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Semrush
Created by @namkyu · Updated Sep 3, 2026
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Created by @namkyu · Updated Sep 3, 2026
Semrush is a digital marketing and SEO research platform used for keyword research, competitor analysis, rank tracking, technical site audits, backlink research, paid-search research, and increasingly AI-search visibility monitoring.
Its main value is combining several research workflows in one platform. A business can discover what competitors rank for, find potential keywords, monitor its own rankings, audit technical problems, and prioritize SEO work without relying only on data from its own website.
Item | Details |
|---|---|
Main use | SEO and competitor research |
Best for | SEO professionals, content sites, agencies, marketers, and online businesses |
Free access | Limited |
Entry SEO plan | $139/month or $117.33/month billed annually |
Websites monitored on entry SEO plan | 5 |
Keywords tracked | 500 on entry SEO plan |
Rank updates | Daily |
Keyword database | More than 27 billion keywords |
Site Audit | 140+ technical and on-page checks |
Competitor research | Yes |
Backlink research | Yes |
AI search monitoring | Available |
API | Available on higher plans |
Semrush now separates functionality into different toolkits rather than requiring every user to purchase one large marketing package.
For SEO work, the current entry SEO plan is:
$139/month
or:
$117.33/month when billed annually
This plan currently includes:
5 websites to monitor
500 keywords tracked daily
Keyword research
Competitor analysis
Position Tracking
Site Audit
AI-search performance monitoring
AI visibility reports
Higher plans increase limits for:
Websites
Tracked keywords
Reports
Site Audit pages
Historical data
API access
AI-search monitoring
For example, the current Advanced SEO + AI Search tier is listed at:
$549/month
or:
$455.67/month billed annually
and supports up to 40 monitored websites and 5,000 tracked keywords.
Most small sites do not need the highest tier.
Start by deciding how many:
Websites
Keywords
Site Audit pages
you actually need to monitor.
Semrush is most useful when several SEO questions need to be answered together.
For example:
Competitor domain → Find ranking keywords → Identify opportunity → Create article → Track ranking → Audit page
Another workflow is:
Website → Site Audit → Find technical issue → Fix issue → Recrawl → Monitor ranking changes
This makes Semrush different from Google Search Console.
Search Console provides first-party data about your own Google Search performance.
Semrush estimates and collects data across your site, competitors, keywords, backlinks, and broader search markets.
The two tools are usually more useful together than as replacements for each other.
Create a project or monitored website for the domain.
This enables tools such as:
Position Tracking
Site Audit
Other domain-specific monitoring
Start with your main production domain rather than creating unnecessary projects.
Run the first crawl.
Semrush checks the website for technical and on-page issues and organizes findings into:
Errors
Warnings
Notices
Review serious problems first.
Do not try to make every notice disappear simply to achieve a perfect Site Health score.
Choose keywords that actually matter to the site's content or business.
For example:
A website about freelancing might track:
freelance writing
freelance web developer
how to find freelance clients
Position Tracking then monitors those keywords daily.
Enter competing domains into Organic Rankings.
Look for:
Their ranking keywords
High-performing pages
Shared keywords
Keywords they rank for but you do not
This is usually more actionable than randomly generating hundreds of keyword ideas.
Use Keyword Magic Tool to research the best opportunities.
Then move only useful keywords into:
Keyword Magic Tool starts with a seed keyword.
For example:
freelancing
Semrush can then generate related queries and provide metrics such as:
Search volume
Keyword Difficulty
Search intent
CPC
Competitive Density
SERP features
The current database contains more than:
27 billion keywords
Results can be filtered using:
Broad Match
Phrase Match
Exact Match
Related
A useful workflow is:
Seed keyword → Filter by intent → Check difficulty → Inspect SERP → Select realistic topic
Do not select keywords based only on search volume.
Keyword Difficulty estimates how competitive a keyword may be in organic search.
Semrush also provides Personal Keyword Difficulty, which attempts to estimate difficulty specifically for the analyzed domain.
This is more useful than interpreting every site as if it had identical ranking strength.
Still, Keyword Difficulty is an estimate rather than a Google ranking metric.
Use it for comparison and prioritization, not as proof that a page will or will not rank.
Organic Rankings allows you to enter almost any domain and inspect estimated Google search visibility.
You can analyze:
Ranking keywords
Landing pages
Ranking changes
Your domain + Competitor domains → Compare ranking keywords → Find missing relevant topics → Review search intent → Create or improve content
Suppose three competing websites rank for:
email marketing pricing
and your site has no content covering that intent.
That may represent an opportunity.
However, do not automatically create a page for every missing keyword.
First check whether the keyword naturally belongs inside an existing article.
This is particularly useful when building an SEO content strategy.
Position Tracking → Find keywords ranking 11–20 → Inspect ranking page → Improve relevant content → Monitor position
Keywords near the first page can sometimes provide better opportunities than starting entirely new topics.
For example:
Keyword A → Position 14
Keyword B → Position 75
Improving Keyword A may be the more practical initial target.
Compare this with actual Search Console impressions before making a major content decision.
Site Audit → Errors → Identify important issue → Fix site → Re-run crawl → Compare results
Potential issues include:
Broken links
Crawlability
Indexability
HTTPS
Duplicate content
Hreflang
Internal linking
Performance
Site Audit currently performs more than 140 technical and on-page checks.
The important part is prioritization.
A critical indexing problem is generally more important than a minor warning affecting one unimportant page.
Semrush provides estimates and competitive data.
Google Search Console provides first-party data from your own Google Search presence.
A useful workflow is:
Semrush → Discover opportunity
Search Console → Verify actual impressions and queries
Semrush → Analyze competitors
Your site → Improve page
Position Tracking → Monitor target keywords
Do not discard first-party Search Console data because a third-party SEO estimate looks different.
Looking only at domain-wide traffic estimates can hide useful information.
Instead:
Competitor → Top pages → Ranking keywords → Relevant topic → Compare your content
This often produces more actionable ideas.
A keyword with 50,000 searches may be:
Too competitive
Poorly aligned with the business
Mostly informational
Difficult to monetize
A smaller keyword can be more valuable if its intent closely matches the business.
Metrics are useful filters, not final decisions.
Before targeting an important keyword, inspect Google's results.
Ask:
What type of pages rank?
Are they guides, product pages, tools, or videos?
How strong are the competing domains?
What does the searcher appear to want?
A keyword tool cannot replace understanding the actual results page.
Do not optimize purely to increase the Site Health percentage.
Semrush can help identify:
New topics
Content gaps
Ranking opportunities
Competitor pages
Search intent
Content businesses can combine this research with Blogging and other search-driven business models.
An SEO consultant can use Semrush for:
Client audits
Competitor research
Keyword research
Rank tracking
Backlink research
Reporting
For SEO Consulting, the software can reduce manual research time.
The tool itself does not replace interpreting the data or deciding what should actually be changed.
Agencies can monitor several domains and competitors from one platform.
Higher plans increase project and keyword limits and provide additional reporting and API capabilities.
The subscription should be treated as part of client-delivery cost.
For example:
Semrush subscription
÷ number of active SEO clients
= approximate software cost allocation per client
Semrush can also provide early market signals before launching a website or product.
Research:
Competitor → Keywords → Search demand → Topics → Commercial intent
This does not prove that a business idea will succeed, but it can help estimate whether relevant search demand exists.
Semrush can integrate with Google services including:
Google Analytics
Google Search Console
These integrations can enrich reports with first-party website information.
This can be especially useful for combining:
Semrush research data + Search Console search data + Analytics behavior data
Reporting functionality can also combine information from multiple Semrush tools.
For automated or large-scale workflows, higher plans provide API capabilities.
Position Tracking monitors specified keywords daily.
Current SEO Toolkit limits include:
Plan Level | Keywords | Websites |
|---|---|---|
Without SEO Toolkit | 10 | 1 |
Pro SEO level | 500 | 5 |
Guru SEO level | 1,500 | 15 |
Business SEO level | 5,000 | 40 |
Up to 20 competitors can currently be tracked per Position Tracking campaign.
Tracking can be configured by:
Location
Device
Language
Search engine
Semrush currently supports tracking beyond standard Google results in areas including Bing, Baidu, ChatGPT Search, and Google AI Mode.
Site Audit does not have to crawl the entire site in exactly one way.
Possible crawl sources include:
Website links
Sitemap referenced in robots.txt
Specific sitemap URL
Keyword volume, competitor traffic, keyword difficulty, and other metrics are estimates based on Semrush's own datasets and methodologies.
They are not private analytics data from competitor websites.
Use them directionally.
The entry paid SEO plan currently costs $139 monthly when paying month-to-month.
For a very small site, free tools such as Search Console may provide enough information initially.
Semrush becomes easier to justify when its competitor and research capabilities are actively used.
A tool can generate millions of ideas.
Publishing large quantities of weak pages simply because keywords exist can produce a low-quality site.
Prioritize useful pages that satisfy real search intent.
Semrush's Site Health score is a diagnostic metric created by Semrush.
Google does not rank websites according to that score.
Do not treat:
"Competitor receives 100,000 visits"
as audited financial or analytics data.
The useful information is often relative:
Competitor A appears substantially more visible than Competitor B
rather than assuming every estimated visitor number is exact.
Keyword research can become endless.
A useful cycle is:
Research → Choose opportunity → Publish or improve → Measure → Repeat
Spending weeks continuously researching keywords without producing or improving anything provides little value.
Tool | Best Fit | Main Difference |
|---|---|---|
Semrush | Broad SEO and marketing research | Large integrated toolkit |
Ahrefs | SEO, backlink, and competitor research | Strong SEO-focused research workflow |
Google Search Console | Your own Google Search performance | Free first-party Google data |
Google Analytics | User behavior after visiting the site | First-party website analytics |
Choose Semrush when:
Competitor research is important
You need keyword discovery
Technical audits are useful
You manage several SEO workflows
Rank tracking is important
Choose Ahrefs when its SEO research workflow, data, or pricing better matches your needs.
Use Search Console regardless of whether you pay for Semrush because it provides data that third-party SEO platforms cannot replace.
Semrush provides limited access without an SEO Toolkit subscription.
Important limits are significantly lower than on paid plans, and some features or exports require a subscription.
The current entry SEO plan costs $139 per month or $117.33 per month when billed annually.
Higher plans increase monitoring, keyword, reporting, audit, and other limits.
They serve different purposes.
Search Console provides first-party Google data about your own site.
Semrush provides broader keyword, competitor, backlink, technical, and market research.
Using both is usually more useful than choosing only one.
Semrush provides estimated competitor traffic and search visibility based on its own datasets.
It does not have access to a competitor's private Google Analytics account.
Keyword Magic Tool is Semrush's keyword discovery system.
Its current database contains more than 27 billion keywords and allows filtering by metrics including volume, difficulty, intent, CPC, and SERP features.
Yes.
Position Tracking monitors selected keywords daily and can track performance by factors such as location, device, language, and search engine.
Keyword lists
Content planning
Position Tracking
Avoid treating every keyword returned by the database as a page that needs to be created.
Competitors
SERP features
Semrush reports keywords where a domain appears within Google's top 100 results in its database.
This is especially useful for competitor research.
Fix problems because they materially affect:
Crawling
Indexing
User experience
Internal linking
Site operation
A higher tool score is not itself the business objective.
The entry SEO plan tracks 500 keywords.
Do not waste that allowance tracking hundreds of irrelevant variations.
Prioritize:
Commercial keywords
Main content targets
Important existing rankings
Strategic categories
Semrush competitor traffic values are estimates.
For your own site, use sources such as:
Google Analytics
Google Search Console
Server or application data
for actual traffic measurement.
Semrush is especially valuable where first-party competitor data is unavailable.
Imported URL list
This becomes useful on large sites.
For example:
Entire website = 100,000 URLs
Important section = 5,000 URLs
Auditing only the important section can conserve crawl allowance and make reports easier to analyze.
Higher Semrush plans provide API access.
This can support workflows such as:
Semrush API → Internal database → Dashboard → Client reporting
API access is mainly useful for agencies, data teams, and businesses that need recurring analysis at scale.
Most individual site owners do not need it.