SEMrush

What is Semrush? 

Semrush is an all-in-one tool suite for improving online visibility and discovering marketing insights. Our tools and reports are able to help marketers that work in the following services: SEO, PPC, SMM, Keyword Research, Competitive Research, PR, Content Marketing, Marketing Insights, Campaign Management.

With a Pro trial you can: 

• Create 3 Projects
• Analyze a competitor’s strategy (keywords, ads, backlinks)
• Manage social campaigns
• Research keywords 
• Track up to 500 keywords
• Conduct link building
• Get on-page insights: SEO ideas / content templates for up to 10 keywords
• Get technical optimization insights: crawl and audit 100,000 pages

How can be the report filtered on organic competitors:

• Traffic
• SE Keywords
• Competition Level

What page can you find out in Keyword Planner?

• News stories 

How to Use Semrush?

If you’ve never tried Semrush before, then you can read this section to know how to start. Others can skip this part of the post and move on to the next section to read the rest of the article.

To get started, you’ll need an active Semrush account. If you don’t have one, you can register for a free Semrush account using the link below. This will give you free access to Semrush’s PRO plan for 30 days.

Once you’ve registered and logged into the Semrush dashboard, you’ll find the default search bar like the one shown above. Select Organic Research from the drop-down menu.

Next, you can type the domain name of your competitor to see the keywords they are ranking for. For this example, I plugged in the Semrush website to examine the keywords they are currently ranking for.

The results for your search should look something like this:

Scroll down till you find the Top Organic Keywords section and click “View all” to see all the organic keywords of the target domain.

The next step is to set filters to find the top 10 keywords for which your competitor is ranking for (this is just an example. You can set any parameters you deem fit for your competitive analysis).

Make sure that the monthly search volume for these keywords is at least 30+. Once you’ve applied the filters, the results page should look something like this:

Once you have the data for the top 10 keywords that your competition is ranking for, you can optimize your own keyword strategy and content to make sure your website ranks well for each of these 10 keywords.

In some cases, your competition may already be a big player in the market with several backlinks and other SEO factors to back them up. In such cases, what you can do is chase ‘low-hanging fruits’ aka long-tail keywords with low-to-medium competition. These are the keywords where the search volume is low, but the traffic is high since there is little to no competition.

For example, let’s say you own a meditation retreat in Singapore and you’d like to increase the search traffic to your website. Instead of trying to optimize your site for the keywords ‘meditation retreat’, you can optimize your site for keywords ‘buddhist meditation retreat in singapore’ which is a long-tail keyword with low search volume, but good traffic.

The best part about Semrush is that you can check not just Google ranking results, but also Bing. You can also check how your website and your competitors are ranking in over 120 countries. Visit the Semrush stats page to see the updated list of databases.

With the paid version Semrush, you get the following features:

• Site Audit– This is one of the best features that Semrush offers. You can do a site audit to find and fix the issues with your website. Semrush offers ‘health percentage’ of your site and notifies you via email whenever the health percentage of your site is at risk.

• Position Tracking – Semrush’s position tracking tool is widely recognized as the most accurate position tracking tool on the market. With the pro version of Semrush, you can select up to 500 keywords and see how your website is ranking on search engines for these keywords. You can frequently monitor your site’s search visibility on both desktop and mobile, and take the necessary steps to optimize your rankings for critical keywords.

• Backlink Audit – With the Backlink Audit tool, you can conduct deep link analysis and identify toxic backlinks that may be hurting your site’s rankings. Semrush also sends you email alerts whenever the tool spots suspicious backlinks. Once you’ve identified all the toxic backlinks to your site, you can use Semrush to create a disavow file, which you can then submit to Google Search Console.

• SEO Reports – If you run an agency, you know the importance of sharing weekly reports with your clients to track progress towards your goals. Semrush has the best reporting features amongst all SEO tools. Every report that you generate on Semrush can be downloaded in PDF format.

Verdict: Semrush is a top-notch SEO tool, which is used and trusted by SEO gurus throughout the world. If this is the first time you’re investing in an SEO software, then Semrush is the tool you should opt for because it allows you to perform advanced SEO tasks with ease.

From keyword research to competitive analysis to technical SEO audit, you can trust Semrush to arm you with useful data to help you rank higher in search engine result pages (SERPs). In other words, you’ll be improving your site’s SEO by leaps and bounds.