Learning how to use Semrush for keyword research is one of the highest-return skills you can develop as a business owner — and I say that as someone who spent weeks doing what Semrush does in seconds. When I was building 1ShoppingCart.com in the early 2000s, keyword research meant visiting hundreds of websites manually to read their meta tags and recording everything in a spreadsheet. When GoTo.com launched their PPC platform it felt like a revelation — suddenly we had real search volume data. But we still had to target Yahoo, GoTo and AltaVista separately.
What Semrush delivers today in one dashboard took my team weeks to implement. This guide shows you exactly how to use Semrush for keyword research from scratch — step by step.
How to Use Semrush for Keyword Research — What You Need First
Before diving into keyword research you need a Semrush account. The free plan gives you limited daily searches — enough to follow this guide. The Pro plan at $139.95/month unlocks full keyword data, competitor analysis and historical trends. If you are serious about SEO the Pro plan is where you need to be.
How to Use Semrush for Keyword Research — Step by Step
Step 1 — Start With the Keyword Overview Tool
Log into Semrush and go to Keyword Research → Keyword Overview in the left sidebar. This is your starting point for any keyword research project.
Type your seed keyword — the broad topic you want to rank for — into the search bar. For example if you run an email marketing platform type “email marketing software”. Make sure the country is set to your target market and click Search.
Semrush will immediately show you:
- Search volume — how many people search for this term monthly
- Keyword difficulty (KD%) — how hard it will be to rank for this keyword
- CPC — what advertisers pay per click — a strong signal of commercial intent
- Trend — whether interest is growing or declining
- SERP features — what Google shows for this query beyond organic results
In the early 2000s getting this data for a single keyword took hours of cross-referencing spreadsheets and multiple platforms. Semrush surfaces it in under three seconds.
Step 2 — Understand Keyword Difficulty Before Targeting Anything
Keyword difficulty is the most important number on the page for new and growing sites. Semrush scores it from 0 to 100 — the higher the number the harder it is to rank.
| KD Score | Difficulty | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| 0-29 | Easy | New sites — target these first |
| 30-49 | Possible | Sites with some domain authority |
| 50-69 | Difficult | Established sites with strong content |
| 70-100 | Very Hard | High authority sites only |
The strategic rule: Target keywords with KD under 30 when starting out. You will rank faster, get traffic sooner, and build the domain authority you need to go after harder keywords later.
Step 3 — Use Keyword Magic Tool to Learn How to Use Semrush for Keyword Research at Scale
The Keyword Overview gives you data on one keyword. The Keyword Magic Tool is where the real research happens — it expands a seed keyword into thousands of related terms.
Go to Keyword Research → Keyword Magic Tool. Enter your seed keyword and click Search. Semrush will generate a full list of related keywords grouped by topic clusters.
Use the filters to narrow your list:
- KD filter — set maximum to 30 to show only achievable keywords
- Volume filter — set minimum to 100 to remove keywords nobody searches
- Intent filter — select Informational for guides, Commercial for comparisons, Transactional for buying intent
- Questions filter — shows keywords phrased as questions — gold for featured snippets
This is the step that used to take my team weeks. We would manually compile keyword lists from hundreds of competitor sites and cross-reference them across multiple search engines. The Keyword Magic Tool does this in seconds across billions of data points.
Step 4 — Analyse Competitor Keywords
One of Semrush’s most powerful features is the ability to see exactly which keywords your competitors rank for. Go to Competitive Research → Organic Research and type a competitor’s domain.
Semrush will show every keyword that site ranks for, their position, and the estimated traffic each keyword drives. This is your shortcut to finding proven keywords — if a competitor ranks for a term it means Google considers them a relevant source. You can evaluate whether you can compete and create better content.
Filter by KD under 30 and volume over 100 to find their low-hanging keywords — the ones easiest to target first.
Step 5 — Check Keyword Gap for Opportunities You’re Missing
Go to Competitive Research → Keyword Gap. Enter your domain and up to four competitor domains. Semrush will show keywords your competitors rank for that you do not.
Filter for “Missing” keywords — these are terms your competitors rank for but you have zero presence on. Sort by volume to find the highest opportunity gaps first. These become your content roadmap.
Step 6 — Build Your Keyword List and Export
As you find keywords worth targeting click the checkbox next to each one and click Add to Keyword List. Create a named list for your project — this becomes your ongoing keyword research database inside Semrush.
From your keyword list you can:
- Track rankings over time to see if your content is climbing
- Export to CSV for use in content planning spreadsheets
- Group keywords by topic cluster for content silo planning
- Monitor keyword difficulty changes as your domain authority grows
Step 7 — Validate With Position Tracking
Once you have published content targeting your chosen keywords set up Position Tracking in Semrush. Go to Rank Tracking → Position Tracking and add your domain and target keywords.
Semrush will track your daily ranking position for every keyword and alert you to significant changes. This is how you know if your keyword research strategy is working — and which posts need updating to climb higher.
How to Use Semrush for Keyword Research — The Framework in Summary
| Step | Semrush Tool | What It Does |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Keyword Overview | Validate a single keyword — volume, difficulty, CPC |
| 2 | Keyword Magic Tool | Expand seed keywords into full lists with filters |
| 3 | Organic Research | See every keyword a competitor ranks for |
| 4 | Keyword Gap | Find keywords competitors rank for that you don’t |
| 5 | Keyword Lists | Save and organize target keywords by project |
| 6 | Position Tracking | Monitor daily rankings for target keywords |
What Semrush Does That Nothing Else Can Match
I have evaluated keyword research platforms from every angle — including building the infrastructure manually before these tools existed. What separates Semrush from every alternative comes down to three things:
Data depth. Semrush has one of the largest keyword databases available — over 25 billion keywords across 140 countries. The breadth of data means you surface opportunities that smaller databases miss entirely.
Competitive intelligence. The ability to see a competitor’s entire organic keyword footprint in seconds is genuinely game-changing. When I was building 1ShoppingCart.com we had no way to see what keywords were driving traffic to competitors. We were guessing. Semrush removes the guesswork entirely.
The workflow. Keyword research, competitor analysis, rank tracking, content optimization and site auditing all in one platform. The alternative is stitching together five different tools and losing hours reconciling data between them.
More Semrush Resources
- Semrush Review 2026 — complete breakdown of every feature and a clear verdict
- Semrush Pricing 2026 — every plan explained at every business size
- Semrush vs Ahrefs — which is the right choice for your business?
- Semrush vs Moz — full head-to-head comparison
- Best SEO Tools 2026 — full category roundup
Our Verdict — How to Use Semrush for Keyword Research
Knowing how to use Semrush for keyword research is one of the best investments of time you can make as a business owner. The combination of Keyword Overview, Keyword Magic Tool, competitor analysis and position tracking gives you everything you need to build and execute a keyword strategy that drives real organic traffic.
I spent weeks doing manually what Semrush does in seconds. Follow this guide, target keywords under KD 30 to start, and build your content around what people are actually searching for. That is the entire game — and now you know how to play it.
Ready to start? Semrush offers a free 7-day trial: