SEMRush Review 2022: is it Truly the best SEO Tool?

This is our review of SEMrush

We have been aware of this software for over 2 years now but only recently gave it a try. It has proven to be a great tool capable of performing many useful functions that its competitors are incapable of. 

The goal of this SEMrush review is to learn about all the features the software provides and determine if it will be an asset to potential users. From our experience, it has.

What is SEMRush?

SEMrush is a powerful and affordable SEO tool and content management platform that helps marketers and business owners to find the right keywords, analyze their competition, and monitor their rankings. It provides an extensive database of search queries to help you identify trends in your industry or niche.

It also has tools for tracking your organic traffic from Google Analytics and identifying new opportunities for link building campaigns by generating competitor backlinks reports.

SEMrush was created in 2008 by Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitri Melnikov and has since had 14 years of tremendous growth, now serving over 10 million users worldwide. The platform has grown to offer users 50 SEO and content management tools to boost the overall potential of businesses. 

What can SEMRush do?

The software provides features that can perform 5 primary functions to help a business achieve success, these include: 

• SEO
• Content 
• Market Research 
• Advertising 
• And SMM (Social Media Management) 

Most of the platform’s tools are SEO based and performs all the basic and advanced SEO functions necessary to master search engines. It has features to perform: 

• Keyword Research
• On-page SEO
• Local SEO
• Rank Tracking 
• Link Building 
• And Competitor SEO Analysis

The Content function includes features for:

• Content Marketing
• Content Creation and Distribution 
• Content Optimization
• And Content Marketing Analytics 

The Market Research category provides features for: 

• Competitor Analysis
• Market Analysis
• Paid Advertising
• And Competitor PR Monitoring 

Advertising functions include features to perform: 

• PPC Keyword Research 
• And Web Monetization 

The SSM function has a feature for performing Social Media Management.

Pros and Cons 

Pros

• A SEMrush free trial is available.
• The Domain analysis feature clearly displays all the metrics to easily understand domain ratings.
• Its link building feature is thorough and great for finding valuable linking opportunities.
• A SEMrush API is available.
• The Site-Auditing function provides easy to understand and follow instructions on how to improve technical and on-page SEO. 
• It performs valuable PPC keyword research functions.

Cons

• The premium plans only offer a single user account. You’ll have to pay to add more users. 
• The platform only provides search data from one search engine, Google. 
• The free trial requires credit card details. 
• it is not mobile friendly. 

Noteworthy Features

Keyword Research 

The platform offers an excellent Keyword Research tool set that determines how popular keywords are (search volume), how difficult the keywords are to rank for (keyword difficulty) and whether there are already other websites ranking for them. It also finds valuable keyword suggestions.

Accessing this keyword data is done by simply entering your word or phrase in the Keyword Overview tool and waiting for it to display the results. This tool will also show to you the number of backlinks you need to compete and rank for that keyword. 

The Keyword Research feature also contains other tools that perform various functions to ensure that your keyword research process is comprehensive. The most noteworthy of these tools are: 

• The Organic Research tool for viewing all the organic keywords a domain is ranking for. It also analyzes a domain’s SERP performance and tracks their search engine position overtime. 
• The Keyword Magic tool for finding useful keyword combinations from a given seed keyword. The feature works by cross checking your word against its database of 21 billion keywords to find related ones. It uses basic SEO metrics like search volume and keyword difficulty along with more advanced one such as Intent, Trend, Cost Per Click (CPC), and SERP Features (SF).
• The Keyword Gap tool allows users to discover keyword opportunities by running an in-depth competitor keyword analysis. It supports up to 5 keyword profiles so you can assess the organic, paid and Product Listing Ads (PLA) keywords for your and 4 other domains. 

Site Auditing 

The Site Audit tool falls under the On-Page SEO function, it works by scanning websites for potential issues that negatively affect their SERP rankings and provide actionable solutions to fix them. The tool can identify over 140 technical website health and SEO issues which includes: 

• Crawlability – It determines how accessible your website is for the GoogleBot to crawl and index it. 
• Site Performance – It assesses your website’s page loading speed, especially for mobile devices. 
• HTTPS – This analyzes and monitors the security status of your site. It ensures that all your security certificates and protocols are up to date along with ensuring that all your sub-domains support HSTS(HTTPS Strict Transport Security). 
• Internal Linking – It identifies all the internal linking issues of your website. It addresses internal linking factors related to broken internal links, nofollow links, and the number of on-page internal links. 
• International SEO – This ensures that your hreflang tags are valid so that Google can serve your audience from different geographic locations the correct version of your website. This is especially important for multilingual websites.
• Core Web Vitals – It determines if your website is correctly aligned with Google’s page speed and user experience factors. It will display your website’s performance for Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift measurements.

Backlink Analysis Tools 

Users can perform Backlink analysis by entering a domain name into the Backlink Analytics tool to generate a list of all the backlinks of that domain. The list will showcase key backlink data such as the anchor text, Top-Level Domain (TLD) used, the URL and IP addresses of the backlinks, domain rating of the linking websites, and the types (texts or images) and attributes (follow or nofollow) of the backlinks. 

This is ideal for assessing the number of backlinks a single domain has along with their overall quality. The Bulk Backlink Analysis tool can perform all these functions at a greater scale. It has the capabilities of analyzing the backlink profile of up to 200 websites at once.

 The Backlink Audit tool is another backlink analysis feature that is available for auditing ]your domain’s backlink profile to find and remove potentially harmful backlinks. It performs 4 primary functions: 

• It audits your domain to take a full snapshot of your backlink profile. 
• It creates a list of backlinks that should be removed from your profile so that you can reach out to the domain owners and ask them to remove their link. 
• It helps you to disavow the harmful links by adding it to a .txt file and sending it directly to Google’s Disavow tool. 
• And it helps you to find new, lost or broken backlinks. 

Another noteworthy backlinking feature is the Backlink Gap tool. It enables users to discover backlinking prospects by comparing up to 5 domains in the same niche or industry to identify the referring domains not linking to your website and creating a listing of backlinking opportunities that will have the highest SEO impact. 

SEMRush Pricing 

Before thinking about buying a premium plan, SEMRush offers a standard 7 day’s free trial for potential users to get a test drive of the software. Users will unfortunately have to enter their credit card details to access the trial, but despite this mild annoyance it adds some value. You’ll be able to access the full features of either the Pro or Guru plan which will go a long way. 

As for the premium side of things, it provides 3 main pricing plans:

• The Pro plan for $119.95 per month or $99.95 per month with the 17% discount for the annual subscription.
• The Guru plan for $229.95 per month or $191.62 per month for an annual subscription.
• And The Business plan for $449.95 per month or $374.95 per month for an annual subscription.

Besides the standard and advanced features offered with SEMrush plans, users can get additional features. For an extra cost, users will be able to: 

• Add Listing Management (Local SEO) features for $20 per month extra. 
• Add extra users to their plan for $45 per month per user. 
• Access SEMrush Trends for $200 per month per user. 
• Get an Agency Growth Kit for $150 per month. 
• And Add the Impact Hero AI tool for $200 per month.

Alternatives to SEMRush 

Ubersuggest 

Ubersuggest is a powerful SEO tool that can help users reach higher SERP rankings. It can do keyword research, SEO analysis, and backlink research.

Features Offered: 

• Chrome extension
• Keyword research tools
• Tools to monitor website traffic and perform rank tracking 
• Backlink tools to monitor backlinks and find promising backlink opportunities. 
• New AI Writer and Keyword Visualization tools. 

Pricing: 

• It offers a 7 day free trial. 
• An Individual plan for $12 per month per month or $120 for a lifetime plan. 
• A Business plan costing $20 per month and $200 for the lifetime subscription. 
• The Enterprise or Agency plan for $40 per month and $400 for a lifetime subscription.

Spyfu

Spyfu is a resource that helps marketers keep up with their competitors by providing detailed information on their digital advertising campaigns.

Features Offered: 

• A competitor analysis tool that allows users to search for top competitors within a niche and compare their performance and organic keywords. 
• A SEO Research feature that showcases the complete SEO details of a domain.
• It offers a PPC Research feature capable of reviewing the paid keywords and paid traffic details of a domain. 
• Performs thorough keyword analysis using the advanced Keyword Research tool. 
• It can perform advanced backlink research and finding valuable backlink opportunities. 

Pricing: 

• It offers a limited free plan. 
• The Basic plan costs $49 per month or $499 annually. 
• The Professional plan costs $79 per month or $696 annually.

Mangools

Mangools is an affordable SEO software that provides 5 interlinked apps to improve your website’s overall SEO metrics by performing a range of capabilities. 

Features Offered: 

• Kwfinder for robust keyword research. 
• SERPWatcher to perform advanced rank tracking. 
• Advanced backlink research capabilities with the help of the LinkMiner app. 
• SERPChecker app for performing in-depth analysis of the Search Engine Results Page for particular keywords. 
• Performs comprehensive SEO breakdowns of websites based on their backlink strengths and social popularity. 
• Free chrome extension. 

Pricing: 

• It offers a limited free trial for 10 days. 
• It has a basic monthly subscription for $49 per month, and an annual subscription for $358.80.
• The Premium plan costs $69 per month and $478.80 annually. 
• Its Agency plan costs $129 per month and $958.80 for the annual subscription. 

FAQs

Is SEMrush Trustworthy?

Yes, it is a solid SEO and content management tool that provides a vast database of accurate data so that users can exponentially grow their business overtime with its help. 

Is SEMrush worth the cost?

The powerful and diverse feature set of SEMrush makes it totally worth the cost. It provides all the basic and advanced features to cater to the various aspects of a modern business. It has features for handling SEO, content marketing, market research, advertising, and social media management.

Is SEMrush free?

SEMrush offers a free 7 day’s free trial for users to test the Pro or Guru plan.

Our Verdict

We recommend getting SEMrush. 

Despite its somewhat expensive price tag, it’s an undeniably valuable SEO tool with a wide range of capabilities making it worth the price. SEMrush has all the features for providing users with the information and skill needed to boost their website’s performance on search engines and steadily grow their business. 

This is a software that stands at the pinnacle of the SEO Software As A Service (SAAS) world.