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I use Semrush on a daily basis as the head of content on Demandsage & my Semrush review (video attached) will show you how to use it like a Pro!
Semrush did a major update recently, changing its user interface and pricing structure entirely. What used to be a cluttered, one-dashboard thing is now divided into different toolkits. However, the Semrush SEO Toolkit remains the core offering, which I will review primarily.
Along with the Semrush SEO Toolkit review, I will add all the details of other toolkits, their features, and pricing.
Semrush is an all-in-one SEO solution that has toolsets to acknowledge both on-page and off-page SEO aspects.
With direct competition from Ahrefs and MOZ, Semrush stands out and proves itself worthy in many tests. I will review the platform further with real-world examples, and I will take you through some of them.
A quick verdict: Semrush is a great tool to have if you are serious about your SEO practices. The pricing is economical, and the features are evenly distributed across all plans. That means if you purchase even the most basic plan, the value that you get is justified.
Semrush helps you do keyword research, competitor analysis, site auditing, rank tracking, link building, and much more. Its balanced performance is the reason the platform has the trust of more than 1.1 million users and continues to grow.
Let me summarize the complete article for you in this section!
Semrush packs around 50 tools in its toolkit, making it a complete solution for online marketing. You can use Semrush to run keyword research, competitor spying, website auditing, PPC campaigns, email marketing campaigns, AI writing, and more!
In the last 1.5 years, Semrush has rolled out 33 major updates. Let us take a look at them here!
Semrush introduced a new dashboard design with the latest update. With a new, modern, and sleek design, Semrush removed all the unnecessary items that were scattered across the menu.
Now, users are left with a clean feature structure. You don’t have to scroll through subsections endlessly to find a specific tool. You can simply select the toolkit option and find the respective tool.
However, you will need a subscription to those toolkits in order to access the features. Well, that’s something else we will be discussing later. We are here for the main SEO toolkit, right?
So let’s get started with it.
After the update, you will find six modules under the Semrush SEO Toolkit section:
I am going to break down all these sections one by one, so you will have a better idea of which tool to proceed with.
Before we go ahead with a detailed review of the SEO toolkit, check my Semrush free trial video here.
Semrush has a total of 5 tools in this module that help you with a complete domain analysis of your competition.
Here is the list of tools that you will find under this module:
– Domain Overview
– Organic Research
– Keyword Gap
– Backlink Gap
Note: The Traffic Analytics tool from this module has been moved to the “Traffic & Market” toolkit after the new update.
Let us see each of these tools in action below!
Tip: If you are wondering how accurate Semrush is, then check here for detailed information on its accuracy.
With the domain overview module, you will get insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your competitor’s website. All you have to do is put your competitors’ URLs in the search bar, and Semrush will give you a report on the website’s organic search traffic, paid search traffic (if any), and the number of backlinks in the very first fold.
Semrush will also show you the traffic distribution in different countries and the number of keywords the domain is ranking for in each country.
We put our site in the search box for this example.
Now you might wonder, “How accurate is this data?” Let’s cross-verify it with Google Search Console. The in-house data indicates a traffic count of 58.9K, while Semrush reports 59.4K, which is quite close.
This minor difference of 0.5K may not be big, but you need to understand that Semrush doesn’t have access to your GSC data. It directly retrieves data from its own crawler and third-party sources.
The Organic Research tool helps users understand their website’s organic traffic. You can even compare the traffic against your competitors’.
The tool gives you instant insights into the top keywords your site is getting the most traffic from. Also, you will get traffic distribution (percentage-wise) based on keyword by intent.
Refer to the screenshot below to get an idea of the tool.
As you can see in this screenshot, Semrush also gives tags to the keywords — for example, you can see an “I” in blue color in front of a keyword in the above screenshot, which means that the keyword is “informative” in nature.
“N” is for navigational, “C” is for commercial, and “T” is for transactional.
The new “SERP Features Trend” is unique among all. This feature was introduced after Google started putting weight on other aspects of your content, like images, videos, etc.
Now, you will know the exact number of keywords (and images) from your website that are optimized for different purposes, even for the AI overview.
Semrush’s keyword gap helps you compare organic and paid keywords with up to five domains, subdomains, or even specific URLs. This feature comes in handy when comparing your website rankings and keywords with those of your competitors.
You can see in the screenshot below that we had put Under Armour as the root domain and added Adidas, Reebok, and other domains to compare.
Semrush gave two things in the upper fold: first, it gave the top keywords and their volume, and second, it gave a responsive infographic with colorful circles. Each circle was assigned to one URL, and they were in different sizes; the size of the circle was dependent on the number of keywords each site had. The bigger the circle, the larger the number of keywords.
They also overlapped, showing the number of common keywords.
Enough about Keywords; let’s get into some backlinks now!
The backlinks gap tool helps you compare your website’s backlinks against your competitors. These metrics help you uncover all those websites linking to your competitor but not to your website.
What’s more, a “Weak” section will also display the domains that mainly point to your website less frequently than your competitors. Other than that, you also get to see unique and common backlinks between you and your competitor.
While Semrush has a separate set of tools, especially for backlink building (which we are going to look at later in the post), these sections provide ample insights into a competitor’s backlink profile.
Semrush claims to have 26.7 billion keywords in its database currently. That is among the top SEO tools in the market.
Semrush Keyword Catalog has five tools in its bucket:
However, I will discuss only the Keyword Overview and Keyword Magic Tools as they are core tools of the Semrush SEO toolkit.
I use these tools quite often for doing keyword research for the DemandSage blog. I’m gonna share my experience using the tool.
The keyword magic tool of Semrush is a good place to start keyword research. The research team at Demandsage is a huge fan of this insightful, heavy tool. All you have to do is enter a keyword in the search box, and Semrush will show you the following things:
Refer to the screenshot below to get a better idea of what I’m saying
Keyword research is the backbone of any SEO strategy. It always starts with identifying potential keywords to target once you have decided on the niche.
Semrush has a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate and understand, even for beginners; if we compare it with Ahrefs, it has a more complex interface that may take some time to get used to.
Now, you might be wondering how accurate the metrics by Semrush are. Take a look at this study, which thoroughly tests this matter. Let me sum up the findings for you real quick.
It was found that Semrush had the highest percentage of keyword search volumes, which was closest to the Google Search Console value. Then, it also ran a series of head-to-head comparisons to evaluate how its search volume compared to each platform one-on-one. In all cases, Semrush won these head-to-heads by a large margin.
The keyword magic tool is another tool in Semrush’s keyword analytical arsenal. You might be wondering why you need two tools for the same purpose. Wait, they are quite different.
The Keyword Magic Tool is a better option for experienced people. On the other hand, the keyword overview tool is a good starting point for beginners.
Here is what you get when you search for a keyword in the keyword magic tool:
You also get the ability to filter the results based on numerous factors such as keyword volume, keyword difficulty, CPC, and more. You can also export the list of keywords to an Excel sheet with just a click.
Want to know how to use Semrush for Keyword research? Check out our detailed guide here.
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In this section, we will review Semrush’s backlinking building tools. Is it any good? Let’s have a look.
When you enter a specific URL or a domain in the backlink analytics tool, you will see the following metrics.
Refer to the screenshot below, where we have put our own URL to give you an example:
I put some filters in place to see the newest backlinks. You can see that Semrush shows a backlink that the URL received just yesterday (at the time of writing this post).
If you scroll down further, you will see additional backlink data in the form of infographics. This data representation is both easy to understand and fun to deal with. Who said backlink audits are boring? 😀
The Backlinks audit tool helps you get detailed insights into the toxicity score of a site’s backlink profile. The toxicity score is nothing but the number of suspicious domains linked to a website.
The Semrush backlink audit tool not only gives metrics but also insights into how you can improve those metrics.
Ahrefs does a slightly better job when it comes to backlink analytics. You can read that in our detailed comparison of Semrush vs. Ahrefs (whose link you’ll find in the post above!).
I personally would give Semrush an 8/10 for its backlink analytical abilities.
Semrush’s on-page and tech SEO toolkit is a valuable tool for any website owner or SEO professional. It can help you identify and fix any technical SEO issues and improve your website’s on-page SEO.
Let’s review them quickly!
Semrush crawls your website and generates a detailed report that includes metrics on crawlability and indexability, meta tags, internal and external linking errors, structured data, JavaScript and CSS errors, and mobile-friendliness.
Semrush Site Audit also provides you with a Site Health score, which is an overall indicator of the SEO health of your website. This score is based on the number and seriousness of issues found.
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One of the things that sets Semrush Site Audit apart from other website audit tools is its ease of use. The interface is really easy to understand; mind it, technical SEO can be quite tricky to deal with, but Semrush’s way of displaying the reports is easy to understand.
Semrush’s On-Page SEO Checker helps you improve the on-page SEO of your website. It analyzes your website and provides you with a detailed report that includes metrics such as keyword usage, meta tags, title tags, headings, images, internal linking, and content readability.
After Semrush is done analyzing these metrics, it suggests strategy ideas, UI ideas, SERP feature ideas, backlink ideas, and more. You have to check these ideas and tick them off your on-page SEO checklist.
I personally feel that this tool blows things out of proportion. Sorry, Semrush, I have to turn my back on you for this one 🙁
We at Demandsage prefer to go with Surfer SEO and Page Optimizer Pro.
Now let’s talk about the Content Ideas module in the Semrush SEO toolkit:
The SEO Writing Assistant is a real-time content optimization tool that analyzes your writing as you create it.
It offers suggestions for enhancing readability, SEO optimization, tone of voice, and originality, and it functions as a plugin for Google Docs, WordPress, and other content creation platforms.
Topic Research helps you discover trending topics and content ideas within your specific niche. You can enter just one single keyword (or phrase) to get topic ideas for different niches.
This tool shows what questions people are asking, reveals related subtopics, and displays trending headlines to inspire and guide your content strategy development.
The SEO Content Template creates a data-driven template for writing SEO-optimized content.
You can analyze the top-ranking pages for your target keyword and provide comprehensive recommendations for semantic keywords, ideal text length, readability improvements, and relevant backlinks to include in your content.
In this section, you will find supplementary tools provided by Semrush beyond the SEO toolkit. Here’s a quick overview of all these tools:
Now, let’s take a look at other toolkits that Semrush is offering individually as per users’ needs:
Semrush Advertising Toolkit is a comprehensive suite of tools that can help you plan, launch, and manage your online advertising campaigns.
Here are some of the key features of Semrush Advertising Toolkit:
Pricing: Starting from $99/month
The Traffic & Market Analysis module offers tools like Domain Overview and Advertising Research to gain insights into competitors and advertising strategies.
The core capabilities of this toolkit are:
Pricing: $289/month
Social media users want their favorite brands to be more active on social media than ever. Semrush recognizes this and provides a social media toolkit to help you with the task.
The social media toolkit enables you to create, analyze, and spread content across social media platforms. You can schedule your posts, get insights, and track your competitors.
Now, I haven’t personally tested the tool, but I came across many reviews on the web that said that Semrush is a great SEO tool, but it falls short when it comes to managing social media. There are many great tools for managing social media, like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Buffer.
You can refer to the screenshot below to see one of the features of the tool in action. Here, we are creating a content planner!
As of now, Semrush only supports these social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and Google My Business.
Pricing: The Pro plan starts at $20/month
Every now and then, we have heard that content is King!
Yes, content is still the king, but here’s the catch: We have to intend to solve users’ problems precisely and structure them. This is where the Semrush content marketing toolkit comes into play.
In our experience, the Semrush Content Marketing toolkit is effective, but I don’t praise it. They have a structured platform that helps you get started.
For example, with the content marketing toolkit, you can start with topic research, create a proper plan, write the article, optimize it properly, check & analyze the mentions, and then mention the impacts.
Everything is fine, but not that great. However, one thing I liked about Semrush’s content is its Topic Research. To get started, you need to enter a seed keyword. It will show topics, headlines, and questions. What’s more, with questions, you will get a whole content map, which is typically the copy of SEO tools like AnswerThePublic.
Even the best part is that you can find topic ideas for specific geolocations, such as the US, UK, etc.
Pricing: $60/month
Semrush’s Local Toolkit is designed for businesses that need to attract local customers. It focuses on optimizing your Google Business Profile with AI-powered post creation and automated review responses.
The toolkit automatically keeps your business information consistent across over 70 directories, which is crucial for local search rankings. You can monitor and respond to reviews from a centralized dashboard, plus track how you’re ranking on Google Maps in your target area. It works whether you have one location or multiple storefronts.
Pricing: Starts at $20/month
Yes, Semrush also comes with other notable features that I haven’t reviewed in this review of Semrush. So, we’re just listing some other notable features of Semrush here.
Semrush is made for both agencies and individuals. Its wide range of features makes it useful for website owners, content marketers, SEO specialists, and even social media marketers.
While it has tools for all these professions, SEO and content marketing tools are the best.
Taking this question monetarily, people who can afford the tool should really go for it, as it is a good value for money. If you are on a budget, Semrush has a free trial that lasts 7 days, but with our exclusive offer, you can get an extended free trial of 14 days.
Let me break down Semrush’s pricing plans for you in the section below:
Semrush SEO toolkit is still an integral part of the platform. Here’s a quick overview of its pricing:
Semrush has done a pretty good job of curating its pricing plans. While it may seem pricey to some, it is certainly worth every buck you pay for it. You can save up to 17% additionally if you bill the product annually.
You also get to try Semrush free for 14 days!
Semrush’s Pro plan is an ideal choice for freelancers and solopreneurs who need to manage their own marketing campaigns.
With the Pro plan, users can have up to 5 projects and track up to 500 keywords with daily updates. But you can only get 10K domain and keyword analytics results per report, 3K reports per day, and 100 K page crawl credits per month.
You’ll get access to the keyword, domain, and backlink analytics tool when you purchase the Pro plan, but you won’t be able to access the content marketing tool.
This plan is ideal for mid-sized businesses and agencies that need to manage multiple marketing campaigns and clients. You get up to 15 projects and 1500 keywords to track.
They are limited to 30k domain and keyword analytics results per report, with 5k reports per day and 300k page crawl credits per month.
Purchasing the Guru plan allows you to access all the tools in the content marketing platform, like SEO writing assistant, 800 SEO content templates, and more. With this, you will also benefit from Google Data Studio integration and access to historical data.
The business plan is the top-priced plan in Semrush. It’s mainly designed for large enterprises and businesses that cost $416.66/mo if billed annually.
It comes with the highest usage limit of 5000 keywords, 50k domain and keyword results per report, 10k reports per day, and 1 million page crawl credits.
If you are still confused about which plan to choose, we recommend you get Semrush’s free trial and decide for yourself. Because who else knows your needs better than you?
Semrush is loaded with features, BUT Semrush does not have a Browser extension 🙁
An extension would allow users to access Semrush data and tools directly from their WordPress dashboard. This would be a convenient way to manage SEO and marketing campaigns without having to switch between different platforms.
Semrush’s closest competitor, Ahrefs, has a great extension that I personally use.
For beginners, it’s difficult to understand the data. When Semrush is compared to Ahrefs, Ahrefs wins in the interface game. If Semrush could combine all the modules into one single toolkit, it would be easy for users. For example, the keyword Overview Tool and Keyword Magic Tool can be combined to work in a single interface.
Other than these two drawbacks, I didn’t find any other drawbacks.
Here are a few alternatives to Semrush that you can consider.
If you wish to read about all of the above in more detail, check our dedicated post on Semrush alternative.
I have been using Semrush as an SEO and Content Marketer on a daily basis for DemandSage. Even after the new updates, they didn’t compromise their accuracy and data quality. Some new upgrades are proprietary that you won’t find anywhere else.
Based on my experience, Semrush is worth the money you’re paying. It offers an all-in-one toolkit for all your marketing needs, especially the SEO toolkit. It has drawbacks, as mentioned above in this review. However, it still beats another complete suite of marketing tools.
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With a base price of $139.95 every month, the Semrush SEO toolkit is a worthy all-in-one suite.
The prices, too, are justified as Semrush keeps updating its database and improving its features on a regular basis (which needs funding).
I hope you were able to learn all about this great tool in this review. Let me know if I missed anything. Demandsage is always ears to hear your suggestions!
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