How To Use Semrush For Keyword Research (Including Template)

If you want to learn how to use Semrush for keyword research, you’re in the right place.

In this tutorial, we’ll cover everything from topical and competitor keyword research, to gap analysis and topic clustering.

Semrush has a number of powerful keyword research tools – Keyword Manager, Keyword Magic Tool and Keyword Gap – that will enable you to do it all.

We’ll also cover working examples for each of the main keyword research use cases so you can immediately start implementing the training in your business.

If you don’t yet have a Semrush account, you can use this 14-day free trial link to get access to all the features covered in this guide so you can follow along step-by-step.

Find Existing Keyword Opportunities With Semrush (Template Included)

The first way you can use Semrush for keyword research is to identify existing keyword opportunities.

Specifically, find all the keywords with search demand that your website is already ranking for in positions 4-15.

Here’s how to do it:

Open the Semrush SEO Toolkit and go to the Organic Research >> Positions report:

This will generate a report showing all the keywords your website is ranking for in the top 100 positions.

Next, you’ll need to apply some advanced filters. These will vary from business to business, but I’ll typically use Position, Volume and Keyword Difficulty (KD).

To illustrate, here are the filters I’d use for my website:

• Position: 4-15
• Volume: 100+
• KD: 0-49

These filters will extract keywords that my website is already ranking for on page one or two, that have search demand, and aren’t ultra competitive.

Review the remaining keywords and add any that you’d like to target to a new list.

This is usually the best place to start when you’re working with a website that has an existing content footprint as you’ll be able to capture some quick organic traffic gains.

Note: I’ll typically segment keyword opportunities into two lists – Existing and New.

This will make it easy to see which keywords have already been added to a list inside Semrush.

Existing keyword research template

If you’d prefer to analyze keyword data outside of Semrush, I’ve created a template that you can use to automate a lot of the filtering and formatting.

Simply export all the keywords your site is ranking for in positions 4-15 and paste them into the template. The template will organize all the opportunities in descending search volume and add color coding so you can quickly spot the keywords that are already ranking the highest with the lowest SERP competition.

I put together a full video walk-through of the template below:

Competitor Keyword Research With Semrush

One of the fastest ways to find new high-intent keywords is to analyze your competitors.

Semrush provides several different ways to perform competitor keyword research. We’ll walk through each one and look at some working examples.

Semrush Top Pages report:

For this example, let’s pretend we have a beard products ecommerce business and are looking for some new target keywords.

One of the competitors might be Beardbrand.

I’d enter that domain into the SEO Toolkit and go to the Organic Research >> Pages report:

The report shows which pages are driving the most organic traffic to their website. You can see what percentage of total organic traffic each page is generating, along with the total number of keywords the page is ranking for in the top 100 positions. You can also click through to view all of those keywords.

This is great insight, but let’s take it a step further.

Since this is an ecommerce website, we’d want to prioritize product-related keywords as these will present the best direct monetization opportunity.

One way to do this is apply a URL filter to only return product pages.

For example, we can see that Beardbrand houses all of its product pages under a /products subfolder:

As a result, I’d add a URL contains /products filter to the report.

Now I can see 22 product pages that are driving the most organic traffic to the website. This would be the best place to start the keyword analysis.

You can use competitor subfolder analysis for any type of business.

Let’s pretend that you’re a personal injury lawyer in Florida. One of the competitors might be Dolman Law Group. After reviewing their main navigation, I can see that all the services pages are nested under the /legal-services subfolder:

As a result, I’d apply a URL contains /legal-services filter in the Pages report, or just enter the subfolder into the main search bar, to see which services pages are driving the most organic traffic to their website and check to make sure our firm was also targeting those keywords.

But, what if your competitors don’t organize content into subfolders?

You can use keyword modifiers instead to uncover the highest intent opportunities.

For example:

If I was analyzing a competitor for my website I would apply the following filters:

• Position: 0-20
• Volume: 100+
• KD: 0-49
• Keyword Contains: best, review, software, alternatives, vs, tools

These filters will return the best keyword opportunities for affiliate monetization.

Repeat this process for your top organic search competitors. You can find these by search for your main product or services keywords in Google, or look at the Competitors report in Semrush which shows the websites with the most keyword overlap:

If you want to learn more about performing competitor subfolder analysis with Semrush, check out the video tutorial below:

Find low competition long tail keywords with Semrush

You can use Semrush to extract low competition long tail keywords from your competitors.

Here’s how to do it:

Enter your competitor into the Semrush SEO Toolkit and navigate to the Organic Research >> Organic Positions report.

Apply the following filters:

• Position: top 20
• Volume: 100+
• KD: 0-49
• Word count: 4+

You’ll get a set of potential long tail keyword targets that have search demand and a low level of competition.

If you still have a large list of keywords to review, increase the minimum volume filters or add an additional URL filter to focus on a specific section of your competitor’s website.

For example, you could only analyze the /legal-services folder:

Keyword Gap analysis with Semrush

Semrush’ Keyword Gap tool makes it easy to find all the valuable keywords (both organic and paid) that one, or multiple competitors rank for, but you do not.

In Semrush:

• Enter your root domain – e.g. robbierichards.com
• Enter up to 5 competitor domains – e.g. http://marketingarsenal.io/
• Click the green “Compare” button

First, you can view missing keywords to check all the keywords your competitor ranks for, but you don’t:

Next, you can check weak keywords to see all the keywords where you rank lower than your competitor(s):

These could be keywords that require content optimization or even a new dedicated piece of content to rank higher.

When performing keyword gap analysis inside Semrush, I’ll usually add some advanced filters to streamline the keyword set down to the most relevant opportunities that have search demand and aren’t ultra competitive. This makes the analysis faster, and helps narrow in on the most immediate opportunities.

For example, I’ll add the following filters:

• Competitors in Top 10:
  • If I see a competitor with a comparable domain authority ranking in the top 10 positions it tells me that I also have a chance of ranking in the top 10 as long as I create quality content and any necessary backlinks.

• Volume: 100+
  • I want to make sure there is enough search demand to warrant targeting a keyword.

• KD: 0-29
  • I want to start with low competition keywords.

Similar to the previous section, you can also add keyword modifiers to trim the keyword set down further.

For example, I might also add a keyword containing “software” or “best” filter to surface the best affiliate monetization opportunities:

Scan down the list and add any new targets to your master keyword list.

Subfolder gap analysis with Semrush

Subfolder gap analysis is another way you can use Semrush to quickly identify high-value keyword opportunities for your business.

Let’s return to a couple of the previous working examples to illustrate.

Local business

Fellerman Law is a competitor of Dolman Law. If they wanted to quickly see all the service-related keywords that Dolman Law was ranking for, but they are not, they could analyze their /legal-services/ subfolder.

In the Semrush Keyword Gap tool:

• Enter your root domain – e.g. https://www.fellermanlaw.com/
• Enter your competitor’s subfolder – e.g. https://www.dolmanlaw.com/legal-services/
• Click the green “Compare” button

Add the Position, Volume and KD filters again to first focus on the quick-win opportunities.

Scroll down and we can see 163 Missing Keywords that Dolman is ranking for in the top 10, but Fellerman is not targeting.

Fellerman could now scan down the list and select relevant keywords to create new service pages for and start driving more qualified organic to their website.

This subfolder analysis process can be applied to any type of business.

For example:

• Ecommerce businesses: analyze competitor /product or /category subfolders.
• Affiliate businesses: analyze competitor /review subfolders.
• AdSense business: analyze competitor /blog or /category subfolders to find high volume, low competition keywords that you can rank for quickly and drive loads of eyeballs to ads.

The key to this strategy is to look for the subfolders that contain keywords that align directly with your website’s monetization model.

I have created a dedicated video tutorial for this strategy here.

PPC-organic gap analysis

Semrush’ keyword gap analysis tool is unique in that it enables you to analyze paid vs organic keyword gaps.

A couple use cases include:

• Find all the keywords that your competitors are bidding on that you are not.
• Find all the keywords you rank for outside the top 3 positions, but are not bidding on. These are areas where you may need to provide some paid aircover.
• Find all the keywords that your competitors are bidding on that you are not targeting as part of your organic strategy. This will highlight higher-intent keyword gaps.

Provide paid aircover

Let’s pretend Semrush wanted to provide air cover for all the keywords that they were not yet ranking inside the top 3 positions.

In the Semrush Keyword Gap tool:

• Enter your paid root domain – e.g. https://www.semrush.com/
• Enter your organic product subfolder – e.g. https://www.semrush.com/features/
• Click the green “Compare” button

Next, they could add a Position and Intent filter:

Now, we can see a list of keywords that Semrush is ranking for outside the top 3 positions, and is not currently bidding on in paid search.

Semrush could scan down the list and select any high-priority keywords that they want to bid on until they rank in the top organic position.

Identify high-value keyword gaps

You can use Semrush to identify all the keywords that your competitors are bidding on that you don’t currently rank for in the organic search results. The idea here is that if a competitor is bidding on a keyword, chances are it’s going to have high-intent and the potential to drive conversions.

In the Semrush Keyword Gap tool:

• Enter your root domain – e.g. https://www.copper.com/ – and select Organic keywords
• Enter your competitor’s root domain – e.g. https://www.pipedrive.com/ – and select Paid keywords
• Click the green “Compare” button

Scroll down to the Missing Keywords report and select any high-intent keywords that you are not already targeting.

Note: because paid keywords will typically have higher intent, they will usually have a higher level of competition. As a result, you might also start with a maximum KD filter to trim the opportunities down to the most realistic targets.

Generate topical keyword Ideas with the Semrush Keyword Magic Tool

Semrush’ Keyword Magic tool enables you to enter a seed term and generate thousands of new keyword ideas. Semrush claims to have the largest keyword database (24B+).

However, the real power of this tool lies in the advanced filtering options.

For instance:

My blog monetizes primarily through affiliate marketing. As a result, I want to rank for keywords that people are searching for during the consideration stage of the buyer journey where they are actively evaluating different types of solutions and/or deciding between specific products.

Since I write about SEO-related topics, I would enter relevant category keywords – keyword research, link building, rank tracking, etc. – with those consideration stage modifiers.

In the Keyword Magic Tool:

• Enter an investigational intent modifier – e.g. “best”
• Add an Any keywords filter containing core category keywords – e.g. “keyword research, link building, ranking tracking, technical SEO, on-page seo, content optimization, seo reporting, local seo, competitor analysis, seo audit” etc.

This will return a list of solid consideration stage keyword opportunities. But, I wouldn’t stop there.

Next, I would look for keywords that show a user is actively comparing the products that I promote against competitors.

For example, in the Keyword Magic Tool:

• Enter a seed term – e.g. “Semrush”
• Add 3 comparative keyword modifiers – e.g. “alternative, competitor, vs” – and select “Any keywords” in the Include Keywords filter:

From the results, we have 584 potential keyword targets. These mid-funnel terms include “Ahrefs vs Semrush, Moz vs Semrush, Serpstat vs Semrush, SpyFu vs Semrush etc”.

I can try to rank for these keywords and showcase why Semrush might be a better solution, and subsequently drive referral traffic that converts into commissions.

Note: The Keyword Magic tool also groups keywords by Popularity and search demand:

This is an extremely handy feature if you have a large keyword set to review and aren’t sure how to streamline it with the advanced keyword filters at the top of the table. Simply review the groupings and click into the one that appears most relevant to your business.

Find question-based keyword opportunities with Semrush

You can also use the Semrush Keyword Magic Tool to generate loads of question-based keyword ideas.

In Semrush:

• Enter a seed term – e.g. “CRM” – into the Keyword Magic Tool.
• Then click on the Questions tab:

Scroll down the list and look for relevant product or service-related questions your ideal customer might be searching for at the top, middle and bottom of the funnel.

For example:

As I scroll down the list I can see people asking questions around like:

• How to select a CRM system?
• How to maintain a CRM database?

Most of these question keywords are relatively low-competition opportunities:

Tip: you can use Semrush’ Intent and Grouping filters to quickly surface the highest intent opportunities:

If you want to learn more about using Semrush to generate question-based keyword ideas, check out the video below:

Create Topical Keyword Clusters with Semrush

Note: I’ve included a video overview of the Semrush keyword cluster tool at the end of this section.

Semrush enables you to create keyword clusters from scratch, as well as cluster existing keyword lists.

To illustrate, let’s return to our personal injury lawyer example.

If I wanted to generate keyword clusters from scratch, I’d click Create List and then enter up to 5 seed keywords, along with a domain for added context:

The tool returns 50 clusters containing 900 keywords.

In the table you can see:

• Intent
• # of keywords in each cluster
• KD %
• Aggregate search volume across the keyword cluster

Semrush will flag “high ranking potential” keywords. These are terms with high volume and relatively low KD percentages.

Scrolling down the list we can see some interesting results that fall outside typical top-level service pages:

Click to open a cluster and you’ll see all the keywords along with their respective search intent, KD% and search volume metrics.

Tip: It’s important to review the Content references section because you want to understand if you need to optimize an existing page for this cluster, or create a new dedicated URL.

For example:

After hovering over the URLs in the reference section I can see that the competitors are ranking with dedicated pages for the “hit and run attorney” keywords.

As a result, I’d create new sub-service landing pages to target those high-intent clusters.

You can also use Semrush to cluster an existing keyword list.

From the Keyword Manager, select the second option to create a list:

Paste in your existing keyword set:

Semrush will automatically cluster all the keywords.

Here’s what it looks like after I uploaded 214 keywords that I’m interested in targeting:

I Like How Semrush Tools Are Integrated

One of the things I really like about Semrush is that its keyword research tools are all integrated.

Once you have finished building your target keyword list in Semrush, you can select keywords and send them to the Position Tracking tool to monitor rankings or transfer them to the SEO Writing Assistant for content production and on-page analysis.

These integrations make it easy to scale your content workflow and monitor performance over time, all without having to leave the platform or rely on other standalone SEO tools.

Level-Up Your Keyword Research With Semrush

You now know how to use Semrush to extract high-value keyword opportunities for any type of business.

If you haven’t done so already, remember to grab a full-access 14-day free trial of Semrush and start implementing these tactics in your business.