99signals.com semrush vs spy fu which competitor analysis tool is better

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Semrush vs SpyFu: Which Competitor Analysis Tool is
Better?
99signals.com/semrush-vs-spyfu/
If you’re having trouble deciding between Semrush and SpyFu,
you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, I’ll put Semrush and SpyFu to the test and help you
decide which SEO tool is better suited for competitor analysis.
If you’ve landed here, you’re probably already aware that Semrush
and SpyFu are amongst the most popular competitor research tools
on the market, alongside Ahrefs, GrowthBar, and Mangools.
While Semrush is an all-in-one marketing toolkit with competitive
intelligence capabilities, SpyFu focuses purely on competitor
analysis.
So to maintain a level playing field for this comparison, I’ll be
evaluating Semrush and SpyFu solely on features linked with
competitor research.

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I’ll be taking the following four parameters into account:
Competitor analysis
Keyword research
Ease of use and accessibility
Pricing plans
Now without further delay, let’s compare Semrush and SpyFu, and
find out which SEO tool is the best in terms of competitive analysis.
Note: To get the most out of this comparison guide, I’d encourage
you to create an account on Semrush and SpyFu. You can find the
relevant links below. You can sign up for a 30-day free trial of
Semrush Pro (worth $119.95) and sign up for SpyFu’s free plan. At
this point in time, SpyFu is not offering a trial on any of their paid
plans. But their free plan is pretty good, albeit with a few limitations.
Introduction to Semrush and SpyFu
Semrush’s predecessor, SEOquake company, was first launched by
Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikov as an SEO browser extension
in 2007 before being rebranded as Semrush in 2008. It has since
gone on to become one of the leading cloud-based SEO services on
the market with over 5 million users across the world.

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The Semrush platform features a comprehensive set of tools for site
audit, keyword research, position tracking, SEO and PPC competitor
analysis, on-page SEO checker, backlink analytics, and much more.
Semrush currently manages close to 20 billion keywords and 818
million domains in 142 geo databases.
SpyFu was founded by Mike Roberts in 2006 to help businesses
craft their SEO and PPC strategies. Mike’s business philosophy is to
turn your rivals into your best advisors and that philosophy is at the
core of SpyFu.
As the name suggests, SpyFu lets you spy on your competitors’
online strategies and analytics. You can use it to gather insights on
your organic as well as paid competitors.
SpyFu’s data is collected from Google search results in the US and
UK. The tool won’t show you full results outside of these countries,
which just might be SpyFu’s biggest drawback.
With that introduction of the two tools out of the way, it’s now time to
put these tools to the test.
Let’s start by reviewing their competitor analysis features.
Competitor Analysis: Semrush vs SpyFu

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If you want to develop a fool-proof marketing strategy for your
business, you need to run a competitor analysis. By analyzing your
competitors’ marketing efforts, you can evaluate their strengths and
weaknesses, as well as identify gaps and opportunities for your
brand in the market.
Both Semrush and SpyFu are capable of providing a comprehensive
report of your competitors’ SEO and PPC strategies. But which SEO
platform is more feature-rich and gives the most accurate data? Let’s
find out!
Semrush: Competitor Analysis Tools
With Semrush’s Competitive Research Toolkit, you can identify your
organic and paid competitors, and reverse-engineer their most
successful SEO and PPC practices.
The Competitive Research Toolkit is divided into five different
categories:
SEO (includes Organic Research, Keyword Gap, Backlink
Analytics, Backlink Gap)
Advertising (includes Advertising Research, Display Advertising,
PLA Research)
Content and PR (includes Brand Monitoring, Topic Research,
Post Tracking)

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Social Media (includes Social Media Tracker)
Big Picture (includes 2 add-on tools – Traffic Analytics and
Market Explorer)
Traffic Analytics and Market Explorer are part of Semrush’s
Competitive Intelligence (CI) add-on package which costs an
additional $200/month. To learn more about Traffic Analytics and its
key features, check out The Ultimate Guide to Semrush Traffic
Analytics.
To keep things simple, we’ll just be examining the main tools in the
first four categories in the Semrush Competitive Research Toolkit.
To get started with competitor analysis on Semrush, select
“Competitive Research Toolkit” from the drop-down at the top left
menu in the interface.
From the competitive research dashboard, navigate to:
SEO > Organic Research > Enter your competitor’s domain

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Alternatively, if you’d like Semrush to identify your organic
competitors for you, you can type your own domain in the search
box.
The Organic Research overview report provides a top-level view of
your website’s organic keywords, organic traffic, top pages, and main
organic competitors.
Visit the “Competitors” tab to see a list of all the sites that are
competing with your site in search results for the same keywords.
Click on any of the organic competitors to get a detailed report on
that domain’s top organic keywords, top-ranking pages, position
changes, and so on.

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To view your competitor’s top organic keywords, visit the “Top
Organic Keywords” section in the report and click on the “View all
organic keywords” button.
The list of keywords will probably be too long, so feel free to play
with the filters until you get the most relevant data.
Click on any of the keywords in the report to get data on important
keyword metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, competition
level, and more.
You can use this data to fine-tune your content strategy.
Next, click on “Backlink Analytics” to get an overview report of your
competitor’s backlinks.

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Visit the “Referring Domains” tab to get a complete picture of your
competitor’s backlink profile. Leverage this data in your link building
outreach efforts.
Similarly, you can unravel your paid competitors’ data by navigating
to:
Competitive Research > Advertising Research > Enter your
competitor’s domain
The Advertising Research overview report provides details on the
domain’s paid keywords, average monthly paid traffic, and traffic
cost.

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To view your competitors’ PPC ad copies, visit the “Ad Copies” tab.
If your competitor invests a lot in advertising, then you may find ad
copies in this report too imposing. Make sure you use the advanced
filters to get the most relevant information for your PPC campaigns.
In addition to the aforementioned SEO and PPC tools, Semrush also
has specific competitor analysis tools for content marketing and
social media marketing.
The Brand Monitoring tool is especially useful for tracking online
mentions of your brand, your competitors’ brands, or any word or
phrase that you wish to monitor.
To set up brand monitoring on Semrush, go to:
Competitive Research > Content and PR > Brand Monitoring >
Project > Set up
You can include up to three competitor brands here and up to five
keyword terms. Select the country and hit the “Start Tracking” button.

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You’ll now be able to track the online brand mentions of your
competitors and the main keywords in your niche.
And finally, you have the Social Media Tracker, which lets you track
the social media pages of your competitors and monitor their growth
and engagement levels.
To set up social media tracking, go to:
Competitive Research > Social Media > Project > Set up > Social
Media Tracker > Add competitor

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On the next page, enter your competitor’s brand name or domain in
the search box and hit “Find Profiles.” Semrush will automatically
find your competitor’s social media pages for you.
If you’ve enabled social media posting on Semrush, your social
media pages will be automatically included in the Social Media
Tracker. If you haven’t enabled it, you can type your domain in the
search box and click “Set as your company” next to your brand
name.
You can add up to 20 competitor brands and track performance of up
to 100 social media pages.
Once you’ve added your competitors’ social media pages, hit the
“Start tracking companies” button to get an overview report of your
competitions’ social media analytics, including social audience,
posts, engagement, and top content.

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Scroll down to see the comparison of your social media performance
against your competitors.
In addition to tracking audience growth, activity, and engagement,
Semrush’s Social Media Tracker is an invaluable tool to identify
content trends and the different types of content that resonate the
most with your target audience.
Get 1-month free trial to Semrush PRO (includes access to
competitive research toolkit)
SpyFu: Competitor Analysis Tools

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To get started with competitor analysis on SpyFu, enter your
competitor’s domain in the search box and hit the search icon.
You’ll get a quick summary of the domain’s top organic keywords,
estimated monthly SEO clicks, top paid keywords, estimated monthly
PPC clicks, backlinks, top pages, and so on.
If you’d like SpyFu to identify your competitors, enter your domain
and navigate to the “Competition” section of the report to view your
organic and paid competitors.

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Click on any of your organic competitors’ domains to generate an
SEO overview report of that domain, containing data on that site’s
organic keywords, estimated monthly SEO clicks, page 1 keywords,
inbound links, and so on.
On the left side of the overview report, you’ll find links to different
sections within the report. Pay special attention to the “Top Pages”
section as these are your competitor’s top-ranking pages in organic
search.
You can reverse-engineer these pages to find keyword ideas with
traffic potential.
Similarly, you can click on any of your paid competitors’ sites to get a
PPC overview report of that domain’s paid keywords, estimated
monthly PPC clicks, monthly PPC budget, and other PPC metrics.
Navigate to the “AdWords Advisor” section of the report to view “Top
AdWords Buy Recommendations” for your competitor’s domain.

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Click on “See all recommendations” at the bottom of the report or
simply visit the “AdWords Advisor” tab to get a complete list of
keyword recommendations. Use these recommendations to get the
most out of your PPC campaigns.
Visit the “AdWords History” section of the report to browse your
competitor’s complete Google Ads campaign history, including their
most trusted keywords, estimated clicks/month for those keywords,
and their cost/click.
Beside each ad copy, you’ll find keywords that trigger the specific ad.
Super helpful data if you’re planning on replicating your competitors’
ad strategies.
Sign up for SpyFu’s free plan

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Which Tool is Better for Competitor Analysis?
SpyFu is undeniably a great competitor analysis tool. But Semrush
is better.
For starters, SpyFu lacks brand monitoring and social media tracking
features which are vital components of competitor research. Your
competitive analysis would have a blind spot if you didn’t analyze
your competitors’ social media presence and didn’t monitor their
online brand mentions.
Besides that, I also found the competitor research reports in
Semrush to be much more accurate and helpful than SpyFu.
Bottom line: SpyFu’s competitive data pales in comparison to the
sheer volume and depth of competitive data that you can unveil on
Semrush.
Winner: Semrush
Keyword Research: SpyFu vs Semrush
Despite countless Google algorithm updates over the years, the
importance of keyword research has remained constant. While
outdated keyword research practices get penalized by Google, a
more nuanced approach to keyword research is often rewarded with
higher Google rankings.
As a result, keyword research is at the core of any SEO or PPC
campaign. It helps you get a deeper understanding of your target
audience and what they are searching for online.
Both Semrush and SpyFu uncover a ton of keyword data to help you
in your quest to craft the kind of content that satisfies both users and
search engines.
Read on to find out which of these tools is more effective in terms of
keyword research.
Semrush: Keyword Research

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Semrush is predominantly known for its keyword research
capabilities.
Let’s quickly examine some of its main keyword research features.
To get started with keyword research on Semrush, just type your
target keyword(s) in the search box.
This will open up the Keyword Overview report, which will provide a
quick summary of all major keyword metrics, including monthly
search volume, keyword difficulty, CPC, and competition, along with
relevant keyword variations and related keywords.
Note: You can change the geo database in your Keyword Overview
report and see results and keyword variations for your target
keywords in your location.

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For in-depth keyword analysis and to find semantically-related long-
tail keyword ideas in your niche, you need to try the Keyword Magic
Tool.
To use the Keyword Magic tool, head over to:
SEO Toolkit > Keyword Research > Keyword Magic Tool
Enter your seed keywords in the search bar and hit the “Search”
button. From your seed keywords, the tool will generate a list of
keyword suggestions.
You can then sort the keywords by using keyword groups located on
the left side of the table. You can either sort the groups by volume or
by the number of keywords. You can even exclude a group of
keywords by clicking on the eye icon next to the group.

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You can also use the match modifiers on top of the table to narrow
down the list of keywords.
Also pay attention to the “Questions” filter to generate a list of
question-based keywords that contain your seed keywords.
Once you’ve identified all the keywords you’d like to use in your SEO
or PPC campaigns, save your findings by adding the keywords to
Keyword Manager.
In addition to saving your work, the Keyword Manager will gather
real-time metrics for your target keywords, so that you have fresh
insights when you revisit the tool.

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Besides traditional keyword research tools, you can also use the
Topic Research tool in Semrush’s Content Marketing toolkit. With the
Topic Research tool, you can generate relevant topics, subtopics,
questions, and headlines to include in your content.
To use this tool, navigate to:
Content Marketing Toolkit > Topic Research
Type in your target keywords, select your location, and hit “Get
Content Ideas.”
You’ll then be presented with a list of subtopics for your target
keywords.
You can switch the view from Cards to Explorer (tables), Overview
(condensed version), or MindMap (visual presentation). I prefer the
Overview report as it lists down the top 10 headlines by backlinks
and top 10 interesting questions surrounding your target keywords.

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Add any of these headlines and questions to your list of “Favorite
Ideas” and use them to create new blog posts or optimize existing
posts.
Get 1-month free trial to Semrush PRO (includes access to the
Keyword Magic Tool)
SpyFu: Keyword Research
SpyFu’s strength lies in competitor-based keyword research.
That’s not to say SpyFu doesn’t have good traditional keyword
research options. It’s just that you’re much more likely to find the
data that’s important to you by performing competitor-based keyword
research.
To perform competitor-based keyword research on SpyFu, simply
type in your competitor’s domain in the search box, and once you get
the overview report, navigate to the “Top Keywords” section of the
report and click on “View all organic keywords” at the bottom of the
table.

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Play with the filters on top of the table to get the most relevant
competitive keyword data for your campaign.
To get started with traditional keyword research on SpyFu, visit the
“Keyword Research” tab and enter your seed keyword(s).
You’ll get a quick summary of all major keyword metrics (monthly
volume, estimated clicks, etc.) and a list of similar keywords and
question-based keywords.

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Below this data, you’ll find a wealth of PPC keyword data in the “Top
AdWords Buy Recommendations” and “Most Successful Advertisers
and Their Best Ads” sections.
To see the full list of SEO or PPC keywords, you can either click on
the “View all” button under each section or visit the “Related
Keywords” tab and select the right filters to get the most relevant
data.

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And finally, you have the AdWords Templates, which are pre-written
PPC ads handcrafted by the SpyFu team to get your Google Ads
campaigns up and running.
To access these templates, head over to:
PPC Research > AdWords Templates > Select Industry from the
drop-down list > Continue to download
This will start the download of all ad templates for that specific
industry. You can then import these templates to your Google Ads
account.
Note: To access AdWords Templates, you need to upgrade to
SpyFu’s basic plan ($39/mo).
Sign up for SpyFu’s free plan
Which Tool is Better for Keyword Research?
In terms of keyword research, Semrush absolutely crushes it. The
Keyword Magic tool helps you find the most relevant keywords in
your niche and provides in-depth analytics for a wide range of
keyword ideas, including semantically-related long-tail keywords.
The Topic Research tool helps you identify topics and subtopics that
resonate the most with your target audience, which you can then use
in your blog posts, product pages, or PPC ads to increase their
visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs).

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On the other hand, SpyFu is great for discovering surface-level data
for keywords, but if you’re an advanced SEO user, you’ll be
disappointed with the lack of depth in SpyFu’s keyword reports.
The biggest downside of SpyFu is that its keyword data is restricted
to the US and UK. If your business or target audience is based
outside these countries, then SpyFu may not fetch you the most
accurate keyword data.
Winner: Semrush
Related: How to Use Semrush for Keyword Research: The Definitive
Guide
User Interface and Accessibility: Semrush vs SpyFu
Effective UI plays a huge role in compelling users to interact with a
tool on a regular basis. It’s one of the reasons why some users may
prefer WhatsApp over Facebook Messenger, or why some users
may have Headspace as their go-to meditation app versus other
meditation apps like Calm and Buddhify.
Similarly, some users may prefer one SEO tool over the other
because of how comfortable they are with their UI. I’m not saying UI
is the only factor, but it’s certainly a key factor in getting us hooked to
spend more time with the tool.
In terms of UI, both Semrush and SpyFu have their strengths and
weaknesses. Both tools have gone through several redesigns over
the years, but they have maintained the same color palette.
I personally find Semrush’s UI to be better structured and easier
to use, but that may just be because I’ve been using it on a daily
basis since early-2015. If you’re a novice SEO user, you may find
yourself getting a bit overwhelmed with the features and find it
difficult to navigate to different areas within the tool.

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On the other hand, I’ve always found SpyFu’s interface to be simple,
but dull and outdated. The simplicity of the interface certainly makes
it easier to use and more beginner-friendly than some of the other
SEO tools on the market. But once you’ve spent some time playing
with the different features and settings, you can’t help but think
you’re using a product that’s stuck in the past.
Sections such as “AdWords Advisor” and “AdWords Templates”
simply reinforce the feeling that you’re using a product that’s not
been updated in quite a while (Google retired the AdWords brand in
2018.)
Winner: Semrush
Pricing Plans: Semrush vs SpyFu
Now it’s time to examine the pricing plans offered by each tool.
Let’s start with Semrush.
Semrush Pricing Plans
Semrush’s pricing plans start at $119.95/month. You can save up to
16% by switching to annual billing.
Here’s the current pricing structure:

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Pro – $119.95/mo (ideal for startups)
Guru – $229.95/mo (ideal for SMBs and marketing agencies)
Business – $449.95/mo (ideal for large businesses)
Semrush’s Pro plan includes access to all 40+ tools and features
within the platform, except historical data (included in Guru) and
product listing ads (included in Business).
I personally use Semrush’s Guru plan ($229.95/mo) because of the
higher limits.
If you’re just starting out or have a blog-based business, it’s better to
get started with Semrush’s Pro plan ($119.95/mo) and then upgrade
to a higher level.
If you run a marketing agency or simply have more projects and data
to manage, it’s better to go with Semrush’s Guru plan ($229.95/mo).
Get 1-month free trial to Semrush PRO ($119.95 value)
SpyFu Pricing Plans
Unlike most major SEO tools on the market, SpyFu has a free plan
and it’s actually quite good. The best part about the free plan is that
you can perform unlimited searches.

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Here are SpyFu’s monthly pricing plans:
Free for Life – $0/mo (unlimited searches, 10 search results)
Basic – $39/mo (unlimited search results, 5k weekly tracked
keyword rankings)
Professional – $78/mo (15k weekly tracked keyword rankings,
custom branded reports)
If you switch to annual billing, you can save $69 on the basic plan
and save $249 on the professional plan.
Sign up for SpyFu’s free plan
I’ve been using both tools since 2015. As mentioned above, I’ve
been on Semrush’s Guru plan ($199.95/mo) since early 2016. I’ve
upgraded to SpyFu’s paid plan only twice in all those years.
Final Verdict: Semrush vs SpyFu
At the start of the post, I made a point about how this comparison is
not a battle among equals. Semrush is an all-purpose SEO tool while
SpyFu is more focused on competitor analysis.
But based on my analysis, even from a competitive intelligence
perspective, Semrush is a far superior tool. As highlighted above,
your competitive analysis would be incomplete without tracking your
competition’s performance on social media. And that’s something
SpyFu currently lacks.
The other major drawback with SpyFu is that it has just two geo
databases (US and UK), as compared to Semrush’s 142 geo
databases. If you’d like to stave off your local competition and rank
higher in the local SERPs, you’re better off going with Semrush.
That said, if you’re on a shoestring budget, but still need to use a
decent competitive intelligence tool for your business or blog, then
SpyFu is perhaps your best bet. The free plan offered by SpyFu is
the best in the industry.

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If your need of the hour is competitor analysis, then sign up for
SpyFu’s free plan. If the data is insufficient for your needs, upgrade
to the Basic plan ($39/mo).
Otherwise, Semrush is the best solution for all your SEO and
PPC problems.
To summarize, here’s a visual breakdown of how Semrush compares
with SpyFu on key parameters:
Here are the links to help you get started with both these tools:
If you liked this article, please share it on Twitter using the link below:

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Editor’s Note: This article was first published on 29 June 2020 and
has been updated regularly since then for relevance, freshness, and
comprehensiveness.
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