SEMrush is an all-encompassing search engine optimization (SEO) and keyword research tool that provides a far-reaching range of features and functionality in terms of keyword research, monitoring of ongoing search position, and crawling. With SEMrush, owners of small- to medium-sized businesses get about all that they require for the management of an efficient SEO plan. In fact, SEMrush is suitable for any organization having a website that they want people to gain from.

The importance of SEO can no longer be overemphasized in the world we now live in. Gone are the days of organic social reach. If you want things to work, you have to take the right steps to make them work. It is extremely important for any website to generate free, targeted traffic from search. But, owing the computerization of our age, it is also more difficult to achieve than it used to be. Using a specialized tool for SEO is the way to go, and SEMrush is one of the great ones that you can lay your hands on.

 

You need to be able to know if your ranking in search results is rising or falling. You also have to monitor just how many people are searching for a particular topic or keyword and what websites backlink to similar sites. Knowing what topics to create your content around is one online success key that cannot be neglected. If you are able to tell how much traffic competing or similar websites are gathering, you can better determine what steps to take. SEO tools also inform you if there are any technicalities that are constituting a hindrance to your SEO. And one tool that can help you achieve all of these is SEMrush, one of the leading products in the SEO industry. SEMrush provides so many analytics that are crucial to your SEO strategy.

COST AND PRICING

With all the great features that SEMrush offers outperforming a lot of other competing SEO products, it still has a competitive enough pricing model that seems quite fair. There are three different subscription levels to choose from whether you are running a sole proprietorship, a small business or an enterprise. You get a $99 monthly Pro plan, a $199 monthly Guru plan, and a $399 Business plan. If none of these suit you perfectly, or if your business has some unique marketing needs, however, you may consider opting for a custom plan.

THE SEMRUSH INTERFACE

 

SEMrush presents a user interface that is fairly friendly and simple to use. There is a lot of information with the sections on display from the top to the bottom of the menu sidebar. Although this sidebar is dense with information, it is also pretty clear-cut. The layouts of each of these sections are very alike, and so they will be easy to familiarize with. You can navigate a section at a time without getting confuse or lost. Here are some of the notable fields that you will come across on the SEMrush interface:

• Keyword: This is the keyword for a particular ranked page.
• Pos: This shows you the position of a keyword in a chosen search engine. You can choose a default search engine and location, but you may also use other search engines and target locations. The Free Keyword Monitor can also help with verification.
• Volume: This is the number of exact match local searches for a particular keyword.
• CPC: This is an abbreviation for cost per click of a keyword.
• URL: This is the URL for which a specific keyword is drawing traffic.
• Com: This displays the level of competition of websites for a keyword. The lower the figure, the less the completion, and the higher the figure, the more the competition for the keyword. Every SEO marketing tool requires some form of tracking for competition.
• Results: This shows the number of search engine results for a particular keyword. A lower number is more desirable.
• Trend: This is a rather interesting column on the SEMrush interface. The most lucrative keywords are those for which the traffic trend is almost consistent and never falling. What this column does is to display the search trend for a specified keyword over the last year.

As well as all the data that comes from the search, two columns should stand out to any blogger or website owner. These are the column that display the 200 chief organic keywords for a domain, and the column that gives you a detailed backlink report for any domain, with the link’s stable text.

The possibility of getting the best keywords that drive traffic to any domain at all is the key factor that SEMrush brings forward. It is important for serious marketers, companies and businesses to know the keywords of competing websites.

SEMRUSH FEATURES

Here are some of the features that make SEMrush what it is:

• Domain Overview: On this page, SEMrush displays some information concerning the domain name queried by you. It is essentially a screen showing the aggregate paid and organic traffic that is coming to a website. It is estimated based on the search volume of keywords being ranked for and the website’s place with those keywords. Although the metrics are not totally precise, they do give a fair idea.

• Organic Research: This SEMrush feature is one that you will probably be using a lot. It displays the number of keywords that your website is ranking for, its position for these keywords, and any changes in position that may happen along the line. Scrolling down to the bottom of this page, you will find a list of the keywords. They can be filtered by their search volume and position, or you may leave out or keep keywords that contain specific words.

• Position Change: This tab in the SEMrush panel displays the most recent changes in the positions of ranking keywords. The latest ranking keywords, as well as declined or lost keywords and keywords with improved positions may be filtered. If you find that a competing website’s positions are improving on some specific keywords, you may check their pages, content organization and number of backlinks that refer to their page so as to grasp exactly why.

• Backlink Analysis: The SEMrush backlink analysis tool isn’t their strongest feature but it is fair enough if your budget cannot cover a separate backlink analysis tool. The SEMrush Backlink Analysis tooL displays the number of backlinks, IPs and root domains. You get an Authority Score which is an algorithm that SEMrush defines, calculated based on different metrics like Page, Trust Scores and Domain. It shows how strong and popular your domain name is. Other SEO tools have metrics similar to this one. It does provide a general idea of any domain name entered but shouldn’t be taken overly seriously. The backlink tool in SEMrush also gives lost and new backlinks over time, as well as a trend line showing the complete number of backlinks for a root domain.

• Gap Analysis: This is another really cool function that SEMrush offers. Basically, this tool runs a comparison between your domain name and one to four competing websites and finds any common keywords or backlinks between your website and the competition, as well as any that are different. This metric grants you some insight as to how you can better existing pages on your site in comparison to rivals. Also, listing the ranking keywords for your competitors will give you more ideas on what exactly you should center your new content around. Keywords may be sorted according to their position, search volume, CPC (if you have AdWords running), as well as a number of other metrics. There is also a backlink gap tool that operates just like the keyword gap tool. It gets you backlink openings by listing all the backlinks your completion has that you do not.

PROS

SEMrush brings a lot of advantages to the table including:

• Detailed Metrics: SEMrush offers you some of the most in-depth metrics that you can find in the SEO and keyword research industry.
• Ad and PPC Information: SEMrush began as an SEM (search engine marketing) tool, and so it still has this advantage.
• Updated Information: SEMrush updates its information quite frequently, keeping up to speed with the industry all the time.
• Custom Charts: You get to run comparisons on up to five URLs in clear charts based on so many different metrics.
• Alerts: SEMrush allows you to set up alerts for different metrics such as new backlinks, position changes and so on.

CONS

The major con of SEMrush is the absence of keyword list management. Also, SEMrush might not be great for you if you are not comfortable with interfaces full of numbers, graphs and tables. But then, if that is the case, SEO tools in general will not be great for you. SEMrush offers such dense data that would be wonderful and beneficial to most, but it may very well be rather overwhelming to others. Another con would be that the Backlinks Analysis feature isn’t quite as comprehensive as some other tools have it.

FINAL VERDICT

SEMrush is a well-rounded keyword research tool. It surely has the innovative features that it takes to get you that advantage that your business needs. Here is a comprehensive online tool with great domain analytics, backlink tracking, as well as desktop computer and mobile device search breakdowns. The project-based SEO campaign structure, keyword suggestions and practical SEO recommendations of this tool are particularly useful.