5 Semrush Features to Boost Your Start-up’s Online Presence
Semrush’s main features have become vital tools for business growth in the digital world, earning trust from millions of marketers globally. The platform offers more than 55 tools and reports. We’ve watched countless startups use this detailed platform to scale their customer acquisition and find product-market fit quickly.
The powerful toolkit may seem overwhelming at first, and many startups don’t fully leverage its key features to enhance their online presence. With access to over 20 billion keywords and advanced competitive analysis tools, this platform offers invaluable insights. This guide will help you make the most of its most effective features. By using a cheap semrush account, you can unlock powerful tools to optimize your digital strategy. Let’s explore five essential features that can reshape your startup’s marketing approach.
Getting Started with Semrush Tools
Your experience with Semrush starts with account setup and tool configuration. You’ll need to register on the Semrush website and pick a subscription plan that suits your startup’s needs.
Creating your first project
Projects are the foundations for tracking and monitoring your website’s performance. The Projects section lives under Management in the left sidebar. Click on “Create Project” and type your domain name without the ‘www’ prefix.
After naming your project, Semrush gives you 11 different tools to monitor your website, social media presence, and content performance. You can customize your dashboard by adding widgets that match your specific goals. A Keyword Overview widget helps you quickly access search volume and competitor analysis data if keyword research is your main goal.
Essential settings to configure
The Site Audit tool is a vital part of your project setup. You can adjust crawler settings based on your server’s capacity. The audit looks at over 140 common technical issues and creates a detailed Site Health score.
These essential tools need configuration to get the best results:
Position Tracking – Import your target keywords or use the Auto Import feature to monitor rankings
Content Audit – Review your content’s performance and update frequency
Social Media Tracker – Measure engagement and audience growth across multiple channels
Brand Monitoring – Track daily mentions of your brand online
The On Page SEO Checker gives you detailed analysis and applicable information for content optimization. The backlink analysis tool links directly with Google Search Console, which lets you monitor your link profile effectively.
The Topic Research tool is a great way to get real-time questions your audience asks if your startup focuses on content strategy. The Market Explorer creates detailed reports about your market landscape to help you understand your competitive position.
Your project settings need regular reviews and adjustments as your startup grows. Automated audits provide excellent foundations for spotting and fixing key optimization opportunities, though they won’t completely replace professional analysis.
Domain Analysis for Competitive Edge
You can learn a lot about strategic growth by understanding your competitors’ digital presence. Semrush’s Domain Analysis tools help you outperform rivals with evidence-based strategies in the digital space.
Analyzing top competitors
The Domain Overview tool shows detailed metrics about any website’s online visibility. You’ll see organic and paid traffic statistics, backlink profiles, and display advertising data. The tool shows how a domain grows over different time periods and reveals its strongest markets.
The Organic Research Competitors report helps you spot your main competition. It analyzes websites that often compete for the same keywords and have matching organic keyword counts. The Growth Quadrant shows up to 100 domains and highlights which ones are gaining or losing traffic.
Finding market gaps
Content gap analysis helps you find untapped opportunities in your market. You can spot topics competitors haven’t covered or areas where their content needs improvement by looking at their content performance. The Keyword Gap tool lets you compare keyword profiles of up to five competitors side by side.
A strategy that works well is to look at the “Untapped” tab. It shows keywords that all but one of your competitors rank for. The tool also shows “Weak” keywords where competitors perform better than you, so you know what areas need work.
Identifying growth opportunities
Market Explorer helps you find direct and indirect competitors who are growing faster in your space. You can spot changes in consumer priorities and adjust your strategy by looking at their traffic stats and growth patterns.
The Traffic Journey feature gives you insights into:
Top traffic sources bringing visitors to competitor sites
External domains visitors often go to next
How traffic spreads across different channels
The tool analyzes audience demographics, socioeconomic data, and interests. These insights are a great way to get better at targeting and positioning strategies. Looking at competitors’ backlink profiles through Backlink Analytics shows you potential link-building opportunities from high-authority domains.
Content Strategy with Topic Research
Creating content that connects starts with knowing what strikes a chord with your audience. Semrush’s Topic Research tool makes this process easier by providing informed content ideas suited to your niche.
Finding trending topics
The Topic Research tool discovers popular subtopics by looking at trending conversations online from the past 60 days. You just need to type your main topic and pick your target location to get detailed insights. The tool shows expandable cards with relevant subtopics that let you discover different content angles.
A Mind Map view shows how topics connect visually, while the Overview section explains the top 10 headlines, questions, and related searches. You can also filter content ideas by trends to spot growing subtopics that could be timely opportunities.
Your content strategy gets better when you:
Check your domain’s existing topic coverage
Look for gaps in your competitors’ content
Pick ideas based on potential impact and search volume
Save your favorite topics to Excel for planning
Creating content briefs
Content briefs are detailed roadmaps that help writers line up their work with your marketing goals. A good brief has everything about target audience demographics, primary and secondary keywords, and the suggested article format.
The SEO Content Template tool creates briefs automatically and suggests related keywords based on top-ranking pages. These briefs keep your content consistent and optimized for search engines.
A strong content brief needs:
A working title and suggested word count
Your audience’s knowledge level
The search intent behind keywords
Links to add – both internal and external
A basic outline with headers
The tool works directly with platforms like Trello and SEO Content Template to make content production smoother. You can also create SEO-optimized articles right away using ContentShake AI once you’ve picked your topic.
Link Building for Authority
A resilient backlink profile forms the foundation of domain authority. Semrush’s detailed link building suite equips startups to create, manage, and monitor quality backlinks that work.
Using backlink analytics
Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool gives you a clear view of your website’s link profile through 50+ evaluation parameters. The tool updates backlink data every 15 minutes. You’ll see new links within an hour after they appear.
Your Semrush account connected to Google Search Console lets you access more backlink data. The Network Graph report shows referring domain connections and helps you spot outreach opportunities.
Finding link opportunities
The Link Building Tool makes it easy to find and pursue valuable backlink prospects. The tool examines backlink profiles when you enter your domain and up to four competitors. This reveals new opportunities you might have missed.
Here’s what matters when evaluating prospects:
Authority Score (AS) – measures domain quality on a scale of 0-100
Monthly visit metrics – shows how popular the site is
Topical relevance – matches your niche
The Backlink Gap feature lets you compare multiple domains side by side. You’ll see websites that link to competitors but not to you. This analysis is a great way to get high-potential link building targets.
Monitoring backlink health
The Backlink Audit tool calculates a Toxicity Score from 0-100 for each link. Links between 45-59 might be toxic. Those above 60 need your attention right away. The tool watches for:
New and lost backlinks
Broken link occurrences
Possible spam attacks
Google penalty risks
The tool helps you maintain link profile health. You can:
Contact site owners through the platform
Create and manage disavow lists
Upload disavow files to Google
Get alerts about major changes
The AI-powered Toxicity Score looks at multiple factors. It creates individual-specific insights and suggestions to handle suspicious links. Regular checks through automated recrawls keep your backlink profile clean and strong.
Conclusion
Semrush helps startups build their digital presence with powerful features that work. Proper project setup combines with competitive analysis, content strategy development, and strategic link building to deliver meaningful results.
The extensive toolkit of Semrush can overwhelm new startups at first. But learning these five core features creates solid foundations for growth. Your journey should start with simple project configuration and expand into advanced tools as your expertise grows.
Note that Semrush works best with consistent monitoring and adjustments. Your startup can remain competitive by regularly checking backlink profiles, tracking content performance, and analyzing competitors. Semrush’s analytics clearly show which strategies work best in your market, so let the data guide your decisions.
