Semrush is one of the most popular and widely used SEO tools on the market.
While the Pro plan unlocks the complete experience at $129.99/month, your free
If you want to experiment with a few features in the free account before deciding to invest in the tool, this post is tailored just for you.
This post reveals the 10 best features in your free
How to Get Semrush for Free
There are two ways in which you can get free access to
A Free Sign-up Account
A simple sign-up account on
This is essentially a “no-frills attached” account where you don’t need to provide your credit card details. You can enjoy limited access to
In addition, you also get access to
Click here to sign-up for Semrush
A Free Semrush Pro Trial Account
This gives you full access to all the 45+ paid features in
To create a free trial account, you’ll need to provide your credit card details.
Once the two weeks are over, you’ll be automatically upgraded to
In those two weeks, you can cancel the subscription at any time and you won’t be charged.
This article will focus on what you can do with a free sign-up account. If you’d like to sign up for a free trial, click on the link below for an exclusive 2-week free trial of
Experience the full power of Semrush Pro with a 14-day free trial.
Get access to 50+ tools on SEO, content marketing, competitor research, PPC and social media marketing to help you attract and grow your audience online faster.
How to Use Semrush for Free: 10 Best Features
1. Perform Keyword Research
Semrush is undoubtedly the best keyword research tool on the market. With an extensive database, unparalleled insights, and intuitive interface, it uncovers a wealth of data to guide your content strategy.
With your free
You can either use the
If you’d like a quick peek at the monthly search volume and other important keyword metrics, the Keyword Overview report is your best bet.
To get started, login to the
SEO Dashboard > Keyword Research > Keyword Overview
Enter your target keywords in the search box and in the resulting overview report, you’ll see all the essential metrics for your keywords.
Pay close attention to monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, search intent, and competitive density.
The Keyword Overview report also generates keyword variations and question-based keywords for your target keywords.
You can click on the “View all” button below any of these sections to open up the Keyword Magic Tool.
Under the free account, the report is limited to 10 results.
You can set modifiers like Broad March, Phrase Match, Exact Match, or Related to narrow down your list of keywords or use the keyword groups on the left side of the keyword list to find long-tail variations for your target keywords.
If you’re seeking question-based keywords, just select the “Questions” modifier to see keywords in the form of a question.
In addition, you can also filter these keywords by volume, keyword difficulty, and CPC.
Circling back to the Overview report, right below the keyword variations, you’ll find the top 10 Google search results for your target keywords.
This will give you an idea of who your top organic competitors are for your target keywords.
Recommended reading: How to Use Semrush for Keyword Research: The Ultimate Guide
2. Run a Site Audit
Semrush’s Site Audit tool sets the benchmark for technical SEO tools, providing a thorough analysis of your website’s technical SEO health.
Your free
To use the Site Audit tool, navigate to:
On Page & Tech SEO > Site Audit
Set up your project (you can set up 1 project as part of your free
Enter your domain details and hit the “Start Site Audit” button to initiate a comprehensive scan of your site.
The Site Audit Overview report will project an overall health score of your site and provide a complete breakdown of all the issues that need your attention.
Start with sorting out the issues in the “Errors” section, and then move on to tackling the issues in “Warnings” and “Notices.”
You can simply click on each issue to dive into the exact pages that are causing trouble. Plus, there’s a handy “Why and how to fix it” link that gives you some solid tips on fixing these issues.
You can also explore the thematic reports, which are super helpful in spotting specific issues related to how well your site can be crawled, its performance, internal linking, and those all-important core web vitals.
Click on the “View details” button beneath each widget to examine a detailed report on each of these aspects.
Recommended reading: How to Perform a Quick SEO Audit with Semrush
3. Track Your Keyword Rankings
Semrush’s Position Tracking tool is ranked among the most accurate rank tracking tools on the market.
With your free Semrush account, you can keep a track of up to 10 keywords.
To use this tool, visit:
SEO Dashboard > Keyword Research > Position Tracking
Enter your project details here — your domain, location and device type, and create a list of 10 keywords you’d like to track.
The resulting report shows you three main metrics for each of the keywords you’ve added: Positions, Estimated Traffic, and Visibility.
The Position Tracking report also alerts you on daily keyword fluctuations and helps you uncover potential opportunities to snag those coveted featured snippets.
4. Optimize Your Content
With
To get started, navigate to:
Content Marketing > Topic Research
Enter a broad topic into the search box and hit the “Get content ideas” button.
The resulting report will generate content ideas for the topic you entered in the form of subtopics, headlines, questions, and related searches.
You can expand each card with a subtopic to view the top headlines and questions surrounding that topic.
Once you’ve zeroed in on a topic, you can enter the selected keywords into “SEO Content Template.”
Based on an extensive analysis of the top-ranking content for your target keywords, the tool will offer actionable insights, including semantically related words to consider, average readability score, recommended text length, and potential backlink targets.
Plus, it also shows how your top organic competitors are using your target keywords in their content.
Armed with these insights, you can get a head start on creating content that not only addresses your readers’ pain points but also has a better chance of ranking higher in search engine results.
Recommended reading: 15 Lesser-Known (Yet Super Effective) Semrush Hacks
5. Monitor Your Local Listings
If you’re focusing on local SEO to grow your business,
This tool allows you to review your company’s presence across 70+ major directories in the US, ranging from Google Business Profile and Yelp to Trip Advisor and Bing.
Additionally, it offers the capability to monitor your local listings in more than 25 countries, such as the UK, Australia, Canada, France, and Germany.
To use this tool, navigate to:
Local > Listing Management
Just input your company name or website into the search box.
This will produce a report detailing the status of your company’s listing across various directories.
The results of this audit can guide you in determining the future course of action for your local SEO strategy.
Recommended reading: 11 Best Local SEO Tools to Improve Your Local Search Rankings
6. Perform Competitor Research
With your free
Navigate to:
SEO Dashboard > Competitive Research > Organic Research
Just enter the domain, and you’ll get an overview report that reveals top metrics for the website, including estimated organic traffic, top organic keywords, top keywords by search intent, and more.
The Overview report also highlights your competitor’s top-performing pages (expandable to 10 results under the free plan), along with their percentage share of organic traffic and the total number of organic keywords they currently rank for.
While free access to
7. Check Your Page Speed
Once you create a free
And the best part? There’s a whole bunch of these apps that you can check out for free with your
A notable standout is the free Website Checker app.
This app is designed to evaluate the SEO effectiveness, page speed, and user accessibility of your website.
To get started, just enter your domain into the Website Checker app.
In just a few seconds, you’ll receive a comprehensive report on your website’s performance. It sums up your site’s capabilities in key areas: performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO, all reflected in a single total score.
This report essentially provides a breakdown of what needs to be improved or fixed to make your site more accessible and SEO-friendly.
8. Perform a Plagiarism Check
To ensure your content is authentic and not plagiarized or AI-generated, you can use the free Plagiarism Checker app from the
Open the Plagiarism Checker app and paste the text you’d like to check.
You’ll then receive a report detailing the probability of plagiarism or AI-generated content, along with an analysis of its readability, reading time, and any grammatical mistakes.
9. Generate a Custom Email Signature
Having a sleek, well-designed email signature not only boosts your professional appeal but also leaves a lasting, positive impression on your contacts.
With Semrush’s Email Signature Generator, you can create a unique email signature that captures the essence of your professional image and personal brand.
You can choose from a variety of professionally designed layouts and customize the style and details to match your unique brand identity.
Once your email signature is ready, you can copy and paste it into any popular email account, including Gmail, Apple Mail, Yahoo, Outlook, Proton, and more.
10. Create a Buyer Persona
Creating buyer personas for your business is a vital step in fine-tuning your marketing strategy.
By developing detailed profiles of your ideal customers, you can better understand their needs, behaviors, and decision-making processes.
You can use the Semrush Persona app to develop your buyer and user personas for free. This tool lets you choose from a library of pre-existing templates or create your own personas from scratch.
Furthermore, the templates are fully customizable — you can add different modules or create new ones. For instance, you can choose to include demographic information, customer pain points, and other factors influencing buying decisions.
Once your buyer persona document is ready, you can share it with your marketing team to streamline your communication strategies and ensure everyone is aligned with the target audience’s needs and preferences.
Final Thoughts
A free
However, to truly unlock the full potential of what
A premium account provides deeper analytics, more advanced tools, and greater access to data and resources, enabling you to fine-tune your strategies, stay ahead of competitors, and achieve more robust and measurable results.
Sign up for a 2-week free trial of
Experience the full power of Semrush Pro with a 14-day free trial.
Get access to 50+ tools on SEO, content marketing, competitor research, PPC and social media marketing to help you attract and grow your audience online faster.
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