7 Best Semrush Features for Smart Bloggers

As a blogger, we know how difficult it is to find a keyword, write SEO-optimized content, and rank that content in SERPs. And that’s true for all the bloggers who run a blog.

However, if you have the right tool at your disposal, then this task is much easier. That’s where Semrush comes in.

Semrush is one of the most popular SEO and marketing tools out there. While it’s often seen as an all-in-one SEO platform for big marketing teams, Semrush actually offers a goldmine of features tailor-made for bloggers who want to work smarter, not harder.

From finding winning keywords to writing SEO-optimized content and tracking performance, it will offer all the features you need as a blogger.

In this article, we’ll explore some of the best Semrush features that you can use as a blogger to write smarter, rank higher, and grow your blog with confidence.

Note: Semrush is an all-in-one SEO tool. As a result, its plan comes with a higher price tag. Its entry-level Pro plan starts at $139.95/month, which is very high for those who are on a budget. Here is the list of the best affordable SEO tools if you are on a budget.

Additionally, you can use Semrush for free. You will, however, be unable to get all of the data available to premium users.

As a free user, you can only generate ten analytics reports per day, set up one project, and track up to ten keywords.

You can also try it 7-day free trial to check whether to invest your money or not by clicking the button below.

Start Semrush 7-Day Free Trial

What is Semrush?

Semrush is an all-in-one digital marketing tool designed to help you grow your online presence, especially in areas like SEO, content creation, keyword research, competitor analysis, and backlink building.

Semrush - Best SEO Tool

For bloggers, Semrush is like a Swiss Army knife:

It helps you find the right keywords, track your blog’s rankings, spy on your competitors, optimize your content for SEO, and improve your site’s health—all in one place.

In short:

Semrush shows you how to get more traffic to your blog by doing what works.

Pros of Semrush for Bloggers

  • Easily find long-tail, low-competition keywords for blog posts that can rank.
  • Help in generating blog ideas and outlines based on real search data.
  • Spy on top-ranking blogs in your niche to discover what’s working for them.
  • Check who’s linking to your blog and find opportunities to build more links for SEO authority.
  • Track how your blog posts are performing on Google over time with daily updates.
  • Improve older blog content with actionable SEO suggestions from the On-Page SEO Checker.
  • Checks for broken links, slow pages, crawl errors—keeping your blog Google-friendly.

Cons of Semrush for Bloggers

  • Semrush isn’t cheap.
  • The dashboard has a lot of tools—overwhelming if you only need a few.

Best Semrush Features for Bloggers

Below are some best features of Semrush you can use as a blogger:

1. Keyword Research

Keyword research is the foundation of smart blogging. Without it, you’re essentially writing in the dark, creating content that might be well-written but gets lost in the endless sea of the internet.

But that is not when you are using Semrush for keyword research for your blog.

Semrush offers a robust set of comprehensive keyword research tools and metrics to enhance your keyword strategy.

1. Keyword Overview

The Keyword Overview tool shows you the important top-level data points for a given keyword. This covers keyword volume, difficulty, CPC, and more.

Semrush Keyword Overview Tool

The best part is that Semrush presents all of this data in a compact interface. It does not feel overwhelming.

This tool allows you to quickly create a ‘feel’ for the keyword you’re researching. You can use it to answer questions like:

  • Is this keyword easy to rank for?
  • What do the search trends look like?
  • What keyword variations and questions should you target?

What’s even more interesting is that Semrush will automatically create clusters with pillar pages and subtopics as part of your keyword strategy.

Keyword Ideas in Semrush

As a result, it helps you organize your content, improves SEO, and enhances user experience.

2. Keyword Magic Tool

The Semrush Keyword Magic Tool uses your seed keyword to uncover all possible search terms related to your query.

Semrush Keyword Magic Tool

Semrush uses its large keyword database (26.8 billion) to display combinations of similar search phrases. You can then use filters to find the perfect keywords for your website.

Modifiers, for example, can help you narrow down your search to different options or perfect match possibilities for your seed keyword.

Using Modifiers to Filter Keywords in Keyword Magic Tool

Likewise, the filters tab will help you focus on keywords for which you can rank. For example, you can quickly find interesting keywords if you set the keyword difficulty (KD) filter to “Possible”.

3. Keyword Gap

Keyword Gap identifies keywords that your rivals rank for, but you do not.

Semrush Keyword Gap

It’s easy to overlook this tool. However, we think it is one of Semrush’s most strong features.

The “Top Opportunities” card shows keywords for which you do not rank well or at all.

Naturally, these show your best opportunities when planning an SEO strategy.

2. Position Tracking

Writing great blog content is just the beginning—knowing how it performs over time is what helps you grow.

That’s where the Semrush Position Tracking tool becomes a secret weapon for you as a blogger.

Semrush Position Tracking Dashboard

At the top, you’ll find metrics like your blog visibility and average positions.

Right next to this, there’s a handy overview of recent gains and losses for both your domain and competitor sites.

Semrush makes it easy for you to find what’s important. It’s good to have different sections for your top-performing keywords and keywords that have recently improved or lost their ranks.

Keyword Listed with Positive & Negative Impact

The best part is the SERP features report, which is undoubtedly the best on the market. It tracks every type of SERP feature, including AI overviews, Things to Know, Featured Snippets, and more.

SERP Features Graph

3. Domain Overview

When you’re trying to grow your blog, it’s easy to focus only on writing content, but if you want to rank higher, attract more traffic, and stay ahead of the competition, you need to understand how your site is performing overall. That’s where the Semrush Domain Overview tool comes in.

This tool acts like a high-powered dashboard that gives you a bird’s-eye view of any website’s SEO and traffic performance, including your own blog or your competitors’.

Semrush Domain Overview

The Domain Overview tool lets you give a snapshot of your:

  • Total organic search traffic
  • Top-performing keywords
  • Backlink profile
  • Traffic trends over time
  • Paid traffic (if any)
  • Geographic traffic distribution
  • Main competitors in organic search

Think of it as your blog’s SEO report card, showing you what’s working, what’s not, and where to focus next.

On the other hand, reviewing a competitor’s domain gives you their top-performing keywords and most visited blog posts. With this insight, you can reverse-engineer their success and create better-targeted content that fills the gaps.

Top Organic Keywords and Opportunities

4. Backlink Analysis

Backlinks are like votes of trust from other websites. For bloggers, they’re one of the most powerful ways to improve Google rankings and grow organic traffic.

Semrush Backlink Analysis tool lets bloggers analyze their own backlink profile, monitor competitors’ links, and discover new link-building opportunities—all within a single dashboard.

Semrush Backlink Analytics

Semrush gives you data on:

  • Backlink profile statistics, like total referring domains
  • Referring IP addresses
  • Anchor text distribution
  • Follow vs Nofollow links
  • Top-level domain (TLD) distribution

Furthermore, you can use the Backlink Audit tool to find out toxic links that could harm your website.

This is really useful since it allows you to email website owners and request link removal without having to leave Semrush.

Using the Backlink Gap tool, you can compare your blog against up to 4 competitors and find link-building opportunities that your competitors have acquired, but you’re still missing.

The best part? Semrush takes it a step further by offering a built-in outreach management tool to streamline your link-building efforts.

It can build a list of potential websites that are likely to link to your content. Once your list is ready, you can send outreach emails to these prospects directly from the platform—no need to switch to your email inbox.

Plus, you can easily monitor the status of each outreach effort and track the progress of your link-building campaigns.

As a result, if you are doing guest posting, collaborations, or round-up posts, this tool is a goldmine.

5. On-Page SEO Checker

When you’ve published a blog post, and it’s not ranking where you expected, the issue often lies in how the page is optimized—or not.

The Semrush On-Page SEO Checker is a must-have tool for bloggers. It analyzes your blog post and gives specific, actionable recommendations to improve your SEO and boost your rankings.

On-Page SEO Checker

Instead of generic advice, it shows you custom recommendations like:

  • Add more semantically related keywords
  • Use your target keyword in H2 or H3 tags
  • Improve readability and word count
  • Optimize the meta title and description
  • Strengthen internal linking

These small changes often make the difference between ranking on page 2 and page 1.

6. Site Audit

You can write the best content in the world, but if your blog has technical issues under the hood, Google won’t rank it, and readers won’t stick around.

Semrush Site Audit gives bloggers the insight and tools needed to maintain a clean, fast, and SEO-friendly blog without needing to hire a developer or guess what’s wrong.

Semrush Site Audit

First, it scans every page on your website. It detects issues, warnings, and notices that may have an impact on your website’s search engine performance.

As it goes on, it prioritizes areas that require immediate attention and provides practical suggestions for improvement.

Finally, it gives you an overall site health score that you can boost by resolving any issues highlighted.

7. Content Ideas

Coming up with content ideas that actually rank and attract readers is one of the biggest challenges bloggers face.

However, if you have Semrush, then it can do this task for you. It includes several tools to help with content writing tasks.

1. Topic Research

Topic Research makes it easy to discover content ideas by pulling insights from real, published articles across the web, including your competitors’ top-performing posts. This gives you a clear view of what’s already working in your niche.

Semrush Topic Research

The tool organizes related ideas and subtopics into neat visual cards, making it simple to explore different content angles.

What really stands out is the level of detail. It even shows you how many backlinks each article has earned, giving you a sense of its authority.

You’ll also find common questions and related search terms. This is great for uncovering content opportunities that spark engagement and can attract backlinks.

2. SEO Content Template

SEO Content Template generates a personalized SEO brief based on your target keyword. It analyzes the top 10 ranking pages for that keyword in Google’s search results and gives you a data-backed blueprint for how to structure and optimize your content to compete with them.

It gives key recommendations for semantically related words that you should include in your article.

Semrush SEO Content Template

Be careful when doing this. Adding this term doesn’t necessarily result in higher rankings. And it can make the content look robotic and spammy if you take it too far.

However, these phrases can help you provide more in-depth topic coverage, so they are definitely worth including if they are a natural match.

You may also find domains that could be interested in providing you with a backlink. Plus, it also shows an average readability score and recommended text length to write your article.

The best part, it also shows real examples of how your competitors use your target keywords.

3. SEO Writing Assistant

Semrush SEO Writing Assistant helps you optimize your content for search engines and users.

It provides real-time feedback on how well your article is optimized for specific keywords and offers suggestions for enhancing your content and on-page SEO.

Semrush SEO Writing Assistant

It offers recommendations in four main areas:

  • Readability: Ensure your content is easy to read. Use the SWA to identify hard-to-read sentences, overly complex words, and potential issues with your titles.
  • Originality: Scan your articles for plagiarism to prevent duplicate content and copyright violations. Use Semrush Smart Writer or AI Composer to rephrase or rewrite flagged sections effortlessly.
  • Tone of voice: Analyze your content’s tone to ensure it connects with your readers.
  • SEO: Track keyword usage directly within the editor and discover new keyword opportunities. You can also identify broken links and spot other SEO-related issues before publishing.

These are some of the best Semrush features you can use as a blogger to drive more traffic to your blog.

But how much do these features cost you? Let’s check Semrush pricing.

Semrush Pricing:

Semrush offers three pricing plans:

Semrush Pricing

  • Pro: It costs $139.95/month.
  • Guru: It costs $249.95/month.
  • Business: It costs $499.95/month

If you are interested in Semrush, it’s a good idea to pay annually and save up to 17% off. You will save more money by the end of the year.

As said earlier, you can also use Semrush for free. However, you won’t be able to pull up all the data you get as a paid user.

As a free user, you are limited to 10 analytics reports per day, can only create one project, and can track up to 10 keywords.

Additionally, you can also try it 7-day free trial to check whether to invest your money or not by clicking the button below.

Start Semrush 7-Day Free Trial

Semrush Customer Support

Premium SEO tools with effective features should provide priority customer support. And if this is not the case, investing a lot of money each month will be a waste.

Fortunately, Semrush support is excellent and fast, and available through three primary channels:

  • Phone: +1 (800) 815 – 9959
  • Email: mail@semrush.com (24*7)
  • Live Chat widget: Mon to Fri EST 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

Furthermore, in addition to these customer support methods, they provide a help center with guides for specific tools and other parts of the Semrush SEO suite.

Semrush Alternatives for Bloggers

If you are a blogger on a budget and can’t justify the Semrush price, below are some affordable Semrush alternatives you can check out for your blogging needs.

1. SE Ranking

SE Ranking - All in One SEO Software

SE Ranking is an excellent alternative to Semrush, as it offers everything you will get with Semrush.

The best part? SE Ranking is much cheaper than Semrush, making it an excellent choice for bloggers on a tight budget.

With SE Ranking, you’ll get access to all the essential tools, including keyword research, accurate keyword tracking, comprehensive competitor analysis, site audit, and more at half of Semrush’s cost.

In addition, SE Ranking offers a more user-friendly interface. You can easily access all of the tools from the dashboard.

Check out our detailed SE Ranking review for more.

Try SE Ranking

2. Mangools

Mangools: Cheap SEO Tool

Mangools is a low-cost SEO tool for beginners who may not be able to afford premium tools. It started as KWFinder in 2014 before rebranding as Mangools and expanding its services beyond keyword research. Today, it markets itself as a low-cost alternative to Semrush and Ahrefs.

Mangools works by providing five SEO tools through your profile dashboard, allowing you to control everything from one page.

The five SEO tools help you with keyword research, ranking tracking, backlink analysis, competition research, and understanding other SEO metrics.

Try Mangools

3. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest

If you’re on a low budget and need an SEO tool that includes basic keyword research, competitor analysis, and site audit capabilities, Ubersuggest is your best option. It is one of the most affordable Semrush options for bloggers and small businesses.

For only $120, you can get the basic plan from Ubersuggest for a lifetime! That’s more than half of Semrush pricing.

You’ll get access to useful SEO tools such as keyword suggestions, domain research, and rank tracking. So, it’s a no-brainer for anyone searching for a cheap SEO toolbox.

Try Ubersuggest

Is Semrush Really Worth It as a Blogger?

In short, yes, Semrush is absolutely worth it if you’re serious about growing your blog into a long-term business.

While the upfront cost may seem steep, the return on investment is undeniable when you leverage its full suite of tools.

Semrush gives you access to enterprise-grade SEO features—like in-depth keyword research, competitive domain analysis, backlink tracking, and real-time rank monitoring—all under one roof.

What sets it apart is the depth and accuracy of data, which allows bloggers to make smarter content decisions, target the right keywords, and outrank competitors consistently.

The best part? It offers you a 7-day free trial to test it. So, why not give Semrush a try?

Start Semrush 7-Day Free Trial

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