Boosting your online presence is a top priority for any business, and that's where Semrush Rank comes in. It's a powerful tool that helps you improve your website's visibility and drive more traffic to your site.
Semrush Rank uses complex algorithms to analyze your website's performance, taking into account factors like backlinks, technical SEO, and content quality. This analysis provides you with actionable insights to enhance your online presence.
A good Semrush Rank score can significantly improve your website's credibility and trustworthiness. For instance, a score above 70 indicates a strong online presence, while a score below 30 suggests room for improvement.
Semrush Features
Semrush has a range of tools that can help give your website a health check, including auditing and analyzing your website's accessibility and crawlability.
You can use the On Page and Technical SEO tools to boost your website's performance, and these tools are part of Semrush's comprehensive suite of features.
Key Features Compared
Semrush's Bulk Analysis tool lets you compare 200 URLs at once, providing a table with exact numbers of backlinks, follow and nofollow links, and more.
You can use this tool to check your competitors' backlinks and see how many more links you need to catch up.
Semrush also offers a Domain vs. Domain feature that allows you to compare rankings for 5 domains at once in Advanced Mode.
This feature performs a basic gap analysis, identifying keywords where all domains rank and reporting on each domain's position.
However, it doesn't tell you what URL is ranking for each domain, which makes it difficult to manually compare pages.
To get a more in-depth look, you can export rankings for each domain and use spreadsheets and VLOOKUP to compare URLs.
Semrush and Similarweb may seem similar at first glance, but they have some key differences.
On Page & Tech
You can use the Log File Analyzer to see how Google's crawler interacts with your website, which is essential for getting your new webpages indexed and ranking.
The Log File Analyzer highlights your most crawled webpages and shows how bot activity differs on desktop and mobile versions of your site.
To use the Log File Analyzer, you need to get the log file for your domain, which can be found in your /access_log or /logs folder using an FTP client.
Make sure the log file is in the access.log file format and unarchived, and that its size is below 1 GB, as the Analyzer won't accept anything bigger than this.
The On Page & Tech SEO tools in Semrush can give your website a health check, including auditing and analyzing your website's accessibility and crawlability.
The Log File Analyzer can also help you identify the weakest parts of your website structure and highlight navigational issues that are preventing Google from finding and crawling your important pages.
You can use the On Page and Technical SEO tools to audit and analyze your website's accessibility, crawlability, and more, giving your website a health check.
Competitive Analysis
Competitive analysis is a crucial step in understanding your online presence and how to improve it. You can start by selecting the "Competitors" tab under "Organic Research" to find all kinds of information about search competitors.
By running each of your primary keywords through the Domain Overview tool, you can get a general idea of what you're up against and familiarize yourself with some of their metrics, keywords, and backlinks. This will help you identify opportunities you may be missing out on.
To compare backlinks for up to 5 domains at once, go to the "Backlinks Comparison" tab and enter 5 domains of your choosing. This will give you a quick overview of how competitors stack up according to SEMrush's pre-selected metrics.
Here are some key things to look at on the Domain Overview page:
- Top organic keywords
- Traffic trends
- Main organic competitors
- Backlinks
- Referring Domains
With a free account, you can run 10 Domain Overview searches per day, while with a Guru account, you can run 5,000.
Conduct Preliminary Competitive Analysis
Start by finding three of your primary keywords and identifying the sites that are ranking above you. Run each of those through the Domain Overview tool to get a general idea of what you're up against.
The Domain Overview feature in SEMrush provides a bird's-eye view of any competitors you have, allowing you to easily see a ton of information. A few key things to look at on this page are top organic keywords, traffic trends, main organic competitors, backlinks, and referring domains.
To get a quick overview of how competitors stack up, use the Backlinks Comparison tab to compare basic metrics about their backlink profiles. This will give you a color-coded report showing the winners and losers in each category.
By identifying your site's strengths and weaknesses compared to your competitors, you'll gain insights into what you need to do to outperform them. The Domain Overview report provides a thorough breakdown of a domain's authority score, organic and paid search traffic, and backlinks.
Here are some key insights you can find on the Domain Overview page:
- Organic and paid traffic distribution by country, and changes in this over time
- Top paid and organic keywords and organic position distribution
- Keywords by intent
- Your main competitors (organic and paid)
- Referring domains
- Indexed pages
- Branded traffic trends
- Backlinks, including information on the type (text, image, etc) and nofollow vs dofollow
You can also use the Compare domains tab to size your domain up against up to four of your top competitors.
Correlation vs. Causation
In competitive analysis, it's crucial to understand the difference between correlation and causation. A high correlation between a certain SEO factor and higher rankings doesn't necessarily imply causation.
For instance, a study might show a correlation between word count and higher rankings, but it doesn't mean Google uses word count as a direct ranking factor. In fact, it's likely that longer content ranks higher because it covers the topic more comprehensively, improving its relevance and quality.
Long-form content can also attract more backlinks, which improves the content's PageRank. This is a key takeaway from understanding correlation vs. causation in SEO.
When analyzing competitors, keep in mind that correlation doesn't always equal causation. Consider the following factors that can influence search engine rankings:
- Search engine (Google or Baidu)
- Device (mobile or desktop)
- Target location
- Language
Backlink Analysis
Backlink analysis is a crucial aspect of SEMrush rank, and it's where you can get a clear picture of your website's backlink profile. You can use SEMrush's Domain Overview tool to get a bird's-eye view of any competitors you have, including top organic keywords, traffic trends, main organic competitors, backlinks, and referring domains.
SEMrush's Backlink Analytics tool provides a full breakdown of a domain's backlink profile, including a list of all the links pointing to that domain, and the Referring Domains tab shows a similar report listing all the unique websites linking to the target domain. This makes it a powerful tool for understanding your competitors' backlink profiles and potentially finding link building opportunities for your own site.
You can also use SEMrush's Backlink Gap tool to compare four competitors' backlink profiles simultaneously and find opportunities to get links to your own site. By looking at the linking domains, take into account their Authority Score (AS) and monthly visits. Higher is typically better in both cases.
Here are some key metrics to look for in backlink analysis:
- Number of backlinks
- Follow and nofollow links
- Text and image links
- Referring IPs and domains
- Links from educational, governmental, .com, .net, and .org sites
On-Page Checker
The On-Page Checker is a powerful tool that can help you optimize individual pages for better search engine rankings.
This tool does an in-depth content analysis of word counts, keywords, structure, and more, allowing you to compare it against other rivals ranking in the top 10 for your desired keywords.
It will give you specific strategy ideas for how you can win featured snippets, get enhanced rankings, and more.
You can use this tool to make edits as necessary and improve your page's chances of ranking well.
For example, you can customize the settings and get site audit results in just a few minutes.
Semrush's On-Page SEO Checker can make your job much easier if you consistently deal with on-page SEO.
It audits your website content and recommends on-page improvements to boost your website's visibility in organic search results.
With this tool, you can get 135 ideas for 21 web pages that are believed to boost your website's organic traffic by 100%.
Semantically-related keywords, user experience (UX) ideas, SERP feature ideas, and content writing suggestions are just a few of the recommendations you can expect from this tool.
In comparison, Similarweb's on-page SEO capabilities are very limited.
Semrush is the clear winner when it comes to on-page SEO, making it a valuable tool for anyone looking to improve their website's search engine rankings.
Backlink Analytics
Backlink Analytics is a powerful tool in SEMrush that provides a full breakdown of a site's backlink profile. You can paste a domain into Backlink Analytics to receive a full breakdown of the site's backlink profile. The Overview tab provides mini-reports that allow you to assess the site's overall backlink profile and identify broken links.
The Backlinks tab gives you a full list of all the links pointing to that domain, while the Referring Domains tab shows a similar report, listing all the unique websites linking to the target domain. This makes it a powerful tool for understanding your competitors' backlink profiles and potentially finding link building opportunities for your own site.
SEMrush's Backlink Analytics tool provides a detailed breakdown of a site's backlinks, including the number of links, referring domains, and anchor text. You can also use the tool to identify broken links and disavow toxic links.
Here are some key features of SEMrush's Backlink Analytics tool:
- Overview tab: Provides mini-reports to assess the site's overall backlink profile and identify broken links
- Backlinks tab: Gives a full list of all the links pointing to the domain
- Referring Domains tab: Lists all the unique websites linking to the target domain
- Detailed breakdown of backlinks: Includes the number of links, referring domains, and anchor text
- Identification of broken links: Allows you to identify and remove broken links from your backlink profile
- Disavow toxic links: Enables you to disavow toxic links and improve your site's backlink profile
Traffic Analytics
Traffic Analytics is a powerful tool in SEMrush that gives you a detailed view of a site's overall website traffic. It's not just limited to Google traffic, but also shows you where else a site receives traffic from and how much.
You can see how people interact with the site, including average page views per visit, session duration, and bounce rate. This information is displayed in a chart, allowing you to track changes over time.
The Traffic Journey tab is where things get really interesting. Here, you'll see a breakdown of any site's traffic sources, including social media platforms. For example, you can see which social media platforms send your competitors the most traffic.
This makes it a great way to reverse engineer what's already working for your competitors and use these insights to improve your own digital marketing strategy.
Here's a breakdown of the Traffic Analytics features:
By using Traffic Analytics, you can gain a deeper understanding of your competitors' traffic patterns and use this information to inform your own digital marketing strategy.
Link Building and Audit
Semrush's link building features are a game-changer for any SEO campaign. You can analyze a site's backlink profile, anchor text usage, dofollow vs. nofollow links, overall link authority, and more.
To ensure your link building campaign appears natural and not spammy, use Semrush's Backlink Audit tool. This tool provides an in-depth report on all links pointing to your site, including the "Overall Toxicity Score" that breaks down into non-toxic, potentially toxic, and toxic sections.
A healthy domain should have a high percentage of non-toxic links and zero toxic links. If you find any toxic links, you can disavow them and download the list as a .txt file to submit to Google Search Console.
Here are some key features of Semrush's Backlink Audit tool:
- Breaks down the "Overall Toxicity Score" into non-toxic, potentially toxic, and toxic sections
- Allows you to disavow toxic links and download the list as a .txt file
- Provides an in-depth report on all links pointing to your site
Site Audit
Site Audit is a crucial part of maintaining a healthy website. It's essential to run a site audit regularly, ideally once every two weeks for sites you're actively working on.
A site audit tool will find errors, warnings, and potential issues that might make you sweat, but don't worry, it's just being thorough. As you become more familiar with the tool, you'll learn what's mission critical and what can be put off fixing.
Semrush's Site Audit tool is particularly effective at identifying issues, including broken links, page resolution problems, and 404 errors. It also checks for missing metadata, duplicate title tags, and content issues like missing H1 tags or low word count.
Here are some specific things a site audit looks at:
- Are there broken links on your site?
- Are pages resolving properly?
- Are any pages returning 404 errors?
- Are there duplicate or missing title tags or missing metadata?
- Content issues like missing H1 tags, low word count etc.
By running regular site audits, you can stay on top of technical issues that could harm your site's performance. Semrush's Site Audit tool even allows you to automate the process, so you don't have to remember to run an audit every month.
Magic Tool
The Magic Tool is a game-changer for keyword research. It generates a massive list of related keywords, with 195K related keywords for the term "digital marketing" alone.
You can sort this list by search volume, keyword difficulty, CPC, and more, making it easier to find the best keywords to target. The tool also allows you to switch between different match types, such as Broad Match, Phrase Match, Exact Match, and Related.
Here are the different match types and what they do:
The Magic Tool also allows you to explore different keyword groups and subgroups related to your primary keyword, making it easier to build topic clusters. By clicking on one of the groups, you can examine suggested topic clusters related to the main keyword.
Link Building
Link building is a crucial aspect of search engine optimization (SEO) that helps improve your website's visibility and ranking. It involves acquiring high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites to increase your website's credibility and trustworthiness.
To analyze a site's backlink profile, you can use Semrush's link building features, which provide insights into anchor text usage, dofollow vs. nofollow links, overall link authority, and more. This information can help you identify potential link building opportunities.
Semrush's link building tool is a streamlined service that helps you find and engage with external sites for potential link building opportunities. It analyzes your competitors' backlink profiles to determine the kind of backlinks you need to compete.
You can enter keywords that you want to rank for and see an overview of the data, but you can head to the Prospects tab to see more detail. Any backlink opportunities you like the look of, you can add to the "In progress" list and connect with them through the outreach module.
To find backlinks to a specific URL, you can use Semrush's backlink data feature, which allows you to find all backlinks to an entire site, a domain, a subdomain, or a specific URL. You can also filter the results by anchor text, nofollow links, and referring domains.
Here are some common types of backlinks you can find using Semrush's backlink data feature:
- Find all backlinks to an entire site (root domain, including all subdomains)
- Find all backlinks to a domain (excluding all subdomains)
- Find all backlinks to a specific subdomain
- Find all backlinks to a specific URL
- Find how many other internal/external links (to any site/page) are on a source URL
- Find the estimated age of a backlink
- Find backlinks with specific anchor text
- Include/Exclude just image backlinks
- Include/Exclude just nofollow backlinks
- Include/Exclude backlinks from a specific referring domain
- Include/Exclude from a specific domain suffix (ex: .edu)
- Analyze backlinks by IP address
- Find backlinks from a specific IP address
- Include/Exclude sitewide links (ex: footer or header placements)
- Find Backlink Anchor information
- Compare backlinks for up to 5 domains at once
By analyzing your competitors' backlink profiles, you can identify potential link building opportunities and create a strategy to acquire high-quality backlinks.
Log File Analyzer
The Log File Analyzer is a powerful tool that helps you understand how Google's crawler interacts with your website. It determines how Googlebot is spending your crawl budget, which is essential for your new webpage to get indexed and start ranking.
Googlebot has a limited crawl budget to spend on your domain. This means you need to make the most of it by optimizing your website's architecture and improving site speed.
The Log File Analyzer highlights your most crawled webpages and how bot activity differs on the desktop and mobile versions of your site. This helps you identify navigational issues that are preventing Google from finding and crawling your important pages.
To use the Log File Analyzer, you need to get the log file for your domain, which can be found in your /access_log or /logs folder using an FTP client. Ensure the file is in the access.log file format and is unarchived.
Make sure your log file size is below 1 GB, as the Analyzer won't accept anything bigger than this. Once uploaded, you can review Googlebot activity on your pages over a chosen period of days.
By using the Log File Analyzer, you can identify site errors and find the pages that aren't getting much attention from Googlebot. This will help you update your pages or fix site errors to improve your crawlability—and potentially your site's performance.
Reporting and Tools
Semrush offers a generous reporting limit, even on its cheapest pricing plan, allowing you to pull 3,000 domain and keyword analytics reports daily.
Semrush's Guru and Business plans offer 5,000 and 10,000 daily report limits, respectively.
With Semrush Pro, you'll get 10,000 keyword and domain analytics results per report, which is a lot of data to process, even for data analysts.
Similarweb, on the other hand, shows only 1,000 results per report, and increasing the number of results to 5,000 will cost you $399 monthly.
To give you a better idea of the reporting limits, here's a comparison of Semrush and Similarweb:
Semrush's reporting limits are more than enough for most websites, even giant ones, making it a great choice for businesses of all sizes.
Semrush's Keyword Research Toolkit offers a comprehensive keyword overview, including global volume, search engine result page (SERP) overview, keyword clusters, estimated number of URLs in SERP, and historical performance.
This data is a must-have for keyword research, and Semrush provides it in a way that's easy to understand and use.
Semrush also offers market and competitive analysis tools with the .Trends solution, which allows you to research emerging market trends, assess the competitive landscape, explore competitor marketing strategies, analyze market audiences, and track competitors' online activity.
Similarweb and Comparison
Check out our in-depth review of Semrush to learn more about its features and capabilities.
Similarweb is another popular tool for analyzing website traffic and rankings. It offers a range of features, including competitor analysis and market intelligence.
If you're looking for a more comprehensive comparison of Semrush and Similarweb, you can check out our review of Semrush to see how it stacks up against the competition.
Similarweb
Similarweb is a powerful tool for web analytics and competitive analysis. Its strengths lie in providing extensive toolkits for these areas.
Similarweb's data sources are not as comprehensive as Semrush's, particularly when it comes to backlink database size. It doesn't offer a backlink database, whereas Semrush has a massive database of 43 trillion backlinks.
Similarweb's keyword database size is also limited, with only 1 billion keywords available. This is in contrast to Semrush, which boasts a massive 22.3 billion keyword database.
Similarweb's pricing plans are also more limited, with the cheapest plan starting at $149 and offering limited functionality. Semrush, on the other hand, offers a more affordable plan starting at $139.95, with access to all features.
Similarweb's customer support is also less comprehensive, with only email and contact form support available, whereas Semrush offers email, live chat, and phone support.
Here's a brief comparison of Similarweb and Semrush's key features:
Similarweb's user rating on Gartner is 4.7 out of 5, based on 12 reviews. This suggests that users are generally very satisfied with the tool.
Reviews & Comparisons
For a comprehensive understanding of Similarweb and its competitors, let's take a look at reviews and comparisons.
Check out our in-depth review of Semrush to see how it stacks up against Similarweb.
Similarweb offers a free plan, but if you need more features, you'll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Our review of Ahrefs, another popular competitor, highlights its strengths and weaknesses in comparison to Similarweb.
Similarweb's pricing plans are competitive with other tools on the market, making it a great option for businesses of all sizes.
If you're still unsure about which tool to choose, be sure to read our comparison of Similarweb and SEMrush.
Pricing and Support
Semrush offers a free account with limited features, allowing you to perform keyword research and a 100-page site audit, with up to 10 credits per day.
You can also try out Semrush Pro with a 14-day trial, giving you a taste of the premium features.
Semrush's pricing plans are tiered: Pro, Guru, and Business, with the latter two offering more advanced features suitable for larger businesses and agencies.
Each plan covers everything you need to manage a website, including keyword research, content writing and optimization, backlink analysis, and technical SEO.
Similarweb's pricing plans are less generous but more expensive, with the Starter plan limited in its features.
The Semrush team responds to support requests within one business day, and existing users can also ask questions via live chat and contact form inside their accounts.
Pricing Plans
Semrush offers three main pricing tiers: Pro, Guru, and Business. You can try out basic features with a free account, but keep in mind that it's limited to 10 credits per day.
The free plan allows users to perform limited keyword research and a 100-page site audit. You can also access a 14-day trial on a Semrush Pro subscription with a link provided.
The package you should opt for depends on the size of your business and your specific digital marketing needs. You'll also need to pay more for certain packages and add-ons.
Semrush's Pro plan is a great option for bloggers managing their websites, while SEO contractors and multi-client agencies will benefit from the Guru or Business plan.
Best Tool Support
Semrush offers a wide range of support options, including email, live chat, and phone, even for users without an account.
You can reach the Semrush team via live chat and contact form inside your account, and they respond within one business day.
Similarweb also has a live chat and contact form for website visitors and regular users.
Existing users of Similarweb can upgrade to a custom pricing plan, which includes a dedicated account manager and full-service onboarding.
Onboarding is a great addition, considering the complexity of the tool, and it's a feature that's only available with the custom pricing plan.
Semrush's support team responded promptly to my refund request when I accidentally paid for the wrong plan, and they sent my money back quickly.
Search Engine Ranking
Google's search engine ranking process is a complex system that involves crawling, indexing, and ranking pages. The process starts with crawling, where Googlebot goes from one page to another and "reads" the content.
To rank your pages, search engines need to discover them first, which is why crawling is the first step. Google stores information about your pages in a huge database called the Google index, which is created through the indexing process.
Google's algorithms are a set of complex internal processes used to rank pages. These algorithms are constantly being updated, with smaller updates happening daily and bigger updates happening several times a year.
Google's ranking algorithms consider a huge number of ranking factors and signals, including content relevance, content quality, and backlinks. Relevant links from other sites help Google identify trustworthiness and relevance.
Some confirmed ranking factors include:
- Content relevance: Google determines whether a page is relevant to a search query and ranks the most relevant pages.
- Content quality: Google uses various means to identify quality in order to rank pages.
- Backlinks: Relevant links from other sites help Google identify trustworthiness and relevance.
- Physical proximity: Google considers how far a business is from the searcher's location for local search results.
- Mobile-friendliness: Pages optimized for mobile devices may rank better in Google's mobile search results.
- Page performance: Google uses a set of metrics called Core Web Vitals to determine how well a page performs in terms of speed, responsiveness, and visual stability.
- HTTPS: Google detects whether a website uses a secured, encrypted connection and gives a slight advantage to those that do.
On the other hand, some negative ranking factors can harm your website's ranking, including intrusive pop-ups, keyword stuffing, and unnatural links.
How to Improve
To improve your Semrush rank, you need to focus on both technical SEO and on-page SEO.
First, you need to improve your technical SEO. This means optimizing all the technical aspects of your website, such as site architecture and navigation, speeding up your website, ensuring mobile-friendliness, using correct on-page SEO elements, and fixing common issues like duplicate content, HTTP issues, and redirect errors.
You can conduct a complete technical SEO audit using Semrush's Site Audit tool to identify the most serious issues. This tool will provide you with a complete overview of your website's overall health, and you can then explore various aspects of your technical SEO through the "Thematic Reports" or the "Issues" tab.
Here are some key areas to focus on in your technical SEO:
- Site architecture and navigation
- Speeding up your website
- Ensuring mobile-friendliness
- Using correct on-page SEO elements
- Fixing common issues like duplicate content, HTTP issues, and redirect errors
On-page SEO is also crucial for improving your Semrush rank. This involves optimizing your website content, such as writing high-quality and relevant content, using keywords strategically, and ensuring that your website is user-friendly and easy to navigate.
Semrush's On-Page SEO Checker can make your job much easier by auditing your website content and recommending on-page improvements to boost your website's visibility in organic search results. This tool can also provide you with ideas for semantically-related keywords, user experience (UX) ideas, SERP feature ideas, and content writing suggestions based on top-performing websites.
Monitor Your Progress
Monitoring your progress with Semrush's Position Tracking tool is a no-brainer. It helps you understand whether your SEO efforts are yielding results and if you need to adjust your strategy.
You can use Semrush's Position Tracking tool to monitor the ranking of your keywords. Just enter your domain and project name, set up the tracking, and enter all your keywords.
The tool will provide a detailed analysis of your overall progress in the "Landscape" report, including key metrics and a rankings distribution chart. You can also track your rankings over time in the "Overview" tab for overall search visibility and individual keywords.
To dive deeper, you can explore the tool's various reports, such as the "Competitors Discovery" report, which allows you to analyze your top organic search competitors and add them to your tracking.
You can also set up alerts to stay informed about any significant changes in your rankings. Just click the little bell icon in the top-right corner and set up your first trigger.
Here are some key features of Semrush's Position Tracking tool:
- Track thousands of keywords on a daily basis
- Email alerts for ranking changes
- Building ranking history databases to spot trends
By monitoring your progress with Semrush's Position Tracking tool, you can identify areas that need improvement and make data-driven decisions to optimize your site.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to find ranking in Semrush?
To find your website's keyword rankings in Semrush, navigate to the "Positions" report after signing in. This report displays your domain's highest organic ranking for each keyword.
Is there something better than Semrush?
While Semrush is a top choice, similar alternatives like SimilarWeb, Ahrefs, and Backlinko offer competitive features and options to consider. If you're looking for a better fit, exploring these options might be worth your time.
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