How To Spy On Your Competitor With Semrush

If you run an online business, I’m sure you’ve wondered how your competitors are ranking well for certain keywords whilst you may still be struggling to gain any traction in the SERPS (search engine results pages). Fear not, there are many SEO tools that are available to us to make your life easier – after all, the old saying goes “work smarter, not harder!”.

One of the best and most thorough set of tools for doing this is Semrush!

What Is Semrush and Why Use It

Semrush is an all in-one digital marketing platform that allows you to analyse your own website in depth, but in this case, help us to track your competitor activity. Whether you want to track keyword rankings, analyse backlinks or see what ads your rivals are running, Semrush provides a great base to help you make data driven decisions.

Key Features That Help You Spy On Competitors

• Domain Overview – Get a glimpse of your competitor’s SEO performance.
• Organic Research – See what keywords they rank for.
• Backlink Analytics – Discover where their backlinks come from.
• Traffic Analysis – Estimate their website traffic and sources.
• Advertising Research – View their paid search and display ad campaigns.

How to Analyse a Competitor’s Website in Semrush

1. Check Their Domain Overview

The Domain Overview tool provides a high-level analysis of a website’s performance, showing you:

• Organic search traffic
• Paid search campaigns
• Backlink profile
• Keyword rankings

How to do it:

• Log in to Semrush.
• Enter a competitor’s domain into the search bar.
• Hit ‘Search’ and review the key stats.
• This gives you an instant understanding of their SEO strengths and weaknesses.

2. Discover Their Best-Performing Keywords

With Organic Research, you can uncover which keywords drive traffic to your competitor’s site. This is very important for finding keyword opportunities that you may not have considered.

How to do it:

• Go to the ‘Organic Research’ tab.
• Enter a competitor’s domain.
• Scroll down to see their top-ranking keywords and the estimated traffic for each.
• (Insert a screenshot showing keyword rankings in Semrush)

**TOP TIP: Filter the results by ‘Position’ to see which keywords they rank in the top 10 for. Then, create better-optimised content around those keywords to compete.**

3. Analyse Their Backlinks

Backlinks remain a major ranking factor. Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool helps you see where your competitors are getting their backlinks from, so you can target similar sources.

How to do it:

• Navigate to the ‘Backlink Analytics’ section.
• Enter a competitor’s domain.
• View their backlink profile, including referring domains and anchor text.

**TOP TIP: Look for high-authority sites linking to your competitors and reach out to them with high-quality content or partnership opportunities. These are the sites that are more valuable as backlinks**

4. See Their Paid Ads Strategy

If your competitors are running Google Ads, Semrush can show you their ad copy, keywords, and landing pages. This is a game-changer for businesses using PPC.

How to do it:

• Go to ‘Advertising Research’.
• Enter your competitor’s domain.
• View their active ads and keywords they bid on.

**TOP TIP: If you notice a competitor running the same ad for months, it’s likely performing well. Consider how you can create an improved version.**

How Do I Learn Semrush

The platform is quite a lot to take in initially. This is where the 7 day trial comes in really useful to ensure that you can get to grips with it.

To aide your Semrush and SEO journey, the team have put together the Semrush Academy which you can take advantage of with individual short courses and certificates that you can earn. I personally have earned some of these which you can upload to your Linkedin profile or website. It’s a really good resource to learn all things SEO, even if you don’t use the Semrush platform and I’d fully advise checking it out.

Is Semrush Free?

Semrush is free to try out its basic features which as a beginner might be all that you need to get a feel for the platform. Once you surpass 10 requests in a day, it will lock you out until the following day whilst you’re on a free account.

To unlock the full-potential of the platform and its array of tools, you will want to upgrade to a paid plan.

Pricing Tiers:

• Free – Basic features with limited reports
• Pro Plan – Full access to keyword, backlink and competitor analysis
• Guru & Business Plans – As a beginner you’re not going to need this but features include more advanced features like historical data and API access which is useful for agencies and SEO professionals.

You can start a free 7 day trial to test its full capabilities

Can I Cancel Semrush?

Yes. You are free to cancel Semrush at any time after your subscription starts. If you are unsure whether it’s right for you, take advantage of the 7 day trial before committing.

At the time of writing, Semrush also offer a 7 day money back guarantee on paid plans so you can try it risk free.

Should You Use Semrush To Spy On Your Competitors?

If you want to level up your SEO in 2025, competitor research is essential. You need to know who you are competing against.

Semrush makes this process easy by giving you data-driven insights into what your rivals are doing and suggestions of how you can up your own game, so you can refine your own strategy and grow your traffic.

Some SEO professionals will say that you don’t need a platform link Semrush and it the same can be done with a range of other tools combined. However when you want everything in one place to make life easier when you’re starting out in the SEO game, Semrush is one of the best tools out there in my opinion.

Ready to try Semrush? Start your 7-day free trial here!

If you found this guide helpful, I’d appreciate it if you share it with your network or drop a comment below with any questions!