Are you looking to get your hands on a free trial of Semrush? 

You’re in the right place.

I’m guessing you already have an idea just how powerful the Semrush toolset can be for analyzing competitors and building profitable online marketing campaigns.

It’s the toolset I’ve been using for years at my SEO agency to produce consistent results for our clients.

But, until you actually take Semrush for a test drive, you really can’t appreciate how powerful it is.

In fact, Semrush (aff) is continually adding new Toolkits that provides its 6M+ users insane value.

It’s no longer just a leading competitive analysis tool. It truly is an all-in-one digital marketing platform that provides SEO, content marketing, competitor research, PPC and social media marketing capabilities.

And it’s the reason why it’s been voted the “Top Tool” by hundreds of SEOs and digital marketing professionals across numerous categories:

Not sure which free trial – Semrush Pro, Guru or Business – is right for you? Don’t sweat!

I’ll walk you through the different Semrush plans, introduce all the Toolkits, and show you how to get the most out of your free trial so you can determine if it’s the right tool for your business and/or clients.

I’ve partnered with the team at Semrush to give you exclusive access to extended free trials, so you can take your time exploring and testing all the functionality the platform provides.

Both of these plans come packed with tools and features to boost your online marketing. But which one is right for you?

If you’re a freelancer, blogger, or in-house marketer with a limited budget, then the Semrush Pro (aff) plan will likely be the best option.

You’ll have access to 28 advanced tools to manage your SEO, PPC and Social Media projects.

If you’re a professional SEO consultant or an agency that services numerous clients, then you’ll be best-suited to the Semrush Guru (aff) plan.

It has all the same tools and features as the Pro plan, plus you get access to Historical Data, Branded Reports, extended data limits, and the new Content Marketing toolkit. 

For instance, you can track more projects, crawl more pages, track more keywords, and access more results per report – perfect when you’re working with clients that have larger data sets.

The table below highlights some of the key differences:

#1: Select your Semrush plan and click one of the buttons below to sign up for a free trial:

#2: Register with your email address and chosen password, and then click on the orange ‘Create your account’ button:

#3: You’ll see the Semrush billing page pre-populated with your Pro or Guru subscription details and zero charges showing in the “Today’s charges” field.

Go ahead and enter your billing information:

Note: Semrush will charge a nominal amount to your credit card to check its validity. Don’t worry – once confirmed, it will be refunded. Rest assured, you won’t be charged a penny until your Semrush trial period ends and you decide to continue as a customer.

#4: Now scroll down the page to make the most of your Semrush free trial.

Got your free trial activated? Excellent! 

Now, you have 14 days to determine if it’s the right tool for you, so let’s get started.

Below we’ll walk through a few immediate action items to help you get the most value from the Semrush tool set from day one.

Remember, you’ve got full access to the entire Semrush tool set with your free trial. So we’re going to check some of the practical applications you can use in each major toolkit.

• Analyze how your competitors are driving organic traffic at the subfolder, page, and individual keyword levels with the Organic Research reports, so you can quickly scale your organic traffic across each stage of the funnel.
• Find stacks of long-tail keywords (with specific search intent) and expand the organic footprint on your pages with secondary keywords using the Keyword Magic Tool.

  Semrush has the largest, and most accurate database, containing over 20B keywords.

• Uncover featured snippet opportunities for existing content and new keywords.
   
• Analyze competitor backlink profiles so you can find, check, and manage thousands of link building prospects in seconds with the Link Building Tool. In addition, the Backlink Audit Tool allows you to quickly find and analyze potentially toxic links.
• Track keyword rankings at national, regional, and local search level across any device – mobile, tablet, and desktop – with the Position Tracking Tool. All users on all Semrush plans get access to daily ranking updates on all devices, which is one of the many features that sets it apart from competitors.
   
• Run technical Site Audits and optimize your content with the On-page SEO Checker, so your pages soar in the SERPs.
• Generate a list of URLs and their primary keyword targets, automatically or manually, with the On-Page SEO Checker. And then analyze the content quality, semantic and secondary keyword gaps, backlink opportunities/gaps, and on-page elements such as titles, heading tags, etc.
• Manage local listings and track GMB rankings.
• Use the SERP Analysis tool to evaluate the content types, page authority scores, and backlink counts for competing URLs in the SERPs and qualify keyword opportunities.
• Perform Gap Analysis for both keywords (at the URL, subdomain and domain levels) and backlinks.

• Get a top-level view of how much paid traffic your competitors get each month, the number or keywords they bid on, the estimated budget, and the historical trends with the Advertising Research reports.
• Scrutinize the ad copy your competitors are using to win the click, so you can create winning ads with the Ad Builder.
• Use the Ad History reports to find out which ads have been in rotation the longest and uncover which ad copy has a proven track record of success.
• Analyze all the landing pages competitors are using to convert paid traffic and discover where they are targeting ads on the Display Advertising network.
• Identify which display ad creatives – image, text and HTML – the competition is using, and which properties – websites, YouTube channels and videos – they are displaying ads on.
• Use the PLA Research reports to unearth the pricing strategies of your competitors, so you can optimize your PLAs with better titles, descriptions, and pricing.
• Use the PPC Keyword Tool to build and organize keyword lists into groups, and set negative keywords, etc. Then download everything to a CSV file and import into the Google Ads Editor.
• Perform a Paid Keyword or PLA Gap Analysis to see which keywords or shopping ads your competitors are running, but you are missing. You can then add them to your PPC keyword list in Semrush, and even export them to the Google Ads editor.

• Analyze and measure all aspects of your digital marketing with 12 reports – including site health, position changes, visibility trends and more – in one Projects dashboard, so you can spot at a high-level where the immediate weaknesses and opportunities exist in your digital marketing campaigns.

• You can filter the ‘My Projects’ dashboard to show only projects you own or those that have been shared with you from different Semrush accounts.
• Build professional branded campaign reports with pre-built reporting templates and the simple drag-and-drop Report Builder (aff) before sharing with colleagues or clients:

• You can pull data from all the Toolkits – e.g. SEO, PPC, etc. – plus external data – e.g. Google Analytics, Search Console, and Google My Business – and then drop your logo on the report.

Image: Semrush data populating in a custom Google Data Studio SEO report. 

• Use the Content Audit tool to conduct a thorough audit of your website’s content so you can understand what content should be optimized, and what can be removed.
• Implement actionable tips to create optimized content that’s loved by people and search engines, and based on the analysis of your Top 10 rivals in the SERPs with the SEO Content Template.
   
• Analyze and measure your content performance – including guest posts and external articles – by tracking backlinks, rankings, and social shares in one place with the Post Tracking report.

Note: The Content Marketing Toolkit is only available with the GURU plan (aff). 

• Use the Social Media Poster to draft, schedule, and post content to different social platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest – without leaving Semrush.
• Monitor the social media accounts of your competitors so you can compare their growth and engagement levels with your accounts using the Social Media Tracker.
• Get social media audience insights such as demographics, location, when your audience is online, and on which days.
• Check which competitor content is getting the most engagement, and on which channels.
• Boost social media ads and create new ad campaigns on Facebook and Instagram, directly within Semrush.

Analyze every aspect of your competitors’ online traffic strategy:

• Discover which channels (direct, referral, search, social, and paid traffic) drive the most traffic.
• Examine which external URLs drive the most referral traffic.
• Track which subdomains or subfolders get the most visits.
• Check which pages/posts pull in the most organic traffic.
• Determine which individual keywords generate the most traffic.

Analyze your competitors’ on-site engagement:

• Track the performance of your competitors’ articles across social networks.
• Monitor session duration and bounce rates across devices and channels.