How to do Semrush Keyword Research?

Importance of Keyword Research 

A digital marketing strategy is incomplete without keyword research. Keyword research appears towards the top of the to-do list to understand your target audience, maximize your reach, find the latest relevant topics for your site, get qualified leads, enhance sales, build brand awareness, improve ad campaigns, and get clicks. The following reasons demand an efficient keyword research tool:

• Changing trends
• Changes in the public’s use of search engine
• Evolving search engines
• Discovering organic competitors 

A perfect amalgamation of all the features and necessities is the Semrush keyword research tool. And that is why internet marketers from all over the world trust Semrush for their business, whether big or small. The Semrush keyword research offers several ways to gather and analyze the best keywords while supporting 16 languages. The three basic ways are as follows:

• Keyword Overview for quick analysis 
• Creating a keyword master list using the Keyword Magic Tool
• Finding competitors with Keyword Gap

Semrush Keyword Research Overview- Get a Quick Analysis

The simplest and easiest way to perform keyword research is by entering the keyword in the search bar and getting an overview of the same. You can enter up to 100 keywords to analyze them in bulk.  

Keyword Overview in Semrush Keyword Research Tool

The Semrush keyword research overview displays the following information on a single page:

• Volume 
• Global Volume 
• Trend
• CPC
• Competition 
• Ads
• Keyword difficulty 
• Keyword variations 
• Questions
• Related keywords
• SERP analysis
• Keyword ad history 

Ad History Report: View Past PPC Advertisers

The Ad History report allows you to recognize the latest advertising trends. You can use this section to check whether others previously used the keyword you have entered in paid search. 

Where to Find the Option? 

When you put your keyword in the search box and get the overview, scroll down the page, and towards the right-hand side, you will find the “Keyword Ad History” section displaying the data as bar graphs. Below the graph is the “View Full Report” option. Clicking on the full report will display the complete details wherein you can see all domains that bid on the given keyword and had a PPC ad in the past 12 months.

Ad History Full Report

In the ad history report, one can find the amount of ad traffic, total ads for the keyword you have entered, and the ad traffic price. 

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Build a List of Keywords Using the Keyword Magic Tool

Semrush offers a Keyword Magic Tool, the most widely used tool. It is an in-depth keyword analysis tool that helps in building master lists. One can find semantically related long-tail keywords, exact matches, and more. 

Where to Find the Tool?

On the dashboard, towards the left, you can easily find the Keyword Magic Tool in the menu listed below keyword research. 

The following guide tells you how to use the tool:

• Suppose you are creating a page for “Digital Marketing”.
• Digital marketing is a broad keyword. It has several types of user intent associated with it. But it is best to start with the seed keyword. So, enter “digital marketing” in the search bar. 

Keyword Magic Tool Report

• Explore the suggested groups from the list on the left and find niche long-tail keywords and ideas for PPC ad groups. You can sort groups by the number of keywords and volume. 
• For instance, if you provide digital marketing courses, you can use Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool to hunt for relevant keywords by clicking on the “courses” option from the list. Now the tool will display keywords related to digital marketing courses only. 

Trend and CPC columns in the Semrush Keyword Research Magic Tool

• Use Advanced filters to further specify your preferences for word counts, search volume, competitive density, and the SERP results’ number. 
• The two key factors that you must consider are CPC value and keyword trend while shortlisting your keywords.
• Select the keywords that suit your choices, and then click on the “add to list” option. Name your master list. You can share it with your team as well. 

Find a Competitive Edge with Keyword Difficulty

You cannot rank for all the keywords. Therefore, it is important to have a clear idea of where to put your efforts first. The Keyword Difficulty metric displays the difficulty level in percentage for each keyword. The higher the percentage, the harder it will be to outrank competitors in organic search results for that keyword. 

Where to Find the Option? 

The overview reports, as well as the magic tool report, gives insights into the keyword difficulty. It is written as K.D. %. 

Keyword Difficulty in Semrush Keyword Research Report

Using the K.D. option, you can find low competition keywords that will help you rank higher easily. You will be able to realize which keywords (high difficulty ones), and you shouldn’t be wasting your time and SEO resources. 

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Competitor-Based Keyword Research

Semrush keyword research tool allows competitor-based keyword research using websites already on the SERP. So, you begin the research with the websites instead of seed keywords. The following steps are important for this research:

• Find your organic competitors.
• Mention them in paid search.
• Compare the keyword portfolio.

Where to Find the Option?

On the dashboard, towards your left-hand side, you will find the organic research option in the main menu below the Competitive Research section. 

Organic Research Tool to Search Using the Domain Name

In the search bar, enter your domain name and click on the search button. You will get an overview report. 

Organic Research Overview Report

Click on the “Competitors” tab to get insights about your organic competitors. A list of potential competitors will appear sorted by the competition level. You can also sort the list of domains by the number of common keywords. The arrow icon next to the website name opens the website in a new tab, while clicking on the domain name will give a report for that website. 

Report Displaying Competition Level

Compare Keyword Portfolios With Keyword Gaps

Want to see how your competitors are performing? Which keywords are you missing that your competitors are ranking for? Use the “Keyword Gap” feature by Semrush.

Where to Find the Option?

In the main menu, below the competitive research section, you will find the “Keyword Gap” option. 

Keyword Gap Option for Analyzing Competitors’ Keywords 

How to use the Keyword Gap feature?

• Click on the Keyword Gap option in the main menu. 
• In the first box that says “you”, enter your website’s URL. 
• The subsequent boxes are for adding your competitors’ websites’ URLs.
• Clicking on the compare button will display a list of all keywords that your competitors are ranking for. 
• Analyze the details and drill down specific opportunities for your website.

You will also get to see the following details:

• Shared: The keywords common to you and your competitor.
• Missing keywords: The ones that you are not ranking for but your competitor is. 
• Weak: The keywords for which you have a rank lower than your competitor.
• Strong: The keywords for which you rank higher than your competitor.
• Untapped: These are the ones for which one of your competitors is ranking, but you aren’t. 

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Conclusion 

Keyword research and SEO go hand in hand. Using the Semrush keyword research tool gives you an edge over competitors and allows you to take your website to the desired heights of success. You can easily become a digital marketer by signing up for our Job Guarantee Program in Digital Marketing. Learn the latest SEO tools and digital marketing techniques and get placed in less than 180 days! Enroll now and start learning.