Semrush is a tool that supports keyword research and detailed analysis and statistics of website data. Known as one of the leading SEO optimization tools today, Semrush can help us analyze and manage competitors’ SEO, Content and websites effectively. For newbies, the secret to conquering how to use Semrush from 0 to max, please follow along in HyNa‘s experience sharing article!
What is Semrush?
Semrush is an online marketing and SEO optimization tool developed by a company with the same name. It provides users with keyword research tools, competitor analysis, backlink management, website error checking and many other features to help optimize websites and improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
With over 6 million users worldwide and used by major companies such as eBay, Disney and Forbes, Semrush has become one of the leading SEO optimization tools on the market.
Learn the benefits of using Semrush effectively
Using Semrush in Marketing is a smart strategy to help businesses face the challenge of competing on Google. This tool not only helps with keyword research of top websites, but also analyzes your competitors’ tactics, discovers keywords with the potential to attract large amounts of traffic, and tracks website popularity.
Semrush provides comprehensive information that helps businesses easily grasp the overall picture of their marketing channels. At the same time, support research on competitors’ advertising strategies, helping businesses understand their websites and Adwords advertising strategies. This brings important benefits when businesses want to penetrate the market and optimize their marketing strategy.
In addition, Semrush not only helps businesses track competitors but also supports customer trend analysis. This helps businesses capture low-competition keywords, optimize their keyword strategy, and increase online marketing performance.
Study the outstanding features to learn how to use Semrush effectively
Semrush has many useful features that help users optimize their websites and marketing campaigns. Here are some highlights of Semrush’s many features:
Keyword research
Semrush’s Keyword Research feature allows users to search for keywords related to their business. You can see monthly search volume, competition level, and other related keywords. This helps you choose keywords that are likely to attract high traffic and have low competition to optimize your website.
Analyze competitors
With Semrush’s Domain Analytics feature, you can see your competitors’ metrics like traffic, keywords in use, backlinks, and more. This helps you understand your competitors’ strategies and come up with appropriate plans to compete effectively.
Backlink management
Semrush’s Backlink Analysis feature allows you to check and manage your website’s backlinks. You can view new backlinks as well as lost backlinks, which helps increase authority and link optimization.
Check website for errors
Semrush’s On Page SEO Checker tool helps you check and fix errors on your website. This includes checking for errors in page structure, keywords, and meta tags, which helps improve site performance and rankings.
Track keyword positions
With Position Tracking, you can track the position of your keywords on search engines and evaluate the effectiveness of your SEO campaign. You can track up to 10 keywords for free in the Semrush trial version.
Free online Semrush account registration process
To use Semrush, you need to register an account on the tool’s homepage. Here is the process for registering a free online Semrush account:
- Go to Semrush’s homepage (semrush.com) and click the “Sign up” button in the upper right corner of the screen.
- Fill in your personal information such as name, email and password to create an account or you can register with Google’s available email.
- Once completed, you will be taken to the Semrush interface and can start using the tool.
Detailed instructions on how to use Semrush to analyze and optimize SEO
Once you have registered an account and logged in successfully, you can start using Semrush to analyze and optimize your website. Here are the detailed steps to use Semrush effectively:
How to use Semrush to analyze competitor websites
To get started, you need to go to Semrush’s dashboard and select “Competitive Research”. Next, select “Domain” and enter the competitor’s domain name you want to analyze in the search box. You can also select your country to get more accurate analysis results.
After pressing “Search”, you will receive a complete analysis of your competitor’s website. This information includes:
- Traffic: monthly traffic of the website
- Keywords: Number of keywords for which the website has ranked in the top 100 search results
- Traffic Cost: the estimated value of the traffic if you had to pay Google AdWords to get the same amount of traffic
- Ads: Number of ads displayed on Google AdWords of the website
- Display Advertising: ads displayed on other Google Display Network sites
- Backlinks: number of links to the website from other websites
- Referring Domains: Number of other domains linking to the website
- Indexed Pages: Number of pages indexed by Google of the website
In addition, Semrush also allows users to export this information as PDF files for easy use later.
Step 1: Analyze your competitors’ traffic
One of the most important pieces of information when analyzing a competitor’s website is the amount of traffic they are receiving monthly. This helps you get an overview of your competitors’ strength and influence in their business.
To see information about your competitors’ traffic, you can select “Traffic Analytics” on Semrush’s dashboard. Here, you will see a chart of your competitors’ traffic volume by month in the recent year. You can also compare with your website’s traffic volume to evaluate the competition between the two sides.
Step 2: Analyze your competitors’ keywords
Another important factor in analyzing your competitors’ websites is the keywords they are using to optimize their website’s SEO. This helps you understand your competitors’ SEO strategies and find potential keywords to apply to your website.
To see information about your competitors’ keywords, you can select “Organic Research” on Semrush’s dashboard. At this point, you will receive information listing a series of keywords that the website has ranked for along with data for each word. Normally, Semrush will arrange these keywords according to user traffic from large to small or according to their ability to bring large amounts of website traffic later.
You can also use filters to search for keywords by industry or your competitors’ main keywords. This helps you find potential keywords and apply them to your website to compete effectively with your competitors.
Step 3: Analyze your competitors’ backlinks
Backlinks are an important factor in website rankings on search engines. Therefore, analyzing your competitors’ backlinks will help you understand their link building strategies and find ways to improve backlinks for your website.
In case you want to check backlinks, you can select “Backlink Analysis” on Semrush’s dashboard to learn more about existing links as well as domain name, number of domains, link types (from, text , image etc…).
You can also use filters to search for backlinks by industry or your competitors’ main keywords. This helps you find potential backlinks and apply them to your website to improve ranking on search engines.
Steps to use Semrush in keyword research
Keyword research is an important step in optimizing your website’s SEO. With Semrush, you can easily search and analyze potential keywords to apply to your website.
To get started, you need to select “Keyword Research” on Semrush’s dashboard. Here, you can enter the main keyword or industry of your website to search for related keywords.
Step 1: Search for keywords
After entering the main keyword or industry of the website, you will receive a list of related keywords along with important information such as monthly traffic, competition and cost for each keyword.
You can use filters to search for keywords by industry or monthly traffic. This helps you find potential keywords and apply them to your website to compete effectively with your competitors.
Step 2: Analyze keywords
After searching for a list of potential keywords, you can select the keyword to analyze to see detailed information about that keyword. Here, you will see information such as:
- Monthly traffic
- Competition level
- Cost per keyword
- Websites are ranking for this keyword
- Articles related to this keyword
- Related keywords
This helps you better understand the keyword and decide whether to use this keyword for your website or not.
Step 3: Compare keywords
Another useful feature of Semrush is that it allows you to compare keywords with each other to find the most effective keywords for your website. You can select multiple keywords at once and see detailed information about each keyword.
How to use Semrush to check backlinks
Backlinks are an important factor in website rankings on search engines. Therefore, checking your website’s backlinks is necessary so you can improve your ranking on search engines.
To check backlinks, you can select “Backlink Analysis” on Semrush’s dashboard. Here, you can enter the website’s domain name or keywords to search for related backlinks.
Step 1: Search for backlinks
After entering the website’s domain name or keywords, you will receive a list of related backlinks along with important information such as domain name, domain number, link types (from, text, image, etc.).
You can use filters to search for backlinks by industry or main keyword of the website. This helps you find potential backlinks and apply them to your website to improve ranking on search engines.
Step 2: Analyze backlinks
After searching the list of backlinks, you can select the backlink to analyze to see detailed information about that backlink. Here, you will see information such as:
- Domain
- Domain number
- Types of links (from, text, image, etc.)
- Related keywords
- Websites are linking to this backlink
This helps you better understand backlinks and decide whether to use this backlink for your website or not.
Instructions on how to use Semrush’s PLA Research feature
PLA (Product Listing Ads) is one of the effective forms of advertising on Google AdWords. With Semrush’s PLA Research feature, you can search for products being advertised on Google AdWords and analyze your competitors’ advertising strategies.
Step 1: Search for products
To get started, you need to select “PLA Research” on the Semrush dashboard. Here, you can enter keywords or product names to search for products being advertised on Google AdWords.
Step 2: Analyze advertising strategy
After searching the list of products, you can select the product to analyze to see detailed information about your competitors’ advertising strategies. Here, you will see information such as:
- Product’s name
- Price
- Related keywords
- Advertisements are being used
- Websites are advertising this product
This helps you better understand your competitors’ advertising strategies and apply them to your website to compete effectively.
Steps to use the Traffic Analytics feature
Semrush’s Traffic Analytics feature allows you to track traffic volume and traffic trends of your competitors’ websites. This helps you better understand your competitors and apply appropriate strategies to compete effectively.
Step 1: Choose competitors to monitor
To get started, you need to select “Traffic Analytics” on the Semrush dashboard. Here, you can enter your competitors’ domain names to monitor their traffic and traffic trends.
Step 2: View detailed information
After selecting your competitors, you will receive detailed information about their traffic and traffic trends. You can view information such as:
- Monthly traffic
- Access sources (organic, direct, referral, paid)
- Related keywords
- Sites are linking to competitors
- Countries with the highest traffic
This helps you better understand your competitors and apply appropriate strategies to compete effectively.
Instructions on how to use Semrush’s Ranks feature
How to access the Ranks function
To use Semrush’s Ranks function, you need to follow these steps:
- Step 1: Access your Semrush account. Sign in if necessary.
- Step 2: Select “Advertising Dashboard” on the toolbar.
- Step 3: At Advertising Dashboard, select “Domain Overview”, then click the “Search” button.
So, you can access Semrush’s Ranks function.
How to use Ranks
Once you open the Ranks function, you will see a ranking of the most searched websites. Specifically:
- The left column is the website ranking based on the number of searches (traffic).
- The right column is the website’s domain name.
- Below is other information about the website such as country, industry, etc.
To change the tracking time, you can select milestones such as 1 month, 3 months or 1 year in the upper right corner.
Additionally, you can search for a specific website by entering the domain name in the search bar. Semrush will then indicate the ranking position of that page.
This is a way to understand your website rankings as well as those of your competitors. From there, there is a more optimal strategy for SEO.
Advantages of Ranks
Some outstanding advantages of the Ranks function include:
- Update data regularly, allowing tracking search trends.
- Covers most popular websites in the world.
- Clearly shows the ranking position of websites.
- Filter and search easily.
Thanks to Ranks, you can understand your website’s rankings without needing to install any additional plugins or support tools.
How to use semrush for advertising research
Step 1: Access Advertising Research
To use Semrush for advertising research, you first need to open the “Advertising Research” section in the dashboard. Specifically:
- Step 1: Log in to Semrush
- Step 2: Select “Advertising”
- Step 3: In the left toolbar, scroll down and select “Advertising Research”
Step 2: Enter the competitor domain name to analyze
After opening Advertising Research, you will see a blank box to enter the domain name. This is where you enter the domain name of your competitor to analyze your advertising strategy.
For example, if you want to analyze semrush.com’s ads, you would enter “semrush.com” in the blank box and press Enter or click the magnifying glass icon to search.
Step 3: Analyze the results
After clicking search, Semrush will return information about your competitors’ advertising strategies. Specifically you can know:
- Their Google Ads ads such as keywords, click costs, impressions, CTR…
- What other advertising platforms are they using?
- Overall advertising market share
From there, you have a basis to plan a suitable advertising strategy for your company.
Instructions on how to use the Keyword Gap feature
Login Keyword Gap
To use Keyword Gap, you need to follow these steps:
- Step 1: Open Semrush, select “Advertising”
- Step 2: In the left toolbar, find the “Keyword Research” section and click “Keyword Gap”
Compare keywords with competitors
When you open Keyword Gap, the interface will display 2 empty boxes to enter information. Specifically:
- Above box: Enter your website domain name
- Box below: Enter the domain name of the competitor’s website to compare (for example: ahrefs.com)
Then press the “Compare” button to compare. Before that, you can choose natural keywords, paid keywords or PLA keywords depending on your research needs.
The returned results will be a detailed report on the keywords that customers search for the most on both websites.
From there, you can know what keywords your competitors are targeting to have appropriate SEO direction.
Advantages of Keyword Gap
Some outstanding advantages of Keyword Gap include:
- Allows exact keyword comparison between 2 websites (maximum 4 competitors)
- Clearly show keyword differences
- Helps dominate keywords that competitors miss
- All free
Therefore, Keyword Gap is a useful function that you should use regularly.
Process of using the Keyword Magic Tool function
Login Keyword Magic Tool
To use Keyword Magic Tool, specific steps:
Step 1: Open Semrush, select “Advertising”
Step 2: In the left toolbar, go to “Keyword Research” then click “Keyword Magic Tool”
Keyword Magic Tool works
When you open the Keyword Magic Tool, at first you won’t see much. At this point, you need to return to Keyword Overview to analyze any keyword.
Once you’ve finished analyzing your keywords, go back to the Keyword Magic Tool. You enter keywords that are suitable for your industry and will immediately see this tool provide a series of related keyword suggestions that customers are searching for.
This is the smart feature of Keyword Magic Tool. It analyzes the initial keyword and automatically suggests other potential related keywords.
Advantages of Keyword Magic Tool
Some strengths of Keyword Magic Tool:
- Automatically analyze and suggest new keywords
- Save time searching for keywords
- Accurate, on-target suggestions
- All free
Therefore, you should combine Keyword Magic Tool with other Semrush tools to improve SEO effectiveness.
Conclude
Above are detailed instructions on how to use semrush to analyze and optimize SEO for your website. With Semrush’s diverse and detailed features, you can easily research your competitors, find potential keywords and improve your ranking on search engines. Apply the above steps to optimize your website’s SEO and compete effectively with your competitors.
