The Project Dashboard can be accessed from the top of the left-hand navigation menu. After you click on this item, you’ll be forwarded to a page containing condensed reports. These include Organic Research, Position Tracking, Traffic Analytics, Site Audit, Backlink Analytics, Backlink Audit, and On-Page SEO Checker.

This information can help you gain an understanding of what issues require immediate action, what results can be achieved with the least effort, and which of your competitors’ weaknesses you can benefit from.

Nevertheless, to master SEO, you’ll need to dive deeper into tools and data. Follow the workflows below to gain actionable insights that will allow you to improve the visibility of your website.

Here you will also find Semrush Copilot. Copilot is an AI-Powered SEO assistant that creates a personalized SEO plan with prioritized activities. Read more about Semrush Copilot here.

Commonly, the first step in any SEO process is competitive research. This means identifying who your top competitors are, as well as seeing the keywords that bring them the most traffic and looking for their strengths and weaknesses.

Reports in this workflow include:

• Domain Overview
• Traffic Analytics
• Organic Research
• Keyword Gap
• Backlink Gap

With these research reports, it’s easy to locate existing keyword gaps between you and your competitors.

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After your competitive research, you’ll want to conduct deeper keyword research to really hone in on the best keyword opportunities.

Keyword research is the process of looking for the most effective search terms to target with a campaign. Because all search traffic begins with a keyword (query in a search engine), finding keywords that are not too competitive and yet still popular enough to drive traffic to your website is a crucial point in SEO.

Reports and tools in this workflow include:

• Keyword Overview
• Keyword Magic Tool
• Keyword Strategy Builder (formerly Keyword Manager)
• Organic Traffic Insights

It’s generally wise to target a handful of core keywords or long-tail keywords that are specific to your site's content.

After keyword research and adding high-quality content to your website, it’s time to build links to your pages.

Link Building is hugely beneficial for SEO but often difficult for beginners to take on. Semrush offers powerful tools to help you research your competitor's backlinks. You can even start an email outreach campaign to build more links to your site. In addition to building new links, you can analyze and audit your existing backlinks for the best quality links.

Reports and tools in this workflow include:

• Backlink Analytics
• Backlink Audit
• Link Building Tool

The best links will bring traffic directly to your website and boost your trust in the eyes of Google. In order to acquire these links, you’ll need to put yourself out there and email website owners and bloggers asking for these links.

But don’t just spam website owners and ask for a backlink! Introduce yourself and provide the site owner with a valid reason why your website offers value to their website owners, and if a backlink would make sense, then the website owner will likely comply.

Link building is a lot like PR. You have to reach out and promote yourself to the right audience and websites to get the links that would be most beneficial. Luckily, the tools in this kit will help you cover a lot of the research necessary.

After building links and targeting keywords with content, you need to set up rank tracking. This will allow you to follow and report on the progress of your SEO work.

Tools in this workflow include:

• Position Tracking
• Sensor

Position Tracking allows you to track the daily rankings of all of your target keywords. Not only that, but you can analyze how well your site is improving or declining.

The tool can update daily, follow your competitors, and track rankings in any specific location or device worldwide.

The Sensor tool tracks the SERP volatility among the top industries on the Internet. Using this analysis can help you benchmark your website’s SEO fluctuations against the rest of the industry.

On-page and technical SEO will also greatly boost your website visibility. Search engines use the coding on your site to read and understand your content. So by following best practices to line your site up with how Google reads information, you will help your SEO.

Tools in this workflow include:

• Site Audit
• SEO Content Template
• On Page SEO Checker
• Listing Management
• Log File Analyzer

Elements such as optimized coding, internal link structure, and well-written content can all be checked with the tools on Semrush. We’ll highlight where your website needs the most improvement and offer ideas on how to get started fixing them.