Assignment #3: SEMrush First Impressions

Introduction

Prior to this class, I had never heard of SEMRush, now I am very intrigued as I am learning more and more while navigating the tool. SEMRush is essentially a tool that helps a business to analyze the data within their website. Additionally, it aids in the monitoring of the site's marketing activity and therefore gives the business insight into the marketing strategies they should utilize or improve. SEMrush does a great job of sectioning off the data analytics in which they are providing for a given project. For instance, as shown in the image below, I have already started a project for the site My Happy Snails and within this project, there are sections such as Position Tracking, Link Building Tool, Content Analyzer, Site Audit, Domain Analytics, Traffic Analytics, and many more. SEMrush allows you to set up each section as you please which I find to be very neat because otherwise, it might be too overwhelming to have all the data presented to you at once. 

Figure 1: My Happy Snails SEMrush Project

On Page SEO Checker Tool

I’ve already dabbled in the Site Audit, On Page SEO Checker, Domain Analytics, Traffic Analytics, Keywords, and Backlink Analytics. Thus far, I’ve found the On Page SEO Checker to be the most intriguing as it provides very detailed ideas and recommendations to optimize their digital marketing strategies. Not only this, but it provides an idea tasks section so that you can keep track of these ideas and recommendations as you are implementing them. SEMrush also provides a difficulty level for each of the ideas which I find to be helpful as someone who likes to organize their tasks from easiest to most difficult and complete them in that order. 

Additionally, within the On Page SEO Checker section, there is a tab titled ‘Top 10 Benchmarking’ that gives you an insight into how your business is performing in comparison to the top Google top 10 pages with the same keywords. Based on the image below, it seems that My Happy Snails is underperforming its competitors. Their content is significantly fewer than those of their competitors in the Google top 10 pages. Therefore, it is clear that My Happy Snails will then have to work on adding more content to each of their web pages. This will surely not be an easy task because it is never easy to determine the best content to share online.

Figure 2: SEMrush On Page SEO Checker: My Happy Snails

Organic Research Tool

Furthermore, another section within the SEMrush tool that I found to be extremely useful was the Organic Research section. This section also gave a lot of information regarding direct competitors of the business. Since I am already a consumer of snail products such as pet snails, terrariums, and snail food and supplements, I was already familiar with many of the competitors provided in the list below. However, what I was not aware of was the competition level between the brands. For example, it is clear that snails4you.com and landsnails.org are myhappysnails.com biggest competitors, while ourpetsnails.com is not so much of a big competitor though they are essentially providing the same products as myhappysnails.com. To add to this, SEMrush also provides a list of common keywords between My Happy Snails and its competitors. I find this to be very beneficial to see what a competitor may be including that you are not. This essentially allows you to get an insight into how the competitors may be outperforming you. 

Figure 3: SEMrush Organic Research: My Happy Snails

SEMrush Review 

Overall, my first impression of SEMrush is great. I find it to be very useful and beneficial to get more insight into not only your own business but your competitors. The analysis that is provided is very well structured and informative. In comparing SEMrush with the other analytical tool Internet Marketing Ninjas which I’ve also used for the first time in this course, I found that SEMrush is much more thorough. However, this may simply be due to the fact that Internet Marketing Ninjas is free while SEMrush is not. On that note, taking a look at SEMrush’s plans and pricing, it is definitely not so affordable for a small business perhaps such as My Happy Snails. As shown in the image below, their cheapest plan, SEMrush Pro, is advertised for marketing newbies and small in-house teams, though I am not sure a marketing newbie or a small in-house team would be willing to invest $119.95 per month for a data analytical tool when there are free options available.  

Nonetheless, when comparing SEMrush to the other data analytic tools that are free such as Internet Marketing Ninjas, which I’ve featured on my blog already, Internet Marketing Ninjas falls short. It may be quite difficult to find another web analytical tool as thorough as SEMrush that would be free of charge. Therefore, in the long run, SEMrush may actually be worth the investment. I think it is also important to acknowledge that SEMrush does provide a 30-day free trial that I am currently using myself. This is a great perk that SEMrush offers for users such as myself who are students seeking to get a better understanding of how web analytics tools work. As well as, for those marketing newbies and small in-house teams who are looking to explore different web analytics tools before deciding on the one that best fits their marketing strategies and goals. 

Figure 4: SEMrush Plans & Pricing

Conclusion

In conclusion, SEMrush is a great web analytics tool that is very thorough and provides both ideas and recommendations. There are many sections within the tool that allow the viewer to interpret the data from different categories of their website. What I like most about SEMrush is its inclusion of visual representation of the data such as graphs and charts. It’s very important for a business to be able to interpret, present, and manipulate its data in many different ways. Additionally, having the ability to visualize the data is always helpful and a great way to condense the data. If I were to make any changes to SEMrush it would be more so on their pricing. Perhaps they could include a plan more limited than the Pro that could be more affordable for students, sole-proprietorships, and small businesses. Other than that, I find SEMrush to be very useful and a great tool to have. If I had to choose a web analytics tool for my own business, I would definitely choose SEMrush. 

References 

On page seo checker. Semrush. (n.d.). Retrieved September 16, 2021, from https://www.semrush.com/on-page-seo-checker/6264666/scores/all/?sb=priority&sd=desc.

Organic research. Semrush. (n.d.). Retrieved September 16, 2021, from https://www.semrush.com/analytics/organic/positions/?sortField=&sortDirection=desc&db=us&q=myhappysnails.com&searchType=domain.

Site Audit: My Happy Snails. Semrush. (n.d.). Retrieved September 16, 2021, from https://www.semrush.com/siteaudit/campaign/6264666/review/#overview.