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SEMrush Review – A Must Have tool for Bloggers and Digital marketers

SEMrush is an SEO tool that helps you optimize your website for search engines. Founded in 2008 by Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry...

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Semrush Review

SEMrush is an SEO tool that helps you optimize your website for search engines. Founded in 2008 by Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikov, SEMrush has more than five million users. Therefore, SEMrush is among the leading SEO tools. Since SEMrush provides a lot of information, you can use it to:

  1. Identify any link-building opportunities
  2. Create new and unique content to attract traffic to your site
  3. Change your site’s technical aspect to attract traffic and achieve a higher search ranking

If you are using SEMrush, you can get keyword suggestions, know how you will rank, and suggest the best websites to approach for backlinks. With SEMrush, you can perform an audit to determine if you need to make any technical improvements.

Click here to get free 14-days trial of SEMrush

What is domain analysis?

Domain analysis refers to the process of getting an overview of a domain from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective. You can perform a domain analysis on your website to determine if you need to make any improvements. Alternatively, you can perform a domain analysis on your competitor’s website to determine how you can outrank them or what you can incorporate in your website. With a domain analysis, you can decide whether you will approach a website owner for backlinks to boost your search ranking. If you have SEMrush, you can perform domain analysis with ease because you need to enter the domain URL to determine the ‘quality’ of a website via its performance. This SEMrush review will help you understand more about this tool, its features, pros and cons, and whether you should use it to create a successful SEO project.

After entering the domain URL to the ‘domain overview’ section, you will get the following metrics:

  1. Top performing keywords
  2. Number of keywords the site ranks for
  3. Number of external links pointing to the site
  4. ‘Authority score.’
  5. Number of visitors per month
  6. Advertising stats
  7. Competing websites
  8. Anchor texts used that links to the site

If you want to know the website’s quality consider checking the ‘authority score.’ Usually, SEMrush calculates the ‘authority score’ based on the following three factors:

  1. Monthly visits, i.e., the website’s traffic data
  2. Organic data search
  3. Backlink data, i.e., the number of external links pointing to the site

However, it is essential to understand that the metrics provided are estimates based on hard data. Although the metrics may not be accurate, they give you an insight into the site’s traffic stats/popularity. With such information, you can easily manage your website while keeping an eye on the competitor’s website.

 

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SEMrush Review

 

Searching Keywords in SEMrush

Website owners search for keywords to:

  1. Find out the competitor ranking for that specific keyword
  2. Establish the number of people searching for that keyword
  3. Establish the difficulty of ranking using that keyword
  4. Getting suggestions for other keywords

If you want to find out about the information mentioned above, SEMrush can come in handy. To get the information you are looking for, you must enter a keyword into the ‘Keyword Overview’ section.

After SEMrush considers everything, you will see the following:

1. The ‘keyword difficulty score
2. Number of searches on Google for that keyword per month
3. A list of sites ranking for the keyword

If you want to know more about keyword searching per country, SEMrush allows you to narrow down your search to get reliable results. Keyword difficulty score is one metric that can help you develop your website in a keyword search. SEMrush uses a percentage to indicate the score. The higher the percentage, the harder it is to rank for that specific keyword and vice versa. If it is hard to rank with a particular keyword,

Keywords Magic

You can use the ‘Keyword Magic’ option to get other suggestions. Keyword Magic provides a list of keywords related to the phrase you typed/entered. Also, Keyword Magic provides you with additional information such as:

1. The number of searches for each of the keywords per month
2. Keyword difficulty score
3. Cost per click (CPC) if you are considering using Google Ads

Ergo, using SEMrush’s keyword difficulty tool, you can get vital information needed to choose the best keywords in an SEO project. Keyword difficulty will help you make smart decisions fast and easy concerning keywords. It is crucial to note that the data provided is for Google search only.

Although the keyword search tool in SEMrush is pivotal in SEO, here are some of the adjustments they can make:

• Since the metrics provided can only be used in Google searches, SEMrush should try to incorporate other search engines
• SEMrush should display the number of external links or backlinks you need to rank for a particular keyword
Besides the keyword search tool, SEMrush offers content marketing tools. However, to access these tools, you need to be at least on a ‘Guru’ plan. With content marketing tools, you will:

  1. Monitor any mentions of your brand
  2. Identify the keywords your competitors are using in their websites and posts
  3. Identify new and catchy topics to write about on your website
  4. Audit your content

The ‘SEO writing assistant’ in the content marketing toolkit is vital when creating top-notch content. It allows you to copy and paste your content to SEMrush and aids in reviewing the content and getting suggestions on how you can improve your search results. Here are some of the tips you can get from an SEO writing assistant:

  1. Whether to add or remove some keywords
  2. Warning if your content is not unique, i.e., you have pasted content from other sites
  3. Increase or decrease your word count

Rank Tracking

Rank tracking refers to the process of monitoring your website’s performance for specific keywords in search engines. With SEMrush, you can rank track with ease and fast. Go to the position tracker section, your domain name, and the keyword(s) you want to track to get started. The position tracker will give you a report showing how your website ranks for the keywords you have chosen. To know how you are faring for certain chosen keywords against your competitor, you just need to enter their website data. Over time, you can change keywords used or keyword density to rank high in search engines. The functionality of SEMrush’s rank tracking tool is incredible and very strong.

Site Auditing

When performing site auditing, SEMrush will identify any issues that hurt your search ranking. Some of the problems SEMrush can identify include:

  1. Duplicate content
  2. Missing headers
  3. Slow loading content
  4. Overused keywords
  5. Crawl errors/problems
  6. SSL problems

You can use SEMrush’s on-page SEO checker to scan your entire website. Then after scanning your website, the checker provides actionable tips in order of priority to improve your site. Some of the suggestions you can get include:

  1. Preferred length of content
  2. Ways of improving your meta descriptions and body copy
  3. Websites you should approach for backlinking
  4. The keywords to add
  5. Internal linking strategies
  6. How you can make your website appear as a Google ‘featured snippet.’

Besides telling you what to do, the auditing tools tells you why you should do it. SEMrush’s auditing tool is superb and offers numerous benefits to website owners.

Your site’s performance is determined by the number of backlinks, i.e., external sites linking to your site. With SEMrush, there are two ways you can learn about backlinks. Either using the ‘backlink analysis’ or perform a ‘backlink audit.’

To view all your backlinks, go to the ‘Backlink Analytics’ section and enter your domain names. You can also view the following:

  1. The distribution of top-level domains, i.e., the number of .org, gov, and .com links your site has
  2. Backlinks’ IP addresses
  3. Anchor text each backlink uses

With such information, it is easy to know when your domain has lost or attained backlinks. Also, you can know the value of each backlink and gather vital information for SEO purposes. The accuracy of backlink analysis is dependent on the quality and size of its database. Currently, SEMrush claims to have 31.3 trillion backlinks while its competitors Ahrefs and Majestic claim to have 26 trillion and 9.3 trillion databases. If the figures are correct, SEMrush has a better database making their backlink analysis more comprehensive.

The main objective of performing a backlink audit is to determine the ‘toxicity’ of backlinks related to your site. Also, you can determine ‘site health,’ i.e., the authenticity of a website. Using SEMrush helps you compile a list of all backlinks that might be spammy. After getting the report, you can review and upload these links to Google as ‘disavow’ files. Since Google penalizes sites with spammy or poor-quality links, it is vital to do a backlink auditing and disavow any spammy links to improve your ranking. This tool is crucial in identifying poor-quality links. You can whitelist any links you think they are not toxic (even if SEMrush identifies these backlinks as toxic).

Link building tool is one of the leading SEMrush features. As you link other sites to yours, you increase the success of your SEO project. Typically, search engines tend to reward sites that have numerous backlinks. If you have linked your site to other high-quality and relevant websites, you will rank high in search results, thus increasing your website’s credibility. The link-building tools:

  1. Inquire the keywords you want to rank for
  2. Examine your site’s content
  3. Determine your competitors and what you are ranking for

The link-building tool also gives you a list of all ‘prospect’ sites you should approach for a guest post opportunity or backlinking. To facilitate backlinking with other sites, SEMrush link building has useful tools you can use. For instance, to send outreach emails, you just need to connect your mailbox to your SEMrush.

A broken link is a link that does not lead anywhere. With SEMrush, you can recreate a broken link and then inform anyone who links to the dead link to start connecting to your link (the one you have built). Such an approach will help you build numerous new backlinks to your website’s content.

SEMrush’s Interface and Ease of Use

SEMrush’s interface has menu options on their left grouped in useful categories, for example, keyword search, rank tracking, on-page SEO, competitive research, and reporting. The interface can be overwhelming for starters, but after familiarizing them with the interface, you will find it easy to use.

The only drawback of SEMrush’s interface is using it with a mobile phone. If you log in to your SEMrush account using your smartphone, you will get a ‘not responsive’ notification because it uses the standard desktop interface on your mobile phone. Therefore, to effectively use the interface on your mobile phone, you will have to zoom in a lot! SEMrush can improve how their interface can integrate better with mobile phones. However, you can access position-tracking data using a mobile app. The interface is easy to use, but you need to use a computer instead of a mobile phone to enjoy the experience.

SEMrush Pricing

SEMrush is relatively expensive compared to other types of ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) apps because you access large quantities of data (even that of your competitors) to rank high on search results. The three SEMrush plans are:

  1. Pro for $99.95 per month
  2. Guru for $199.95 per month
  3. Business for $399.95 per month
SEMrush PLAN

Reader Exclusive:- Click the link below to get  SEMrush completely free for 14-days from an offer created for the readers of this blog.

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If you are a corporate, you should consider subscribing to the ‘enterprise’ version of SEMrush. The ‘enterprise’ version allows you to create custom plans with additional features like more user accounts and unlimited reports and queries.

Depending on the plan you will subscribe to, the main differences are:

1. Accessing historical data
2. Accessing content marketing tools
3. Number of keywords you can track every month
4. Number of reports you can run in a day

Does SEMrush offer value for money?

To determine whether SEMrush offers value for money, here are a few aspects you should understand:

1. Projects

You can only access backlink building and site auditing features if your domain is added as ‘projects.’ However, the number of projects you can have depends on your plan. For example, you can only have three projects if you are in an entry-level plan that costs $99 a month. If you have one website, this is not a deal-breaker, but if you have several sites you need to manage simultaneously, you need to consider this aspect.

2. Seats

All of SEMrush’s business plans have only one seat, i.e., a user account. However, if you want another person to access your SEMrush account, you are required to pay between $70 and $140 per user. To make matters worse, there is a limit to the number of seats you can add. This is a significant drawback for SEMrush because their competitors increase their seats depending on the selected plan. If the number of seats is a problem, you should consider checking the ‘Enterprise’ plan because you can negotiate for pricing.

3. PPC Data

SEMrush offers better value for money to customers who have PPC and SEO projects. Unlike some tools which provide basic CPC figures for particular keywords, SEMrush provides PPC campaign planning tools, live ads, distribution data, and a detailed PPC competition.

4. Report Requests

With SEMrush, you can make numerous report requests even on the entry-level plan. For example, you can have 3,000 report analyses daily, even on a $99 entry-level plan, unlike Ahrefs, which allows you to run 25 reports only daily if you have subscribed to the entry-level plan. It is essential to understand that you can pull more reports daily with Guru and Business plans.

5. Competitive Intelligence

To analyze your competitor’s website, you are required to purchase the ‘competitive intelligence’ add-on. The add-ons cost $200 every month, and they include:

1. Bulk traffic analysis
2. Competitor benchmarking – helps you compare up to 5 competitor sites
3. Market explorer – enables you to explore the gender, market players, seasonal peaks, market shares, and gender, among other vital information that can help your website rank higher on search results
4. Comprehensive traffic analytics – enables you to analyze traffic sources, historical data, visitor’s engagement, geographical information, etc.
5. Top pages

6. Support

If you need customer support, you can reach SEMrush via phone, email, or online chat. This makes it easy for SEMrush users to get the help they need in a short period. Unlike their competitors, SEMrush’s customer support is better because some competing products do not offer phone support. For example, Moz does not have chat support making it hard for users to reach them easily.

The Pros of using SEMrush

1. You can have numerous reports in a day
2. Offers support via phone, email, or online chat
3. The auditing features provide you with easy-to-follow guidelines on how to improve the technical SEO & on-page SEO aspects of your website
4. SEMrush offers both an organic data search and PPC data
5. Link-building tools have the CRM-style feature, which plays a vital role when outreaching
6. SEMrush is easy to use
7. SEMrush is easy to use
8. It is easy to perform domain analysis since everything is clear and well laid out
9. The interface is well-planned, making it easy for users to understand the metrics
10. Offers a 14-day free trial to new users

The cons of using SEMrush

• It is challenging to use the SEMrush tool on a mobile device.
• SEMrush plans are available to only one user. If you want other users to access your account, you need to buy additional seats, which is quite expensive.
• The data provided is for only one search engine, Google. It would be best if SEMrush offered data for other search engines too.
1. Some vital features are available as a part of ‘projects.’
2. Traffic estimates are not accurate.
3. To get competitive analysis features, you have to pay an additional $200 every month.
4. You have to enter your credit card details to access your free trial.

With Moz, Ahrefs, and Majestic being the main competitors, the SEMrush tool is far ahead due to its benefits. Although SEMrush has similar features to Ahrefs and Moz, the main difference is the CRM style. SEMrush’s CRM style is robust and effective, making the SEMrush tool better than Moz and Ahrefs. However, Ahrefs and Moz might have cost-effective options if you want more than one user account.

If you are looking for a tool to develop a successful SEO project, SEMrush is an ideal choice. Its features make it unique and reliable. For example, site auditing tools and link-building features are an easy way to miles improve your on-page and technical SEO. The main drawbacks of using SEMrush entail the number of ‘seats’/user accounts and the fact that you can only access website auditing tools and link building as a part of the ‘project.’ Therefore, you can only run a limited number of projects concurrently. Also, having to pay $200 to access the competitive intelligence feature seems unwarranted. However, SEMrush is the right choice, and most people rely on this tool to improve their search engine ranking.

Bottom Line

If you are running an online business and trying hard to improve its online presence, SEMrush is a great tool you should try. It will be definitely worth trying a completely free 14-day trial offer of SEMrush exclusively created for the readers of this blog by clicking the link given below.

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Affiliate Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we recommended.

Also Read:-

Advantages and Disadvantages of Digital Marketing

Advantages of Blogging

How to write a Digital Marketing Plan (SOSTAC Model)

How to make money from different niches of Blogging

©2014-20Digitaldimensions4u.com The content is copyrighted to Reji Stephenson and may not be reproduced on other websites.

Published by Reji Stephenson
Mr. Reji Stephenson, the founder and editor of this blog is a digital creator based in London. He is an Engineering graduate with post graduate qualifications in Digital marketing. In this blog, he likes to publish contents related to digital marketing, blogging, social media , technology and data analytics. You can follow him on his Instagram link below the post. https://www.instagram.com/rejistephenson/ Profile

5 Replies to “SEMrush Review – A Must Have tool for Bloggers and Digital marketers”

  1. Hi Reji,

    SEMrush is a must have tool for every blogger and internet marketer. I have been using it for 2 years now and loved it.

    Anyways, I loved your review.

    Keep up the good work

    Regards
    Andrew

  2. Hi Reji,

    Thanks a lot for this article, I have learned many things from this. SEMrush is a great tool to use for digital marketing. Although paid tool, It provides the actual results rather than others.

    Ratul

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