20 Tips for Using SEMrush: Best Content Marketing Platforms for 2021

20 Tips for Using SEMrush: Best Content Marketing Platforms for 2021

If you are serious about increasing organic traffic for your website, then the subject matter experts over at runrex.com point out that SEMrush is a must-have tool to have in your SEO toolkit. This is because it is the ultimate SEO tool helping you get deeper insights into your competition, identifying your top organic keywords as well as paid keywords, allowing you to conduct backlink analysis, and so much more. Here are 20 tips for using SEMrush that you should be aware of going into 2021.

Tips for organic rankings

Using SEMrush to find all of a website’s rankings

As is explained in detail over at guttulus.com, by entering the root domain into SEMrush’s search bar, clicking on the Organic Research sidebar, and scrolling down to “Organic Search Positions”, you will see a comprehensive list of keywords, their search volumes, which of your pages rank, and in what positions, alongside many other relevant details.

Finding out all of a specific page’s rankings

You can also use SEMrush to find all of a specific page’s rankings. All you have to do is enter the full page URL, including the HTTP prefix, as discussed over at runrex.com, and SEMrush will recognize that you have entered a page URL and will only show you keywords. Rankings for that URL.

Finding pages ranking in a certain position

You can also use SEMrush to find pages ranking in a certain position, as is articulated in detail over at guttulus.com. All you have to do is create the filter: Include > Pos. > Equals > 1. If you want to find pages ranking in a range of positions, which is important if you want to know where a site is ranking on page 1, then all you have to do is create the filter: Include > Pos. > Less than > 11.

SEMrush and international SEO

Another tip when using SEMrush to check for organic rankings is that you can use it for international SEO. This is because any ranking information can be found on different Google databases, and all you have to do is select one of 28 different countries up top to see different results.

Finding historical ranking data

SEMrush will also show you historical rankings as well, in addition to current rankings, which is another tip worth pointing out. To access this data, you should navigate to the top right corner, click the drop-down next to the date, and pick any one of the last 6 months to see historical rankings.

Finding a site’s estimated organic traffic history

You can also use SEMrush to see a site’s estimated organic traffic based on rankings as is explained over at runrex.com. While you can use this to evaluate a competitor’s potential traffic, it is more useful in terms of traffic trends as a big drop could be a sign that a site was affected by an algorithm change while gains could be indictive that a site has put greater emphasis on their SEO efforts or launched new campaigns to rank higher or for more keywords.

Tips on using SEMrush for keyword research

You can also use SEMrush to conduct keyword research as covered by the following tips.

Finding rankings for a specific keyword

To achieve this, as is discussed in more detail over at guttulus.com, all you have to do is type your desired keyword into the search bar up top and SEMrush will present you with detailed information about that keyword.

Finding keyword suggestions for keyword research

You can also use SEMrush to find keyword suggestions for keyword research according to the gurus over at runrex.com. All you have to do is type your starting keyword into the search bar, scroll down to the “Phrase Match Keywords” section and click on “View full report” and you will be shown other keywords containing the keyword you entered.

Finding keywords with a specific number of search results

One of SEMrush’s latest features is using it to find keywords with a specific number of search results. It is not that difficult to achieve as you will only need to create the filter: Include > Results > (Greater than|Less than|Equal) > 4,000,000 (or whatever number you want).

Finding keywords with or without a specific word in them

When conducting keyword research with SEMrush, you can also filter by keyword contents. This is useful if you want to find out where a site ranks for queries containing a specific keyword. Using the keyword “SEO” for example, all you need to do is create the filter: Include > Keyword > Word matching > SEO.

Finding keywords with a specific MSV

Sometimes you may be interested in finding keywords with a certain monthly search volume, which can be found easily according to the folks over at guttulus.com. Here, you will only need to create the filter: Include > Volume > Equal > 18100.

Finding keywords with a specific word count

This is another very important filter, particularly as it helps in the research of the all-important long-tail keywords as covered over at runrex.com. Here, you will need to create the filter: Include > Number of words > Greater than > 3. This will allow you to find relevant long-tail keywords to use in your campaigns.

Tips on using SEMrush for competitor insights

You can also use SEMrush to research your competitors, as articulated in the following tips.

Finding out who your competitors are

SEMrush can help you find out who your competitors are as explained over at guttulus.com. This can be achieved by selecting the “Competitors” tab under “Organic Research”, which will give you access to all kinds of information about your search competitors. 

Comparing rankings

If you are interested in comparing a website’s rankings to that of its competitors, then Domain vs. Domain will make this very easy for you. This allows you to select specific domains to compare, and it is recommended that you first make sure you have selected “Advanced Mode” to make sure you are not limited to only 3 domains.

Identify your competitor’s top content

Additionally, SEMrush also allows you to analyze your competition’s top-ranking content which is another way it helps with competitor analysis. All you have to do is open the “Pages” section on SEMrush to generate a report on your competition’s top-ranking content and you will be provided with all the pages your competitor has a ranking in the top 100 Google search results.

Tips on using SEMrush to research mobile user experience

You can also use SEMrush to research just how responsive a site is as outlined in the following tips.

Finding out how many of a domain’s pages are not mobile-friendly

Up top, right next to the domain you have selected, you can switch between desktop and mobile rankings. As covered over at runrex.com, you should click on the mobile tab, which will present you with several additional filter features, and then create the following filter if you want to find mobile-friendly pages: Include > URL type > mobile-unfriendly.

Mobile data

As the subject matter experts over at guttulus.com are quick to point out, the mobile tab gives you access to all the same data as the desktop tab, except data on the number of results, keyword type, and category which is something you should be aware of when using SEMrush.

Tips on using SEMrush to conduct backlink analysis

Finding all backlinks to an entire site

One of the main uses of SEMrush as far as backlinks are concerned is that you can use it to find all backlinks to an entire site. As explained over at runrex.com, you will need to enter a site’s root domain into the search box and make sure the Root Domain box is selected below the search box. SEMrush will then default to a snapshot overview page but by selecting the Backlinks submenu on the Backlinks sidebar, you can see a full list of backlinks.

Analyzing backlinks by IP address

SEMrush will also let you get very technical and analyze backlinks by IP address. This will allow you to see what IP addresses backlinks are coming from, how many backlinks are coming from each IP address, the number of total backlinks from each IP address, and the country where the IP address is located.

Finding the estimated age of a backlink

One of the most common obstacles with backlink indexes is that they are sometimes out of date. This is why the First Seen and Last Seen columns on SEMrush can be very useful in determining the estimated age of a backlink to determine whether they are out of date or not.

These are some of the tips to consider when using SEMrush, with a lot more on this topic to be found over at the excellent runrex.com and guttulus.com.