If you care about SEO and digital marketing, then you’ve probably heard of SEMrush. It’s an all-in-one digital marketing platform that helps businesses improve their online visibility through tools for SEO, keyword research, competitor analysis, content marketing, social media, and paid advertising. SEMrush is basically a fully-stocked workshop for everything digital marketing!

SEMrush has both free & paid version and the misconception is that you can’t do much with a free account. We think it’s more about the common perception of free things than it is about SEMrush. Because a free SEMrush account can transform your business once you know what to do with it. In this guide, we explore 10 digital marketing features you can access on SEMrush without spending a naira.

Who and Why You Should Use Semrush

Semrush is valuable for anyone involve in growing a business online, such as:

1. Business Owners

You get a bird’s-eye view of your website’s performance and identify areas for improvement. For example, SEMrush can scan your website and identify technical problems like broken links that can affect your search rankings.

2. Marketing Managers

Uncover keywords your website ranks for, fine-tune your content strategy and track how your rankings change overtime.

3. Content Creators

Find out what topics are trending in your niche, compare your website’s performance to your competitors’ and see where you stand and what you can do better.

4. Anyone New to SEO

SEMrush is user-friendly, especially in simplifying complex SEO concepts and fixing common SEO mistakes.

In summary, SEMrush is a great tool to check out If you want to understand how your website is performing, where you’re losing out to competitors, and what you can do to improve.

10 Things You Can Do With a Free SemRush Account 

1. Keyword Research:

Keywords are the foundation of SEO. They’re the words and phrases people type into search engines to find information on specific products or services. Semrush’s keyword research tools can help with:

• Keyword Overview: You can get a quick snapshot of a keyword’s search volume (how often it’s searched), difficulty (how hard it is to rank for), and other keywords metrics.

• Keyword Magic Tool: This tool is one of our favourite keyword idea generator. Enter a seed keyword, and Semrush will spit out a massive list of related keywords, complete with search volume and difficulty data.

With this information, you can identify high-volume but low-competition keywords that are easier to rank for.

2. Site Audit: Improve your Website’s Health 

Semrush’s Site Audit is like a doctor for your website. It crawls your website and diagnose issues like:

• Broken links: These are links that lead to nowhere and can frustrate users.

• Missing meta descriptions: The short snippets of text that appear in search results and can influence whether someone clicks on your link.

• Duplicate content: This can confuse search engines and hurt your rankings.

Semrush will not only identify these issues but also provide clear instructions on how to fix them, helping you improve your website’s health and performance.

3. Position Tracking: Track Your Progress

Imagine you’re running a race, but you can’t see the other runners. You wouldn’t know how to keep up, right? Semrush’s Position Tracking tool is like having a scoreboard for your SEO race. It shows you:

• Your Rankings: Where your website ranks for specific keywords in search results.

• Competitor Rankings: Where your competitors rank for the same keywords.

• Ranking History: How your rankings have changed over time.

This information is essential for understanding your progress, identifying areas of improvement, and adjusting your strategy to stay ahead of the competition.

4. Backlink Analytics

Backlinks are votes of confidence from other websites. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the more authoritative your website appears to search engines, and this can boost your rankings. Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool allows you to:

• See Your Backlinks: Get a complete list of all the websites that link to yours.

• Analyze Backlink Quality: Assess the authority and relevance of your backlinks.

• Spy on Competitors’ Backlinks: See who’s linking to your competitors and try to get similar links for your site.

This information can help you identify a good link-building strategy and remove spammy links that could hurt your rankings.

5. Organic Traffic Insights: Understand Your Audience

Who’s visiting your website? Where are they coming from? What are they interested in? These are important audience data that Semrush’s Organic Traffic Insights tool can provide through:

• Top Pages: The most popular pages on your website.

• Traffic Sources: How people are finding your website (e.g., search engines, social media, other websites).

• Keywords: The keywords people are using to find your site.

With this data, you can tailor your content to your audience’s interests and optimize your website to attract more visitors.

6. Competitor Analysis: Learn from your Competitors 

The best way to get ahead is to learn from those who are already there. Semrush’s competitor analysis tools allow you to:

• Identify Competitors: See who’s ranking for the same keywords as you.

• Analyze Traffic: See how much traffic your competitors are getting and where it’s coming from.

• Backlink Gap: Find out which websites are linking to your competitors but not to you.

• Keyword Gap: Discover keywords your competitors are ranking for that you aren’t.

When you understand your competitive landscape, it becomes easier to identify areas where you can improve and strategies to outperform your rivals.

7. On-Page SEO Checker: Optimize Your Content

Creating great content is one thing, but making sure search engines can find and understand it is another. Semrush’s On-Page SEO Checker analyzes your content and provides actionable recommendations for optimizing it, including:

• Keyword Usage: Suggests keywords to include in your content to improve its relevance.

• Meta Tags: Helps you craft compelling title tags and meta descriptions that will attract clicks in search results.

• Readability: Evaluates the readability of your content and suggests ways to make it more engaging.

By following these SEMrush recommendations, you can ensure that your content is well-written for readers and optimized for search engines.

8. Social Media Tracker: Monitor Your Social Media 

Social media is powerful tool but everyone is still trying to get the hang of algorithms and ever-changing strategies. One thing Semrush’s Social Media Tracker can do for you is tracking your performance across different platforms. You can:

• Track Your Followers: See how your follower count is growing on different social media platforms.

• Analyze Engagement: Measure likes, shares, comments, and other interactions with your content.

• Compare with Competitors: See how your social media performance stacks up against your rivals.

These are key details that help you identify which platforms are working best for your business and what type of content resonates best with your audience.

9. Listing Management Tool: Boost Your Local Presence

For businesses targeting local customers, appearing in local search results is crucial to your visibility. Semrush’s Listing Management tool helps you:

• Manage Listings: Ensure your business information is accurate and consistent across major directories like Google My Business, Yelp, and Facebook.

• Track Performance: Monitor how your listings are performing in search results and get insights on how to improve them.

• Respond to Reviews: Easily manage and respond to customer reviews, which can influence your local search rankings and reputation.

When you optimize your local listings, you can attract more niche customers and increase foot traffic to your business.

10. The Semrush App Center: Discover Other Free Tools

Semrush doesn’t stop at its core features. It also has an App Center with additional tools and integrations, some of which are free to use. These are just a few examples of the free tools available in the App Center:

• SEO Writing Assistant: Helps you create SEO-friendly content that ranks well in search engines.

• Content Audit: Evaluates the performance of your content and suggests ways to improve it.

• Brand Monitoring: Tracks mentions of your brand online so you can stay on top of your reputation.

• Social Media Poster: Schedules and publishes posts across multiple social media platforms.

• PPC Keyword Tool: Helps you find profitable keywords for pay-per-click advertising campaigns.

The Bottom Line is u don’t need a big budget to use Semrush. Even with a free account, you can get a better picture of your website’s performance and and the overall landscape of your industry’s best practices.

You can sign up for a free Semrush account here and explore more online marketing strategies here.