Semrush

At WPBeginner, we get countless questions from readers about which marketing tools actually deliver results. After testing and reviewing marketing software for over a decade, I can say that Semrush is one tool that consistently stands out.

Semrush was already off to a great start, but I’ve spent the last few months thoroughly testing every feature it offers in more detail. While many marketing tools promise amazing results, I wanted to see if Semrush truly delivers on its promises and is worth the investment.

In this detailed Semrush review, I’ll share my hands-on experience with this tool to help you decide if it’s the right choice for you. I’ll break down its key features, pricing options, and real-world benefits without any technical jargon.

Semrush Review: My Honest Thoughts & Opinion

First up, what is Semrush? Essentially, it’s one of the most popular SEO tools on the market. It comes with a ton of tools that allow you to manage your search and content marketing strategy from the same dashboard.

With Semrush, you can track your social media campaigns, monitor backlinks, track your paid advertising campaigns, and find related keywords that you may want to target.

There’s also an organic research tool for checking your keyword rankings – a feature I know our WPBeginner readers will appreciate.

Instead of typing in the URLs for individual blog posts, you can simply enter your domain name. Semrush will then fetch results for all your URLs and display that information in a nice layout. It’s super convenient.

Even with access to all this information, getting your WordPress SEO strategy right can be tricky (trust me, I know).

That’s where competitor analysis comes in.

In my opinion, competitor analysis is key to understanding what works for your rivals and how they attract organic visitors. By adopting similar strategies, you can boost your own blog traffic.

Competitor analysis allows you to see what’s working for your competition and how they attract organic visitors. You can then use the same strategies in your own campaigns, and increase your blog traffic.

The good news is that Semrush comes with a ton of competitor analysis features, so you can grow your organic traffic and outrank your competitors.

If you’re just getting started or you’re working to a tight budget, then there’s a free version of Semrush. This includes many essential features, but it also places limits on how you can use this tool. For example, you can only perform 10 keyword searches per day.

I tested the free version and found it to be a good introduction to the platform, but the limitations can be restrictive. With that in mind, I’d always recommend investing in one of Semrush’s paid plans.

Semrush Review: Is It the Right Marketing Toolkit for You?

There’s no doubt that Semrush is one of the leading SEO checker and website analyzer tools on the market. It goes beyond the basics, offering advanced features like algorithm tracking, competitor SEO analysis, and AI-powered tools.

However, I know that every business has unique needs. With that said, in this Semrush review I’ll explore everything it has to offer, so you can decide whether it’s the right marketing tool for you.

1. Easy to Use

To start using Semrush, simply visit their website and create an account. I’ve personally tested the Semrush signup process, and it’s pretty straightforward.

You have the option to create a free account, which gives you access to a limited scope of website and SEO data, or upgrade to a premium account.

As part of the signup process, you’ll need to type in an email address, password, and phone number. Once I completed these steps, I was redirected to the Semrush dashboard and could instantly access a wide range of tools and features.

To get started, I entered a few domains and keywords I use regularly into the Semrush search bar.

The amount of information it returned was amazing, and it was all presented in a clear, easy-to-understand way.

This includes your Authority Score, along with the Semrush Domain Rank value. The higher the number, the better your domain authority. SEO professionals and digital marketers will find this information invaluable. In fact, our readers have been asking for features just like this!

All of Semrush’s tools are listed in the left-hand menu, making them easy to find and use.

Each section has its own dashboard with different settings and features.

These tools allow anyone to take a more strategic approach to their online presence and improve their search rankings.

My Honest Review: Semrush provides a powerful set of SEO tools that you can access right after signing up. The dashboard is easy to use, and the insights are incredibly valuable for optimizing your web presence. I wish I’d had access to a tool like this years ago.

2. Perform Keyword Research

If you want to improve your SEO rankings, keyword research is essential.

Thankfully, Semrush has a built-in keyword research tool. It provides detailed information, including each keyword’s search volume and whether its popularity is trending up or down. I found this incredibly convenient.

You can also see a list of related keywords.

By adding some of these related keywords to your content, you can show that you’re writing about the topic in a genuine, detailed way. This is a great way to optimize your WordPress blog posts for SEO. In fact, I tested this out on my own site and saw very positive results. 

There’s also a section where you can see Google Ads that use this keyword in PPC advertising. This is a feature I wish I’d had access to sooner.

Another option is entering a competitor’s website into the Domain Overview tool. This will show a ton of information including relevant keywords, your competitor’s search engine ranking positions, and the traffic value. I was surprised by just how much information this tool provided.

Sometimes, Semrush may reveal new keywords and phrases that you can target, in an attempt to outrank your competition. Imagine how helpful this could be for businesses trying to gain an edge in their market.

After discovering a promising related keyword or phrase, you can use it to generate even more keywords and phrases using Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool.

I was blown away by the depth of this tool. It shows detailed information for each related keyword, including the intent, search volume, and cost per click.

This is perfect for generating related long-tail keyword phrases that you can use on your WordPress website.

My Honest Review: Semrush’s keyword research tools are comprehensive and easy to use.

From identifying trending keywords to analyzing competitors, the insights provided are invaluable for any content creator or SEO specialist. I especially appreciate the Keyword Magic Tool for generating long-tail keywords. In fact, I think it’s worth considering Semrush just for this feature alone!

3. Keyword Rank Tracking

It’s important to track your keywords so you can see if your SEO optimization efforts are working. You can then adjust your strategy to get even better results.

Semrush’s keyword rank tracking feature allows you to track and monitor the movement of your site’s keyword rankings. It also shows which search terms are in SERP features, such as featured snippets, Google sitelinks, and the knowledge panel.

Search engines like Google constantly update their ranking algorithms. These changes can significantly impact your search result rankings and are often hard to predict. I know our readers have struggled with this in the past.

The Semrush Sensor tool helps clarify these changes. It detects algorithm updates and rates their volatility on a scale of 0-10. I was impressed by how clearly this information was presented.

By monitoring these algorithm updates, you can optimize your content for any changes straight away, and outrank your competitors.

My Honest Review: Semrush’s keyword rank tracking and Sensor tool are essential for staying on top of algorithm updates and monitoring your SEO performance. I highly recommend these features to anyone who’s serious about SEO.

4. Find and Fix SEO Errors

Semrush’s Site Audit feature gives you a detailed breakdown of any SEO errors on your website or WordPress blog.

Simply enter your domain name and Semrush will run its report.

It will then show a detailed breakdown of any problems it discovers, including 404 errors, missing redirects, AMP-related issues, and more. I was surprised by how thorough the audit was.

If you need more information about a problem, then click on its ‘Why and how to fix it’ link. Semrush will then show a popup describing the issue in-depth, so you can address it and get your WordPress website back on track.

My Honest Review: The Site Audit tool in Semrush is a must-have for maintaining a healthy website. Its ability to identify a wide range of SEO issues and provide clear instructions on how to fix them is invaluable. This tool alone could save website owners hours of troubleshooting.

5. Monitor Your Backlinks

Backlinks are crucial for boosting search rankings and driving traffic to your website. So, I think we can all agree that monitoring these links is crucial.

Semrush has a backlink checker tool that shows all the sites linking to yours, along with their authority and anchor text.

I found this incredibly helpful for understanding my backlink profile. This way, you can see if your link-building strategies are working and identify any potential SEO issues, like low-quality backlinks.

Here, Semrush helps by showing the total links used by each page. A high number of links, like hundreds, often suggests a spammy website and a low-quality backlink.

Search engines such as Google regularly penalize WordPress websites that have spammy backlinks, so it’s important to identify and remove these links. I was surprised by how easy Semrush made it to identify these potentially harmful backlinks.

For more information on this topic, please see our guide on how to recover from a Google Search Console penalty.

My Honest Review: Semrush’s backlink checker is a powerful tool for analyzing your backlink profile and identifying potentially harmful links. The ability to see the authority and anchor text of referring domains is invaluable for assessing the quality of your backlinks. 

All-in-all, this is a great tool for protecting your site against search engine penalties.

6. Research Your Competitors

I recently installed and tested Semrush, and I was particularly impressed by its competitor research tools.

Competitor research is where you analyze your own keyword performance and compare it with your rivals. It’s an effective way to monitor your progress and spot opportunities to outrank the competition.

To help you out, Semrush comes with built-in competitor research tools. With these tools, you can see your competitor’s top ranking organic and paid keywords, top PPC campaigns, and more. 

Simply enter a competitor’s URL and Semrush will show a detailed breakdown of their total traffic.

You can also see important metrics like the volume of monthly traffic over time, traffic distribution by country, keyword overlap, and the keywords that bring them the most visitors.

Meanwhile, the Traffic Analytics tab shows the number of unique visitors, total visits, average visit duration, number of pageviews, and the site’s bounce rate.

Even better, Semrush has a Bulk Analysis tool that lets you analyze the traffic for multiple competitors at once. This is an easy way to see your overall position within your industry.

Not sure who your competitors are? Then simply enter your domain name and Semrush will suggest some competitors for you. This is a great starting point for anyone new to competitor analysis.

My Honest Review: The competitor research tools in Semrush are a must-have for anyone serious about improving their website’s performance. The depth of information provided is truly impressive, and the interface is surprisingly intuitive.

7. On Page SEO Checker

Having installed and tested the Semrush plugin myself, I can tell you that the On Page SEO Checker is a real standout feature. This tool analyzes your WordPress site and gives you clear, actionable advice on how to improve it.

It even suggests websites that could provide valuable backlinks, recommends anchor text, and identifies additional keywords you should be targeting.

Semrush creates these suggestions by comparing your pages with rival domains that are ranking higher than you. With that said, this is also a useful tool for outranking the competition.

My Honest Review: The On Page SEO Checker is a must-have. It takes the complexity out of on-page SEO and presents you with easy-to-understand recommendations. It’s SEO made easy!

8. Get Blog and Content Ideas

If you’re struggling to create a content calendar (something I think we can all relate to) then Semrush has a fantastic blog post idea generator. Just choose a topic and click on ‘Get content ideas.’

You can even find trending topics using the ‘Trending subtopics first’ toggle.

Semrush then presents you with a series of topic cards, each with subtopic headlines. To dive deeper into a specific topic, just click on ‘Show more.’

Semrush will then show an expanded list of headlines, related questions, and related searches for that topic.

This feature alone should give you a wealth of blog post ideas to fill your content calendar and keep your audience engaged.

My Honest Review: The content idea generator is a lifesaver for anyone struggling with content planning. I was genuinely impressed with how quickly I could generate a substantial list of relevant topics and headlines.

9. SEO Writing Assistant

The SEO Writing Assistant is a game-changing content optimization tool. I’ve used it extensively while testing the Semrush plugin, and I can confidently say it’s a tool every website owner should have in their arsenal. 

It’s a simple way to boost your site’s SEO performance. Just type or paste your content, add your target keywords, and select your target audience’s language and location.

Then, hit ‘Get recommendations’ and Semrush will analyze your content and make some suggestions.

Semrush will also check the top 10 results for your target keywords and generate a list of related words and phrases that you can use in your content.

As you make changes, Semrush will automatically adjust the article length and readability scores based on the top results. I found this incredibly useful when optimizing content for my own demo sites.

SEO Writing Assistant also comes with an AI-powered tool that checks your content’s tone and gives it a score ranging from formal to casual.

Most SEO experts and marketers recommend a casual tone for online articles, so Semrush’s ‘Tone of Voice’ checker can help you achieve this ideal tone.

In addition, Semrush’s tool will check that your post has the right number of internal links.

It will also check for external URLs and links to your WordPress home page, and make suggestions on how to improve your linking strategy.

Finally, the built-in Plagiarism Checker is a lifesaver if you work with guest bloggers or freelance writers.

It identifies the percentage of original text and flags any potential plagiarism, showing the source.

You can access this tool from your Semrush dashboard or by using the Semrush SEO Writing Assistant plugin.

For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

My Honest Review: The SEO Writing Assistant is an invaluable tool for anyone creating online content. From keyword suggestions to tone analysis and plagiarism checking, Semrush covers all the bases.

10. Improve Your Local SEO

Local SEO is essential for getting your business noticed in local search results. I know just how important this is for businesses with a physical location. For example, you should prioritize local SEO if you run a restaurant website, or an online marketplace that also has a bricks-and-mortar shop.

Having tested Semrush’s local SEO tools myself, I’m convinced they can make a real difference.

Semrush offers several helpful features, including automatic list management. You enter your contact and business information once, and Semrush distributes it to various web directories and platforms like Google, Yelp, Facebook, and Alexa. This saves you a ton of time and effort, something we can all appreciate!

You can also schedule your social media posts across multiple channels, including Google My Business and Facebook.

My Honest Review: I highly recommend Semrush’s local SEO tools for any business with a physical location aiming to boost its local online presence. The automatic listing management alone can save you a ton of time and effort.

11. Integrates with AIOSEO

You can access the Semrush dashboard anytime by logging into your account. But for WordPress users, Semrush integrates seamlessly with AIOSEO, which in my opinion is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market (it’s also the plugin we use at WPBeginner!) This integration lets you research keywords from directly inside the WordPress dashboard.

In the WordPress block editor, simply scroll to the AIOSEO settings and then click on ‘Get Additional Keyphrases.’

In the popup window, you’ll be asked to sign in to your Semrush account.  I tested this myself and it was incredibly smooth and intuitive.

With that done, you’ll see a list of additional keywords that you may want to add to your post, along with the search volume and trend. The list is organized so that high volume keywords appear first. I found this incredibly helpful in optimizing my own WordPress content. 

You can add any of these keyphrases to the WordPress content editor with a single click.

After adding a related keyword, AIOSEO will check your content for this new word or phrase. It will then give you a score, which reflects how well you’re targeting that keyword.

AIOSEO will also make actionable suggestions on how to target this new word or phrase. This takes the guesswork out of keyword optimization, something I think we can all agree is a huge plus. For more information, please see our guide on how to setup All in One SEO for WordPress.

My Honest Review: The way AIOSEO and Semrush work together is pure genius. Imagine this: you’re crafting your latest blog post or tweaking your product page, and you need to nail those keywords. Instead of hopping back and forth between your WordPress dashboard and a separate SEO tool, you can now do your keyword research right there within AIOSEO.

Want to learn more about AIOSEO? Then be sure to check out our detailed AIOSEO review, where we talk about our firsthand experience using this powerful SEO plugin.

Semrush Review: Community and Professional Support

Semrush offers a centralized dashboard to manage all your marketing efforts, from SEO and advertising to content, PR, and social media. Talk about convenient!

However, sometimes you may have questions or need advice on how to get the most out of Semrush. Semrush excels in this area, providing a wealth of online resources. These include a comprehensive knowledge base, recorded webinars, and even online courses.

I explored these resources myself and was impressed with the depth and breadth of information available. 

There’s also the Semrush blog, which is packed with practical advice on improving your SEO and other marketing campaigns. 

Here, you’ll find advice on how to improve your SEO and other campaigns, including tips on how to write great blog posts, how to do keyword gap analysis, and more.

If you prefer one-on-one help, then you can submit a support ticket and the Semrush team will aim to respond within 1 business day.

Need additional help running your campaigns? Semrush also has a directory of agency partners. Simply enter some information about your project and Semrush will recommend a marketing agency that’s a good fit for you. This is particularly useful for businesses that may not have the in-house expertise to manage all aspects of their marketing strategy.

Basically, Semrush goes above and beyond in providing support and resources. Whether you prefer self-service learning or personalized assistance, they have you covered. This makes it a great platform for both beginners and experienced marketers.

Semrush Review: Pricing and Plans

Semrush has a free-forever plan that gives you access to certain features. However, it does limit the number of actions you can perform daily. For example, you’re restricted to 10 keyword searches with the Keyword Magic Tool and Keyword Overview.

I tested the free plan and found it to be a good starting point, but the limitations quickly become apparent. You can also only analyze 10 domains, track 10 keywords, and crawl 100 URLs per day.

With that in mind, many business owners upgrade to a paid plan.

Semrush offers three options:

• Pro. Priced at $129.95 per month, this plan allows you to track 500 keywords and crawl 100,000 pages. It also shows 10,000 results per report. I think this is an excellent choice for small businesses, startups, and smaller teams. Overall, it provides a good balance of features and affordability.
• Guru. Priced at $249.95 per month, Guru can track up to 1,500 keywords and crawl 300,000 pages. It also shows 30,000 results per report, and unlocks Semrush’s Content Marketing Toolkit. In addition, it helps you avoid keyword cannibalization by identifying pages that compete for the same search query. With that in mind, I recommend Guru to mid-sized businesses or smaller WordPress development agencies who manage a few different client sites.
• Business. For $499.50 per month, you can track 5,000 keywords, run 10 plagiarism checks, and crawl 1,000,000 pages. You can also optimize your Google Shopping campaigns, calculate the traffic percentage for your domain, and even access the Semrush API. With its generous allowance and advanced features, Business is the perfect plan for enterprises or larger agencies who manage a long list of client websites.

Semrush Review: Is It the Right Marketing Toolkit for You?

Having thoroughly tested its features, support, and pricing plans, I’m convinced that Semrush is one of the most comprehensive SEO toolkits available today. It provides everything you need to manage your website’s SEO, advertising, PR, social media marketing, and content creation – all in one place. I was genuinely impressed with the breadth and depth of features offered.

If you’re starting a side business or looking for free business tools, then the free Semrush plan is a great place to start. I encourage everyone to give it a try. However, for most businesses looking to see real results, a premium plan offers much more value.

The Pro plan lets you track 500 keywords and crawl 100,000 pages, which makes it a good option for smaller business websites. The Pro plan might also be a good fit if you’re looking to make money online blogging with WordPress.

If you want to track more keywords and crawl additional pages, then you can upgrade to the Guru plan. Guru also comes with the Content Marketing Toolkit, which is perfect for creating high-ranking articles and addressing any content gaps on your website.

Finally, if you’re an enterprise or agency, then the Business plan allows you to track 5,000 keywords and crawl 1,000,000 pages. This makes it easy to manage and analyze multiple client websites and campaigns within a single Semrush account. Imagine using this plan to streamline your workflow and deliver exceptional results for your clients – it’s a game-changer.

I hope this Semrush review helped you decide whether it’s the right marketing toolkit for you. You can also check out our guide on how to add keywords and meta descriptions in WordPress, or see our expert pick of must have plugins for business websites.

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