semrush
Semrush is a well-known SEO tool suite that focuses on keyword research, competitor analysis, and optimizing Google Ad campaigns. However, it offers much more than these features. Semrush is a comprehensive software solution that helps you in creating, managing, and enhancing your digital marketing campaigns.
Semrush offers over 55 tools and reports to help you monitor your domain and optimize it for success in search engine results pages (SERPs). This guide outlines the key features and functions of Semrush. For my personal insights and final thoughts on the platform, please refer to my detailed Semrush review.
Additionally, I highly recommend checking out the comprehensive analysis of Semrush available on TrafficThinkTank.com for another expert perspective.
What Is Semrush?
Semrush is a versatile tool used for various aspects of SEO and digital marketing.
From identifying target keywords and analyzing your competitors' backlink profiles to monitoring your social media presence, Semrush does it all.
It's important to note that Semrush should not be viewed as just a singular tool. The software features a variety of toolkits, each equipped with unique functions that can help you tweak, monitor, and enhance your SEO campaign. Among these, the SEO toolkit is the most popular.
Other toolkits include:
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
- Social Media Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Management
- Agency Growth
It may sound like a lot, and it certainly is.
To assist you, I’ve created this ultimate guide to clarify the different aspects of Semrush’s tools. Throughout this guide, I will demonstrate how you can leverage Semrush to improve your domain visibility. I'll also explain how to use Semrush for keyword research, conduct site audits, compare your domain to your competitors, and much more.
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### A Quick Note on This Guide
I have structured this guide to follow the order of the tools found in the left-hand navigation of your Semrush dashboard. This layout should make it easier to understand each tool’s features.
Please note that some tools are available in multiple locations. For example, Traffic Analytics can be found in both the Competitive Research section and the . Trends toolkit. I will mention these tools in each context where they are most relevant.
Additionally, many of the tools discussed here are available for free or included with your Semrush subscription. However, some tools—particularly those in the apps section and the. Trends toolkit—may require separate subscriptions, though they typically offer free trials.
### SEO Dashboard
The SEO Dashboard provides a comprehensive overview of all the features within the SEO Toolkit, organized into a single control panel.
You can use this to get a brief overview of your website's online presence. The top banner is focused on Domain Analytics.
In this platform, you can:
- Review your site's current authority score
- Check the amount of organic traffic your site is receiving
- View the number of organic and paid keywords your site ranks for
- Track your referring domains and backlinks
Other sections included in the SEO Dashboard are:
- Position Tracking
- Site Audit
- On-Page SEO Checker
- Backlink Audit
- Traffic Analytics
In essence, the SEO Dashboard allows you to quickly access key metrics. For a more detailed analysis, you can click on any of the widgets to explore individual sections further.
When you create a project in Semrush, Copilot AI will appear on your project dashboard. It offers recommendations and insights based on AI analysis of six Semrush tools simultaneously.
Pretty cool.
**Competitive Research**
Semrush provides a range of competitive research tools that assist you in:
- Identifying your competitors
- Monitoring their performance
- Discovering opportunities to surpass them in search results
- Generating ideas for link building
Let’s take a closer look at what each of these tools can do for you:
When it comes to competitive analysis, few tools provide a better starting point than Domain Overview. This feature offers a comprehensive breakdown of a domain's performance.
By assessing your site’s strengths and weaknesses concerning your competitors, you’ll gain valuable insights into what you need to do to surpass them.
The Overview report delivers a detailed analysis of a domain’s authority score, as well as its organic and paid search traffic, and backlinks, similar to the information you can find on your own site’s Dashboard.
Clicking on one of these widgets, such as “Backlinks,” will take you to a more detailed analysis in the corresponding tool, like Backlink Analytics.
Further down the page, you will find a variety of valuable insights, including:
- Distribution of organic and paid traffic by country, along with changes over time
- Top paid and organic keywords and their positions
- Keywords categorized by intent
- Your main competitors for both organic and paid searches
- Referring domains
- A list of indexed pages
- Trends in branded traffic
- Detailed information about backlinks, including types (text, image, etc.) and whether they are nofollow or dofollow
- Competitive positioning maps for both paid and organic competitors.
By navigating to the "Compare Domains" tab, you can evaluate your domain against up to four of your top competitors.
The Growth report allows you to observe changes in a domain's paid traffic, organic traffic, keywords, and backlink profile over a specific period.
Finally, the "Compare by Countries" tab allows you to compare up to five countries at once, providing insight into your website's performance in each location.
Pretty neat, right? With a free account, you can perform up to 10 Domain Overview searches daily. With a Guru account, you can run up to 5,000 searches.
Analyze website traffic for any company.
**Traffic Analytics**
Traffic Analytics provides data on a website’s overall traffic, not just the estimated traffic from Google. This allows you to see where else a site receives traffic and the volume from those sources.
When you first analyze a site using Traffic Analytics, you'll receive an estimate of its total traffic numbers.
Additionally, you can observe how users interact with the site. For instance, you can access data on a site’s average page views per visit, session duration, and bounce rate. There's also a chart available that displays how these metrics have changed over time.
The most valuable aspect of this feature is the Traffic Journey tab. In this section, you’ll find a detailed breakdown of the traffic sources for any site.
And a list of the exact sites that send your website the most traffic:
For example, you can see that I get a decent chunk of traffic from perplexity.ai:
You can also see which social media platforms send your competitors the most traffic:
This approach is an effective way to reverse engineer what’s already successful for your competitors, allowing you to leverage these insights to enhance your own digital marketing strategy.
**Note:** Traffic Analytics is a part of the.Trends toolkit, which I will discuss in more detail later.
**Organic Research**
The “Organic Research” feature is what first put Semrush on the map, and it continues to be highly effective. Here’s how to use it:
On the Overview tab, you’ll find several useful metrics about the website you enter into the tool, including:
- The number of keywords the site ranks for
- An estimate of their monthly traffic
- The approximate cost of that traffic if they were to use paid ads instead of relying on organic search
- The amount of branded versus non-branded traffic they receive
On the Positions tab, you’ll see all the keywords for which a domain ranks, along with their respective rankings.
This is extremely helpful for keyword research. Instead of searching for keywords manually in Google Keyword Planner or relying on autocomplete suggestions, you receive a curated list of relevant keywords directly.
If your competitor ranks for these keywords, you can too, provided you have a solid SEO strategy.
By default, Semrush displays the amount of traffic driven to a website from the selected keyword over a specified period, as well as all the keywords for which the site ranks in the top 100.
Additionally, with the positions filter, you can narrow down the results to keywords ranking #1, within the top 3, top 10, and more.
You can adjust the volume filter to display keywords within a specific search volume range.
The keyword difficulty (KD) filter is a useful tool for assessing how challenging it will be to rank for specific target keywords. A higher KD score indicates a greater level of difficulty in achieving a high ranking for that keyword. Therefore, if your website does not have much authority yet, it is advisable to focus on keywords that are classified as easy or very easy to rank for.
You can filter search queries by four main types of search intent:
1. **Informational**: These queries are aimed at finding specific information or answers to questions. For example, “How to make apple sauce.”
2. **Navigational**: These are queries that target a specific destination. Examples include “Facebook login,” “YouTube,” or “Backlinko newsletter signup page.”
3. **Commercial**: Users making these queries are looking for information to help them buy the best product or service to meet their needs. An example would be “Best laptop for traveling.”
4. **Transactional**: These searches are conducted by people who already know what they want to do or buy, such as “Buy an iPhone 15” or “Sign up for Semrush Pro.”
Additionally, there are other filtering options available, including filters for SERP features like local packs and video carousels. You can also filter for specific keywords, which is particularly useful for excluding keywords that include your competitor’s brand name—terms you are unlikely to rank for.
In summary, the Positions tab is where I usually begin the keyword research process. Unlike many other keyword research tools, this feature provides me with a list of terms that I can rank for easily by filtering them based on keyword difficulty and using advanced filters to find more relevant terms.
Start your keyword research by exploring the largest keyword database and analyzing your options.
**Keyword Gap**
The Keyword Gap tool provides a list of keywords for which up to four of your competitors are ranking. When you discover a keyword that multiple competitors are targeting, it indicates that you have a good chance of ranking for it as well.
**Pro Tip:** By default, this tool displays keywords where your competitors rank within the top 100. However, if two competitors rank between positions 40-50 for the same keywords, this information isn’t particularly useful since you want to aim for the top 10. To address this, I recommend using the Position filter to only view keywords that both sites rank within the top 10.
Applying this simple filter yields a much more relevant list of keywords to focus on.
If you still have a large number of keywords after applying the Position filter, enhance your keyword research by utilizing the volume, keyword difficulty (KD), and advanced filters to narrow down your options even further.
**Backlink Gap**
Are you looking to identify domains to target for backlinks? The Backlink Gap tool allows you to compare the backlink profiles of up to four competitors simultaneously, helping you find opportunities to acquire links to your own site.
Simply enter your domain along with up to four competitor domains (similar to the Keyword Gap tool). You will then receive a list of all the websites linking to the domains you entered, organized by the number of target sites that have a link from each domain.
Websites that link to multiple competitors of yours are good targets for your own link-building campaigns. If a site is linking to four of your competitors, there's a strong possibility they might also link to your site.
**Pro Tip:** When comparing linking domains, consider their Authority Score (AS) and monthly visits; generally, higher numbers are better for both metrics.
**Keyword Research**
Next, let’s discuss Semrush’s suite of keyword research tools. Semrush boasts a keyword database with over 25 billion search terms. This extensive database powers a range of useful tools that can help you identify opportunities, develop a strategy, and monitor your results.
**Keyword Overview**
So far, I've focused on features that involve reverse-engineering a competitor’s website. There’s a good reason for this—reverse engineering is Semrush’s specialty, and it excels at it. However, you can also use Semrush as a traditional keyword overview tool.
In simple terms, you can input a target keyword or a list of up to 100 keywords into the Keyword Overview tool and receive a list of keyword ideas along with metrics for each.
**Pro Tip:** Remember to enter your domain for personalized results. For instance, when I entered "backlinks" into Semrush, I received specific data related to my site.
But what do these metrics signify? Let me break it down for you:
- **Volume:** This shows the estimated monthly search volume for the keyword in a specific country.
- **Global Volume:** This refers to the total number of times the keyword appears in search queries worldwide (again, this is an estimate).
- **Keyword Difficulty:** This estimates how easy or challenging it would be for you to rank for the keyword (a personalized estimate is available if you enter your domain along with the keywords).
- **Topical Authority (personalized):** This indicates how aligned the keyword is with your overall domain.
- **Intent:** This reveals the types of searches associated with the keyword (e.g., informational, commercial, navigational, or transactional).
- **CPC (Cost Per Click):** This shows how much a PPC ad targeting this keyword would cost.
- **Competition Density:** This indicates the level of competition among advertisers bidding for this particular keyword.
Since I entered my domain (backlinko.com), the tool also provides personalized metrics such as Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD%) and Potential Traffic.
- **Personal Keyword Difficulty:** This estimates how challenging it would be for my specific domain to rank.
- **Potential Traffic:** This analyzes my domain to predict the potential traffic, visibility, and average ranking for the keywords I’m researching. It considers my domain’s PKD%, Authority Score, potential position, estimated traffic values, historical Semrush data, and current competitors on the SERP.
From the Keyword Overview tool, I can see estimated traffic predictions for both individual keywords and entire topics.
**Spoiler Alert:** I target this term, and I rank in the top 10 for it (twice).
If you scroll down, you’ll find some keyword ideas that cover variations of the target term as well as related questions. There's even an option to start building a keyword strategy, which I’ll explain further soon.
Below that, you can see a SERP analysis that displays key metrics for the pages ranking for the target term, such as Authority Score, backlinks, and search traffic.
Towards the bottom, you’ll find additional data about the keyword from a PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ad perspective. This includes Product Listing Ad (PLA) copies (when relevant), standard ad copies, and a history of bidding activity for that term.
This means you can use the Keyword Overview tool for both SEO and PPC campaigns.
**Keyword Magic Tool**
This Semrush feature serves a simple purpose: it generates a vast number of keyword ideas. For example, when I enter "digital marketing," I receive an extensive list of 195,000 related keywords.
However, 195,000 keywords can be overwhelming to sift through on your own. Fortunately, you can sort this keyword list by various factors, including search volume, keyword difficulty, cost-per-click (CPC), and more.
First, you can sort by match type. By default, you’ll see “Broad Match” keywords, which include all the keywords Semrush found that are related to your initial seed keyword. For instance, if you search for “best running shoes for men” with this option selected, you might get results like “best trail running shoes for men.”
You can refine your search using the following options:
- **Phrase Match**: This option shows keywords that contain the exact phrase in various orders.
- **Exact Match**: This option displays only the keywords that match the exact phrase in the precise order.
- **Related**: Here, you'll find a list of keywords that are similar to the one you entered.
- **All Keywords**: This option allows you to see all of the above keyword types.
Another useful filter, especially for blogs, is the ability to switch to question keywords.
The Keyword Magic Tool is excellent for finding long-tail keywords that have low competition. Additionally, it offers the ability to explore various keyword groups and subgroups related to your primary keyword. You can find these keyword groups in the menu on the left side of the main table, and you can organize them by number or volume.
By clicking on one of the groups, you can explore suggested topic clusters related to the main keyword. For instance, when searching for “Paleo Diet,” one of the primary topics identified by Semrush is “Weight.” This then displays all relevant subtopics associated with both “Paleo Diet” and “Weight.”
This is a great approach for creating topic clusters, which can effectively enhance your site's authority.
Now, let's talk about topic clusters.
**Keyword Strategy Builder**
The Keyword Strategy Builder, formerly known as Keyword Manager, is an advanced tool designed to help you manage your keywords efficiently. It enables you to seamlessly convert your keyword research into topic research.
This makes it easier to generate content ideas that can drive more traffic to your site.
You simply enter your target keywords into the tool, and it will create a map of pillar pages and cluster pages. This allows you to generate authoritative content for your website that covers your core topics.
**Pro tip:** You can also add keywords to lists using other tools in the Semrush suite, such as the Keyword Magic Tool, Keyword Overview, and Organic Research.
Scroll down to view a list of pillar pages and cluster pages, along with key metrics for each one, such as intent, keyword difficulty, and search volume. This makes it easy to prioritize your content planning.
You can switch to the table view to see a complete list of all the keywords identified by the Strategy Builder. In this view, you will find additional metrics like intent, volume, cost per click, and more.
The Keyword Strategy Builder can therefore save you A LOT of time when it comes to planning new content.
Start your keyword research
Explore the largest keyword database.
Analyze
**Position Tracking**
Semrush offers a built-in rank-tracking tool called Position Tracking. This tool allows you to see how your website ranks for specific keywords, both geographically and by device.
The Position Tracking report provides key statistics, including visibility, estimated traffic, and average position. Additionally, you can utilize it to monitor your local SEO efforts and generate reports on featured snippets. It’s a convenient way to track your rankings for important keywords, and the tool will show you how your positions change over time.
This feature makes it easy to update pages that have experienced significant drops in ranking and to take advantage of areas where you've seen substantial gains.
**Organic Traffic Insights**
Next, we have Organic Traffic Insights. This tool consolidates organic search traffic data from Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Semrush. The Organic Traffic dashboard displays your top 50 landing pages organized by session count.
While that alone is impressive, the tool offers even more. With Organic Traffic Insights, you gain valuable pre-click data, such as your rankings and the number of impressions your pages receive. Additionally, you receive insightful post-click data, including goal completions on landing pages and bounce rates—pretty useful!
Importantly, you can also see which keywords your pages rank for, including those tracked by Google Search Console (GSC).
And those that Semrush finds you ranking for:
Unlocking Keywords Marked “Not Provided” in Google Analytics
Gain a comprehensive understanding of your content's performance and identify the terms that are driving traffic to your site.
Link Building
Semrush's link-building features allow you to analyze a website's backlink profile, anchor text usage, and the ratio of dofollow to nofollow links, as well as assess overall link authority and more.
Let’s explore how Semrush’s tools can assist you with your next link-building campaign.
By entering a domain into Backlink Analytics, you receive a detailed breakdown of the site's backlink profile.
The Overview tab provides you with mini-reports. This is really helpful if you’re in a rush. The reports allow you to assess the site’s overall backlink profile and also identify broken links.
You can use the Backlinks tab to get a full list of all the links pointing to that domain:
And the Referring Domains tab shows a similar report. This time, listing all the unique websites linking to the target domain.
This tool is essential for understanding your competitors' backlink profiles and identifying potential link-building opportunities for your own site.
### Find All of Your Backlinks
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### Analyze
#### Backlink Audit
Link-building campaigns can appear spammy if not executed properly. That’s why I rely on Semrush’s Backlink Audit tool to monitor any new backlinks pointing to my site. This tool helps ensure your backlink profile appears natural—essentially the opposite of being spammy—by allowing you to disavow toxic links as you encounter them.
Simply input your domain into this tool, and you will receive an in-depth report on all the links leading to your site—the good, the bad, and the outright toxic.
You’ll likely notice the “Overall Toxicity Score” first, and for good reason. This score evaluates the health of your domain concerning backlinks. It divides the score into three categories: non-toxic, potentially toxic, and toxic. Ideally, you should aim to have the “non-toxic” percentage in the high 90s, with the “toxic” bar at 0%.
If you see a number indicating toxic backlinks, click on it to get a breakdown of the suspicious domains.
If you believe a link is toxic, you can select it and click the “Disavow” button. Additionally, you can download this list as a .txt file to submit to Google Search Console.
**Important:** Use disavow files cautiously. They're generally not needed, as Google can often detect and disregard toxic links. Misusing Google’s disavow tool can harm your site’s performance.
### Link Building Tool
Semrush’s link-building tool is a streamlined service designed to help you find and connect with external sites for potential backlink opportunities. By using data gathered from your target keywords and competitors, the tool identifies authoritative sites that could provide valuable backlinks.
Here’s how it works:
First, enter the keywords that you want to rank for.
Next, add your competitors’ websites:
The tool analyzes your competitors' backlink profiles to identify the types of backlinks you need to remain competitive. It then gathers a list of suitable link-building opportunities for your website. You can view a summary of the data, and for more detailed information, you can visit the Prospects tab.
If you find any backlink opportunities you like, please add them to the "In Progress" list.
You can engage with backlink opportunities using the outreach module. Here, you can utilize message templates to create an effective message for the target domain owner.
Finally, it enables you to track the backlinks you’ve obtained. Once you acquire backlinks, you can monitor them to ensure they remain active. Bulk Analysis
Have you ever wondered how your competitors compare in backlinks? The Bulk Analysis tool allows you to compare up to 200 URLs simultaneously.
After entering the URLs, the tool will generate a table that provides the exact number of backlinks associated with each domain. It will also include important metrics, such as the ratio of follow to nofollow links and the count of text links compared to image links, among other details.
Additional metrics available include the number of referring IPs and the count of links obtained from educational, governmental, .com, .net, and .org websites. You can check your competitors’ backlinks to see how many additional links you need to catch up.
**On-Page and Technical SEO**
Utilizing On-Page and Technical SEO tools can help you conduct a health check for your website. These tools allow you to audit and analyze aspects such as your website's accessibility, crawlability, and more. Below, I will take a closer look at how you can use these tools to enhance your website’s performance.
*Note: The suite also includes Listing Management and SEO Content Template tools, which I will discuss in the local SEO and content marketing sections of this guide, respectively.*
**Site Audit**
Regular SEO site audits should be an essential part of your digital marketing strategy, and Semrush’s Site Audit tool makes this process incredibly easy. You even have the option to automate these audits.
Use it to identify serious errors that can impact your on-page and technical SEO.
The Site Audit tool allows you to compare crawls, showing how your site's health evolves over time.
My favorite aspect of Semrush’s SEO audits is that they run automatically. You don't have to remember to perform an audit each month; the tool takes care of it for you. This allows you to stay updated on any technical issues that could negatively impact your site’s performance.
The On Page SEO Checker evaluates your content for traditional on-page SEO opportunities, such as optimizing your title tags and H1 tags.
It also informs you about semantically related terms to include in your content.And sites that you should try to get backlinks from.
This checklist outlines actions you can take to enhance your overall SEO strategy.
**Log File Analyzer**
Semrush’s Log File Analyzer helps you understand how Google’s crawler interacts with your website.
For a new webpage to get indexed and start ranking, Googlebot must first crawl it. When crawling a domain, search engines operate within a limited “crawl budget.” The Log File Analyzer reveals how search engine bots, such as Googlebot, utilize this crawl budget. It highlights your most-crawled webpages and shows how bot activity varies between the desktop and mobile versions of your site.
To optimize your site's crawl budget, you can enhance your website's architecture, improve site speed, and strategically use internal links. However, determining where to start can be challenging. The Log File Analyzer can help you identify the weakest areas of your website structure by highlighting navigational issues that may prevent Google from discovering and crawling your important pages.
To use the Log File Analyzer, you need to obtain the log file for your domain. You can retrieve your log files using an FTP client, typically found in your /access_log or /logs folder.
**Pro Tip:** Ensure that the file is in the access.log format and is unarchived. Also, verify that your log file size is under 1 GB, as the Analyzer does not accept files larger than this.
Once uploaded, you can review Googlebot's activity on your pages over your chosen time frame. You’ll see data such as the number of hits each page receives, the crawl frequency, and when the page was last crawled.
This information will allow you to identify site errors and highlight pages that are not receiving much attention from Googlebot. You can then update these pages or resolve site issues to improve your crawlability and potentially enhance your site's performance.
**Local SEO**
Semrush’s Local SEO toolkit offers various methods to optimize your local SEO presence, including Google Business Profile (GBP) optimization and local rank tracking. These features enable you to effectively manage your online business reputation at a local level. Let’s take a closer look.
**GBP Optimization**
Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is a crucial element of your overall local SEO strategy. There are many ways to optimize your profile to increase its visibility. Semrush’s GBP optimization tool simplifies this process. Here’s how:
Connect your GBP to your Semrush account and fill out some basic information about your business.
Once completed, you’ll gain access to valuable insights about your profile.
The next tool that proves invaluable in Semrush’s local SEO toolkit is Listing Management.
Listing Management helps you establish and maintain your local business listings. If you haven't submitted your business information to directories yet, Listing Management can take care of that for you.
You can register your business with more than 70 directories in the US and over 40 international directories. This includes major platforms such as Amazon Alexa, Google, Bing, and Apple.
By editing your business information in one central location, you can avoid discrepancies in your NAP data (Name, Address, and Phone number), which are often encountered when submitting information to multiple directories. It also makes updating and editing your listings easy as your business grows and expands to new locations. Streamlining your local SEO efforts.
In addition, the tool offers an easy way to monitor your existing listings. You can quickly and easily check which directories include your business and identify any issues that may need to be addressed.
Introducing the ultimate local business toolkit: all your listings, data, and AI-powered reviews in one platform.
Get started now!
**Map Rank Tracker**
The Map Rank Tracker is a powerful tool from Semrush that helps you understand your current performance in local search results. It provides a heatmap of your rankings for target keywords in a specific area.
You can quickly assess how your site ranks at the street level and compare it to previous scans to identify where you’ve gained or lost rankings. Additionally, you can select one of your competitors to track how their rankings have changed over time.
The Competitors tab provides a quick share of voice comparison with your top rivals in the area. The Map Rank Tracker is particularly beneficial for local businesses that want to monitor the effectiveness of their local SEO campaigns.
**Review Management**
The Review Management tool gathers all your business directory reviews, allowing you to evaluate and manage your online reputation. It features a graph to display your overall star rating. You can also read and respond to all reviews without leaving the tool.
**PPC Advertising**
Semrush’s Advertising Toolkit can help you launch your Google Ads campaign or optimize your existing campaigns for improved results. Let’s examine the key paid ads tools available:
**Advertising Research**
While many people use Semrush primarily for SEO campaigns, it is also an excellent PPC tool. With the Advertising Research tool, you can see which keywords your competitors most frequently bid on. For instance, you may find that Nike bids on many branded terms as well as targeted non-branded queries. Additionally, you can view the exact ads they are running for those terms.
If you notice an ad that has been running for months or even years, it’s likely generating positive results for that competitor. This insight can inform your own Google Ads campaigns. You can also estimate how much your competitors spend on ads, based on CPC data from Google Ads.
Furthermore, the Ads History section provides insights into how bidding habits change throughout the year, helping you time your campaigns to take advantage of periods when competitors promote their products less.
You can complement this information with the Position Changes report, which shows how a domain’s ad positions have improved or declined over time. In the Competitors tab, you’ll find the Competitive Positioning Map, which outlines the spending patterns of leading sites in your niche, giving you a clear idea of how to budget your own PPC campaigns.
On the Ads Copies tab, you can review your competitors’ currently live ads. This data can guide the wording and structure of your own PPC campaigns.
**AdClarity**
The Semrush AdClarity app, part of the App Center (which I will discuss in more detail later), provides valuable insights into competitor ad campaigns across multiple platforms, not just Google.
You’ll receive an overview of your competitors’ ad spending and where they allocate their budget. Additionally, you can explore the ad creatives they use, along with key metrics for each, such as spend and the number of impressions received. You can even analyze their individual campaigns, including their duration and total spend.
Making AdClarity an incredibly powerful competitive analysis tool for a wide range of campaigns.
PLA Research
Before launching a Google Shopping ad campaign, you can get insights into your competitors' SEO strategies using the PLA Research tool. This tool analyzes a domain's Google Shopping ads and collects data on the target keywords being used as well as the positioning of those shopping ads.
And even their product prices:
This section condenses valuable information into an easily digestible report, helping you strategize your Google Shopping ad campaigns more effectively.
**Ads History**
The Ads History feature allows you to analyze your competitors' advertising campaigns based on specific keywords. By entering a keyword that will be the foundation of your own ad campaign, you can see which other domains have utilized that keyword in their ads.
You can also assess how much traffic each competitor gains from these ads, the associated costs, and their rankings over the past 12 months.
**Why is this useful for your Google Ads campaign?**
Analyzing past ads can significantly enhance your own campaigns. By studying high-traffic campaigns, you can gain inspiration for keywords, timing insights, and tips on copy structure. Additionally, examining low-traffic campaigns can help you identify what to avoid.
**Ads Launch Assistant**
The Ads Launch Assistant is another tool from Semrush that can help you maximize your Google Ads campaigns. It provides keyword suggestions based on your URL, language, and location.
And it’ll even use AI to help you generate high-converting copy:
Once your campaign is live, you can monitor its results within the app through a simple visual report:
Social Media
Semrush's Social Media Toolkit includes a variety of features designed to audit and enhance your business's social media presence. It offers tools for scheduling posts, analyzing performance, and monitoring messages.
The Social Dashboard provides a quick overview of your social media statistics. By connecting all your social media accounts, you can easily check your total audience and engagement levels.
Here's an overview of what the Social Toolkit offers:
**Social Poster**
Maintaining an active social media presence can be challenging, especially for small businesses without a dedicated social media manager. It’s easy to overlook regular updates for your various accounts. Social Poster helps you stay on track with its scheduling calendar, allowing you to plan and schedule posts weeks in advance so you never miss an opportunity to engage with your audience.
Once you post your content, you can monitor the performance of individual posts using Social Poster’s analytical data. This feature supports various accounts, including:
- TikTok
- X (formerly Twitter)
- Google Business Profile
Social Poster allows you to schedule posts at specific times to effectively reach your target audience.
Additionally, Social Tracker, Semrush’s tool for social media competitor analysis, serves as a performance indicator by mapping the success of your posts and measuring engagement levels.
The primary goal of Social Tracker is to determine what is effective on your social media channels and identify areas that need improvement.
Social Tracker is compatible with:
- X (formerly Twitter)
- YouTube
It provides a comprehensive view of your niche. In addition to displaying the performance of your own social media posts, it also highlights the successes of your competitors.
Social Tracker provides insights into what, when, and how often your competitors are posting. This allows you to understand their successful strategies and apply that knowledge to enhance your own approach.
With Semrush's Social Content Insights tool, monitoring and analyzing social media content becomes straightforward and digestible. It helps you keep track of important engagement metrics across various platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn.
The tool allows you to tag individual posts, enabling you to monitor different aspects of your social media presence with increased ease and accuracy.
For instance, you can tag all of your recipe posts across multiple platforms to analyze how that content resonates with your audience compared to your cookware guides. This way, you can effectively track the performance of your posts over time and assess various engagement metrics.
Social Analytics
Social Analytics gives you a more in-depth look at your social media performance.
The Overview tab lets you compare your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok audiences.
This main section utilizes graphs to illustrate new followers, post reach, post engagement, and engagement rate. There are also dedicated tabs for each of your social media accounts, allowing you to view a more detailed breakdown of each account's performance.
You can review everything from link clicks to reactions in this section. Additionally, you will gain valuable insights about your audience, including information on when they are online.
These insights help you determine the best times to post, allowing you to schedule posts in advance using the Social Poster feature.
**Social Content AI**
Semrush’s Social Content AI tool provides a straightforward way to enhance your social media presence using artificial intelligence. The tool analyzes your website URL and/or brand description to deliver over 100 new post ideas each day, all organized by topic.
You can generate social posts for platforms such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn. You also have the option to specify the tone of voice and the type of post you want to create.
Once the tool generates a draft, you can choose to regenerate, rephrase, shorten, or expand it to fit your brand's specific needs. Additionally, you can include visuals.
The Social Content AI tool enables time-limited business owners to maintain a consistent posting schedule on social media.
**Influencer Analytics**
The final component of Semrush’s social media toolkit is designed to help you identify suitable influencers to collaborate with and expand your brand presence. Located in the Semrush App Center, Influencer Analytics assists you in determining which influencers would be a good fit for your business, as well as the potential costs associated with working with them.
Select the ideal match for your influencer marketing campaigns by considering important factors such as audience size, cost, and engagement rate. Additionally, you can gain insights into the best days and times to post with that influencer.
Furthermore, you can monitor how your competitors are utilizing influencers in their advertising strategies.
This information can be invaluable for developing effective influencer marketing strategies.
**Content Marketing**
Semrush’s Content Marketing Toolkit helps you overcome creative blocks, allowing you to create content that is optimized for both users and search engines.
Let’s take a closer look at the available tools:
**Topic Research**
When planning your content strategy, use the Topic Research tool to generate a concise list of content ideas that will resonate with your target audience. Simply enter a topic and select your target location to receive a list of content ideas presented in cards.
You can organize content inspiration based on difficulty, volume, and topic efficiency. Additionally, you can use the "Trending Subtopics First" toggle to identify current topical trends. By clicking on any of the cards, you'll find more subtopics organized by headlines, questions, and related searches.
Here are some topic ideas to inspire your own content creation campaigns.
**SEO Content Template**
The SEO Content Template helps you write content that ranks well on Google. Simply enter your target keywords, and the tool will generate a content template for you. This template includes tips to help your content rank higher in search results, covering semantically related keywords, backlink suggestions, readability scores, and recommended text lengths.
Plus, it’ll also show you how your competitors are using your target keywords.
**Providing Valuable Insights for Competitively Crafted Content**
**SEO Writing Assistant**
The SEO Writing Assistant is a powerful tool for creating highly optimized content. You can paste your content into the tool, provide a URL, or write directly in the tool’s interface. It will give you real-time feedback on various key aspects of your content's SEO and readability.
The tool will highlight how many keywords you’ve included and check for any plagiarism issues. It even identifies on-page SEO problems, such as issues with alt attributes and internal links.
Alternatively, you can attach the SEO Writing Assistant plugin to Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or WordPress, which allows you to check your work’s SEO quality as you type. This can save you valuable editing time in the long run.
**Brand Monitoring**
The Brand Monitoring app provides a straightforward way to keep track of your online reputation and discover backlinking opportunities. By entering your brand name as a query, the tool will return the latest mentions of your business across the web.
This feature is an excellent way to see what people are saying about your business on platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, websites, blogs, and forums. It can help you identify opportunities where website owners are discussing your brand but not linking to your site, allowing you to reach out to them for valuable backlinks. Since they are already mentioning your brand, this approach is likely to be easier than cold emailing.
You can narrow your results by country, language, date range, and more. The tool also allows you to monitor specific keywords, competitors, or individuals.
**ContentShake AI**
ContentShake AI, a Semrush application, is designed to simplify the creation of high-quality content. It helps you brainstorm engaging content ideas and assembles that content while adhering to your brand's style.
You can generate content from your own ideas or utilize the tool’s suggestions. To ensure the content aligns with your style, you can adjust settings such as:
- Audience location
- Post title
- Target keywords
- Word count
- Brand voice
- Tone
- Readability level
If you need to make adjustments, you can enter the editor to access AI-generated suggestions for titles, introductions, and more. You also have the option to make manual changes, such as adding your own images and expertise.
Semrush.Trends allows you to closely monitor your competitors. This toolkit helps you track competitor website traffic and stay updated on new content they post. It also provides insights into your market and target audience.
(Note: Traffic Analytics was discussed earlier, but is part of the.Trends toolkit.)
**Market Explorer**
With Market Explorer, you can gain insights about your target market and identify the key players within it. The tool provides information on the traffic share of domains in your market, along with traffic trends and distribution, which shows where that traffic originates.
Additionally, Market Explorer offers insights into the demographics, socioeconomics, and behaviors of your target audience.
Including the social media platforms and websites they visit most often.
**EyeOn**
As the name suggests, EyeOn allows you to keep a close watch on your competitors. This tool provides updates on your rivals' latest posts and activity trends.
It monitors social media closely and includes data from these platforms in its reports. Regularly tracking your competitors' activities can alert you to any major changes in their strategies, which can, in turn, influence your own digital marketing approaches.
For instance, if you notice that a competitor has published numerous new blog posts, you might want to investigate which keywords they are targeting using a tool like Organic Research (as we discussed earlier). Alternatively, if they are producing a lot of social media content, it could indicate that this marketing channel is profitable for your niche.
**One2Target**
While many Semrush tools can help analyze demographic data, none provide insights into your audience quite like One2Target. This tool can assess the income bracket, education level, household size, and even employment status of your site’s visitors.
To simplify the information, One2Target organizes its statistics into four tabs:
- **Demographics**, which outlines your audience’s age, gender, and location.
Socioeconomics shows your audience’s household size, income level, employment status, and education level.
Behavior tells you about your audience’s interests, the devices they use, and their most-visited social media platforms.
Audience Overlap shows the other websites your target audience uses most often.
When you cross-reference these four categories, you can identify the audience most likely to generate business for you. This data can then inform your digital marketing strategies.
**Agency Solutions**
The Agency Solutions feature is designed to help your agency grow, whether you are just starting out or are already established. This add-on is particularly beneficial for agencies seeking to attract new clients and retain existing ones.
**Tools Included:**
- **Agency Partners Platform**
The Semrush Agency Partners Platform is an expanding database of agency profiles. Businesses can easily explore various agency profiles to find the services they need. As an agency, you can create an eye-catching profile that clearly outlines the services you offer.
Once you set up a profile on the Agency Partners Platform, there's very little else you need to do. Potential clients will contact you through this directory using the contact button. You can also manage your leads within the Semrush Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, which we'll discuss further soon.
Lead Finder
Another effective way to find potential clients is through the Agency Solutions Lead Finder. This tool simplifies the process of locating leads based on their geographical location and the web technologies they prefer to use, such as Google Ads, HubSpot, or WordPress.
Whenever you come across a suitable lead for your agency, you can save their details to your lead list. Finding a good match is made easier by the extensive information provided by Lead Finder for each business.
Firstly, Lead Finder offers the business's domain name, social media profiles, and contact information. Secondly, you can access metrics such as traffic, backlink profile, and site authority.
Lead Finder is intended to be used with the Semrush CRM, which I'll explain in more detail shortly.
**Client Portal & CRM**
Semrush’s CRM helps you manage and organize your client projects effectively. Whenever you acquire new client work, you can easily register it in the CRM.
At its core, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) enables you to update project statuses, modify client information, and adjust budgets.
More advanced features allow you to prioritize projects, create checklists, and collaborate directly with your clients. Collaboration happens through the Client Portal, which grants your clients access to important files and tasks while keeping them informed with progress updates.
By allowing your clients to access project updates, you promote transparency. This means you won’t need to generate regular reports for your clients, as long as you keep your CRM updated. If your clients are not Semrush users, there’s no need to worry—one of the most impressive features is that they don’t need to be Semrush users to access the Client Portal.
Do you need to create a white-label report for your client or for your own records?
Well, you can do it through the My Reports section of the Agency Growth Kit.
This tool simplifies the process of gathering data from various sections of your Semrush account to create a professional-looking PDF report.
One of its standout features is its compatibility with external data sources, allowing you to integrate information from Google My Business, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Facebook Ads seamlessly.
If you're short on time, you can choose from a selection of ready-made report templates that enable you to generate a report almost automatically.
The main template options address all your reporting needs, ranging from monthly SEO reports to complete organic research outlines.
When you select one of these templates, simply enter the domain information for the site you are reporting on. In just a few clicks, you will have a comprehensive report ready to use.
Additionally, you can customize the templates by including relevant widgets, which can be added to the report using an easy drag-and-drop system.
You can also create reports from scratch using My Reports. Additionally, the drag-and-drop features are available to help you design your custom reports.
The Semrush App Center offers not only a variety of powerful Semrush tools but also a large library of applications that you can utilize.
I have already mentioned a few tools, such as AdClarity and ContentShake AI, but the App Center offers a wide variety of Semrush and third-party applications that cater to every aspect of your digital marketing strategy.
Here are some of the most popular categories of apps:
**AI Apps**
Semrush is a leader in integrating artificial intelligence into its suite of SEO tools. Additionally, there are many AI-powered apps available that can further enhance your workflows. For example, AdCreative.ai allows you to generate ad creatives, copy, and even organize photo shoots for your next advertising campaign.
For Shopify site owners, the Ecommerce Booster is ideal for quickly enhancing your store’s SEO.
As a small business owner, these applications can help you understand your competitors and enhance your online presence. This collection includes free tools, such as the Email Verifier.
Along with more focused market research tools, like Keyword Analytics for YouTube:
And even the free Local Listings Check app:
Explore these apps and many more in the Semrush App Center.
As this guide hopefully clarifies, you can use Semrush to develop and optimize your entire SEO strategy. With Semrush, you can:
- Perform competitor analysis
- Run an SEO audit
- Find link-building opportunities
- Organize local SEO
- Gain marketing insights
- Review existing traffic
Semrush is suitable for everyone, but it is especially beneficial for:
- SEO professionals and digital marketing agencies
- Freelancers
- PPC advertisers
- Social media marketers
- E-commerce businesses
Semrush offers three main pricing tiers: Pro, Guru, and Business.
Before selecting a premium pricing plan, you can try basic features with a free account. The free plan allows users to perform limited keyword research and conduct a 100-page site audit. Note that a free Semrush account provides up to 10 credits per day. Alternatively, you can use this link to access a 14-day trial of the Semrush Pro subscription.
The package you choose should depend on the size of your business and your specific digital marketing needs. Keep in mind that certain packages and add-ons may incur additional costs.
Here’s an overview of Semrush’s current pricing plans and what they include:
- **Pro:** $139.95 per month
- **Guru:** $249.95 per month
- **Business:** $499.95 per month
**Add-ons**
Regardless of whether you have a Pro, Guru, or Business subscription, you can access any add-on you need. The pricing for add-ons remains consistent across all subscription tiers:
- **Semrush Local:** $20-$40 per month
- **Semrush Trends:** $289 per month (per user)
- **Social Media Management:** $29.99 per month
- **Agency Growth Kit:** $69-$249 per month
- **ImpactHero:** $200 per month
**Now It’s Your Turn to Try Semrush**
I hope you found this ultimate Semrush guide helpful and now feel more confident in experimenting with Semrush’s SEO and digital marketing features.
Semrush currently assists 116,000 paying customers in improving their website performance, identifying top keywords, boosting organic search traffic, and much more.
Experience the benefits for yourself with a 14-day free trial of a Semrush Pro subscription!
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