Item: Semrush
Rating: 7
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use SEMRush on the Search team, and it's most useful while developing the initial target keyword list to use for SEO and even paid search. The Top Organic Keywords tool is the one I use most frequently, and it is a great way to see what's working and what isn't.

Pros and Cons

The Top Organic Keywords list is the well I keep returning to in order to find keywords we can perform better for.
The Competitors tab offers a great visualization for who the real competitors are—clients often think they know who their competitors are, but this tool helps me show them who their "real" competitors are, at least in terms of the website and keywords.
The Keyword Magic Tool is a great way to find similar keywords to your target, especially the Broad Match—this is great for paid search keyword ideas.

Some places in the platform, SEMRush uses their own jargon and they don't fully explain what it means—for example on the Anchor Types widget of the Backlink Audit, it shows a chart of how many links are "Money, Compound, Naked, Empty, etc." It explains Money, but none of the other ones.
The Keyword Magic tool is good, but it's still quite a literal tool—it would be a lot to ask, but I wish the tool was able to be more like the semantic search that Google uses now (e.g. synonyms, rather than just phrases including the word you input).
I'm not so sure about the Traffic Insights—I always find that the traffic figures are drastically different from what I see in GA. It seems like it does more harm than good to even have such estimates available.

Return on Investment

While the tools can be valuable, they're not always easy to find—the platform navigation is difficult, quite maximalist in style. This makes it hard to send a lower-level or intern in to work on accounts, without lots of training.
The Keyword Magic Tool and overview are great tools to see what's ranking, and variations that you could target for improvement—this is the biggest value prop of the platform IMO.
The tool is quite affordable, which makes me temper my criticism of the UI, tool depth, etc. It's almost all value-add because it's so affordable.

Alternatives Considered

Moz and Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Other tools like Moz and Screaming Frog specialize in different aspects of SEO, making them most useful in certain areas. SEMRush does everything decently but nothing excellently, making it the ideal one-stop-shop for a low-budget, small agency. But for larger agencies that can afford multiple tools, it's hard to argue that SEMRush needs to be part of the tool kit.

Support Rating

Some of the tools lack depth, as it seems they've gone the route of trying to cover all the bases and be an all-inclusive platform rather than excelling in any one area. This has pros and cons—the cons are obvious but the pro is that if you can only afford one tool, this would be the one you should go for, due to the breadth of features!

Key Insights

Do you think Semrush delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Semrush's feature set?

Yes

Did Semrush live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Semrush go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Semrush again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Moz, Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Likelihood to Recommend

SEMRush is excellent for keyword research and compiling lists of potential targets. It's also good for discovering the most relevant search competitors. I do fear that it's trying to do a little too much though, as it's not quite as good as Moz for keyword tracking, not anywhere near as good as GA for traffic insights, and not as good as Screaming Frog for crawling. It does everything competently, but nothing outstanding, which makes me use it infrequently.

If you can only afford one tool, get this one! (But don't expect too much from any one feature)

Overall Satisfaction with SEMRush