March 16, 2016 seograil.com

SEMrushI’m not just an (ex)employee. I’m a customer

too!Sean Malseed // @seanmalseed Director of Technology, Greenlane Search Marketing

@seanmalseed

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 peoplealways 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 thingsto know about SEMrush.

@seanmalseed

What we’ll look atWhat 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.

@seanmalseed

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 overviewYou 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 thinkabout it right)

What’s not?● Backlinks

● Exact traffic

@seanmalseed

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.

@seanmalseed

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

@seanmalseedhttps://www.semrush.com/info/domain_vs_domain

@seanmalseedhttps://www.semrush.com/info/domain_vs_domain

I’m totally kicking Moz’s ASS!

@seanmalseed

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.

@seanmalseed

Me.

@seanmalseed

Keyword research

It’s like totally awesome for this.

@seanmalseed

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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@seanmalseed

Site auditI 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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@seanmalseed

@seanmalseed

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@seanmalseed

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

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