Semrush Review and Test: The benchmark professional SEO tool

Whether you're a user or not, you've probably heard of it. Starting with the blog, which for years has been a source of answers to the most frequently asked questions in digital marketing. It's one of the best-known and most popular marketing tools in the world.

How does it work? What are its benefits? Will it work with my software?

Today we're going to answer all your questions about one of the most important tools in the world of SEO and marketing in general.

See all software Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Introducing Semrush

Semrush was founded in Boston in 2008. Starting with a group of SEO enthusiasts who developed a Firefox plugin called Seodigger. Later, after the transition to SeoQuake, the software we're all familiar with came into being: Semrush. At the time, this Swiss army knife offered two SEO tools, and today it offers 48, expanding its activities internationally.

Today, Semrush is :

• An established presence in 7 different countries
• More than 900 employees
• 5 search awards in different countries

Why is Semrush so popular? Find out in our step-by-step guide to its features.

SEO features

As mentioned above, this tool was primarily born as an SEO platform. So it's no surprise that a large part of the tool is still dedicated to this branch of digital marketing.

Analysis of the competition

The number of places available on the first page of Google is 10, sometimes less, and it's important to bear in mind that, while you need great content, you also need to be better than the competition in every way.

The Semrush platform offers us a wide-ranging tool for analysing your competitors' activities. Simply enter the domain overview via the URL of the domain, sub-domain or exact page you need. You'll then be taken to a dashboard with a general report on your performance:

• Authority Score: a Semrush indicator (scale 1-100) that shows the overall quality of the site, this indicator is associated with Domain Ranking, which is a sort of ranking of known web domains in the platform's database. It is naturally compared to the old pagerank offered by Google in the past.

• Organic traffic: overall measurement of the monthly traffic that the site is able to generate thanks to pages positioned naturally (without recourse to paid advertising) on the first page of Google for certain keywords.

• Paid: Share of traffic generated by paid advertising carried out for the website.

• Backlink (or referring domains): number of external links pointing to the website in question.

• Display advertising: indicates the number of display ads currently online for the site.

You will then be able to view the highlights of the sections in the form of graphs, which can be found later in the menu dedicated to competitor analysis.

Traffic analysis

This tool allows you to go into a little more detail when analysing traffic, making a distinction between organic and paid traffic. The data available to the user is varied:

• Geographical breakdown: what countries does the site's traffic come from?

• Monthly traffic volume: where does this traffic come from, from which queries and via which pages?

• Number of keywords: which keywords does the site rank for?

• Serp features: Obviously this section only concerns organic traffic. It shows whether the site appears in serp features such as Snippets, images, videos, reviews, etc.

Organic search

This function allows you to view the crucial information about the site's SEO traffic through a range of parameters:

• The page's main organic keyword
• The distribution of keywords by ranking
• The main competitors in the search
• A map of positions on organic searches: Semrush provides a graphical representation of your positioning compared with your competitors on the basis of your competing keywords.

Brand traffic

In this section, you can get an idea of how brand traffic has evolved in recent months. You can also see the relationship between brand traffic and generic traffic to get a rough idea of the brand's reputation.

Keyword and Backlink Gap

This tool allows you to analyse up to 5 domains to see the backlinks or keywords behind our competitors' success. You can also select the most interesting keywords and links to generate a list and implement your own strategy.

Keyword research

Keyword research is the foundation of a content-based SEO strategy. Semrush is the tool of choice for defining this strategy.

Thanks to this section, you'll have more tools at your disposal for selecting the right keywords for your content and developing a relevant content strategy.

Initial information is already available via the keyword overview. Simply enter a keyword to get an overview of the volume of searches in different countries, the number of results on Google and SERP functionalities. Although we're still in a section dedicated to organic traffic, Semrush also provides us with some useful information, such as the cost per click and the competition for SEA (paid search) campaigns. This variable gives us an indication of the perceived value of the traffic obtained via the query analysed.

Semrush also provides us with the following information for each keyword:

• Keyword difficulty: This is a percentage indicator showing the difficulty of achieving a position on the first page of Google. This function has recently been updated to include an advice section on what needs to be done to achieve the objective (structured content, backlinks, etc.).
• Trends: Displays search trends over time. It can be useful to understand whether a keyword whose volume is still low today could represent an opportunity in the future. It can also be used as a tool to analyse the seasonality of certain subjects.

• Keyword Variations: Represents the overall number and volume of keywords that have the same intent as the main keyword.

• Questions: Questions relating to the keyword searched for. Similar to the related searches offered by Google at the end of the search results page.

• SERP analysis: An overview of the search results and the metrics and KPIs relating to the pages positioned.

Keyword Magic Tool

This is Semrush's keyword research tool, which can be used to find derivatives and related keywords and create a semantic cluster or semantic cocoon. It's a good alternative to Google Ads, with reliable metrics.

You can choose between different types of keywords:

• Broad query: All searches close to the initial query are included in the broad query.

• Expression match: Standard keyword searches.

• Exact match: The volumes and KPIs corresponding to the exact query.

• Associated queries / keywords : Searches associated with the initial query

For each keyword, the volume, difficulty, CPC, competition, functionality and results will be available.

Keyword Manager

A keyword tracker that lets you select the most interesting topics and opportunities to exploit. What's more, thanks to the tags system, you can assign labels to each subject. This makes it easy to create an SEO query backlog.

You can create your backlog using the multitude of search tools offered by Semrush:

• The Keyword Magic Tool
• Keyword Overview
• The Content Gap

• By adding them manually

Once you've selected your keywords, you can register them with Position Tracking to track their progress.

Position tracking

As mentioned above, you can select the keywords you want to monitor. With Position Tracking , you can receive daily updates on changes in position, visibility and traffic. As with the Keyword Manager, you can add tags and then track different groups of keywords for effective performance monitoring.

Creating links

In this section, we can work on the inbound link profile of our own site or that of a competitor. Up to 4 sites can be compared simultaneously. This crucial information can be used to identify differences in inbound link profiles between sites. Overall or page by page.

The information provided gives us a complete picture of a site's link profile, so let's take a closer look:

Referring domains and backlinks

A graphical view allows us to check the referring domains and the number of backlinks. At the same time, it shows trends in terms of link volume and the ratio of links gained and lost.

You can also choose to have a view over the last six months, the last year or a complete view.

Main anchors and DR categories

As most experts know, the anchor of a link is important for conveying the right content contextualisation message to Google. Thanks to a graph in Word Cloud, you can get an idea of the distribution of anchors and correct any anomalies.

Another indicator not to be underestimated is the consistency between the issues you are addressing and those of your reference domains. This will enable you to be more precise and cautious when analysing the sites that have given you a backlink.

Authority score, types and attributes

The reference domains classified on the basis of the authority score, the indicator that shows the quality of a site according to its backlink profile.

At the same time it shows us the type of backlink depending on whether it is placed on an image, text, form or frame.

Finally, the graph shows the attributes of a backlink:

• Follow

• No follow

• Sponsored

• UGC (User Generated Content)

Other information

Other indicators are presented to give an overview of the situation. For example :

• Distribution of TLDs (Top Level Domains): The distribution of referring domains according to the type of top-level domain

• Countries: Indicates which countries the backlinks come from

• Similar profiles: Other sites with a similar backlink profilebacklink

Backlink Audit

This is an analysis that Semrush offers in which, as well as tracking updates, it flags up any toxic referrer links and estimates the site's level of health. This tool has an integrated link devaluation file creation function, which can then be imported directly into Search Console to disavow toxic links.

Link Building Tool

Without getting into Black HatSEO and questioning the legitimacy of a netlinking strategy, there are still link opportunities that can be exploited naturally. Using Link Building, identify the keywords in your domain and those of your competitors to find opportunities to obtain links. If you wish to modify the competitors and keywords proposed by the software, you can insert those that you find most relevant.

This tool can be extremely effective for finding out which types of content generate a lot of backlinks from sites with similar themes to our site.

Site audit

Obviously, a search engine optimisation tool cannot be considered complete if it does not include technical search engine optimisation functions. Using graphs and error messages, it takes into account :

• Loading speed
• Site exploration
• Detecting content problems
• Metadata tags
• Internal link network
• HTTPS protocol errors (404s, 301s loops, etc.)
• CSS and JSerrors

These analyses are then compiled into intuitive reports. By connecting Search Console and Google Analytics to your SemRush account, you'll be able to get even more precise information.

SEO Content Template

This is one of the first features to be strongly geared towards writing editorial content. Enter a keyword and you'll have an editorial plan with :

• An overview of competitors
• Keywords to enter to enrich semantics
• The domains from which to obtain a backlink
• the recommended length of the text
• The editorial tone to adopt

In addition, it shows previews of competitors' content to see how they have used keywords and structured their content.

Log File Analyzer

As well as providing a technical audit of the site, this software includes server log analysis. This is a new feature for most SEO software. To use it, you need to import your server log history into the software, using a simple drag-and-drop system. Semrush will then sort the data to give you important information about the crawl coverage of Google's robot and other search engines.

This feature is particularly important for sites with a very large number of pages, as new content or new product pages may be indexed too slowly. Checking that Google indexes these pages is the first step. Trying to propose a better optimised access path to encourage crawling is a second, which can be done using the Semrush log analyser.

Local referencing

This is a package dedicated to geo-localised marketing strategies. The possibilities for this type of strategy are in line with those of the classic SEO package:

• Keyword tracking

• Listing Management

• On page SEO Checker
• Overview of organicresults

PPC Advertising Toolkit

As mentioned in the introduction, although Semrush is primarily an SEO solution, over the years the software has benefited from a package dedicated to advertising campaigns. One of the features that will be available for each type of paid campaign is the keyword gap to recover the visibility lost to competitors.

Let's take a look at the tools in this package:

Search advertising

As you'll have realised, this type of software is very keen to highlight competitors' activities in order to take advantage of them (a double-edged sword if you like, as they'll be able to do the same to you 😉 ). In this case, it shows you the keywords used by your competitors for their advertising campaigns. On top of that, for the different campaigns, you'll also get examples of PPC campaignsso you know what works best.

Display Advertising

Thanks to a dashboard, information on competitors ' Display Advertising campaigns will be visible, and it will be possible to analyse content and track results. Finally, it's a valuable ally for finding publishers in your sector.

PLA search

Concentrate on your Google Shopping campaigns and those of your competitors. This tool also offers a pricing perspective so you can implement an aggressive pricing strategy. Finally, thanks to the keyword research tool , you'll be able to choose the best keywords on which to display your products.

Advertising on social networks

This feature is available in beta version and is currently only available in English. It automates the Social Media campaignworkflow . This starts with the creation of the campaign and goes right through to performance monitoring. It will also show you the "weakest" campaigns where optimisation is needed.

Social Media Toolkit

Not to be confused with the Social Media Ads functionality, this package will enable you to manage your entire Social Media Marketing strategy.

Key features include

• Campaign planning and article publication, borrowing from solutions such as Buffer or Hootsuite.
• Advice on how best to set the publication calendar
• Content import via CSVfile
• Tracking via UTM

Content Marketing

This package, dedicated to content strategies, particularly blogs, is very similar to an SEO strategy. Indeed, one of the first features we find is the content model.

This tool follows the editorial strategy from the initial stages right through to publication.

Topic search

Sometimes you may have a fairly vague idea of a subject. If you don't want to have to write a whole novel, you need to refine and focus your writing around this idea by finding a clear, concise topic on which to concentrate and develop content. Using Semrush, all you have to do is type in a keyword or topic to obtain a wealth of additional information, such as:

• The most interesting sub-topics
• The most frequently asked questions
• The most successful headlines

SEO assistant (Copywriting assistant)

Semrush's SEO assistant takes you step by step through the writing of your article. You can access this feature directly from the site, but what really makes it interesting is its integration with Google Docs. For each word written, it will be possible to consult the content optimisation score according to different criteria such as :

• Readability : Google robots and your users will need clear text, so you'll need to adapt the type of language to your audience, the number of words, the quality of the title and the overall clarity of sentences and paragraphs.
• SEO: Respect for the main keyword, correct use of related keywords, any problems with ALT attributes and links.
• Originality / Uniqueness of content : there's no point in repeating that content must be unique, not only to comply with intellectual property rights but also with Google's strict SEO guidelines.
• Tone: unfortunately this type of analysis is only available in English at the moment.

Who is SEMrush for and how much does it cost?

Having seen the main features of Semrush, let's look at who the solution is aimed at.

Thanks to its various price plans, it's aimed at intermediate to expert SEOs, but obviously for the lower price ranges we'll find far fewer features. The ancillary features that go beyond SEO may also be of value to certain other marketing professions, but they are rather complementary and will not motivate the purchase of the solution.

• Pro: Mainly for start-ups and freelancers, the price is $120 per month but you lose access to the Content Marketing platform.
• Guru : The plan most used by businesses. It costs $230 per month and includes all the Semrush features, but with limitations on the number of keywords. Aimed mainly at SMEs and larger companies.
• Business - $450 This is the full access package to SemRush features.

It's also important to note that each additional user costs $200 per month. Beware of the bill exploding.

What about competing software?

Ahrefs is probably the most relevant outsider to compare with Semrush. Although Semrush is less widely used in France, it's a different story on the other side of the Atlantic.

Using both frequently, Ahrefs and Semrush each have advantages that could tip the balance.

Semrush probably has the largest database available on the market for keyword research. We found a greater difference in search volume with Ahrefs than with Semrush when comparing with our Search Console on different queries.

On the other hand, Ahrefs provides additional information when performing a keyword search. For example, you can have a projection of 0-click searches, or an overview of the number of backlinks you need to obtain in order to rank.

When it comes to analysing backlinks, however, we prefer Ahrefs, which tends to offer a more comprehensive and detailed list of existing and lost links.

Finally, we also like the Content Gap feature of ahrefs, but we think that the interface and infographics offered by Semrush are still superior for getting an overview of the competition.

In the final analysis, these two solutions offer relatively similar SEO features, but their interfaces are based on very different philosophies. Ahrefs is very analytical and 'straight to the point', while Semrush places more emphasis on a polished interface, although it is not much more intuitive. Finally, there's the price of each solution, which we'll compare in the last part of this test.

See all software Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Appvizer's conclusions on Semrush

Overall, this is an interesting piece of software. Its comprehensiveness has few valid competitors on the market, particularly when it comes to keyword research, which has so far proved to be unequalled.

Our favourite features include

• Keyword Tracking : automatic daily updates, the ability to add tags and easily see changes
• SemRush SEO Writing Assistant:a must-have for companies focusing on content strategy
• The SEO On Page Checker : automatic reports on all missed opportunities give you the chance to increase your visibility with simple, targeted actions.

Obviously, this solution has its drawbacks, which we must mention:

• The price: adding users quickly imposes a very high surcharge. ($80 per additional user compared with $30 at Ahrefs, and even $25 for an annual fee).
• The number of keywords you can monitor via the Keyword Manager is not always sufficient for complete project monitoring.
• Semrush can quickly become more expensive when you want to access more advanced features such as traffic analytics.
• When searching for vaguely English-speaking keywords with Keyword Magic Tool, the tool is not always able to suggest relevant keywords for certain foreign-language searches, particularly in Italian. (In this case, it's better to use Google Ads or other competitors).

All in all, this software is a real Swiss army knife for SEOs and content marketing specialists, making it a must-have tool, and we highly recommend it for taking control of your SEO strategy.