SemRush was launched in 2008 by a group of IT and SEO experts to make the digital competition fair and transparent. And today, it is one of the most popular and powerful platforms used by marketers to increase website traffic and keep up with the SEO industry. It offers a wide range of features, including keyword research, competitive analysis, site audit, on-page SEO checker, and more. In fact, we are big fans of Semrush too, thanks to its detailed insights and comprehensive toolset. In this in-depth review, we will cover Semrush's core features, pricing plans, use cases, and more. So, let's get started right away.
SemRush: Plans and Pricing
SemRush caters to a wide range of digital marketing needs through structured plans, from beginners to large enterprises. Below are the details of the plans, features, and pricing: The Pro plan costs $129.95 per month and is ideal for beginners and small teams. This plan allows you to manage up to five projects and track up to 500 keywords. You can also get 10,000 results per report. Other features include comprehensive SEO, PPC, and research tools, including competitor analysis, keyword research, website audit, backlink analysis, and advertising tools.
Next up is the Guru plan, which starts at $249.95 per month and is ideal for agencies and mid-sized businesses. Key features include all the Pro features and additional tools like a content marketing toolkit, access to historical data, tracking across multiple locations and devices, and Looker Studio integration. You can also manage up to 15 projects, track up to 1,500 keywords, and track 30,000 results per report.
The third plan is ideal for larger agencies and enterprises and starts at $499.95 per month. The Business plan includes all the features of the Guru plan plus exclusive benefits like share of voice metrics, increased limits, API access, PLA analytics, and free migration from third-party tools. With this plan, you can manage up to 40 projects and track up to 5,000 keywords and 50,000 results per report.
SemRush: Features
SemRush conducts thorough keyword research and provides extensive details, including search volumes for high-traffic terms that often reach into the millions, user intent classifications (informational, commercial, navigational, transactional), and competitive density scores ranging from 0 to 1.0, which are essential for fine-tuning your SEO strategy to precisely match your audience behavior.
Moreover, competitive analysis doesn’t just scratch the surface, it digs deep. By analyzing your competitors’ organic search metrics, SemRush not only finds the keywords they rank for, but also provides a visibility score that reflects how prominent they are in the SERPs. This helps you identify not just any keyword, but the right keywords that can help you rank higher in the SERPs.
The Keyword Magic feature of this tool is also pretty impressive, providing over 2 million keyword ideas from a single seed keyword. This huge pool of suggestions paves the way for expanding your content strategy and uncovering less obvious but potentially lucrative keyword opportunities.
We also like SemRush's Gap Analysis feature, which takes a comparative approach and compares your keyword profile directly with up to five competitors. It's not just about volume, but digs into the keyword difficulty scores and SERP features your competitors occupy. This comparison explains strategic gaps in your SEO approach and provides a roadmap for prioritizing your efforts on keywords where you can realistically outperform your competitors.
Additionally, if you are looking for “not served” keywords, SemRush integrates with Google Analytics and Google Search Console to surface such keywords and give you a complete picture of your organic search landscape. This integration is extremely useful for bridging the gap between estimated search data and actual visitor behavior on your site.
Again, SemRush is designed to help with a wide range of tasks, which is why you can manage and segment up to 2,000 keywords in the Keyword Manager, a feature that's especially useful for agencies managing large campaigns and multiple clients.
Content Optimization Tools
SemRush content optimization tool analyzes your keyword usage and gives you recommendations to make your content more SEO friendly. It not only identifies which keywords to use, but also tells you how many times you use them. This is done based on insights gained from your competitors' performance.
Additionally, you can also integrate Semrush into your Google Docs, WordPress, and even MS Word accounts. Semrush offers an extensive writing assistant tool that uses AI to briefly discuss key metrics about your content, including formatting, SEO optimization, and tips to improve readability. It does this by assessing your content for elements such as sentence length, complexity, and overall structure, and providing suggestions to improve readability. This is crucial, as accessible content tends to perform better in terms of user engagement and search engine rankings. The best part is that you get all this live along with your writing tools. This can save you a ton of time while editing and improve your content significantly. And if you are using a different tool for plagiarism checking, SemRush with its own originality checker solves that problem as well. The tool scans its vast database and flags potential duplicates, helping you maintain the uniqueness of your content, which is crucial for ranking purposes.
SemRush’s PPC Keyword Research Tool shows you everything from highly searched terms to niche long-tail keywords with search volumes that vary from a few to thousands per month. This information helps you identify both high traffic and low competition opportunities.
Cost-per-click (CPC) analysis is another area where these tools provide extensive data. CPC values ​​can range from as low as $0.05 for low-competition niches to over $50 for highly competitive terms. This insight can help you make informed decisions about your budget allocation and bidding strategy.
We also like Semrush's competitive analysis feature, which points out your rivals' strategies and reveals optimization opportunities and areas where you can outperform your competitors. This analysis includes data on your competitors' ad spend, the keywords they're bidding on, and past ad performance. With this information in hand, you can identify gaps in your competitors' strategies and get an edge.
Finally, Semrush also gives you access to localized data, which can help make your ads more relevant to specific demographics and regions, increasing engagement rates and the overall efficiency of your PPC campaigns.
On-Page SEO vs. Technical SEO
Semrush's Site Audit tool is designed to simulate search engine crawling behavior to crawl your website in detail, covering 130+ SEO health checks including issues like HTTPS security protocol, core web vitals, duplicate content, and more to identify and prioritize issues on your site.
Among on-page and technical SEO tools, our favorite is On-Page SEO Checker, which does more than just keyword optimization. It leverages Semrush's extensive dataset to analyze your SERP position, backlink profile, and content quality to provide customized recommendations. It even predicts traffic volume and compares your site with competitors.
And if you’re struggling to decide what to include in your article, our SEO Content Templates tool is extremely helpful. The tool analyzes the best-performing pages for your chosen keywords to generate a content creation blueprint. It even advises on text length, backlink sources, and multimedia inclusion to align with Google’s SERP feature settings.
Link Building and Backlink Analysis
Semrush's Backlink Analytics tool examines a website's backlink profile by identifying link building patterns and pointing out growth opportunities. It does this by categorizing links by type, attributes, and quality. In addition to this, it tracks how your backlink profile changes over time and understands patterns in how these links are earned.
We all know how toxic backlinks can affect your SEO health. With that in mind, SemRush also offers a backlink audit feature to identify potentially harmful backlinks. The process integrates with Google Search Console to assess link quality using over 45 different toxic markers. This allows you to easily manage and reject toxic links directly on the platform.
The link building tool helps simplify the outreach process even further. It suggests potential link building opportunities based on your competitors' backlink profiles and keyword priorities. We also like how Semrush manages outreach campaigns and evaluates the authority and relevance of suggested sites. And the way it organizes leads by campaign for efficient execution of targeted link building strategies really streamlines the process.
SemRush: Interface and Usage
SemRush's interface is user-friendly and effective. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced digital marketer, you'll have no trouble navigating the extensive toolset. The dashboard is also well-organized, putting SEO, PPC, and content marketing tools at your fingertips. What we like most about this setup is how easy it is to switch between tasks.
The platform's wide range of features may initially confuse beginners, but this diversity demonstrates SemRush's excellence as a well-rounded digital marketing tool. Overall, SemRush combines complexity and ease of use to provide a powerful resource for diverse digital marketing efforts.
SemRush: Support
SemRush offers multiple support options to help you make the most of its features. If you are new to the platform or would like to gain a deeper understanding of its features, you can book a session with an expert who will walk you through how to use the platform and demonstrate how to make the most of its extensive features.
If you are considering an upgrade or need a solution for a specific requirement, our sales team is always available to support you, guiding you through the different options and helping you find the best solution for your needs.
SemRush also caters to users who prefer to explore and learn on their own. It offers many self-help resources, including user manuals, instructional videos, and FAQs. These materials are designed to help users navigate the platform and answer any questions they may have.
SemRush: Competitors
SEMRush is roughly on par with competing SEO services in terms of both price and feature set. For example, one of its main competitors, Moz Pro, offers roughly comparable subscriptions (but with a lower entry level) at prices ranging from $99, $179, $249, and $599 per month, with higher limits and new features added with every upgrade.
Also, keep in mind that some platforms have more affordable plans than SEMRush and Moz Pro. If you don't need all the features included in the Pro subscription, or $120 per month is out of your budget, consider a service with a lower barrier to entry.
SemRush: Final verdict
If you're looking for an SEO tool to enhance your website's SEO, PPC, and content strategy, SemRush is probably one of the top choices. While the comprehensive features require some learning, the interface is surprisingly user-friendly. We appreciate the support resources and expert guidance that SemRush provides to help you get the most out of your investment.
The plans offered by SemRush are designed to meet the needs of any business, from small teams to large enterprises. Although the plans are on the expensive side, the great value that SemRush brings to your online marketing efforts makes it worth the price and makes it an excellent investment if you want to supercharge your website.