytime. There is a 7-day money-back guarantee, so you will get a full refund if you cancel within seven days.
To get a refund please send an email at mail@semrush.com within seven days of subscribing.
Q6. Will my account be automatically charged after the free trial period is over?
A. Yes, your account will be charged to the monthly amount of the plan that you selected, once the trial period is over. However, if you cancel within seven days of the free trial, you will not be charged.
Q7. Can I retrieve my data after canceling my subscription?
A. Yes, they offer a 30-day grace period after you cancel your subscription. Your projects will remain active during this period and you can download and save your data before it expires.
If you choose to renew your subscription during this time, all your projects and data will remain as is.
Q8. Is the free trial available for all plans?
A. No, the free trial is available only for Pro and Guru plans.
Please note that the 7-day money-back guarantee applies to all subscription plans.
Q9. Does Semrush offer any custom plans?
A. Yes. The Enterprise plan is 100% customized as per your requirements. Contact their sales team to discuss your needs and get your own custom plan.
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What’s the Final Verdict?
In this Semrush review, I have tried to cover almost all of the main features that it provides, to the extent possible. I hope that now you will have more clarity about what exactly it offers and whether it is the right tool for you.
If you want my opinion, I give this tool a big thumbs up and recommend it for anyone who wants to boost their online presence, regardless of the company size. You can choose the plan according to your business’ needs or can even get a customized plan made specifically for your organization.
Are you ready to try it yet?
If you are, then get their free trial option and then upgrade to the plan that suits your needs the best.
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Disclosure: This content has a few affiliate links, which means if you click on them, I will get a commission (without any extra cost to you).
