A website without Search Engine Optimization is like a fine dinner without the entree.
The table is set, the vegetables are ready, but when you sit down for that luscious dinner… there is no meat, no chicken or pasta either. All you have is a little broccoli and a bit of salad – and no matter how beautifully you set the table, that is all you will have.
This is how vital SEO is to your web properties. You need good SEO to get your website to list well in the search engines for the keywords that best represent your business. The problem is that where once you could get your site to list organically, with just a little content and without much of an effort, now it is virtually impossible. You need to learn a few skills and use a good set of tools to help you perform the Search Engine Optimization correctly and get the search engine results you want. I'm going to show you how to do this with SEMRUSH and you can even get a free trial with my link below.
[thrive_link color='green' link='https://www.semrush.com/sem/?ref=16141503&refer_source=&utm_source=berush&utm_medium=promo&utm_campaign=link_7-day_pro_trial' target='_blank' size='big' align='aligncenter']Get a Free 7 Day Trial of SemRush >[/thrive_link]
Where Do You Start?
Nowadays, to perform SEO well, you need data, insight, and information – you can’t wander around blind and assume that you know what is wrong. You need a guide that shows you the steps you need to take to implement great SEO strategies. And what software works best at doing this? What software gives you the crucial information you need to implement change and track the changes you make? Well, that would be SEMrush, of course.
How Can SEMrush Help Me with SEO?
Trying to perform SEO and get your web property to rank higher in the search engines without knowing where your web page currently stands; without knowing what keywords your page is listing under, or even knowing what websites (those owned by other people) link to yours, is almost impossible. You are trying to do “Hit and Miss” SEO and it doesn’t work, or it just takes too long.
First Let's Get a Grasp on What Good SEO Really Is
If you don’t understand the full scope of SEO, let me explain it to you in the easiest way possible. Let’s say you are an Internet user, and you need to find a service, store or product. So you go to Google and you type in two or three words that sound logical and refer to the product or service you are looking for. When you press enter, “PRESTO” you get a ton of results with the information you need.
It was those three or four words that brought up the information you wanted.
And if we put the shoe on the other foot, if you look at it from the view of the website owner, you want to know what those two or three words are, and ideally get yourself on the search engines first page listing for every variation of words that could be searched for, and which refer to your product or service.
Great right?
Yeah! But, it is not that simple. Sure, Google and the other search engines want you to include these words (called keywords) in your content. But there are thousands of other pages doing the same thing. So now keyword integration is not the only thing you need to worry about, you also need to factor in all other ranking factors. And these include:
- The use of keywords in content (catch here. Keywords need to occur naturally and be used naturally in the content)
- Sufficient and relevant content
- Your site needs to be authoritative. In other words, other sites need to refer to it as an important site, by linking or mentioning the website name.
So how can you tell what is going on behind the scenes? How can you tell what other websites do with regards to your information? And if you are working yourself at creating backlinks by offering other websites content, consulting services, comments and more, how can you find out how many of those links remain in place?
You Gotta Use a Good Tool…
You need a tool and categorically the current best SEO tool on the market is called SEMrush. It is a tool you will continually use as it offers insights on all of these aspects of your SEO efforts. SEMrush offers important insights that allow you to quickly act, make changes and set your website back in the top ranks of the search engines. This is what SEMrush does:
- Informs you on whether your website is rising or falling in the search engines
- Gives you traffic stats for any given topic. It tells you how many people actually search for any given term.
- Tell you what other websites are linking to your site and to other similar sites
- What topics or terms would be good to create content on
- The amount of traffic competitors are getting
- Technical issues that might be hurting your SEO (this one is very important and can be deadly if not monitored)
How Does It Work?
Let us show you how SEMrush is invaluable when working with SEO. It is a tool that gives you a ton of analytics and offers crucial information that you would not otherwise know. And this knowledge helps you take easy corrective action that gives you the perfect SEO you need.
SEMrush is the result of a collaborative effort created by SEO and SEM experts. It is a program with a diverse set of tools that help you obtain better search engine rankings for your websites.
It is a program that uses a huge database of millions of keywords and millions of domains and compares AdWords, ad copies and their positions as well as the organic positions for your domains.
Who uses it? Everybody. It is a tool used by Forbes, Hyatt and a ton of other major players.
So before deciding on your options, why don’t you read on and learn a little more about the different SEMrush tools, you may just find that this is the all in one tool you have been looking for.
Keyword Finder
SEMrush finds your top performing keywords.Remember I said this was a crucial piece of the puzzle to effective SEO efforts. Every good SEO specialist knows that one of the most important elements in getting a web property to list correctly is the use of proper keywords, and finding these proper words requires proper keyword research. And unless you place appropriate keywords in your content and do so in a natural way, you can create thousands of pages of content and it is not going to be all that useful.
SEMrush helps you find top keywords for you to use appropriately throughout your content. This will send more search engine traffic to your blogs and websites.
But wait! You can find keywords for your site, but you have one ultra benefit here, you can analyze your competitor websites too when you use SEMrush and see the keywords they are targeting. This can help you determine whether these terms are also appropriate for you.
Site Auditing
Want to know where you website stands on the search engines? Do you want to know where your errors are and learn how to fix them? At the very least knowing what these errors are is important. That way you can hire someone to fix them is super important. The SEMrush “Site Audit” tool can give you a list of all the issues your website has, and can then help you rectify these errors. Once fixed, you will get better performance in the search engines.
A Site audit can help you create missing content using suggested keywords. It can also show you where your site has broken links and show you the number of websites that point to your site.
By the same token, you can use the site audit feature to analyze your competitor's website traffic, backlinks, keywords and more. You can see what keywords they rank for and the traffic that comes from this content, and then use the same or similar keywords in your own content. You can see the number of links that point to their site and then create a better link strategy for your own website.
The Content Tool
This tool allows you to track your content and see who refers or links to it. It’s a tool that does three important things.
- Tracks your content: The SEMrush content tool allows you to track your content, even content you have on external sites. You can better understand the way people read your stuff, share it and react to it on all the social media platforms
- See the number of external sites refer to your content. You can track all the backlinks that go to your articles. More importantly, you can see whether these backlinks come from trusted websites.
- Track SEO. See what the relevant keywords registered for your content are. And view how well certain articles attract traffic.
Brand Monitoring
Track your online reputation and see what others say about you. Seeing this information is vital, and helps you realize what is being said about your business or tells you when you need to do something to get more mentions. The cool thing about this tool is that you are automatically notified of new mentions and you can find all the recommendations wherever they are placed displayed on this one dashboard.
The Brand Monitoring tool also has another benefit. It gives you insights into your competitors mentions and where they are finding brand mention opportunities. You can use these opportunities to place your own reviews and mentions.
Another benefit here is that the Brand Monitor tool also helps you see mentions with backlinks which helps you grow SEO ranking.
The PPC Keyword Tool
SEMrush also offers a PPC keyword tool that lets you manage and implement your PPC campaigns correctly. Organize keywords and ad group level, set up negative keywords and export everything into your Adword campaigns. The benefits are simple:
- You can import keywords from existing campaigns and then use the PPC keyword tool to organize your keywords and ad group levels.
- Use the Keyword too to manage and optimize your word lists. This lets you choose the best keywords based on CPC, difficulty and volume metrics.
- Receive added value by being able to remove duplicates with the “Remove Duplicates” button.
- Tighten up your keyword list with SEMrush recommendations. This is a feature that makes your campaign perfect. The recommendations are offered in order and they can optimize your PPC campaigns.
Use SEMrush as A Reverse Engineering Tool
One of the best features, and for many SEO users the deciding factor in using SEMrush is the fact that you can reverse engineer content and social media techniques that your competitors use. Plug your competitor domains into the tool and analyze their websites to find out what they are doing to get their websites ranked on the search engines better than yours.
Click on the “Organic Research” button in the sidebar and you will see your competitors “Positions” analysis. By default it is US-specific but you can change the country to whichever one you need. Here you can see the traffic estimates and the trends for future traffic.
Study Your Competitors Keyword Usage
The “Organic Research” tab lets you see all the keywords for which a domain is ranking for. This gives you the power to reverse engineer what they have done and rank for the same keywords. Spy on your competitors in SEMRush here.
SEMrush Pricing
SEMrush can be affordable to almost any type of website owner. There are basically three paid options available: Pro, Guru and Business.
- The Pro account costs $99.95 per month
- The Guru comes with a $199.95 price tag
- Business account users pay $399.95 a month
The type of account you purchase depends on the number of web properties you work with, your SEO practices and needs. Personally, I just use the basic Pro account for my 5 websites and it gives me all the results I need to place my web properties in search engine top ranking positions. Not ready to buy one of the plans? Grab your free trial here.
[thrive_link color='green' link='https://www.semrush.com/sem/?ref=16141503&refer_source=&utm_source=berush&utm_medium=promo&utm_campaign=link_7-day_pro_trial' target='_blank' size='big' align='aligncenter']Get a Free 7 Day Trial of SemRush >[/thrive_link]
