So you are curious to know why you should use SEMrush for your business instead of other SEO tools...
If you are wondering HOW SEMrush can grow your online business and take it to the next level while making you are the expert in your niche, you should read the review of SEMrush.
You should read this unbiased SEMrush review if...
Note: This SEMrush review is last updated in January 2020 to reflect new updates on SEMrush toolkit.
Fun Facts about SEMrush
SEMrush was founded by Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikov on 2008 initially as a SEO tool and browser extension.
They are the ones who also developed SEOquake browser extension.
As of now, SEMrush has over 3,000,000 registered users and already made thousands of success stories ranging from small business to enterprise-level businesses.
According to SEMrush, their customers are enabled to grow organically with minimum investment and demonstrate 10x revenue increase in under a year.
If you are wondering where does semrush get its data, they have their own crawler called SEMrushbot and have partnered with other leading companies such as Majestic to make an excellent digital marketing toolkit with tons of data for every need.
SEMrush Stats - Big Data for every tool
One of the newest additions to the SEMrush toolkit is SEMrush Sensor that basically keeps tracking on search engine ranking changes and performances of websites. (One of the best ways to get to know SERP volatility and Google algorithm changes)
Main sections of this SEMrush review:
This SEMrush tool review post is a little bit too long. So, I thought, it will be easier for you to read this post by cross-linking each main sections. Use below links to jump into any part of this SEMrush review.
I have an extraordinary gift for you. If you pleased reading this SEMrush review and want to test-drive the features of SEMrush Pro account for free, at the end of this post, you can grab the link for SEMrush free trial Pro account which is valid for two weeks.
(Note: It’s a limited time offer. Generally, if you subscribe SEMrush PRO, it would cost you $99.95 in the initial price. But, with this special offer, you can save $99.95!)
SEMrush Review
- The Detailed, Unbiased Review of SEMrush -
SEMrush Keyword Research
There are a lot of keyword research tools on the internet today. A few of them are keyword suggestion tools which suggest related keywords to your query and others are keyword generators. They only generate a few similar and phrase-match keyword set that doesn’t show the average CPC, monthly search volume, keyword ranking difficulty scores, etc.
SEMrush keyword tool stands out from other keywords tool in a few occasions. If I take Google Keyword Planner as an example, GKP generates similar phrase match keywords regularly. Let’s say my target keyword phrase is “grammar checker.”
Look at the keyword suggestions I see on Google keyword planner tool.
Keyword Ideas for “Grammar Checker” – Google Keyword Planner
These are the related match keywords I got on the Google keyword planner.
- free grammar checker
- online grammar checker
- english grammar checker
- grammar checker online
- free online grammar checker
Can you see the “grammar checker” keyword is repeated on all those search terms? That’s one significant disadvantage we face when researching keywords using Google keyword planner.
It is not a surprise why all those keywords shown in Google keyword planner are super competitive.
You write content around those keywords, and other 1000’s of people make content around those keywords too.
You can get just more than 800 keyword ideas using SEMrush. It is another advantage you’d receive as a search engine marketer.
Let’s think you want to find a few thousands of keywords for your next search engine marketing campaign (Ex: Bing Ads campaign). By using SEMrush keyword tool, you can generate keywords that fit your product or service you are going to promote on Bing.
Now let’s find some keywords using SEMrush.
I entered “American food” keyword into the SEMrush search box and selected US database. It is selected by default. Google US search engine is referred to as Google.com. So, I get search results for www.google.com. If you want to change the search engine, you can do it by selecting your desired search engine from the menu.
Within a few seconds, I got the search result for “American food.” This screenshot will show you how “American food” keyword performs on Google.com
Key takeaways from the above report:
If we take into the keywords section, we can see two main parts for keywords. They are Phrase match keywords and Related keywords.
Just like in Google Keyword Planner, you will also get some phrase-match keywords too. But, take a look at related keywords.
- the american food
- american cuisine
- american cuisine dishes
- american food style
These are the real gems of keywords you miss when you use only Google keyword planner to find keywords.
Let’s check what related-match keywords SEMrush keyword tool shows us for “grammar checker” keyword phrase.
AS you see, SEMrush keyword research tool is so powerful and accurate. I have a SEMrush Pro account. So, I can check these all 2300+ keywords in another time and write articles around them. Just check the search volume of these keywords. And CPC values.
And remember that this keywords search result is ONLY for Google’s US search engine. You can gauge how many unique keyword ideas you can find through other search engines.
Not only that, but you can also see the top 100 websites ranking for a particular keyword as well.
Now let’s find some profitable keywords for Adsense using SEMrush.
I added some conditions to filter targeted keywords.
Therefore, I will get only keywords with higher CPC value than $5.00, monthly search volume more than 20 and competition level below at 8.
I still got ~1,881 keyword ideas. I ordered them as CPC descending level.
I am not sure the real keyword intent of “free checker.” But, all other keywords are highly targeted for “grammar checker.”
Check out the highlighted long-tail keywords. Don’t you think that they are real blog post ideas that can drive constant and converting traffic every month?
If you think that they are competitive, look at the competition ratio.
And with a few seconds of work, I was able to find some laser-targeted long-tail keywords.
Do you want to know how I generated these unknown long tail keywords within a few seconds? Here’s the trick. I just added a condition to filter keywords which contain “how” word!
All in all, what can you say about the SEMrush keyword research tool? Fantastic. Am I right?
Analyze Competitors With SEMrush
Let me tell you one thing about Search Engine Optimization.
If you are a newbie blogger, I recommend you to analyze other SEO strategies and move the way they are going.
Why?
Because, if you see an established website in your industry or niche, it seems like they use proper keywords to drive highly targeted traffic.
Keywords == Marketing research.
No targeted market == No niche-specific traffic.
No relevant traffic == No conversions.
No Conversions == No money.
No money == No existence.
No existence == No business.
Period!
I don’t recommend you to copy other content. It’s illegal, and one complaint can drop your all website rankings from search engines.
But, stealing others’ traffic is not illegal. Lots of Pros follow this step I am going to show now and increase their traffic steadily.
Ready to steal your competitor’s traffic? So, let’s do it!
Step #1: Go to SEMrush over here and input your competitor’s website URL. I typed “copyblogger.com” into the search box.
Here’s the main report of copyblogger.com.
Key terms of this report:
Once you get familiar with the above metrics, you can quickly determine the status of any website for any search engine.
Step #2: As we are going to spy on competitors keywords, let’s move to the next section: Organic keywords.
This section includes two subsections: Top Organic Keywords and Organic Position Distribution.
According the statistics given by SEMrush competitive analytics tool, CopyBlogger.com has got over 109K top organic keywords (keyword phrases Copyblogger ranks on the top 100 search result pages).
And people do search for Copyblogger brand on Google too. Branded search data is an excellent indication on how popular and authoritative the site is.
Step #3: Here are some organic keywords for CopyBlogger.
Key terms in this report:
Step #4: As you found the keywords of your competitors, you can download the keyword report as an .XLS file and write content around each keyword.
Also, you can find some excellent long-tail informational keywords with decent search volume using filter options.
There are lots of ways you can use SEMrush tool to find keywords of your competitors. I am using this tool for some time and have got great results so far.
Unlike “guessing & writing,” this method is proven to work. Because you know that your competitor websites get traffic using these keywords and they convert pretty well.
SEMrush stands out from other competitor analysis tools as its complete competitor’s analysis tool. I give it the ten of ten scores.
Backlink checker tool
Apart from finding keywords of your competitors are using, you can also find backlinks of your and your competitor websites using SEMRUSH as well.
Let’s take CopyBlogger as an example.
Although SEMrush’s backlink checker tool is not as thorough as Ahrefs backlink checker tool, you can still get a better idea about the distribution of inbound links.
SEMrush also lists competitors based on the backlink profile. Take a look at the screenshot below to see backlinks competitors for Copyblogger.
Full Site Audit
Auditing your website’s SEO healthy is very important as a search engine’s point of view and a visitor’s view.
What if you have linked to a 404 error external page?
What if your website has tons of broken links? And have images with no ALT attribute? And even worse have deep-links with nofollow attribute?
You will not see anything despite NOT increasing your search traffic. Probably will see the decrease of SERP rankings.
I said above that I thought analyzing my competitors is a silly thing. Remember?
Well, I also thought that everything I do on my blog is perfect. No any errors, no broken links and so on…
But, once I heard that SEMrush introduced a new tool to audit website SEO performance, I was curious to know the health of my blog.
So, I head over to SEMrush Site Audit tool and create a new project. Added domain, set number of pages to crawl and give the command to check SEO optimization of my entire site.
Within a few hours, I got my full website SEO audit report.
Oops! Tons of issues.
Some are,
- Linked to external pages which show the 404 pages.
- Linked to external pages which redirect to another page.
- Internal links with the nofollow attribute.
- Images with no ALTernative text.
- Broken external images.
- Not XML sitemap
There were lots of site errors. That day I thought, If I were Google, I wouldn’t send more traffic to that website.
Who likes to visit a website which has tons of broken links? Who wants to visit a site which doesn’t show a proper image? Or even a page that takes 3+ seconds to load?
Not anyone, right?
Here is a current SEO audit overview report for Pitiya.com. As you see, SEMrush crawler has indexed 100 pages and found errors that are critical for website SEO and normal performance.
The higher your total score is, search engines will be more likely to increase your search engine rankings. As Backlinks is not the future SEO’s backbone, you should take your special attention to on-site optimization.
If you want to find broken pages of your site, use the filter options. Look at the screenshot for instance.
If your site has over 100 pages published, you may need to subscribed to a paid plan on SEMrush because it only allows to crawl upto 100 pages on your site on a free plan.
All in all, if you want to make search engine optimization work for your site and get most traffic as possible, you have run an SEO site audit campaign at least once per month.
SEMrush Site Audit is one of THE best SEO audit tools. I have been using for over five years now!
Keyword Rank Position Tracking
The search engine marketing has changed a lot in last few years.
If you are serious about the search engine optimization, you must track your search engine ranking positions for most important keywords at least.
Why?
Because these days, not only just PPC advertisers but also content marketers would tend to tracker their ROI of their efforts particularly returns on each keywords targeted.
Fortunately, SEMrush has got an impressive keyword position tracker for Google and other search engines.
HINT: If you are doing local SEO or manage local clients, then this feature is critical for your business.
Note: You will have to set up a Project inside your SEMrush Dashboard prior setting up Position Tracking campaign.
Above is an example of a position tracking overview dashboard in SEMrush.
As you might have seen it displays the daily local position ranking for the keyword and the estimated traffic each day.
One key area I most like to use in SEMrush Position Tracking tool is the competitor ranking distribution comparison.
This feature allows you to...
- 1Get notifications whenever one of your competitors or a few outrank your site in a specific area. Think about tracking SERP rank fluctuations for your local client and getting alerts when a competitor outranks.
- 2Find out estimated traffic received by your competitors and their SERP ranking changes
- 3Find if your competitors are ranking for featured snippets in Google search.
- 4Identify potential competitors that you might not be aware of using Competitors Discovery tool inside SEMrush Position Tracker.
Keyword Gap
Think of a scenario where you wanted to contrast differences (ideally strengths and weaknesses) of your site against your top competitors.
- 1You want to know which keywords your site is performing better in search engine result pages
- 2You want to know which keywords your competitors are ranking top in search engine result pages.
- 3You want to know the competitive level between your site and competitor's so that you can get an clear idea if it's worth spending your time furthermore for those specific keywords.
That's what the Keyword Gap tool by SEMrush is mainly used for.
After you entered at least one of your competitors domain and clicked the "Go" button, you would see common keywords between your site and competitor.
Take a look at the screenshot below for instance.
According to the results I received, ShoutMeLoud beats Pitiya in every corner!
Best thing about Keyword Gap tool is not just identifying common keywords, but also opening a way for finding keywords that your competitor is using but not YOU!
If your competitor can rank for specific keywords at the top of SERP, why can't you?
You can also use SEMrush Keyword Gap tool to find out the powerfulness of a site compared to another.
Look above screenshot to know how BIG Hubspot is!
Keyword Magic Tool
SEMrush keyword magic tool changed how keywords research is done by different ways for good!
Typically to generate keyword ideas, you had to enter a search term and find phrase-match, related and broad-match keyword ideas. You couldn't find specific keyword ideas particularly such as questions which are important in mobile SEO.
However, Keyword Magic Tool by SEMrush solves this issue. Look at the screenshot below.
By using SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool, you can...
If you are looking for an excellent and robust keyword research tool, be it SEMrush Keyword Magic. I haven't seen anything similar to SEMrush Keyword Magic tool on the market so far.
It can generate all type of keywords in short period and make your next blog post successful.
Traffic Analytics
In this SEMrush review, I talked more about the SEO part of SEMrush. However, SEMrush has pivoted their direction in last few years ago.
Now SEMrush provides more advanced and powerful tools for digital marketers well. One of those fabulous tools is Traffic Analytics.
In their own words...
What is SEMrush Traffic Analytics
SEMrush Traffic Analytics is a market intelligence and competitive research tool that provides estimations of any website’s desktop and mobile traffic. It can help you spot your rivals' strength and weaknesses, evaluate a new market or niche, and even build a successful media buying strategy.
The tool will help you see where a website’s traffic comes from; how their audience engages with their site; what devices visitors prefer to use; how multiple websites’ audiences overlap and much more. The market intelligence insights found in Traffic Analytics makes it one of the most powerful tools on SEMrush for market researchers, marketing managers, business development teams, and sales teams.
(Source)
SEMrush Traffic Analytics has got multiple features...
SEMrush Traffic Rank
Find world's top websites based on the estimated traffic by SEMrush. Learn more about the SEMrush Traffic rank over here.
Reveal traffic sources of your competitors
Your competitor websites may utilize underground traffic method that skyrocket their leads and revenue.
Uncover all traffic sources of your competitors using SEMrush analytics tool.
You can find out:
Find GEO Traffic Distribution of any site
It is always good to know who the target audience of a website is. Now you can find geography of traffic of any site without guessworks thanks to SEMrush Traffic analytics toolkit.
Find answers for these specific questions instantly:
Find destination sites
Would you be interested in knowing which sites your competitor website's visitors land after visit it?
Or would you like to uncover marketing strategies of a site?
SEMrush Traffic Analytics show destination sites of any site.
Find out:
Compare websites
When you compare your site with your competitors, you can get a big picture on which sides to improve on and which sides are strong of your business.
Marketing Insights toolkit from SEMrush allows you to benchmark and compare multiple websites at once and get most up-to-date data to take clear and smart decisions.
Audience comparison is such invaluable part of SEMrush Traffic toolkit.
It allows you to understand:
Marketing Insights toolkit from SEMrush is one of my favorite tools because as an internet marketer, it allows me to clearly estimate the traffic, marketing strategies and the impact of a site in seconds.
Other SEMrush Tools and Features That Can Not Be Neglected
SEO Toolkit
Most parts of this SEMrush review is dedicated to SEMrush because most people are curious to know if SEMrush is the best tool for their SEO campaigns.
However, I didn't feature every SEO related feature on this SEMrush review. Here is a video from SEMrush that explains the overview of SEMrush SEO Toolkit.
Watch this video if you are into search engine optimization and want to know SEMRUSH can help to increase your organic traffic.
Advertising Toolkit
Content Marketing Toolkit
Social Media Toolkit
Business Lead Generation Tool for Agencies
Generate business leads for your online agency or service by giving away free website SEO audit report for a given site. (up to 25 pages are audited)
Business Lead Generation Tool - SEMRUSH
If you are running a digital marketing agency that provides SEO services, you can embed the SEMrush Lead generation widget on your site and collect high-quality business lead easily.
Listing Management
Local SEO has become more important as Google and other search engines started providing user-based and location-based results.
If you are particularly running a local SEO agency and wondering how SEMrush can help improving listing on search engines and review and reputation management services such as Yelp, dozens of other maps, apps, search engines, and directories, then you should try List management tool by SEMrush today!
Or if you want to build citations for your website and improve search engine ranking by increasing brand mentions on reputable sites, you should try SEMrush List Management tool today.
Manage Your Business Online Presence with SEMRUSH
As of wiring this SEMRUSH review, SEMrush distributes your business listing upto 72 different sites and directories.
SEMrush business listing is not only easing your work on distributing but also makes another income source for your SEO services!
SEO Content Template
Writing SEO-friendly content is a big task because there are lots of things to consider such as how much the keyword should be applied, what synonyms to use, which backlinks should be used to increase SERP ranking etc.
The revolutionary newest SEO tool from SEMrush content marketers and bloggers and freelancer writers is SEO Content Template.
Just like the same suggests itself, SEO Content Template tool builds a template based on keywords you entered.
Please check out this brief explanation video from SEMrush.
SEMrush Tutorials
It doesn't matter if a tool can do thousands of things. If there is not enough tutorials on how to use the tool, it's a big NO because as marketers we are better off spending time on a tool that we can use rather than one cannot.
SEMrush is one of the BEST tools out there with thousands of tutorials.
SEMrush YouTube Channel
SEMrush YouTube channel is updated often with new fresh tips and tutorials on how to use SEMrush tools.
SEMrush SEO Playlist
Learn how to use SEMrush to grow your organic traffic by modern SEO techniques.
SEMrush Webinars
Learn from SEMrush experts!
Watch SEMrush webinar replays below to learn advanced techniques to use SEMrush tools to grow your online business.
SEMrush Walkthrough
SEMrush knows that they have built a digital marketing toolkit with hundreds of different tools for various use cases!
That is why they have added walkthrough videos for easier understand each tool. Most videos are 2 min to 10 min long. So you can understand what each tool does easily without reading tons of articles!
SEMrush Academy
Become a SEMrush and digital marketing expert by taking courses and passing examples!
You would be received SEMrush certification once you passed the online exam.
SEMrush Knowledgebase
Have any query about how to do ABC thing with SEMrush or want to know what XYZ feature in SEMrush does?
Check out SEMrush Knowledgebase!
SEMrush Blog
Get insider tips, tricks and strategies to grow your business with SEMrush toolkit on SEMrush Blog.
SEMrush Prices
The price tag is significant for any business whether you run a B2B or B2C business.
If you read this SEMrush review from start to this point, you would find out that SEMrush is not an ordinary just another tool.
It provides tools for EVERY marketer. In fact, there is at least one tool for any digital marketing purpose.
If you combine all other tools that provide similar services such as... keyword research, backlink checking, SEO audit, PPC assistant, social media brand monitoring, SEO Content writing, and marketing insights, it would cost you at least four figures per month.
Take a look at the table below for a rough estimation.
Purpose | Best SEMrush Alternatives | Comparable Price | Rating of SEMrush Competitor Tool |
|---|---|---|---|
Keyword Research | KeywordTool.io | $199/month | |
Backlink checking | Ahrefs | $99/month | |
SEO Audit | Website Auditor Software | $125 + $15/month | |
Marketing Insights | Similar Web | $199/month | |
Tracking Social Media Mentions | Awario | $89/month | |
Build PPC ads | Wordstream | $264/month |
However, SEMrush pricing is not that high. They have packages for every business owner (small, medium or enterprise level businesses).
Take a look at the pricing table below.
If you are looking for a best SEMrush plan for your needs, take look at the feature comparison table at the middle of pricing page of SEMrush.
Which SEMrush plan is suitable for you?
If you are a small business owner like a blogger, choose SEMrush Pro plan. The only significant difference between SEMrush Pro and SEMrush GURU is the Historical data access.
Because you will most likely use SEMrush for keywords research, positing tracking and link building, you will not see a difference.
If you are running a medium-sized business such as media buying company or an agency that provides SEO services, you should select SEMrush GURU plan not only because it unlocks features like Historical data and Multitargeting, but also you can brand the PDF report.
Is SEMrush worth it?
In this SEMrush review, I showed you how powerful the SEMrush is and how it can drastically grow your online business even you are not aware of current SEO trends and strategies that work TODAY.
If you are seriously considering using a toolkit for your business, be it SEMrush.
I am using SEMrush tools since 2013 and has got excellent results. In fact, SEMrush is the tool that helped me a lot from moving this blog from BlogSpot to WordPress and widen my online estate network while growing my existing business based on pure white-hat SEO strategies.
You have seen why millions of online business owners like YOU use SEMrush daily to grow their businesses.
If you want to become an expert in your niche and always be a step ahead from competitors, I recommend putting your hand on SEMrush from now.
Why?
Because taking action is far more critical than searching that *perfect* tool that can do EVERYTHING preciously!
SEMrush is not perfect. But, it is one of THE best tools in the market. (according to me, my experience, SEMrush is the best tool I have used for search engine optimization and content marketing)
Free SEMrush Pro Account for 14 days
As I promised earlier in the review of SEMrush, I will give you a chance to create a SEMrush Pro account for free which is valid for two weeks.
To get this limited time offer, click the link below (coupon code has been already added) and fill the account and billing information.
Once you logged into your SEMrush account or created a new SEMrush account, fill the necessary details such your address and credit card details.
After filling necessary information, read “Terms and Conditions” and then click on “Place Order” button.
If you already have a SEMrush free account, you can always activate this SEMrush promo code for your account too. Here’s the step by step on how to upgrade from free account to a Pro account.
Step #1: Go to how to upgrade and login to your account.
Step #2: Now open this link in your web browser and fill the billing information.
Step #3: Read the terms and conditions and click on “Place order” button.
Final words about SEMrush Review
In this SEMrush review 2020, I showed you benefits over features of SEMrush you get by using this Search Engine Marketing tool.
If you are a blogger, I recommend you to at least use SEMrush Pro features for two weeks using the above coupon code. If you NOT see an increase in your quality traffic, the growth of your blog, you can always downgrade or cancel your account.
But, that happens very rarely, if you take action and full advantage of the SEMrush toolkit.
That’s why many SEO experts and professional Internet marketers recommend SEMrush for many digital marketing activities from keyword research to competitive analysis.
If you are nervous and still don't know if SEMrush is for you, then I recommend creating a free SEMrush account over here and see if it can fulfil your requirements.
Overall, SEMrush takes an IMPORTANT role in my digital marketing toolkit. So, where do you place this tool? Top or bottom?
Have I missed any particular thing to showcase in this SEMrush review? Share your reviews about SEMrush below comment form.
Resources & Further reading
SEMrush
$99.95 Pros
- Extensive database
- High-quality tools for different marketing purposes
- Helpful guides and content
- Worth your money
Cons
- Different add-on prices for some tools
This is highly informatics, crisp and clear. I think that Everything has been described in systematic manner so that reader could get maximum information and learn many more.
Thank you Shahriar for kind of words. Looking forward to hearing more from you.
Very detailed article and yes, SEMrush is one of my most favorite keyword research tools. I am using this tool since last couple of years and very much satisfied with the results. Recommended to all.
Yes Sam, SEMrush keyword research tool is one of best SEM tools. I too use SEMrush since a some time and got better results. Thank you for sharing your review of SEMrush in comments.
iSpionage.com is another tool that businesses can use to download their competitors’ top PPC and SEO terms, ad copy variations, and landing pages.
Wish it wasn’t so expensive. Sometimes all you need is your brain, excel, and free tools. I’m in e-commerce and with mid to small projects I’m doing fine with Serpstat for just $15/mo, and if there’s a need I back it up with SEMrush.
Yes, some plans are little bit cost. But, it provides various tools for SEO and SEM. SEMrush can speed up for your marketing growth seriously.