How to do Basic and Advanced Keyword Research using SEMrush in 2015

The free version of SEMrush, a keyword research software, has limited features. It is restricted to 10 requests per day, showing just 10 results per report.

The “Keyword Research” tab gives the required details in SEMrush.

To get some basic related keywords using SEMrush, just type the primary keyword in the search box.

This service gives an overview data about the current keyword like organic search, paid search, phrase match keywords, related keywords, organic search results, ads copies, ads history.

The beauty of SEMrush is that you can export each of these reports to an excel file, for effective keyword research.

On the left hand-side you have sub-features of this tab.

Basic Keyword Research using SEMrush

When you click on “Full search” you get a complete phrase match report. In this context, there are 111 phrase match keywords. You get additional data like volume, CPC, competitive density of advertisers, results, trend and serp source.

In-depth Info: “Keyword Difficulty” Checker Tools : Ahrefs vs Moz vs SEMRush – What it is and How Relevant is the Score ?

When you click on “Related” you get a full related keywords report. For the current keyword in context, there are about 573 related keywords. The same data as you got in the earlier option are also displayed in this report. This data is very important. These can be used as semantic keywords and entities for your content marketing.

When you click on “Ads history” you also get details of paid search for the primary keyword. This data is useful if you are targeting Adwords.

You get different information like what are the domains that are competing for paid search results for this keyword. The report shows how long a particular domain is using a paid ad in the last 12 months and its positions in paid search results.

You get further info like what are the ad copies like and if the specified keyword was used for the ad campaign.

This completes the basic keyword research service using SEMrush.

Advanced Keyword Research using SEMrush

Now if you want to see that your page rank #1 in google search results for the primary keyword (which depends on several factors and semantic keyword research is one of them), you have to do some competitor analysis also.

For this, find all the domains that rank in the top 20 search results for the primary keyword.

For example, seobook.com ranks #1 in google.com database.

Just enter this domain URL in the search box of SEMrush.

This will display the list of organic search keywords for which this domain is ranking in the top 20 search results.

The report also displays different data like position, volume, CPC, URL, traffic %, costs %, competitor data, results, trend and last updated time.

This competitor keyword data can be used as entities, semantic keyword and long-tail keyword for your next primary keyword focused SEO campaign.

Instead of the domain, you can also enter a page URL. But this will also display the same results. It gives the same organic keyword results for which the domain of the page URL is ranking in the top 20 search results.

You can also get keyword difficulty score using this tool. Under Tools > Keyword Difficulty, just enter the primary keyword in the search box. For example, “seo tools” has a difficulty score of 61%, according to SEMrush data. You can also add upto 100 keywords at the same time to test this option using the Pro subscription plan | Buy SEMrush Pro Plan