7 Powerful Semrush Free Account Features (We Tested It)

You might be thinking, “What can I really do on the Semrush free account?”

I was asked to test the limits of the free plan. Admittedly, this was an adjustment after using the paid tier for many years.

But I was pleasantly surprised by what you can do.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through concrete examples of how you can squeeze all the juice from the Semrush free account.

All without entering your credit card details.

1. Uncover Valuable Keywords (10 Searches per Day)

Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool gives you 10 daily searches, each providing up to 10 keyword suggestions.

That’s 100 potential keywords every day to fuel your content strategy.

Here’s how you’d use this tool to research relevant keywords for free.

Let’s say you have an SEO blog.

Start with broad terms like “SEO” or “digital marketing.”

This will give you a bird’s-eye view of your niche.

Then, narrow down to more specific queries like “website optimization” or “digital marketing examples.”

This can help you find more targeted keywords with less competition.

For each search, focus on keywords with:

You might discover gems like “SEO books” (6,600 monthly searches, KD 38) and “ai tools for website SEO” (1,600 monthly searches, KD 43).

Click any term, and you’ll be taken to the Keyword Overview tool, which provides an in-depth keyword analysis.

By strategically using your 10 daily searches, you can build a robust list of keywords throughout the week.

Once you’ve found keywords that match your criteria, create content that naturally incorporates these terms while solving your audience’s specific problems or questions.

2. Analyze Competitor Strategies (10 Domain Analyses per Day)

The Domain Overview tool offers a window into your competitors’ strategies. Even with the 10 daily analysis limit, you can learn valuable insights about your top competitors.

First, analyze your blog to benchmark your performance.

You’ll learn everything from your blog’s authority score and ranking keywords to monthly traffic volume.

For example, when I analyzed TrafficThinkTank.com, an SEO and blog community, I learned that it gets 14.2K in monthly organic search traffic and has 6.4K backlinks.

It also tells you who your main organic competitors are.

For Traffic Think Tank, it’s SpyFu and Style Factory Productions.

Choose a few of your competitors and run a report on each one.

Focus on:

For example, I discovered that Traffic Think Tank ranks for over 19,000 keywords while SpyFu ranks for over 35,000.

This shows the growth potential in this niche.

But it also reveals untapped opportunities to expand Traffic Think Tank’s online visibility.

3. Track Rankings for Key Terms (10 Keywords Total)

With the Position Tracking tool, you can monitor rankings for one URL and 10 total keywords.

Over time, you could see movements like:

For example, a site like Traffic Think Tank might track keywords like “best marketing tools for small business” and “competitive intelligence seo.”

This data can help you identify which content updates are most effective and where to focus your optimization efforts.

4. Identify and Fix Critical Website Issues (100 URLs)

The Site Audit tool lets you crawl your 100 most important URLs to uncover issues like:

Fixing these issues can help you improve your site’s health score and increase organic traffic to the affected pages.

5. Boost Local Visibility (One Audit)

If you have a physical business, the Listing Management tool could be invaluable for local SEO.

You could start with a free audit of your local presence, which might reveal:

By correcting inconsistencies and creating new listings on high-authority directories, you could potentially see increases in your