SEMrush has come a long way in the last year. I use SEMrush every damn day, from technical SEO audits to keyword research to competitive analysis and even social. This SEO Grail presentation shows you what I do with it, how we use it at Greenlane Search Marketing, and how you can get a ton of value from it too.

1. March 16, 2016 seograil.com
SEMrush
I’m not just an (ex)employee. I’m a customer too!
Sean Malseed // @seanmalseed
Director of Technology, Greenlane Search Marketing

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Yeah, I used to work there.
Whatevs. NBD.

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The SEMrush US office when I worked there
Me.

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SEMrush US office today… holy shit.

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The important question people
always ask me about SEMrush

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Do you say
“S-E-M-rush” or SEMRUSH?

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ESS - EE - EM - rush

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(jeez)

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The other important things
to know about SEMrush.

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What we’ll look at
What is SEMrush
What I use it for
How you can use it
Free vs. paid
Deeper tips & tricks

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What is SEMrush?
Keywords, competitors & on-site.

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From SEM’s hidden secret to SEO/SEM staple.
SEOquake started in 2006 targeted to SEOs. They decided to build a tool for PPC people.
SEMrush started collecting data in late 2008, targeted to PPC pros who wanted to find holes
in competitor data.
SEMrush in 2009

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Famous for KW research, but now it’s so much more
Everyone and their mother used SEMrush for keyword research since at least 2010. In the past
few years, they’ve blown up way beyond that.
I find that people who use it every day still don’t know all its features.

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What I use it for
Everything, every day. Permanent
part of my repertoire.

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Domain overviews
Especially versus competitor sites

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Domain overview
You can learn a ton about a domain - both yours, and your competitors’.

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What’s good?
● Organic & paid
Keywords
● Traffic trends
(if you think
about it right)
What’s not?
● Backlinks
● Exact traffic

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What do you mean, “exact traffic” not good?
SEMrush is not Google Analytics - traffic is calculated by looking total keywords ranked for a
domain, what positions, and what search traffic those keywords get.
Google Analytics is way more accurate, but remember: you don’t have access to your
competitors’ Google Analytics accounts!
SEMrush traffic data is super powerful when used to compare traffic movement, gains, losses,
wins, misses, gaps, and more between you and your competitors.

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Keywords by domain is cool and all...
https://www.semrush.com/info/ranktank.org+(by+organic)

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But it’s cooler to compare.
https://www.semrush.com/info/domain_vs_domain

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https://www.semrush.com/info/domain_vs_domain

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https://www.semrush.com/info/domain_vs_domain
I’m totally kicking Moz’s ASS!

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Oh, and I totally proposed this feature when I worked there.
Did I mention I used to work there?
Yeah. I used to work there.
Whatevs. NBD.

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Me.

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Keyword research
It’s like totally awesome for this.

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Starting from a keyword
https://www.semrush.com/info/buy%20running%20shoes+(full+search)
Start broad, dig deeper, check phrase match
Need a starting point? Use the previous slides to get keywords from your competitors - gaps,
weak ranking pages, etc.

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Phrase match report magic

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Pro tip: Do this kind of research on your competitors’ rankings to find
strong keywords that they only have a tenuous grip on!

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Keyword difficulty is
amazing.
I wish I came up with it when
I worked there.
Did I mention I used to work
there?
I talked in Poland one time…

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Site audit
I start every tech audit with this tool

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Site audit tool
https://www.semrush.com/info/buy%20running%20shoes+(full+search)
I don’t always use SEMrush for tech audits - but I generally start with this + Screaming Frog

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Where the F- is the site audit tool? I never saw it!
Projects -> Add project -> Site audit
There’s a lot of cool stuff under projects. Like custom keyword position
tracking!
https://www.semrush.com/projects/

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Adding a site audit project is easy. And comprehensive.

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What site audit checks
48 points, including:
Errors, broken links, server errors,
titles, metas, headings, images,
speed, and a crap load of awesome,
useful things.

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What’s the issue, where it is, and exportable.

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How I use this
SEMrush to look at the high level, Screaming Frog to dig deep and find all instances, export and
combine everything.
Other tools I use erry-day, erry-audit: Majestic, Ahrefs, Rank Ranger, URL Profiler, etc
+

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#seograil
@seanmalseed