Semrush
If you’ve ever dreamed of having one tool to power all aspects of your SEO and digital campaigns, Semrush might be the answer.
From keyword research to content optimization, competitor analysis, and website audit, Semrush is the Swiss army knife of SEO, as they say. But how true is that?
This Semrush review explores the core features of this SEO powerhouse and some of its notable areas of improvement. Let’s get right in.
- Semrush is a comprehensive all-in-one SEO and digital marketing tool.
- Key features include keyword research, site audit, and backlink analysis tools.
- Its pricing starts at $129.95/month but offers a free trial for testing.
- Pros: extensive SEO data; cons: overwhelming features, limited free plan functionality.
Basics to Understand
Semrush is a comprehensive all-in-one SEO and online visibility platform.
While it’s popular among marketers for its powerful advertising, content marketing, and social media toolkits, SEO is Semrush’s bread and butter, and that’s what most users use it for.
As a blogger, I use Semrush to generate keyword ideas, track competitors’ progress, find link-building opportunities, create and optimize content, and more.
Semrush means different things to different users, but I use it solely for SEO, and that’s what this review is about.
Ease of Use – Getting Started
Getting started with Semrush is easy. Visit the Semrush homepage and sign up with your email.
A verification code will be sent to your email. Input the code to verify and activate your account.
Next, the Semrush wizard will ask about your business. Answer the questions and follow the on-screen prompt to complete the process.
If you are signing up for a free plan, you should keep an eye out during this setup. Semrush tends to push for a free trial instead of its free plan.
If you make this mistake, you’ll end up paying high for a paid plan, except you cancel the trial within seven days.
Once your accont is set up, you’ll land on the Semrush dashboard.
The Semrush dashboard is a central hub for all your SEO data and insight.
Once you’re inside the dashboard, you’ll be prompted to set up a project. Simply enter the domain of the website you want to work on.
For me, the Semrush dashboard is easy to navigate. But if you’re a total beginner, it might take a while to get around it.
Fortunately, Semrush has a well-documented series of tutorials and videos on how each tool works.
After that, you can access the SEO dashboard, which gives you a hawk-eye view of your site’s SEO data.
On this screen, you’ll see data such as top organic keywords, traffic analytics, competitors, backlink analytics, and more.
You can dig deeper by clicking on any section to see more breakdowns of these data.
Notable Features
As an all-in-one SEO suite, Semrush offers an extensive list of features. Each time I use the tool, I discover more.
But below are the ones I use for my day-to-day blogging business.
Semrush Keyword Research Tool
As a blogger, I’m always on the hunt for new content ideas and opportunities to rank. The Semrush keyword magic tool makes this a breeze.
I can just plug in a seed keyword, and the tool will generate thousands of relevant keywords with data that helps me decide whether they are worth pursuing.
Upon search, Semrush gives you data about the keyword’s difficulty score, search volume, user intent, and more.
You’ll also see the top-ranking sites for these keywords, along with valuable data to guide your content.
The Semrush keyword tool also lets you manage keywords.
You can track your website search performance for your target keywords and how your ranking changes for these keywords over time.
There’s also a keyword gap tool that provides data about your competitors’ keywords and how you compare.
Semrush Link Building Tools
When it comes to link building, Semrush beats all SEO tools I’ve ever tried out.
The Semrush link-building tool provides a long list of link-building opportunities and allows you to create a list of link-building prospects, manage outreach emails, and track the results.
Semrush also offers a separate backlink audit tool that scans your website to identify “Toxic links.”
This tool connects with the Google Disavow Tool, where you can easily register bad links.
The Backlink Analytics reports show you all your lost backlinks, a list of referring domains where you no longer have any backlinks, and backlinks from broken pages.
Semrush Site Audit Tool
The Semrush Site Audit tool crawls every page on a website to identify technical SEO issues that negatively impact search engine ranking.
This tool categorizes issues detected by severity (errors, warnings, notices) and provides actionable recommendations for fixing them.
The tool offers reports covering specific aspects of your website’s health, including crawlability, HTTPS implementation, mobile-friendliness, performance, and internal linking.
Semrush Site Audit assigns your website a health score based on the severity of issues detected during the crawl.
Errors have the most significant impact on your score, followed by warnings. Notices are considered less critical but worth addressing for optimal website health.
SEO Content Template
SEO Content Template is a valuable resource for discovering relevant LSI keywords to better content ranking potential.
The SEO Content Template analyzes the top 10 Google search results for a target keyword.
It identifies words and phrases used in this content and then uses it to generate a template of recommendations for your content.
Pricing & Cost
Semrush offers three main pricing plans to cater to different business needs:
- Pro Plan ($129.95/month): Designed for freelancers, startups, and small businesses. This plan includes essential tools for SEO, PPC, and content marketing, with access to 5 projects and 500 keywords to track.
- Guru Plan ($249.95/month): Ideal for growing marketing agencies and mid-sized businesses. It includes all Pro features plus content marketing tools, historical data, 15 projects, and 1,500 keywords to track.
- Business Plan ($499.95/month): Best suited for large enterprises and agencies. It provides access to advanced tools, API, white-label reports, unlimited projects, and 5,000 keywords to track.
Semrush also offers a custom Enterprise plan for businesses with more specific needs. A 7-day free trial is available for all plans.
Semrush offers several ways to save on its paid plans. You can save up to 17% by opting for an annual billing cycle instead of monthly payments.
Semrush also offers a free trial of its Pro and Guru plans, allowing you to test the tool before committing to a paid subscription.
Occasionally, Semrush offers coupons or promo codes that can provide additional discounts on its plans. You can find these by searching online or signing up for Semrush’s email list.
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My Honest Thoughts
Compared to other tools, the Semrush free plan is too limiting. Despite its restricted access, you can only make ten requests per day.
At $129 per month, the paid plans can be expensive, especially for beginners who may only need some of the features offered.
In my opinion, offering a lower-priced plan with access to basic tools( like keyword research) and capped requests would be better.
Another fundamental limitation of Semrush is its lack of built-in keyword management functionality.
While you can export keywords, you can’t save searches for later use. This makes it difficult to track progress over time and compare different keyword sets.
Also, after multiple trials, I can confirm that Semrush’s live chat is a live chatbot—not a person.
So don’t expect to get much assistance from it beyond basic questions and links to its help center.
Is Semrush Worth The Cost?
If you’re an SEO professional or agency, Semrush can be a valuable investment. However, if you’re a beginner or only need essential SEO tools, there are more affordable options on the market.
If you’re unsure whether Semrush is worth the cost, you can take advantage of their free trial to better assess the investment.
Alternatives
Ahrefs is the closest alternative to Semrush on the market. Starting at $129 per month, it’s in the same pricing range and has similar functionality to Semrush.
While both tools offer all-in-one SEO functionality, Semrush is famous for its comprehensive suite of SEO and digital marketing tools, while Ahrefs is renowned for its extensive link-building capabilities.
If you are on a budget or new to SEO, consider Mangools over Semrush. At an entry price of $19.99 per month, Mangools offers all the essential SEO tools your small business needs to thrive.
Unlike Semrush, Mangool is also more beginner-oriented; you won’t have to go through a learning curve to use it. Mangool doesn’t have a free trial. Instead, users can create a free account to test features before committing.
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