Semrush SEO Writing Assistant Review: Is It Worth in 2024?

SEO-focused content has become more transparently important for content creators. Because ultimately, what you, as an SEO person, need is Organic traffic.

Among numerous SEO tools by Semrush, SEO Writing Assistant (SWA) is one that has gotten many people’s attention over the years because of its extensivity and precision.

In today’s Semrush SEO Writing Assistant review, I will walk you through it and represent how it operates (and how you can use it properly), its strengths and weaknesses, and alternatives that can replace if needed.

At the end of the Semrush SEO Writing Assistant review, you can conclude whether you should use it.

What is Semrush SEO Writing Assistant?

As the name implies, it is an SEO writing assistant by Semrush. The specialty of this tool is that it already integrates with many other tools of Semrush like Keyword Research, Competitor Analysis, SEO Content Template, Backlink Audit, and Plagiarism Checker.

Therefore, Semrush SEO Writing Assistant is a powerful tool that you can expect to make a big impact on your business. Let’s find out if it can really be in this review!

How to use Semrush SEO Writing Assistant

First of all, you need to have an active Semrush subscription. Semrush pricing starts at $119.95/mo, and it goes beyond with additional features. If you do not have a Semrush account, click this link and create your free Semrush Guru trial account (worth: $299.95).

After login into your Semrush account, click on the ‘SEO Writing Assistant‘ under the Content Marketing platform in the left vertical navigational bar.

Now you will be presented with three simple choices:

1. Check content inside Semrush
2. Use SWA on Google Docs (you need to have a Google Workspace account)
3. Use the SEO Writing Assistant plugin on WordPress

Basically, if you do start on Semrush, you will not be provided with fancy styling or image insertion features. If you go with Google Docs, there will be certain limitations too. But, if you own a WordPress website, the latter option would be ideal as you can use Semrush SWA in your WordPress post editor.

However, I will dive deep into each use case in this Semrush SEO Writing Assistant review.

SWA in Semrush

Click on the ‘Get Recommendation’ green button, and you will be redirected to the SWA Checker page.

#1: Input your keywords

The first step is adding your targeted keyword phrases. You might target one keyword on a post or multiple keywords. Semrush suggests entering multiple keyword phrases with several words in each.

So, if you already have a list of keywords, great – you can add it here.

But, if you do not, head over to Semrush Keyword Magic Tool and find some related keywords.

The next step is selecting the targeted audience. You can do it by specifying the location, language they speak, and the device they use.

The next step is adding content to the Semrush SEO Writing Assistant Quick Checker. For instance, I pasted one of my blog post content and entered five relevant keywords, and selected United States, English, and Desktop as the audience targeting.

#2: Getting recommendations

Click on the ‘Get Recommendations’ button to move forward. Semrush Writing Assistant will show a screen like this a few seconds after.

SWA in Google Docs

Recently, a business owner sent me a guest post via Google Docs. Although it was not an SEO-friendly piece of content (keyword research has not been taken into consideration), I want to see how Semrush Writing Assistant on Google Docs can help me.

First of all, you need to install the Semrush SEO Writing Assistant plugin in Google Docs from the GSuite Workspace market.

Once done, view the Google Docs from your web browser and enable Semrush SEO Writing Assistant on Google Docs.

Enter keywords and click on the ‘Get Recommendations’ button. Watch the video below to find out which score I did get.

SWA in WordPress

The last resort is Semrush SEO Writing Assistant in WordPress! In fact, this is my favorite method for several reasons:

I can optimize my stylish content that contains images, style lists, bullet points, quotes, etc.,
No need to move between different tools or tabs – it’s convenient.
Can work with other plugins like RankMath and Textmetrics (yes, even Textmetrics is a competitor of Semrush Writing Assistant, both can be used at the same time!)
Let content editors use SEO Writing Assistant features even if they do not have a Semrush subscription.

How to use Semrush SWA in WordPress

Search for Semrush SEO Writing Assistant on your WordPress plugins page and install and activate it.

In your post editor, click on the ‘Flat mode,’ and the Semrush SEO Writing Assistant widget will pop out. Login to your account and optimize existing content after adding targeted keywords to the blog post.

Watch this short video to see the final results!

Features

Unlike other tools, Semrush SEO Writing Assistant does not provide many features. Instead, SWA integrates with other tools like Keyword Research, Competitor Research, and Plagiarism Check.

Create SEO-friendly content

The stronghold of Semrush is SEO. SWA provides recommended keywords based on competitors’ web pages, and you can get more recommendations with the SEO Content Template.

Work with your Google Docs and WordPress sites

One of the conveniences when using Semrush SEO Writing Assistant is that it provides various tools and integrations. If you have a WordPress site, you can utilize the plugin and improve the content inside your post editor. Same for Google Docs.

Pros and Cons

Pros

If you have a Semrush subscription, there is no need to pay for an extra tool to get content optimization recommendations.
Check readability, SEO, Originality, and Tone of voice
Optimize up to 30 keywords
Get recommended keywords to use based on rivals in Google SERP
Google Docs and WordPress plugins
Check plagiarism in Semrush Writing Assistant

Cons

No outline builder
Do not show the article update date of competitors
No content import option via URL (Although you can copy and paste content, it’s not the most convenient option)
Do not have a content-sharing feature for editors to update content

Pricing

Semrush has three main plans.

1. Pro
2. Guru
3. Business

Over the years, Semrush has changed its pricing and added how limits and certain features work in each subscription.

Semrush SEO Writing Assistant limits are put under the SEO Content Templates or SEO Units category. An SEO unit is consumed when you generate a template using SEO Content Template, On-Page SEO Checker, and SEO Writing Assistant.

Semrush’s Guru plan gives you 800 SEO units per month. That means you can optimize 800 articles per month with Semrush SEO Writing Assistant or share it among three other tools.

Semrush Guru plan costs $299.95 per month. That means it only costs $0.37 to generate one template. That does count for other tremendous features you’d receive as a Semrush Guru subscriber.

Some key features are:

15 projects
1,500 keywords to track with daily updates
Keyword, domain, and backlink analytics
Historical data
Google Data Studio Integration
Topics to research

Competitors

Semrush Writing Assistant is not the only one when it comes to SEO content optimizers. With the popularity of content rewriting and AI, certain tools popped up, and some are actually doing a good job.

Here are some alternatives to Semrush SEO Writing Assistant.

• WriterZen
• SEOSurfer
• TextMetrics
• Frase.io
• MarketMuse
• NeuronWriter

Semrush vs WriterZen Content Editor

WriterZen specializes in content optimization for SEO. It provides a variety of features like integration with Google NLP, outline builder, viewing competitor website content, AI Writing Assistant, and more. Find more details in this WriterZen review.

WriterZen is a completely paid tool, and its pricing starts from $39 per month. It does come up with other features like the Keyword Research tool (that lets you check allintitle and Keyword Golden Ratio), content originality analysis, and topic research.

When comparing Semrush and WriterZen to optimize content, WriterZen is ahead in certain features. But comparing total value for money, Semrush takes the lead.

Here is why:

WriterZen Basic plan, which costs $39/mo, only allows a month for 50 content briefs (i.e., content optimizations). Its advanced plan costs $99/mo and provides 150 content optimization limits. However, in Semrush, you are given more Limits.

Semrush vs TextMetrics Content Optimization

TextMetrics, which is previously known as WebTextTool, is a complete content optimization tool in my experience. It only provides tools and features that help you produce better content.

Optimize content with advanced SEO analysis and recommendations
Import and export content
Integrations with major content management systems and platforms
Page rank tracking and reporting
Monitor how your website is ranking in Google with Content Ranking Index
B1 language analysis
Page versioning
Team collaboration and many more.

TextMetrics has three main plans: 1) TextMetrics SME ($350/mo) 2) Recruitment ($584/mo) 3) Enterprise (custom pricing)

TextMetrics might not be an affordable content optimization tool if you are a small business owner.

By comparing the two tools, Semrush SEO Writing Assistant is more cost-effective (and less rich in features), and TextMetrics is expensive (and rich in content optimization capabilities) and suitable for digital marketing firms and companies with large-scale content marketing teams.

Is Semrush SEO Writing Assistant worth it?

You have to take into consideration certain factors when ranking a post.

1. Keywords implementation
2. Content quality and length
3. Competition

Since search engine traffic is one of the most lucrative traffic sources, many marketing firms and companies have started competing to attract those traffic. That puts businesses in a position where they have to produce better content by following and applying certain procedures.

If you struggle to craft better SEO-friendly content with targeted keywords, Semrush SEO Writing Assistant is worth it because you can generate an SEO Content Template for under a dollar!

Conclusion on Semrush SEO Writing Assistant review

The truth of ranking higher on Google is that it is not easy. Google changes its algorithm often and releases new updates that make it harder and harder to maintain the consistency of keyword positions in SERPs.

It makes it essential to have an SEO tool in your arsenal not only to research low competitive keywords, analyze weak competitors, monitor backlinks, and track keyword rankings but also to craft search-engine-friendly content.

SEO Writing Assistant is one of the tools that Semrush offers. It analyzes your content and provides tips to improve content based on SEO, Readability, Originality, and Tone of Voice.

In this Semrush SEO Writing Assistant review, I shared how you can use it and if it’s worth the investment. I’d like to know your experience with it. Share your thought below.

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