There are SEO tools, and there are excellent SEO tools.
Semrush belongs to the latter.
If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’d have noticed how glowingly I speak about Semrush.
While I have enjoyed using many of the best SEO tools in different capacities to improve my website, only a few of them have truly delivered on their promises, with Semrush being top of the list.
This tool will help you achieve loads of organic and paid traffic solutions.
So, I’m happy to finally introduce this tool to you. I’ll state how it has helped me and how it can help you too.
Right, let’s get into it.
What is Semrush?
Semrush is an all-inclusive SEO and digital marketing tool for researching, tracking, and improving websites and online businesses.
The software was created in 2008 by Oleg Shchegolev, and after more than a decade, it houses 55+ tools and serves over 10 million users worldwide.
What it does is uncover in-depth data about your campaigns and competitors. And through these, you can discover key insights, correct errors, make better decisions, and optimize your website to rank better on search engines.
This software will deliver keyword analytics, position tracking, on-page SEO, competitor analysis, website audit, technical site audit, paid ads, and social media marketing, among others.
Semrush features overview
Semrush has a wide range of solutions for online marketers, website owners, and SEO agencies. Hence, it may serve different purposes for different people. The features are divided into five toolkit categories, and here’s a breakdown of what each one does.
- Search engine optimization
The SEO toolkit is an all-in-one hub for everything concerned with amassing organic search traffic. This category is packed with the most important tools that can offer a little bit of what you get from other categories.
The tools under this category include features for keyword research, technical and on-page SEO, link building, position tracking, competitor analysis, and local SEO.
Content is a fundamental part of online marketing, and this toolkit from Semrush ensures it is top quality. This category is where you’ll find tools that help you build a good content strategy. There are also content creation, distribution, optimization, and analytics tools.
- Market research and analysis
The market research toolkit is concerned with uncovering strategies that work for your top competitors and how you can leverage similar methods. You’ll find a backlink audit tool, keyword research tool, keyword overview, traffic analysis, competitor search rankings, etc.
- Advertising
This category contains tools tailored to help you make the most of paid advertising without spending too much. That means website monetization, paid search campaigns, etc.
- Social media management
What you get from this category is a platform for building awareness through social media. It provides tools for planning and scheduling posts, as well as tracking essential analytics for monitoring performance.
How to start using Semrush to grow a website
With comprehensive tools like Semrush, there tends to be confusion regarding what you should focus on, especially if you’re relatively new to all these.
The reality is that as a website owner, you will find yourself needing the SEO toolkit more than the others. So, I will focus my attention on this category but will also pop into other parts that are likely going to require your focus.
Below are the steps you should follow to grow your website using Semrush.
1. Create a website project and connect the necessary tools
One of the first things I’d advise you do is to create a project with your website URL. This makes it easier to track different metrics and get an overall view of happenings on your website. To create a website project, head to the project page, hit “Create project,” and follow the prompts.
After creating a project, link your Semrush account to Google Analytics and other data software like Google Webmaster Tools. These will help you unlock more reliable data from Google on your website.
2. Check the domain overview for background information
While creating a project facilitates the processes to improve a website’s search engine positioning, the domain overview details all you need to know about the website. It is an all-inclusive report showing important data you should know at a glance.
To check the domain overview for a website, click on the option on the left-hand panel and type the link in the search space provided above the screen.
The domain overview report will include your top organic keywords, backlinks and referring domains, top competitors, traffic trends, etc.
The data you get from this report gives you quick as well as in-depth information on the strategies you should use and where to start. For instance, you get ideas for link-building, websites to approach for backlinks, and relevant keywords to work on.</