How to use Semrush: 11 Foolproof Ways to Grow Your Blog

If you are wondering how to use Semrush to grow your blog, this article is for you.

Growing a blog is not as easy as it seems……

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you will tap into a niche with small competition and many opportunities.

We are into 2021, and there aren’t many niches with lots of opportunities with low competition. On the other hand, competition helps. It indicates that there is money to make.

I will talk about 11 excellent ways to use Semrush to grow your blog traffic in today’s post. At the end of this article, you will learn…

• How to strategically run a keyword research campaign that gives you many opportunities to rank and receives traffic. (I have been personally using this keyword research technique for over seven years and the results are AMAZING!)
• How many articles should you write to receive traffic to your blog compared to your competitors?
• How to steal traffic, backlinks, and business strategies from competitors
• How to produce content that will drive perpetual traffic for years to come without struggling tapping to new micro niches
• How to get people to trust your brand and thus increase the loyal reader base
• And how to intelligently increase your power readers that will increase the organic traffic indirectly without focusing on posting more posts

You may wonder how Semrush can do these things for YOU…

Believe me.

If you follow these 11 tips below, you will learn all of the things I mentioned above.

What is Semrush?

Semrush is probably the best search engine marketing tool out there, with tons of features and tools for content marketers (or bloggers) like you, digital marketing agency owners, and paid advertisers looking to improve their online presence.

Personally, Semrush is the best SEO tool I have used so far to date in ten years of experience.

I have written a well-in-depth review of Semrush. Be sure to check if you still want to be convinced that Semrush is a useful SEO tool.

And check out this Semrush free trial offer if you want to test out Semrush Pro for two weeks.

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Open Semrush Pro or Guru account for seven days for Free! (Save up to $229.95)

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11 Awesome Ways How to Use Semrush to Hack Your Blog Growth

Keyword Analysis

When I head over to Google Keyword Planner, sometimes I wonder if keyword research is dead.

Why?

Because Google Analytics doesn’t provide 95% of search queries. Google search console search data isn’t sufficient or doesn’t give as much data as it should.

And Google Keyword Planner is for advertisers, not bloggers like you and me.

Then, how can you implement a good keyword research strategy that will confirm that your site will rank for a particular keyword?

To remind you, if you want your website to rank for a particular keyword…

• Your content matters
• Your domain authority matters
• User intent matters
• How you structure your content and introduce solutions matters
• How other secondary keywords are placed matters
• User interactions matters
• What Google thinks matters

Now it’s not always about the keyword. Isn’t it?

Well, if you still want to drive targeted traffic, keyword matters.

Even though several factors decide PPC ads rank, keywords are still a big part.

However, researching the keywords has changed significantly during the last couple of years.

A few years ago, you could use Google Keyword Planner (or whatever tool name) to find a few keywords and write a few articles.

However, content marketing is also inclined toward user personalization.

For example, Google is more tending to rank articles that are written to a particular user. Even your article ranks at the #1 spot in Google SERP. It doesn’t mean that the average Joe in Colorado and the average Sharma in Delhi will see it at the #1 spot.

That is where Semrush Keyword research capabilities come into play.

How to use Semrush for keyword research

You have these advantages when using Semrush to research blog post keywords.

• Know the top pages that are ranking for the particular keyword
• Find keyword difficulty (the hardness of ranking for the specific keyword)
• Find traffic distribution among ranking pages
• Find other related keywords and much more.

And the best part is you can go deeper and research keywords on the page level for each page ranking on SERPs for your intended keyword(s).

Here’s an example of it. Labnol’s this article ranks higher on SERPs of many organic keywords. Now, it’s time for you to find out what keywords your competitor websites are ranking on Google SERPs.

Competitor Analysis

Everybody has a competitor.

Your blog also has a competitor. Or maybe more than one competitor.

It’s good, actually.

Why?

Because competition teaches you, makes you what you are today, and, importantly, it’s why you are working harder today (and in days to come).

As a businessman and an internet marketer, I love competition.

I have learned LOTS of things from my competition, and if I want to get inspired and motivated, I head over to my competitor’s websites and find out what they are doing.

The stronger your competition is, the more work you do. The weaker your competition is, the more dominant you are in your space.

Well, if you are in a competitive market such as Internet marketing, eCommerce, and health and fitness, you are always in the game. No stopping point at any day, any moment.

What is the best way to analyze your competitors?

Use Semrush!

I have yet to see an excellent competitor analysis tool like Semrush.

In fact, the full suite of Semrush is built upon competitor research. Even Semrush paid advertising research is more useful when you use it for competitor research.

How to analyze your competitors using Semrush

Head over to Semrush and enter your competitor’s website’s root domain URL. (or subdomain URL.)

Under the page’s tab, you can find the top pages based on organic traffic received.

Now, without worrying about what to write on your blog, you can use Semrush to find some top-ranking competitors’ pages and write content that is x2 valuable and richer than your competitors.

In fact, it’s a science, as you see. Writing articles without knowing what your audience wants won’t give you results. As well as using keywords that might not target is also not helpful in the aspect of your business goals.

For more details on how to find competitors’ keywords, check out this competitor keyword research guide.

Site Audit

Think about your laptop (or smartphone)……

When you first get it, it’s fast. Really fast.

Somehow, as time goes on, it becomes slower.

It takes more time to boot, open your files and play videos. And sometimes, it gets stuck.

The same incidents happen on your blog as well. No exceptions.

Your blog is hosted on a machine at the end and powered by a set of devices, such as your CDN service.

However, your blog performance is a bit different. There are a lot more things to consider, such as…

• Broken links (internal and external)
• Images without alternative text (the text description that explains what the image is about to search engine bots particularly)
• Mobile display issues like small tap links.
• HTML implementation issues such as render-blocking scripts.

As you see, humans can’t identify these things easily. More specifically, it’s not doable in most cases.

Therefore, you must use a tool like Semrush Site Audit.

The best part is once you set up the Site Audit campaign (which is pretty easy, too, by the way), you will receive weekly reports about your website’s new performance, such as fixed issues, new warnings, etc.

It’s despite your capabilities of running the campaign over again.

If you are serious about your business (which is your current blog), I recommend giving Semrush Site Audit a try. It will dramatically improve On-Page SEO and give your blog a fresh start every week. Check this beginner’s guide to Semrush Site Audit to find out how to use the tool.

Competitor Backlinks

We are still talking about backlinks in an age of automation, and bots are getting popular. Isn’t it strange that backlinks are still used?

Hmm… Not at all. Why?

Google still believes in backlinks, and many SEO experts, such as Neil Patel and Brian Dean. In fact, backlinks are still one of the top Google keyword ranking factors.

Now that might remind you if your competitors actually receive backlinks. Want to know the truth?

Use Semrush competitor backlinks checker.

Semrush Competitor Analysis has billions of data, and Backlinks are just one component. It also updates very often (mostly daily)

Once you find websites linking to your competitors, use a tool like Ninja Outreach to find contact details and email outreach.

Keyword Gap

Sometimes, it’s harder to keep track of what to focus on when you’re overwhelmed or tend to focus on multiple things.

Think of your blog…

…If you are in a competitive market, it would be tough to focus because there are many things.

So, how do you select the best activity or assets that attain the most ROI?

It’s through a Business to Business comparison. Or, in simple words, blog-to-blog comparison. In other words, your blog to the competitor(s).

When you are doing content marketing keyword research, identifying which keywords to focus on is critical.

Why?

Because untargeted traffic actually harms your business.

How?

Untargeted traffic is…

• Messing up with your business KPI (Key Performance Indicators)
• Harming search engine ranking of other keywords indirectly through high bounce rate, low time on page, etc.
• Not important to your business at all.
• Wasting your time and efforts.

Hence, your best competitor is the best supporter in this case.

Semrush Keyword Gap (also known as Domain Vs. Domain comparison) is beneficial.

Here’s how Semrush Keyword Gap or Domain_vs_Domain tool helps boost your blog’s targeted traffic.

• Compare up to 5 competitors: More competitors give you more data. 
• Find SEO keywords that your competitors are using but not you: One of the best uses of the Keyword Gap tool is identifying keywords only your competition utilizes.
• Find missing keywords in your articles: Sometimes, your competitors and your blogs might have similar content. But, your content might not rank for specific keywords. Identify missing keywords through domain comparison.
• Mobile Keywords: Another use of the Semrush Keyword Gap tool is finding your competitors’ mobile keywords. On the other hand, it’s an excellent strategy for doing mobile keyword research campaigns.

Keyword Ideas

With new technologies, people have also improved a lot hence the way people search changed during the last half-decade.

Specifically, with Voice search and mobile usage, people use more long-tail keywords, which tend to get higher volume.

The days are gone; you could write a typical article around a broad topic and rank higher on SERPs.

Big websites such as Entrepreneur, Wiki sites, and News magazines are getting the vast majority of top placements in SERPs.

Small fishes like you and I have to change our keyword research strategy.

That is where the Semrush Magic Tool comes for our assistance.

Semrush Magic Tool is a tool that includes millions of keyword data and sums them up into each category.

As you can see from the image mentioned above, the Semrush Keyword Magic tool categorizes each keyword by the number of keywords and volume.

The best part is you can go deeper and get more targeted keyword ideas for your next blog post.

If you are wondering what to write this week for your blog (or, even better, what to write for your newsletter subscribers), you can start using the Semrush Keyword Magic tool to get hundreds of proven ideas.

Check out this video guide from Semrush on using Keyword Magic Tool effectively.

Keyword Rank Position Tracking

The 80/20 rule applies to most things.

I believe it’s for blog growth as well.

Even your site’s ranking for thousands of different keywords, only about 20% of those keywords would account for 80% of traffic.

You can confirm it by either pulling up data on Google Analytics, Google Search Console, or Semrush.

Either way, you’d find that my statement above is correct.

Hence, keeping an eye on what’s most important for your business would be best.

In other words, you should track keyword rank position changes on Google search for the most important ones.

You don’t need to use another tool to track keyword ranking in Google.

Because Semrush already provided this functionality, you can combine it with other features.

Check out my guide on Monitoring keyword ranking in Google search using Semrush to learn more about using Semrush effectively to track keyword ranking position changes.

Unlock “Not Provided” Keywords

A few years ago, Google started not providing the main keywords that your site’s ranking on the Google search engine.

Many marketers agree that 95% of the total keywords are hidden on your Google Analytics.

It’s a shame because you could have improved keyword ranking by expanding the content that is ranking.

However, most content marketers and SEOs have found ways to unlock these “Not Provided” keywords by Google.

If you link your Google Search Console with your Semrush account, you can find them out very quickly.

Therefore, take a huge step forward to dominate your competition because unlocking these keywords could boost your blog’s growth. Check out this Keyword Hero review if you are looking for a tool to see all those keywords in your Google Analytics account.

Mobile Keywords

Unlike Desktop computers, a Mobile is a portable device. This means people can do a Google search either on Gym, Bus station, Bed, or Toilet!

And Google’s now providing voice search support as well.

That means people are inclined to use multiple words when searching for something on Google.

The best part is there’s a pattern.

Most Mobile keywords tend to have “What,” “How,” “Why,” “Where,” “When,” “Which,” and other 8 ‘be’ verbs.

There aren’t many tools capable of providing a site’s mobile keywords.

But, Semrush has this functionality.

Enter your competitor’s website URL into the Semrush search box and click on “Mobile” to see mobile SEO performance, including mobile keywords.

On-Page SEO Checker

The days are REALLY gone when you can write an article, publish it on your site, share it on your social network, and forget about it.

Unless your site is authoritative, you need to implement more plans to make your content rank higher on search engines.

That is where Semrush On-Page SEO Checker comes into play.

Semrush On-Page SEO checker is another feature under your Semrush Project. Hence to use An Page SEO checker, you need to create a project for the respective domain.

Once you have created a project, click on the “Setup” button under the “On-Page SEO Checker” box, and you will be given options to select keywords to track. See the screenshot below.

As you can clearly see, Semrush automatically imports the top 10 keywords for top posts for your blog. You can use another way, such as the Google search con, sole to import keyword data.

Once Semrush On-Page SEO Checker is set up, it will prominently check for on-page SEO optimization for particular keywords based on Google SEO ranking factors. And if you opt-in to receive weekly reports, you will receive updates about the on-page SEO performance for certain pages every Monday.

Traffic Analytics

I remember earlier when I used Alexa.com and Quantcast.com to analyze a competitor’s website traffic.

Although statistics of those traffic services are inaccurate, there was no choice other than to estimate traffic stats.

However, those tools were all debunked once Semrush introduced its own Traffic Analytics tool.

I have discussed this tool extensively in my post about traffic estimation tools and checking website traffic.

All-in-all, Traffic Analytics is one of my favorite tools in Semrush.

Why?

Because I can…

• Get the most relevant data to actual data of Google Analytics of a competitor website.
• Get access to geo-distribution statistics.
• Compare one site with multiple and easily differentiate vital indicators such as social media traffic sources and backlinks.
• Get to know the destination sites of any site. Hence, find out backlink opportunities, affiliate partners, etc.
• Quickly identify the strengths and weaknesses of a competitor’s website.

Here’s a very short introductory video on how to use the Semrush Traffic Analytics tool.

Traffic Analytics report for Pitiya.com. Semrush has a ranking system that is based on estimated website traffic.

If you search for blogs for guest posts, use the Semrush Traffic Analytics tool before writing articles. Because sometimes, you won’t be given the most accurate site data in a media kit by site owners.

And if you are into media buying (directly or indirectly through a network such as BuySellAds.com), you can verify the site’s data based on Semrush Traffic Analytics data.

Also, play with screen options such as filtering mobile traffic analytics to see how a competitor site performs.

Unlike Alexa or Quantcast, the Semrush Traffic Analytics tool provides the most relevant estimated data to actual statistics. It makes it easy for you to compare against multiple sites to identify top affiliates, referrals, and more.

Don’t just look at the data provided by the Semrush Traffic Analytics tool. Identify critical points shown in the above screenshot and take notes on implementing those for your blog.

Not all points may be valid for your business. However, you can even take one note from every website you have won.

Final Words on How to Use Semrush to Grow Your Blog

A business isn’t grown in a single day.

It takes time, effort, and continuous dedication.

Use these Semrush tools to hack your blog growth.

I have already experienced the success of these.

And I will ​​be using Semrush tools to grow my business.

So, this is your turn. Implement at least one and see an improvement in your site soon.

So, what is your favorite way of using Semrush on your business?

Recommended Articles:

1. Sites like Semrush for SEO
2. How much does Semrush cost?
3. LongTail Pro vs. Semrush
4. Can you cancel your Semrush subscription?

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