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SEMrush Review
SEMrush is a massive collection of SEO tools that will complement almost any business, blog, website, or SEO agent’s arsenal. So whether you’re an SEO agency or if you’re just an independent webmaster who needs to increase website traffic, SEMrush can benefit you one way or the other.
So if you want to conduct organic SEO research, spy on the analytics of your fiercest competitors, or even spy on your competitor’s ad budget, then SEMrush might be a dream come true, especially if you’re frustrated that your current SEO tools are lacking in their depth of features.
SEMrush is one of the heavy hitters in the SEO tool world, and have beautiful reviews from SEO authorities such as Seobook.com, Clickz.com, and the Internet Marketing Ninjas, so you can be rest assured that if you’re serious about SEO analytics, SEMrush is one of the best ways to get analytics and data.
SEMrush will allow you to launch massive campaigns for any website with a full spectrum of analytics. What data can you analyze precisely? Just about everything an SEO agent needs, such as data on your top competitors, current keyword rankings, and the health of your website structure.
Maybe you want to take a deeper look into your competitor’s display advertising campaigns. How would it feel to sneakily spy on your competition, so you can know their organic and paid search tactics, as well as their overall link building strategy? With SEMrush, you’ll tap into knowledge that’s almost impossible to get elsewhere.
SEMrush Advantages
Touted By Heavy Hitters – SEMrush is where the big SEO dogs (so to speak) come to play, and they can easily brag to be one of the leading SEO toolsets on the entire planet, with over 916,879 users, and solid reviews from many leading SEO experts.
Statistics Without Logging In – If you’re at all curious to see where your domains are ranking, at this very moment, then you can visit SEMrush and simply enter your URL without even logging in. You’ll see how your page is ranking, who you’re competing with, and your overall domain health all in neatly organized charts.
Don’t see what you’re looking for? No problem, because you’ll find a ton of data that you might not expect, it’s worth five minutes of your time and this exercise might reveal startling statistics that could change your entire SEO strategy going forward.
Massively Active Community – If you’re an up and coming SEO agent, or otherwise want to dive into the SEO world as quickly as possible, stop what you’re doing and check out the SEMrush community. Here’s a team who lives and breathes SEO! It seems that SEMrush has training webinars all the time, so you can hop on, meet the team, and learn innovative SEO strategies that can make your business more powerful.
So if you use SEO to rank your own businesses, or even if you run an SEO agency, SEMrush is a great place to stay abreast in the constantly changing world of SEO.
SEMrush Disadvantages
No Free Plan, Per Se – It’s true that you can visit SEMrush and immediately just plug your domain into their website and get a boatload of data. In fact, the free data that SEMrush provides is arguably superior to the premium data of many of their competitors.
That being said, if you want to dig deeper into SEMrush’s features, you should consider upgrading to a premium account. That being said, you can create a free SEMrush account which will enable your rudimentary domain tracking (traffic analysis, organic keywords, and organic competition indicators are available for free accounts, but advanced features aren’t permitted on free accounts, so many of the features are essentially limited in one way or the other).
No Bottom Barrel Plans Either – SEMrush’s plans aren’t the cheapest on the block, so if you’re a beginning blogger looking to scrape by with cheap SEO analytical tools, you’ll definitely want to stick to their free options. This isn’t to say that SEMrush doesn’t offer great deals, because they do, but if you’re not heavily into the SEO game one way or the other, you might just stick with SEMrush’s ample free plans to start out with.
Competition – SEMrush is easily one of the best SEO analytical toolsets around. One problem you might have noticed though, is that there is so much competition; plus, more and more are popping up left and right. The fascinating part, is that SEMrush is honestly superior to many of their competitors, SEMrush might slip you by, or otherwise get lost in the shuffle.
Hopefully, this summary review will help to demystify your options, or provide insight where you might otherwise not find it.
Who Is SEMrush Ideal For?
There are three specific crowds that could benefit big-league from SEMrush.
The first group of potential benefactors are of course the SEO contractors out there. If you for example have SEO clients, and want to provide superior insights into how their websites are ranking, so you can provide data and even work on improving their current rankings, then SEMrush might be one of the best options you can offer.
In the event that you operate (or take part of) a massive SEO agency, then SEMrush still provides massive plans with hefty reports and all of the analytics that you need to “wow” your whale clients, including branded PDF reports to help sell your agency as their SEO saviors.
Finally, even if you’re a tiny one-person team, SEMrush’s free tools are absolutely worth checking out, and if your organization’s web platforms (blogs, authority sites, ecommerce stores, et cetera) are being taken seriously, then you might consider one of SEMrush’s starter plans to help take your traffic and SEO rankings to the next level.
The main feature (in a nutshell) of SEMrush is being able to spy on your competitors, or almost any domain on the planet. You can literally crack open your competition’s hood, and see where they’re getting traffic, so you can strategize methods to snatch their traffic right from under their noses, legally and ethically of course.
SEMrush Signup Process
Signing up for SEMrush is surprisingly easy, and fascinatingly enough, you don’t need a credit card to register. SEMrush actually offers a “freemium” model upon which you can register and get your feet wet, but there are limitations to many of their features of course.
In any event, upon visiting the SEMrush website, you’ll be able to register and all you need to get started is an email address. You’ll be asked to confirm your email address; after which you’ll reach the member’s area.
When you enter the SEMrush member’s area, you’ll be asked about your position (Webmaster, SEO agent, SEO specialist, PPC specialist, et cetera) and also your account type (Freelancer, marketing agent, or in-house marketing department).
Once you fill in your profile (which won’t take more than a minute really) you’ll be in awe at all of the tools and features available at your fingertips. The member’s area looks very intuitive, and you won’t have a hard time getting started and amassing insane amounts of data that you would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.
SEMrush Ease of Use
If you’ve ever banged your head against the wall because your SEO analytical software looked like it was designed in 1995, then you’re going to love SEMrush. Everything is accessible via their beautiful website, so you never have to install anything.
So regarding ease of use, you don’t have to be an SEO (or tech) guru by any stretch. If you can enter a domain name into their text fields, you can amass a ton of data about your website (or your competitor’s websites for that matter). You’ll be able to track all referring domains, anchors, referring IPs, indexed pages, competitor’s organic reach, position changes, and a ton of other SEO goodies that you and your clients will ogle over.
You can even “spy” on your competitor’s paid traffic campaigns, or put domains in a head to head comparative analysis that will be interesting for you and your client’s to observe.
If you have clients, you’ll be able to impress the daylights out of them with the white label branded reports, and evoke a powerful sense of loss because they’ll want to continually receive this invaluable data month after month, especially as you showcase plans to beat their competition, and an SEO strategy that’s possible with such insight.
SEMrush Features
Analytics Reporting – SEMrush boasts the ability to spy on your competitors! So not only can you determine your own analytics, but you can also spy on your competitors. This can be one of the best ways to entice clients to take you on, and shall also allow you to find the best keywords so you can work on establishing killer SEO campaigns that help your ranking (and your client’s rating) big time. You’ll also be able to track rankings over time, so you can see which of your SEO campaigns are working, and which need to go by the wayside. Knowledge is power.
Advertising “Spy” Reporting – Imagine this situation. Imagine if you could literally spy on your competitor’s ad strategies, and even their budget. Imagine if you could put a fly on the wall of your fiercest competitor’s inner most sanctum, so you can analyze and ethically “steal” their ad copies, keywords, and how much they’re paying per click? This will not only allow you to sneakily outmaneuver your competition at every turn, but you can impress the daylights of your clients with your mystical insight.
Display Ads – Face it. Display advertising isn’t getting any easier, you need every advantage you can get. With SEMrush, your advantages are going to stack sky high, because you’ll be able to spy on the top publishers and advertisers, so you can analyze their winning ads and see what’s working. You can even spy on new publishers as they pop up, so you can “take down” and “outbid” the new kid on the block before they get a chance to steal your piece of the pie. (In an ethical and harmonious way of course).
Backlink Checkers – This isn’t your regular run-of-the-mill backlink checker. SEMrush will allow you to spy on your competition’s sources of backlinks, so you can aim to unseat them and compete one on one. You can also check the geographic location of any backlink, and even determine the authority of each specific backlink, so you can see if acquiring specified backlinks is worthy of your time, or just a fruitless endeavor.
Video Advertising Analytics – You’ve probably noticed by now that video marketing is the way of the future, if your SEO campaigns aren’t capitalizing upon video marketing, you’re at risk of being outsmarted and outranked. That’s why SEMrush offers the ability to create killer video ad campaigns, by enabling you the ability to spy on your competitor’s winning video ad strategies whenever (and wherever) they happen. Because here’s one thing that most people won’t tell you – video marketing is expensive! So, let SEMrush take the edge off by allowing you to spy on winning video ads, so you can not only find where your competition is advertising, but so you can see what’s working right now.
Keyword Research – What would an SEO tool be without comprehensive keyword research? With SEMrush, you’ll be able to find the perfect keywords for not only your written (and yes, video content), but also your PPC campaigns, so you can get the perfect earnings per click, reduce the cost of your clicks, all the while driving more organic traffic to any website that you want. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for long tail keywords, or a list of related keywords to what you’re targeting, SEMrush has you covered.
Keyword Difficulty Checker – Here’s where things get a little tough, for your completion. SEMrush will actually allow you to find precisely which keywords you should target to methodically and strategically unseat your competition. If you use this tool wisely, your competitors will curse the day you started ranking, and they’ll have no idea the source of your magic. (This is how you can win the hearts of your clients each and every time, so they’ll want to remain yours forever).
Head To Head Comparisons – Speaking of clients, one of the best ways to attract new clients is by using this “head to head” feature that SEMrush offers. So you can compare any two websites, showing the unique keywords and rankings that they share by way of visual data that will make sense to any prospective client.
Beautiful Charts And Graphs – SEMrush’s charts will allow you to instantly showcase your own strengths and weaknesses without being a PhD in computer science or a lifelong SEO nerd. In fact, the SEMrush charts and graphs are good looking, easy to understand, and can be white labelled so you can hand them off to your clients or your team, without doing any of the tough work yourself.
Full SEO Audits – SEO audits usually take a long time, and cause a lot of stress. With SEMrush you won’t have any trouble, and you’ll be able to optimize your linking structure, find any missing tags, improve your titles and meta-descriptions, correct any broken images, and find duplicate content all the while fixing other errors that will hold your SEO strategy down and prevent you from ranking the way you want to rank.
All of this, with just a few clicks of your mouse. (If you have clients, this can be one of the easiest ways to lure them into your services that they’ll find to be invaluable).
SEMrush Integration's
SEMrush API – SEMrush has one of the most innovative and best-documented APIs of any SEO tool that you might encounter, so you can easily integrate and export their wealth of data into almost any custom reporting tool (or applications, widgets, dashboards, et cetera) of your choice, or have a developer do so on your behalf.
SEMrush Pricing
SEMrush offers a “freemium” membership, upon which there are a ton of options to talk about.
First, you can begin tracking website data and analytics without even logging in. All you have to do, is visit SEMrush’s homepage, and enter the URL of your website, or your competitor’s website. You’ll see a ton of organic search, keyword, and competitive data that you’ll find useful.
You can also register for free to access the same data with a few other perks, however the majority of benefits are reserved for the premium plans, which there are three of them. The premium plans are ideal if you’re an SEO agency, SEO contractor, or if you have a beefy website that demands lots of reporting data.
The first premium SEMrush plan is known as the pro plan. The pro plan allows you to conduct searches that list up to 10,000 results per report, and you can run 3,000 reports per day. You can track 500 keywords, run up to 5 simultaneous projects, and schedule up to 5 PDF reports. However, there is no PDF report branding with the pro plan. The pro plan costs $69.95 per month, or $699.40 per year (so you save $140 if you pay annually).
The second SEMrush plan is known as the guru plan. The guru plan allows you to conduct searches that list up to 30,000 results per report, and you can run 5,000 reports per day. You can track 1,500 keywords, run 50 simultaneous projects, and schedule up to 20 PDF reports. You can use the PDF report branding with the guru plan. The guru plan costs $149.95 per month, or $1499.40 per year (so you save $300 if you pay annually).
Finally, there’s the business plan. The business plan allows you to conduct searches that list up to 50,000 results per report, and you can run 10,000 reports per day. You can track 6,000 keywords, run unlimited simultaneous projects, and schedule up to 50 PDF reports. You can of course use the PDF report branding with the guru plan, and you can also enable multiple users to manage your projects. The guru plan costs $549.95 per month, or $5,499.40 per year (so you save $1,110 if you pay annually).
You might look at all of these options, and then wonder what’s right for you? Here’s the best advice to follow. If you’re a tiny one-person blogger, ecommerce startup, or just someone trying to spy on your competitors, then register for a free account so you can get your feet wet. It won’t cost you a single red cent, and depending upon how far you’d like to take things, you might never have to pay.
However, in the event that you already have SEO clients, or you otherwise manage a medium to large scale SEO agency, you’ll want to consider the pro, guru, or business plan. The plan you choose is largely dependent upon how large your reporting results need to be, how many reports you’d like to run per day, your number of projects, and whether or not you need branded reports.
Either way, you might want to start with a free plan just to test out SEMrush’s interface. There’s a good chance that you’ll fall in love, and upgrade immediately, and if you decide it’s not for you, you can still use SEMrush’s handy competitive analysis tools to get a leg up on all competing domains.
(You can also contact SEMrush for a custom quote in the event that you’re not sure what type of plan your business needs. They’re a very benevolent group, they won’t bite, and you shouldn’t be shy to drop them a line).
SEMrush Support
If there’s one area where SEMrush crushes their competition, it’s with their support. The frequency of their training webinars is off the charts, so if you want to learn more about SEMrush, or just become more involved in the world of SEO innovation, you owe it to yourself to check out their upcoming webinars that occur seemingly on a daily basis.
You’ll also see a boatload of blog posts coming from SEMrush’s neck of the woods, with topics that will make any SEO nerd salivate.
In the event that you want to fly out and meet the team, SEMrush also engages in several (and seemingly nonstop) SEO forums and seminars, so regardless of how far you want to go with SEMrush, they’ll stand by you so you can socialize and really get to know their team. You can find upcoming information on their seminars (and webinars) on their homepage.
In addition to their webinars, seminars, and blogs, SEMrush also has a massive array of video (and text) tutorials, FAQs, manuals, a comprehensive API, and knowledge bases with lots of SEO data that you’ll have fun checking out.
In the event that you’re seeking traditional support, you can also reach out to SEMrush via telephone, email, or through a traditional ticketing system. Their staff is super friendly, and can be contacted from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm GMT-4 in the United States.
SEMrush also has European offices; their hours are 04:00 am to 12:00 pm GMT-4 Monday through Friday. So, regardless of where you’re from, or what time you need help, SEMrush has you covered.
SEMrush Reputation
Not many SEO tools can boast positive reviews from heavy hitting SEO authorities such as Seobook.com, Clickz.com, and the Internet Marketing Ninjas. For that reason, you can be absolutely confident that SEMrush has a reputation for SEO excellence, and they want to help you succeed, regardless of how large (or small) you are at this point in your business.
(SEMrush doesn’t like to brag, but they also have some of the largest brands on the planet as their clients, such as Forbes, ShoppersChoice.com, and Blinds.com).
Maybe you’re wondering more about the experience of SEMrush? Well, SEMrush is responsible for tracking over 916,981 users, 120,000,000+ keywords, and over 128,000,000+ domains. You probably realize by now that they’re a massive organization with a reputation for SEO excellence, and they’re confident in their ability to help you achieve.
Finally, the team of SEMrush is rather prolific, they have over 200 employees from 4 different countries (USA, Russia, Czech Republic and Cyprus), and they boast over 7 years of experience. Their team is comprised of marketers, and their motto is that they want to help marketers, large and small, by allowing you to outsmart, and outmuscle your competition for better traffic rankings.
SEMrush Conclusion
Is your competition smashing you in the search engines? Are they outspending you in the big ad networks? Finally, are their videos seen everywhere, while you’re left kicking up dust?
Moreover, do you have clients who feel the same way? If that’s the case, ask yourself this question.
Would you like to ethically spy on your competition, so you can see where they’re getting their backlinks, what keywords they’re ranking for, and even how much they’re paying for their Pay Per Click ads? Imagine if you could sneakily spy on and “swipe” their PPC ad copy, all the while gaining an edge in your content marketing game plan.
That’s what SEMrush exerts great effort to afford you, which is the chance to compete with the big guy. So whether you’re an up and coming blog, ecommerce store, or authority site, you can have a chance.
Finally, imagine being able to offer these invaluable services to a client? How much might that be worth to them, and to you? Would having this data at your fingertips, make finding and keeping clients harder, or easier?
You probably realize the potential of SEMrush by now, and if it sounds at all interesting, you might consider giving them a chance. You can register for absolutely zero cost, hop on a webinar, or simply visit their site, enter your website URL, and see what SEO magic awaits.
About Mike DeVincent
Mike researches and reviews products for Top 10 Marketing Software. Mike has vast experience in blogging, teaching and internet marketing. See Mike's profile on Google+.
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