Item: Semrush
Rating: 8
Author: Sacha Crowther

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Semrush every day and it's invaluable in informing and supporting our search engine optimisation for clients.
Working in the Digital Marketing team at a busy and diverse agency, we always aim to work smart and find efficiencies - Semrush tools allow us to access and analyse data almost instantly. We use the tools to track technical SEO improvements, to underpin our content recommendations, and even as a sales tool - to provide at-a-glance summaries of the value we could add to a site.

SEO can be a bit of a mysterious art form rather than a science, but data from Semrush helps to inform all of our decisions objectively, ensuring that the changes we make actually make a valuable difference.

The Semrush SEO Writing Assistant - which acts as an add-on to Google Docs - is particularly useful as it translates competitive keyword insights into actionable advice in real time. Plus, it provides a scoring system which goes down really well with clients.

Pros and Cons

Semrush Writing Assistant helps to assess and quantify content optimisation and is unlike any other tool I have used.
The Keyword Gap Analysis tool is really useful for competitor research and to inform content calendars with ideas that will make a real competitive difference.
The Backlink Audit/Analytics tool makes it easy to see, at a glance, whether there are any toxic links to disavow.

The Content Topic Recommendations function is a bit hit and miss, as it can pull in unrelated keywords and FAQs.
There is sometimes a slight discrepancy between the stats provided by the 'quick summary' Backlink Analytics tool and the more in-depth Backlink Audit - so it's worth checking both before you quote any numbers as gospel.

Most Important Features

Semrush SEO Writing Assistant
Keyword Magic tool
Backlink Audit
Site Audit tool

Return on Investment

Using Semrush on behalf of our clients, we have seen some impressive growth in organic visibility, traffic, conversion and revenue, across multiple industries.
The site checks available with Semrush have helped us to pitch and sell our services, securing new clients.

Alternatives Considered

Ahrefs and Moz Link Explorer (formerly open site explorer)

I have some experience using Ahrefs and Moz, but I find the interface to be more user-friendly in Semrush.
This is particularly useful when we show clients the tool or take screenshots directly from Semrush for client-facing documents.

Once again, the Google Docs add-on for the SEO Writing Assistant is what really makes Semrush stand out over and above other tools for me.

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?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Semrush go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Semrush again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

I would definitely recommend Semrush as I would find it difficult to do my job without it!

It's very well-suited to content creation and optimisation, providing the keyword insights required to make sure that your content answers the right questions. The Semrush writing assistant also supports newcomers to the industry by instilling copywriting best practice into its recommendations - such as flagging 'hard to read' sentences and calculating a difficulty rating.

Supporting data-driven optimisation with tangible results

Overall Satisfaction with Semrush