SEM Rush?

[BeckyKey]

Hi

I wanted to find out if anyone would recommend using SEM Rush? Also, would you use majestic in conjunction with it?

I know they have their own backlink index, but I doubt it's as good.

We don't have the budget for a huge SEO monitoring tool, so I want something to track rankings, Page authority, and potential keywords to focus on along with competitor analysis..

Thank you

[DirkC]

I use Semrush mainly for keyword tracking / analysis - not as much for backlinks. It's a great tool to check competitors as you can check keywords they rank for & your site is not ranking. Basic subscription is not that expensive and it's one of the tools I use almost every day.

Don't know Majestic personally - for backlinks I heard Ahref is a great tool.

Dirk

[BeckyKey]

Hi Dirk,

Thank you for the reply. Sounds like it;s worth a try! What do you use for backlink tracking?

Thank you

[DirkC]

Becky,

It sounds a bit silly to state here - but actually we don't do a lot of backlink tracking and/or link building. The sites I work for are quite old (10+ years), with an excellent backlink profile. We are in the publishing industry and attract a lot of links in the 'natural' way. For our purpose the backlink tracking in Moz & Semrush is sufficient. Heard a lot of good stuff about ahref - but haven't used it myself.

Dirk

[BeckyKey]

Brilliant thanks. Building them organically is the best way!

Becky

[EGOL]

I use SEMrush.   If I plan to attack a niche that will require dozens of pages of content, I will use their keyword research along with my own knowledge to compile a list of keywords.  Then I start a "project" that includes all of the keywords that I intend to attack.  Building that content could take months but I place those keywords in a project before I begin content creation and start monitoring them.  At that time I have zero visibility because I have no content in that niche.  At that time I use SEMrush to learn about competitors in the SERPs for my collection of keywords.

Then, when my writing begins, I am tossing up a new page every few days and as those pages get indexed and start ranking my "visibility" score for that niche of keywords starts going up.  Every morning I check and see green.  That gives me mental energy to get to work.  I have knowledge, experience, a library, photos, time, etc... but nothing is more important to keep me going through a few months or more of writing than "mental energy".

As I work I visit the domains that have the greatest visibility in the niche where I am working and see what they are doing.  I use SEMrush to learn where their other traffic is coming from.  That might be my next niche.  I start running projects to see who is in that niche, who is growing, who is shrinking.  I know the health of my competitors better than they know it.  I know their health by topic area rather than just by their domain.

I am also watching baskets of keywords from niches that I built in the past.  Looking at websites there to see where their traffic is coming from, making notes and putting those topics on a list of next projects.  f I lose visibility, I see what's going on and make improvements.

Ten minutes per day.  Time well spent.  I leave with energy.

[BeckyKey]

This is brilliant and sounds like something I need to put in place.

I will be starting to create more and more content so it's just what I am after Amazing response thank you.

Do you use SEM rush to monitor rankings?

Thank you

[EGOL]

Do you use SEM rush to monitor rankings?

Yes, your rankings are monitored in each project.  However, I pay attention to "visibility" which considers both your ranking and the search volume for the keyword.   So, an increase of two positions up deep in the SERPs on a low volume keyword has very little impact on your visibility.  But, moving from position 2 to position 1 on a high volume keyword has a large impact on your visibility.

[BeckyKey]

Great thank you. I am using advanced web ranking, but am thinking of just moving to SEM rush if it's just as good.

Thanks!

[BeckyKey]

HI Egol,

I hope you are well. I have just started to use SEM Rush and wanted to find out how you isolate the competitors in a particular niche, before you start the project? I have looked at keyword research and then phrase match - just looking for the best place to start?

I'm finding that for the UK there is less data making it a little more difficult

Thanks!

[EGOL]

I don't worry about competitors until the day after my project is started.

First I enter my keywords and allow the project to deliver its first daily report.

Then, while viewing the first daily report, I click the "Competitor Discovery" link above the report.  Clicking that link produces a "Competition Map" that shows major competitors on a graph of "number of keywords" vs "average position".  I use that map as a visual guide to which competitors are real competitors and which are not very strong.

After that, I look below the map to the "Competitor" list and the "Winners & Losers" list.  Clicking a domain in those lists shows what keywords they rank for.  Clicking one of the ranking numbers under the competitor's domain in those lists shows the URL on their site that ranks for those keywords.  Those URLs are valuable.

If you follow the steps above, you will see how I identify competitors and how I use SEMrush information to attack their traffic sources.  This work can be time consuming, but the time is well spent.  It can also be something that you can easily train a person at your office to do for you.

I then take their ranking URL and copy/paste it into the main search box at the top of the SEMrush page.  That will generage a list of all keywords that their page ranks for.  Now I look at that list to see what keywords they rank for that I am not ranking for.  Now I know where I might take traffic from them.  This is the most valuable source of competitor intelligence that I know.

[BeckyKey]

This is brilliant thank you, I will try this out.

Can I also ask, what if you have some keywords, but need to do more research into the keywords to actually track - would you use the keyword related/phrase match for this first?

[EGOL]

Yes, I use the "Related Keywords" tool frequently.

Clicking on a related keyword to obtain "related keywords of related keywords" is also helpful.

The most valuable keywords are obtain from the names that customers use when they call on the phone or when they write to us.  That "language of the customer" often does not appear in keyword tools.