If you know even a bit of Digital Marketing then I am sure you know how important SEO is for a Business.
SEO consists of various elements which include Content, Backlinks, Meta Tags, Meta Description, Online Directories, and Keywords.
Every element plays a crucial role in SEO ranking. SEO is important because it gives your business exposure organically. It helps you get relevant traffic to your site, which eventually increases the conversion rate.
SEO success requires a significant amount of research to build your SEO strategy. And research requires the right tools. Isn't it?
Out of all the elements, today we are going to talk about Keywords & Keyword research.
To rank, you need to do proper keyword research, rank tracking, and most importantly you need to keep an eye on your competitors, like on which keywords are they ranking, etc.
If we talk about the best SEO & Keyword research tools then SEMrush & Long Tail Pro are the highly recommended tools.
Agencies, Bloggers, SEO Experts recommend these tools.
But, you cannot go for both. Right?
Mostly, there is confusion about which one is a better tool for me?
Well, In this blog, I am going to compare both these highly recommended SEO tools and by the end of the blog, you would understand which tool is the best fit dor your SEO requirements.
Let's start with knowing the first tool i.e., SEMrush.What is SEMrush?
SEMrush is basically an SEO tool which helps you in Keyword Research, Runs an SEO audit of your blogs, it also helps you track your competitor's SEO strategy, it helps you find backlink opportunities, it helps you find from where all your competitor is getting backlinks from, and a lot more. Check our SEMrush review here.
SEMrush is basically a complete SEO research solution.
It is a highly recommended tool by internet marketers across the globe, it is a tool used by individual bloggers, freelance consultants, small and medium and big size businesses.
In a nutshell, SEMrush is a complete tool suite for improving online visibility.
Key Features of SEMrush
SEMrush offers many features, in this blog we will talk only about the main features SEMrush offers.
Keyword research is basically a foundation of SEO, and it is essential to have a strong foundation. Keyword research is done while planning content, and we cannot emphasize enough how important content is when it comes to SEO or organic reach.
SEMrush helps you identify the right keywords and keyword phrases that are likely to get you more traffic. SEMrush helps you strategize your content, keyword optimization, etc.
With SEMrush you can discover different keywords and keyword variations that are associated with a particular word you searched for, which eventually helps you understand how people are searching for that particular product or service online.
This process helps you understand user behavior on the search engine and you can accordingly plan your targetted keywords.
With SEMrush you can see the average number of searches for a keyword per month. You can see the competition for that keyword, you can know the average price of PPC for that keyword, you can know the top-ranking site for that keyword search.
Basically, you can know the anatomy of that keyword.
Knowing what your competitors are up to is important but on the other hand, it is highly important to know what you're up to, your strengths and weaknesses are. Isn't it?
You can know your website's details by entering your website's URL in SEMrush tool, you'll see an overview screen which will display all the essential details like, how much traffic your website is getting, sources of traffic (Paid or Organic), your search engine (Google) ranking.
SEMrush will send you the monthly report for your own website which can help you analyse your weaknesses and strength and plan your strategies accordingly.
You can monitor your dashboard anytime you want to know the progress.
You're not the only one doing what you're doing, there are thousands of competitors out there, and it is highly important to know what they're up to, how they're getting traffic, which keywords they're ranking for, etc and many other factors.
SEMrush helps you in competitor analysis. SEMrush gives you a closer look at your competitor's keywords. It is highly important to know which keywords they're ranking for.
Once you know how your competitors are ranking, which keywords they're ranking for, you can integrate those keywords strategically into your content.
SEMrush allows you to build a strong content marketing strategy, by understanding your competitor's strengths.
Domain Overview is one of my favorite features of SEMrush. Domain Overview helps you get the Overview of a particular domain (you can refer to the image above).
When you overview a domain with SEMrush you get the overview metrics of a domain's online visibility, and you get a picture with the website's online presence details.
You'll see organic search traffic, paid search traffic, backlinks, display advertising details, and other essential information.
- Identify New Keyword Opportunities
Not getting enough results on the old keywords? Then, try targeting new keywords.
SEMrush is the right tool to search for new keywords. When you search for keywords on SEMrush, when you click on the results, you'll see other and new related keywords on the screen.
For instance, you searched for, "Digital Marketing Agency", more related keywords like "Virtual Digital Marketing Agency", "How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency" and so on.
SEMrush helps you identify the new and related keywords which can help you rank.
SEMrush helps you track your past & current rankings. With SEMrush you can easily track your progress or deterioration of your Google Ranking. You can easily know and understand what's working out for your website and what's not.
When we write content we do experiment for better ranking. So yes, there are chances of experiment failure and rank dropping. But, you can always improve and work strategically to rank higher.
When I first got introduced to blogging, I got it as a "Money-Making Machine". I am sure at some or the other point in life you must have heard this too. But, trust me it's not that easy.
One of the most common and recommended way to make money through blogging is to display ads on your blogs and when someone clicks on that ad and make a purchase you get money for that.
But wait, How will you get that link? Well, SEMrush can help you get the Right Links and Right businesses to get associated with.
One of the best ways to monetize your website is to approach these websites to display their ads on your website. Or you can even join their affiliate program.
The very first step to becoming an affiliate marketer is to create great content which will help you get visitors which will eventually lead to higher conversion.
SEMrush plays a crucial role for this. SEMrush will first look at the keywords your website is ranking for and then it will identify the businesses which are paying pay per click ads which are based on the same keywords.
SEMrush will display these keywords in a userfriendly way which will help you know which are the right and profitable businesses to get connected with and then you can approach them.
SEMrush helps you find advertising opportunities faster than your competitors, which helps you stay ahead in the race.
SEMrush provides you with all the essential information you need to know while researching for the company to advertise for, the information includes the following:
- Common keywords they are bidding for which are similar to your website
- Keywords targeted by their ads
- Traffic generated by their ads
- List of domains they're paying for the traffic
Once you have the information, you can easily convince these businesses to work with you. Having essential information is the first step in making the right strategy.
When we talk about SEO, inbound links are the most essential and crucial part of the ranking. Irrespective of the type of site you have, having inbound links will help you grow.
Your PageRank increases with the number of backlinks you have.
Links are also known as the currency of the internet.
SEMrush provides you with the complete details about the number of backlinks your competitor has, from which sites they're getting the backlinks. As a content marketer, you can create your backlink strategy efficiently once you have all the information about your competitor.
When SEMrush displays the information into two halves in the form of a pie chart, which categorizes into "Do Follow" and "No follow", which will help you understand how many quality backlinks does a website has, including your own website.
PLA Research is basically, Product Listing Ads research, PLAs are basically the Ads which are displayed on the search page when someone searches for a product.
It allows you to scrutinize the performance of your competitor easily.
PLAs are displayed on the page when someone searches for a product. With SEMrush you can get complete details about the Google Shopping Ads.
This feature is available only on Business Level Subscription.
Recently, During the pandemic, SEMrush has launched OPPTY, which can help you find leads for your business. It works as a plugin, which you can add to your site and get potential leads and other important information quickly.
You can visit https://oppty.semrush.com/ and find leads with opportunity.
You can select the opportunity type, Industry, Your city, and search. You'll get all the essential information in one place. Isn't it amazing?
Pricing of SEMrush
The pricing plan of SEMrush ranges from $99/ Month to $399/ Month. If you choose to get it billed annually, you get a 16% discount.
You can try all the plans for free before making the final purchase decision.
All the basic features remain the same for all the plans, with the higher plan few features add up.
If you want a feature you can buy a particular feature instead of upgrading the entire plan.
Pros & Cons of SEMrush
Pros of SEMrush- All types of keyword research
- Helps in tracking
- Supports affiliate
- Supports PPC planning
- UI Can be improved
- Too many functions which can be hard to understand and perform
What is Long Tail Pro
Long Tail Pro is a keyword research tool, which helps you search for a list of keywords that can help you rank. By using Long Tail Pro, you can also analyze the competitor's site which is ranking in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).
Check our LongTailPro Review here.
Key Features of Long Tail Pro
- Keyword Competitiveness Measurement:
Normally keyword research tools break down keyword competitiveness into three categories; Low, Medium & High.
The most important feature a Keyword research tool must-have is, Keyword difficulty. And Long Tail Pro has it.
Long Tail Pro indicates the difficulty level of keywords with color codes. For Green indicates easy, Yellow indicates Moderately difficult, and unshaded indicates out of reach. This makes understanding easy.
Knowing what your competitor is up tp is highly important to formulate your SEO strategy. Long Tail Pro provides you with the tools which you can use to spy on your competitors.
Using the tool you can conduct website analysis you know the Citation Flow, Site Age, Back Link details, referring domains, etc.
You can even know the keywords they are ranking on, which can help you decide your keyword list.
You cannot randomly make a strategy, maybe the list of keywords you've picked to rank is wrong, maybe your strategy is not getting you any ranking.
Will you wait for a month to get results and track data?
Well, No. With Long Tail Pro you can track your data daily and know how well your strategy is performing.
Long Tail Pro has a built-in Rank Tracker which allows you to check the keyword ranking on the dashboard itself. You only have to enter the domain name or page URL & add the list of targeted keywords and you'll get the result at one click.
The best part about Long Tail Pro is, it updates the ranking data daily for each keyword which can surely help you make the most crucial SEO strategy.
Pricing of Long Tail Pro
Long Tail Pro basically offers three pricing plans namely Annual Starter plan, Annual Pro plan, and Annual Agency plan. The pricing of each plan is, starter plan costs $25/ Month, pro plan costs $45/ Month, and the Agency plan costs $98/ Month if billed annually. The prices increase a bit if you want on a monthly basis.
The basic features for all the plans remain the same. As the plan upgrades the features adds up and the number limit too.
The basic features include:
- KC Calculations
- Rank Updates
- Domain Tracker
- Keyword Research
- Keyword Tracker
- SERP lookups
- Plugin templates, it includes a complete suite of templates to scale SEO included
- The limits on the basic features increases
Pros & Cons of Long Tail Pro
Pros of Long Tail Pro:- Keyword research support
- Supports competitor analysis
- Eliminates the short-tail keywords and provides you with the list of long-tail keywords
- List of ranking keywords in SERP is provided
- You are allowed t search multiple keywords at once and measure their metrics
- Long Tail Pro is limited only to find keywords.
- Other SEO tasks aren't supported
- SERP tracking keywords are limited to only two URLs
- Does not offer keyword gap tool
Conclusion: SEMrush vs Long Tail Pro Comparison 2020
So finally, we are at the end of this super-informative blog about SEO tools.
Are you wondering, Which is the better tool? Where should I invest my money?
Okay let me tell you one thing, I have used both the tools, SEMrush & Long Tail Pro. The only feature which matches of both of them is, Keyword research and competitor analysis.
I can confidently say SEMrush is far better than Long Tail Pro.
Simply because, SEMrush is a complete SEO suite, it helps you with site audit, domain comparison, keyword tracking, monthly search reports, support for affiliate, etc.
On the other hand, Long Tail Pro is limited only to Competitor analysis and keyword research.
SEMrush & Long Tail Pro both are efficient tools when it comes to Keyword Research.
If you want only a Keyword Research tool then Long Tail Pro is the right and affordable tool for you.
But, if you want a complete SEO solution then without any second thought you should invest in SEMrush, it is completely worth it if you know to use it efficiently.
