While no content marketing tool is a substitute for a well-crafted strategy and a skilled team of marketing experts, having the right set of gear at your disposal can definitely make the job easier and more efficient. Now, there are tons of marketing tools out there – some of them free and pocket-friendly; others quite expensive or even overpriced. And choosing the right one can make for a heavy brainstorming session. This is where we come to your rescue.
Today, we take a deep dive into the industry’s most-talked-about tool. Yeah, you have heard about it – SEMrush. Trusted by experts and loved by millions, it is a comprehensive tool that comes with quite a discouraging price tag. So, let’s see what makes it so popular, and more importantly, is it worth your buck?
But first, with a little introduction!
What is SEMrush?
SEMrush is a digital marketing tool that makes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) a walk in the park. Whether you are looking to rank higher in Google searches, generate more traffic to your website or create a piece of content that resonates with your target audience, it has got you covered.
SEMrush offers a dedicated set of tools based on what the user is looking for. You can choose from a variety of toolkits including SEO Toolkit, Content Marketing Toolkit, Trends Toolkit, Advertising Toolkit, and Social Media Toolkit.
And all these toolkits are available on a single dashboard so you can get everything done in one place.
Now, without further ado, let’s take a closer look at what you get inside SEMrush.
1. Domain Overview
Think of SEMrush’s Domain Overview as a broad view of a website’s organic and paid traffic. This tab gives valuable insights into the website's performance metrics and can be quite handy when it comes to identifying opportunities for optimization and growth.
All you must do is enter a domain or URL. And you get a quick graph showing the website's organic search traffic and the top organic search keywords over time, as well as a list of the top organic and paid search keywords among other useful insights.
But to make the most of SEMrush, what you are looking for are detailed sub-reports. Let’s take a look at some of them, shall we?
2. Traffic Analytics
This feature helps you understand your website's traffic and find ways to improve it. Don’t worry! It is quite easy. Just put in the domain or subdomain name inside the Analyze bar.
And SEMrush’s intelligent algorithm will generate metrics such as the number of monthly visitors, traffic sources, engagement metrics, geographical data, audience behavior, and competitor comparison. By analyzing your competitors' traffic, you can also gain insights into their marketing strategies and find ways to outperform them.
3. Organic Research
It may seem simple, but it can be quite an effective tool as long as you know how to use it to your advantage. Organic Research presents insights into the traffic driven to a website from Google and how it has changed over a period.
Now it may be quite interesting to see how a competitor's rankings have evolved, but the real value of this tool lies in the frequently updated catalogue of keywords that a competitor’s website is ranking for in organic Google searches, which can be an asset for keyword research, wouldn’t you agree?
Leveraging your competitor’s keywords is one of the best ways to craft a promising keyword research strategy. And with a database of 24 billion keywords, SEMrush is the best tool out there for the job.
Perfect timing to move on to the next feature – Keyword Research.
4. Keyword Research
When it comes to keyword research, there are two tabs on the SEMrush dashboard that are particularly interesting – Keyword Overview and Keyword Magic Tool.
Keyword Overview gives a focused look at a specific keyword, offering insights such as search volume, keyword difficulty, CPC (Cost Per Click), SERP (search engine results pages) competition, and more. Nothing out of the ordinary, right? But where SEMrush really shines is its huge catalog of keyword ideas containing keyword variations, questions, and related keywords.
Keyword Magic Tool, on the other hand, is a more in-depth keyword research tool that provides a comprehensive list of related keywords, along with their search volumes, keyword difficulty, CPC (Cost Per Click), etc. You can even use advanced filters to refine your search results. This tool enables users to discover long-tail keywords and uncover profitable niches that may not have occurred to them before.
With that covered, let’s jump into the next feature.
5. Topic Research
A valuable resource for content creators, SEMrush’s Topic Research Tool helps you stay on top of the latest trends and create content that resonates with your audience. Well, how it works is quite straightforward - just type in a topic of interest and it will not only serve you with a plethora of related topics (sorted by search volume) but also give you particular content that has performed well.
Now, be warned! It does suggest a few weirdly unrelated topics, but if you can look past them, you are likely to stumble upon some impressive ideas for your next piece of content.
6. Position Tracking
This is SEMrush’s ranking tracker that helps you monitor and track the search engine ranking positions of your website's pages and your competitors' pages for specific keywords.
It fundamentally works just like any rank tracker. You select a domain to track, search engine, and location.
Next, you give the algorithm certain keywords you want it to track against. That’s it. The tool will auto-track your search engine rankings.
7. Backlink Analytics
SEMrush’s backlink checking and analytics tool is one of the finest in the market. Because of a huge link index, it does an exceptionally excellent job of fetching backlinks faster. And it serves you with tons of metrics such as the domain’s authority score, distribution of authority score changes over time, referring domains and backlinks (new as well as old ones), changes in backlinks over time, etc.
Just like all SEMrush features, it is also easy to use. Just type in the domain you wish to see the backlink analysis for.
One particularly interesting feature of this tool is that it also fetches websites with similar link profiles, which can come in handy during a link-building campaign.
8. Pricing
Now, let’s talk about dollars and cents! What will this feature-packed package cost you?
SEMrush has three pricing plans, billed monthly. Of course, if you pay annually, you can knock a few bucks off.
Unlike some tools such as Ahrefs, SEMrush does offer a 7-day free trial, which is good news for those willing to try it out before making the purchase.
Now, time for the big question.
Is SEMrush Worth Your Money?
There is little doubt that SEMrush is one of the finest tools for marketers and content creators looking to cut through the noise and make it to the top search results. As the company says on the website, it is used by 30% of Fortune 500 companies.
Compared to Ahrefs, the tool has an advantage when it comes to keyword research because of a bigger keyword database. Also, SEMrush’s most expensive plan is more affordable than that of Ahrefs. But if you are also looking to target other search engines such as Amazon, you are better off with Ahrefs as SEMrush is Google-focused.
Apparently, SEMrush’s Guru and Business plans may not suit every pocket, but you can always get started with the Pro plan and see if this tool is a good fit for you or if you need to upgrade.
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