SEMrush Reviews 2022: Features, Best Bits, What’s New?
If you own a website or run an SEO agency, finding a trusted SEO tool that is affordable and provides you with valuable insights is extremely important.
SEMrush is one of the more popular SEO tools and is one that I highly recommend.
In this article, we will look in-depth at SEMrush. We will cover the price, features, capabilities and the general pros and cons of using the tool for your SEO strategy in 2022.
What is SEMrush?
- What is SEMrush?
- What are the pros and cons of SEMrush?
- What is Semrush’s best feature?
- SEMrush Review: Plans, prices and key features
- Is SEMrush good for beginners?
- Is SEMrush the best SEO tool?
- Is Ahrefs or SEMrush better?
- Can I use Ahrefs and SEMrush for free?
- SEMrush reviews conclusion
SEMrush is a comprehensive suite of tools that help marketers with SEO, PPC and keyword research strategies.
The insights generated by SEMrush can be used to make informed decisions about your online marketing efforts in services such as keyword research or competitive analysis for any industry type.
There are many useful features that SEMrush provides including its keyword research tools that allow you to look at the search engine rankings for the keywords you are trying to target.
It also has a number of other useful features including:
- Competitor analysis insights – this allows you to look at competitors within a particular niche to find out what keywords they are targeting and ranking for.
- Social media scheduling – this feature connects with social media platforms like Twitter and Linkedin. It allows you to schedule posts and has a useful content calendar that gives you visibility on your planned content.
- Backlink audits – analyse the quality of a website’s backlink profile using the backlink audit tool. Look at the domain authority metrics, the relevance of a link and find new opportunities for your website.
- Website audits – run full site audits using SEMrush to analyse the technical and on-page SEO elements of your website.
- Content research insights – find new content opportunities for your website using SEMrush’s content research tool.
- Google integrations – link your SEMrush dashboard with Google to connect your owned websites and monitor keyword changes, site health and backlinks via SEMrush.
SEMrush is certainly one of the more popular SEO tools because of the extensive features that make it a tool that provides good value for your money.
What are the pros and cons of SEMrush?
Here we will look at the pros and cons of SEMrush and provide a balanced review of what we believe are the great and not so great features of SEMrush in 2022.
The pros
Let’s take a look at what is great about SEMrush as an SEO tool…
Competitor analysis
With SEMrush, marketing professionals can gain insights into what their competitors are doing so they don’t get left behind.
SEMrush allows you to see what your competition is doing in terms of content, link building and the keywords that they are ranking for.
This can help you see what you need to do to emulate their strategies in terms of keywords you can target and see the factors that help them to rank well.
Domain analysis
The domain overview is a set of reports that will allow you to get a view on how any given website performs. You can see metrics like organic and paid traffic, backlinks as well as display ads for the site in question.
This again is a great way to find opportunities to grow the visibility of your own website(s) and get an idea of how competitive your niche is based on the strength of other websites.
PPC advertising toolkit
The Semrush Advertising Toolkit is your go-to for planning a successful Google Ads campaign. It gives you access to all of the tools that will benefit any business owner running paid advertising with keywords, ad lists and past performance metrics that will help you build a successful PPC campaign.
Backlink analysis
The SEMrush backlink database is one of the largest among well-known competitors and continues to grow. The backlink analysis tool allows you to check backlinks accurately for nearly any website and enables you to evaluate a niche and find backlink opportunities for your own websites.
Keyword research
SEMrush keyword overview allows users to find keyword opportunities for their own websites and carry out effective research on how valuable keywords are in terms of traffic. Keyword research is an essential component of any organic or paid marketing campaign and the SEMrush keyword database is an excellent way to get started.
Site audit
The site audit tool from SEMrush is an incredibly valuable resource for any business looking to improve its online presence. By scanning websites and identifying technical mistakes, the SEMrush site audit tool can spot issues such as broken links, incorrect title structures and other opportunities that may help with improving your site performance in Google.
The cons
SEMrush is a fantastic tool and is one I certainly recommend if you are working in the SEO industry.
Whilst the tool is excellent, the entry price to get access to all of its features may be expensive to someone just getting started out. There are also a lot of features that may be difficult to initially understand for a beginner SEO but overall, the tool is great and is one that I certainly recommend.
The positives about the tool certainly outweigh the negatives and if you are looking for the best SEO tools to use, then I would put SEMrush in this category.
What is Semrush’s best feature?
There are a number of extremely powerful features in the SEMrush toolkit and depending on what you are looking to get out of the tool will depend on what you believe to be the best.
Some of the best features and tools within SEMrush include:
Position tracking tool
The SEMrush position tracking tool is an excellent feature that allows you to accurately monitor live rankings and see how your changes impact ranking visibility in Google.
With this tool, you can view how well you are ranking compared to your competitors, whether that be via a page or with featured snippets.
SEMrush updates rankings daily, as opposed to competitors that only update weekly which provides a great way to monitor the overall health of your website.
Keyword magic tool
The Keyword Magic Tool is another great feature in SEMrush. You can use this tool to discover potential keywords for you to target. It allows you to develop a list of keywords to track and provides keyword suggestions that you can use to target using your own website.
On-page SEO checker
The on-page SEO Checker helps you identify your website’s weaknesses and suggests ways to improve its rankings in search engines.
The tool takes data from your website as well as the sites that are ranking and this allows it to provide suggestions such as content changes that would enhance the ranking position of an individual page.
It can also identify potential internal linking opportunities that may boost other pages and drive traffic to relevant pages within your website.
Social media scheduling
The social media tool is another great feature and is one that I actively use to schedule social media posts and view the engagement with my content. You can gain visibility on opening rates and view the key metrics that will help increase the reach of your social media posts.
SEMrush Review: Plans, prices and key features
Depending on what it is you need for your SEO tool, whether you are running a single website or running an agency and are managing multiple client websites, SEMrush offers different pricing plans based on the features you get access to and what you require to manage your websites effectively.
SEMrush Pricing Packages
SEMrush offers 3 main pricing tiers for access to the tool. Their most basic “Pro” package starts from $119.95 per month. Depending on the size of your website and whether you manage more than one, there are different packages on offer that will give you what you need.
Pro plan
SEMrush Pro plan starts from $119.95/mo and is ideal if you are just getting started with SEO and are looking for an affordable option for your research and analysis.
The Pro plan allows you to manage 5 projects and allows you to track up to 500 keywords using the position tracking feature.
You can get started with a 7-day trial of the SEMrush Pro plan to see how it works and whether it is the right fit for what you require from your SEO tool.
Guru plan
SEMrush Guru plan starts from $229.95/mo and is ideal if you are running an agency and are growing the number of websites that you manage.
The Guru plan allows you to manage 15 projects and allows you to track up to 1500 keywords using the position tracking feature.
You can get started with a 7-day trial of the SEMrush Guru plan to see how it works and whether it is the right fit for what you require from your SEO tool.
Business plan
SEMrush Business plan starts from $449.95/mo and is ideal if you are a large agency and manage a number of client websites that require large volumes of keyword tracking.
The Business plan allows you to manage 40 projects and allows you to track up to 5000 keywords using the position tracking feature.
You can get started with a 1-month Business plan recurring subscription to see how it works and whether it is the right fit for what you require from your SEO tool.
Is SEMrush good for beginners?
SEMRush is a great tool for both beginners and experienced digital marketers. It can help you see what’s working, where your traffic coming from as well give insights into how effective different marketing approaches are.
SEMrush provides valuable information that allows SEO professionals to make better-informed decisions about their organic, paid and social strategies. Whether it is getting useful keyword information or finding backlink opportunities, SEMrush is certainly a tool that can provide this information in an easy to digest dashboard.
If you are new to SEO and are unsure about which of the paid plans is right for you, then I would recommend getting started with the Pro plan which provides you with most of the features available to you.
This includes access to the Keyword magic tool that lets you carry out keyword research as well as track up to 500 keywords to help manage search rankings and have visibility on how your work is impacting positively or negatively.
Is SEMrush the best SEO tool?
When I get asked whether SEO tools are worth it or not, I certainly recommend SEMrush. SEMrush is certainly one of the best-paid SEO tools that you can use.
Whilst there are many paid and free SEO tools that you can use as part of your digital marketing strategy, SEMrush provides excellent keyword research and link building resources to help inform what you are trying to do with your websites.
With SEMrush, you’ll have all the data and insights necessary to optimize your site for higher rankings. There are also free SEO tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console that can also give you insights. Whilst they may not do what SEMrush can do in terms of the competitor analysis side of things, there are certainly insights you can get from these free tools if you are looking for a free tool to get started with.
Is Ahrefs or SEMrush better?
I am often asked whether SEMrush is better than Ahrefs as an SEO tool. Both of these tools have their own quirks and useful features that make them extremely popular in the SEO industry.
A lot of digital marketing agencies will use both tools because of the different insights and data that you can extract from the tools. It can be costly to run both tools at the same time so it’s important to know what you can get from both Ahrefs and SEMrush to ensure you are getting the most out of either tool.
Ahrefs vs SEMrush: Keyword research
In terms of the keyword research capabilities, SEMrush beats Ahrefs in terms of the keyword data it has available. Not only are there more keywords available to you but SEMrush provides a lot more metrics including trends, SERP features and search query type that allows you to understand the intent behind a particular phrase. SEMrush has the largest keyword database and is almost double the size of the Ahrefs database, although Ahrefs did recently increase their keyword database.
Ahrefs vs SEMrush: Backlinks
In terms of backlinks, Ahrefs beats SEMrush in this area. Link building is at the heart of the Ahrefs tool and whilst SEMrush actually boast a larger backlink index, the metrics provided by Ahrefs provide greater detail on the quality of a backlink.
Ahrefs vs SEMrush: Website audits
In terms of website audits, I believe that SEMrush offers a far better site audit than Ahrefs. SEMrush has worked on this tool for a long time and is able to scan websites far quicker than Ahrefs. SEMrush is great for running audits and finding critical issues with your websites and is certainly worth it if you are considering the tool.
Can I use Ahrefs and SEMrush for free?
In terms of using Ahrefs and SEMrush for free, both of these tools offer limited access if you are looking to use them for free and test either tool out.
You can actually get a 30 day free trial with SEMrush if you are looking to see what you can do with the tool. Ahrefs doesn’t actually offer a free trial but you can get access to a 7 day trial for $7.
SEMrush reviews conclusion
If you are looking for an SEO tool that will give your site the best chance at success, SEMrush is a great option.
As an SEO audit and link building tool, SEMrush offers all of the capabilities to carry out effective research and analysis. It is important to find an SEO tool that can offer you as much value as possible and SEMrush certainly ticks the box in terms of the data and insights that it offers.
Not only does SEMrush offer excellent assistance with your organic SEO strategy, but it also offers social media and PPC tools that can offer an all in one solution to your online marketing. If you are looking to grow your business across multiple channels, then SEMrush is a great tool that can take your marketing efforts to the next level.
The entry price may be a bit steep for the SEMrush tool but you can take advantage of a 30-day trial that will allow you to test out the tools for yourself. In terms of the value, you can get from the audit tools, position tracking, social media scheduling to potentially sell these services to clients.
I hope that this review has provided some useful insights into the tool. If you have any questions regarding SEMrush, do not hesitate to ask and make sure to take advantage of the free trials and introductory offers to try it out for yourself.
Social media marketing
SEMrush provides a social media marketing tool that allows users to schedule content and monitor the success of their social media campaigns. This is a great way to run campaigns efficiently whilst having visibility on the success of your social media strategies.