Imagine a modern smartphone that can make calls, send messages, connect to the Internet, and work with various applications. Now, imagine that each of its functions will be performed by a separate device. Which option would you prefer?
That’s exactly the case in the field of SEO. If you choose specialized tools for each area of optimization, the effectiveness of the work will decrease. You will achieve better results with all-in-one services that integrate everything you need for website promotion in one interface.
But which one should you choose? The competition in the market is higher than ever before — the former monopolists have to adjust to their young followers, adapting to the new rules of the game. To help you choose the right package of tools, we will tell you about such confrontation by comparing SE Ranking vs SEMrush.
What are SE Ranking and SEMrush?
SE Ranking overview
In the SE Ranking vs SEMrush comparison, the former company plays the role of a young competitor. But you can’t blame it for the lack of experience – the service, created in 2011, has long grown from a startup to a progressive platform that provides its services to 800,000 users.
The company says its mission is to make SEO available to every user regardless of their experience and knowledge level. Therefore, it is not surprising that during SE Ranking comparison with its competitors, the service always comes out ahead due to its user-friendly interface, intuitive organization of reports, and the quality of reference materials.
Although the platform is available for beginners, it also has a wide range of tools designed for professionals. It welcomes everyone from freelancers and novice webmasters to the world’s largest marketing agencies.
SE Ranking pros
- Detailed analysis in all areas of SEO;
- Extensive keyword databases;
- User-friendly interface suitable for users of all skill levels;
- Affordable and flexible subscription plans with high research limits;
- Quality reference materials for beginners;
- Possibility to create customized subscriptions.
SE Ranking cons
- API is available only with the premium plan;
- Limited possibilities for integration with other services.
SEMrush Overview
In SEMrush vs. SE Ranking comparison, it’s worth mentioning that the company that plays the role of an older competitor has only 3 years more experience. Founded in 2008, it immediately set out to work with professionals, making large businesses and marketing agencies its main audience.
The developers did not focus on the accessibility of the platform, letting freelancers and owners of small companies understand all of its functions by themselves. Nevertheless, for users, functionality was more important than ease of use, as evidenced by one million subscribers.
As we compare SEMrush and SE Ranking, we should also mention the vast databases of the former service. There are over 20 billion keywords and 40 trillion backlinks, making it a true record-breaker.
SEMrush pros
- Full coverage of SEO specialist’s needs;
- Record size of databases;
- Informative reports with a huge number of filters;
- PPC and SMM modules;
- Unique features in the field of content marketing;
- Frequent updates of data.
SEMrush cons
- Steep learning curve that can scare off most newbies;
- Expensive subscription with low research limits.
Feature Comparison
Rank Tracker
SE Ranking
In the SE Ranking vs SEMrush comparison, the first service takes the lead in terms of the number of search engines for which research is conducted. It works with the desktop and mobile versions of Google (no matter what device you run the web app on) and with Yahoo. This is ideal for projects aimed specifically at smartphone users or working in narrow market niches.
SE Ranking also allows you to compare your rankings with your competitors by analyzing the positions of 20 domains in detail. In addition, you can switch between different regions, evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing policy not only on a global but also on a local level.
The service also provides the following information:
- Your site’s presence in SERP snippets, FAQs, videos, and product carousel;
- Positions in contextual advertising search services;
- The ease of finding a company on the map.
If you compare SEMrush and SE Ranking, the latter platform offers more detailed statistics. While a competitor is limited to the top 3, 10, 20, and 100, you can find out what keywords your site ranks in the top 1, 3, 5, and 10 positions here. This benefits any business, but especially small businesses, for whom plus or minus one spot in search engine rankings can mean success or failure.
As for the accuracy of SE Ranking, you can rest assured. The simplicity of the platform’s interface can be deceptive — the quality of the analytics service is not inferior to SEMrush, Ahrefs, and other competitors focused on the professional audience. It’s also worth noting that you can choose the optimal data collection period – 7 days, 30 days, or an arbitrary period that suits your needs.
SEMrush
At first glance, it would seem that a platform that only works with Google and offers limited granularity is doomed to failure. But in fact, SEMrush developers have prepared a worthy answer to their competitors by offering a number of interesting features. The service allows you to discover:
- What competitors promote their sites for the same keywords and at what positions they are;
- For which queries you entered the Google search snippets, and for which ones you have dropped out of them recently;
- What direction you should work to get into the top 10 and SERP snippets;
- Which pages on your site are competing with each other for the same keywords, cannibalizing traffic.
SEMrush also offers a large keyword database that helps you reach your potential 100% in highly competitive market segments with a large target audience.
However, in SEMrush comparison with its competitors, we should mention the service’s disadvantages as well. Its confusing interface makes it difficult to read reports. This is a downside for both beginners and professionals — the former will need long tedious training, while the latter will have to try hard to make a simple and understandable presentation for the client.
Nevertheless, even in this regard, it is not worth considering the service solely from a negative standpoint. It also has an interesting feature, which positively affects the UX. By compiling a keyword list for ranking, you can tag them with custom tags, making it easier to sort them in the future.
Verdict: SE Ranking wins…
…albeit by a minimal margin. Comparing the deep granularity with an extensive feature set, we chose the first option. It would be useful for all users without exception, whereas the additional tools are not useful for everyone. The intuitive SE Ranking interface also affected our decision, making the platform accessible to small business owners and novice SEO specialists.
Competitive Analysis
SE Ranking
If you do not have the slightest idea of how to build a marketing policy, do not get upset. You can always look up successful ideas from your competitors. SE Ranking can help you do just that. This service allows you to determine:
- which keywords give other companies the most traffic;
- which advertising campaigns of competitors are the most profitable;
- how changes in Google algorithms affect general market trends.
The platform provides other valuable information. It shows how keywords are distributed in the top 10, 30, or 100 search results, which pages get the most organic traffic, and which countries your potential clients live in.
As we compare SE Ranking and SEMrush, we want to highlight the perfect UX of the service again. The data is presented in an infographic format. In fact, you get a ready-made presentation page that you can include in a slideshow for your team or customers.
The dynamics assessment tool will be especially useful. Not only does it show how the traffic volume of your site is changing, but it also helps you compare the figures to those of your competitors. One glance will be enough to understand how effective your SEO strategy is. The same feature allows you to look back in time by showing historical data on your screen. Retrospective is very important if you are not afraid to experiment and try different techniques to promote your business online.
SEMrush
As we compare SEMrush and SE Ranking, we should note that the basic feature sets of both platforms are the same. Not to waste your time, we will briefly list what data you can get in the competitive analysis:
- The volume of organic, paid, and referral traffic;
- The overall level of authority of the resource;
- The number of keywords for which the site is optimized;
- Positions in search results for each query;
- Platforms on which backlinks are placed;
- The effectiveness of contextual advertising;
- Most popular pages in organic or paid search results.
SEMrush is also suitable for analyzing dynamics and reviewing historical data. However, it has a secret tool at its disposal, thanks to which it easily outperforms most competitors. More specifically, two powerful tools.
First, it compares the effectiveness of resources’ SMM strategies. The platform doesn’t just count the number of times a brand is mentioned on social media. It divides them into positive, negative, and neutral. With its help, you can calculate the theoretical value of coverage and find out which posts are the most effective in terms of attracting traffic.
Second, SEMrush allows you to lift the veil of secrecy by looking at your competitors’ key statistical indicators:
- Number of unique visitors;
- The average duration of a visit;
- The number of pages viewed per session;
- Bounce rate.
In comments on review platforms, users rave about this feature, saying it “allows you to look at your competitors’ reporting in Google Analytics without breaking the law.”
Verdict: SEMrush wins
In the SEMrush vs SE Ranking comparison, the former platform comes out on top. It allows you to get a glimpse of your competitors’ secrets without violating trade secrets. It also has an SMM analysis module at its disposal, which will be important for any company promoting its business on social networks. Is it safe to say that SE Ranking lags far behind? Not really— the service corresponds to the average market level in terms of functionality. In addition, you should remember its affordable prices and impeccable UX.
Backlink analysis
SE Ranking
A couple of years ago, when comparing SEMrush vs SE Ranking, the latter web app was the unequivocal leader. However, the situation is changing, and a young competitor is ready to fight for the top step of the pedestal. Today, SE Ranking continuously monitors 220 million domains. The number of backlinks in its database is estimated in trillions. This is enough to build an effective external optimization strategy for any site, regardless of its scale.
The platform offers a standard set of metrics:
- Overall domain authority level;
- Trust rating for a particular page with a link;
- The ratio of Dofollow and Nofollow tags;
- Number of new domains and lost links.
You can go into more detail if you want, getting down to the level of a particular link. It is very important because Google puts the quality of external content above quantity. Such a feature allows you to bring your link mass to perfection to stay afloat among strong competitors.
By detailing the statistics, you can also find out
- when the link was first and last detected by SE Ranking’s crawler;
- what serves as an anchor — text or image;
- how much traffic the link brings you.
When comparing SE Ranking vs SEMrush vs alternative platforms, it’s worth considering that both products of our review today have a tool called “Backlink gap.” It shows you which sites popular with your competitors you are missing out on. You can use it to find priority areas of development that will allow you to quickly increase domain authority and improve your site’s visibility in search engine rankings.
SEMrush
Once again, we’re back to parity — both services offer the same set of basic features. But there is one detail — SEMrush separates them into five different tools. On one hand, this means better granularity of information. On the other hand, you have to switch between several reports to get the overall picture. Whether this is convenient is up to you to decide. However, when comparing SE Ranking vs SEMrush in terms of data organization convenience, we remain true to our original opinion.
Of course, the professional-oriented platform has its advantages. Its database contains more links, and additional filters in the reports allow for a more accurate selection of sites for posting external content. For example, you can display only sponsored links or only custom links, comparing the effectiveness of your outreach and content marketing policies.
SEMrush also knows how to find promising link-building sites not yet included in your SEO strategy. Here, the platform is also the leader in the number of filters. It allows you to sort domains by authority level and potential reach, selecting among them sites that can bring you maximum profit.
Verdict: it’s a draw!
When comparing SEMrush and SE Ranking in terms of link building, it is very difficult to determine the leader. The first service operates with a large number of links and helps you quickly find the domains you want in reports. The second participant in our review captivates by its simplicity — all data are collected in one tool, so you can evaluate your position in the market at a glance. The strengths are equal, so we will not choose a winner in this regard, awarding the same number of points to both SEO platforms.
Website Audit
SE Ranking
The service analyzes your website immediately after registration — all you have to do is specify the domain to get detailed information. It identifies more than 120 common errors, including:
- problems with code and scripts;
- improperly structured content;
- lack of linking;
- broken links;
- 404 errors;
- lack of meta tags;
- problems with loading of multimedia content;
- incorrectly filled sitemap and robots files;
- inappropriate display of the page’s mobile version;
- low speed of page loading;
- negative UX factors.
The list could be continued, but you get the point — SE Ranking impresses with its meticulousness. The result of the audit is a report that evaluates the website on a 100-point scale. It also indicates the dynamics of critical errors, which allows you to monitor the improvement of the situation in real time.
If you are not happy with the result, the platform will offer you recommendations for solving problems. Moreover, it automatically generates a to-do list that sorts errors in order of their impact on traffic volume and the urgency of fixing them.
During SEMrush vs SE Ranking comparison, we repeatedly mentioned the usability of the interface of the first web app. This can be seen in the website audit. The user receives a very simple report, in which the main place is given to the integral rating of the resource. This format is very useful for small business owners and startups that do not want to go into all SEO details.
SEMrush
In terms of site auditing, the comparison of SEMrush vs SE Ranking shows absolute equality. Both platforms provide an identical set of features. They detect the same number of errors and calculate very similar integral rankings. This situation can be regarded as a recognition of the effectiveness of both platforms.
However, when we compared SE Ranking and SEMrush, the service for professionals again showed its confusing interface. Yes, it gives recommendations on how to fix errors just like its competitor. But you will need much more time to study the entire report, especially if this is the first time you encounter some problems.
Verdict: SE Ranking wins…
…by a small margin in terms of functionality and with a huge advantage in usability. While we couldn’t definitively name SE Ranking or SEMrush as the leader in efficiency, a detailed UX analysis cleared the air. SE Ranking does not limit professionals in anything but makes a site audit much more accessible to beginners.
Keyword research
SE Ranking
Almost all SEO tools on the market can determine the amount of organic and paid traffic for certain queries, as well as assess the complexity of optimization in that direction. Moreover, you can get similar statistics even in Google Analytics, which is available without paid subscriptions. so in the comparative analysis of SE Ranking vs SEMrush, we will not touch on the general issues but focus on the services’ unique features.
SE Ranking specializes in the selection of long-tail low-frequency keywords. We should remind you that these requests allow you to quickly reach the top of certain market niches due to moderate competition. All resources without exception should work with them, but young startups, which have difficulty competing with large companies, will benefit the most.
The SEMrush vs SE Ranking review also shows that both platforms effectively cope with the research of similar keywords. In the report, you’ll see the approximate coverage and complexity of optimization. Such statistics allow you to choose promising areas of business promotion and get positive results in the shortest possible time.
Another advantage of SE Ranking is effective work with SERP snippets. The web application will prompt you on how exactly you can get to blocks with definitions of concepts, answers to FAQs, photos, or products. This type of optimization combines the benefits of SEO and PPC. On one hand, it instantly improves your site’s visibility in search engine rankings, and on the other hand, it doesn’t require constant financial investment.
As we compare SE Ranking and SEMrush, we should also pay attention to an interesting feature of the reports. In the first service, you see the change in SERP positions for certain key queries, and in the second — the number of backlinks of all members of the top 10. Decide for yourself which information is more important.
SEMrush
The struggle between SEMrush and SE Ranking reaches its maximum tension precisely when comparing keyword research modules. Both platforms have unique advantages, so it is very difficult for the user to determine which option is better for them.
SEMrush comparison with other services shows that it becomes the absolute leader in terms of database volume. It contains 22 billion keywords, so there is valuable information for any business, regardless of its scale. SE Ranking actively catches up with its older competitor, but the gap is still significant — the volume of its keyword database is twice less.
Among the interesting SEMrush features is the review of keyword popularity in the geographical aspect. Even if you work on a global level, the service will still show you which countries most often enter a keyword in the search bar. Sometimes, this research yields unexpected results. You may find that you already have an audience ready to pay for your product here and now — you just need to slightly reconfigure your marketing strategy.
When choosing SE Ranking or SEMrush, you should consider the specialization of the platforms. SEMrush will help you quickly get to the FAQ section of Google’s search results page. However, its competitor works much more effectively with the rest of the SERP snippets.
The professional nature of SEMrush is noticeable in this area as well. When researching keywords, you can use more filters than with SE Ranking. The service can even search for you by user intent — a feature that will be indispensable for commercial resources such as online stores, landing pages, and corporate business cards.
Verdict: it’s a draw!
The main conclusion we can draw from the SEMrush vs SE Ranking comparison is that each service is good in its own way. SEMrush takes the lead in traditional analytics, providing a greater number of filters and tools. But SE Ranking is better for highlighting subtle details like SERP snippets. It will be more useful for small businesses that have to look for unique ways to grow in a highly competitive market.
Comparison of other features
A traditional set of tools isn’t enough to make it to the top of your segment. And since we’re talking about SEO optimization leaders, we should pay attention to their additional features.
SE Ranking comparison with alternative platforms shows that SMM managers can use this web application as well! It provides a convenient module for automatic posting, compatible with the following social media platforms:
- Google Business Profile
You can create media plans right in the SEO service and monitor their implementation. Such a feature will be useful for the project manager, who will not have to be distracted by other applications and create conferences to monitor the work of subordinates.
Choosing between SEMrush and SERanking, keep in mind that the former provides a unique content management module. It analyzes the text content of the page, evaluating its structure, keyword density, uniqueness, and the share of irrelevant phrases.
Not impressed? Wait, that’s not all! SEMrush provides its users with a number of tools created on an AI basis. You can use them to generate outlines of future articles, create ToRs for copywriters, do quick rewrites to improve uniqueness, and even add missing paragraphs! On one hand, you can get the same features in specialized services for copywriters and editors, and on the other hand, they will be a nice bonus for those who have already paid for the SEO application.
Price comparison
SE Ranking
If you are familiar with the market of SEO tools, you will be impressed by the loyal pricing policy of the platform. It offers the following subscription plans:
- Essential — $55 per month, 10 projects, 1 user, analysis of 5 competitors, review of 750 keywords per day;
- Pro — $109 per month, 3 users, comparison with 10 competitors, no limit on the number of projects, 1,000 queries per day;
- Business — $239 per month, 5 users, 20 competitors, 5,000+ keywords per day.
Comparing SE Ranking pricing vs SEMrush pricing, we would like to note the flexibility of the former. In fact, each subscription plan is a framework to which you can attach the limits you want on keywords, audits, backlinks, etc. This way, you can find the perfect option for your business without overpaying for features you don’t need.
SEMrush
The developer of this service does not squander on trifles, so all the subscription plans are designed either for marketing agencies of various scales or for large businesses. Judge for yourself:
- Pro — starting from $119.95 per month, 5 projects, 500 keywords, crawling 100,000 pages per month;
- Guru — from $229.95 per month, 15 projects, 1,500 keywords, analysis of 300 thousand pages per month. With this subscription, you get access to a content management module, historical data, and mobile traffic analysis;
- Business — from $449.95 per month, 40 projects, 5,000 queries, crawling 1 million pages. With this plan, you get open API, delegation of authority, and free migration from other platforms.
In evaluating SEMrush pricing vs SE Ranking pricing, we cannot overlook the outright costliness of the first service. In addition, some of its unique benefits, which we mentioned above, are simply missing in the basic subscription, so they remain inaccessible to small businesses and freelancers.
Conclusion
Which service would we choose — SEMrush or SE Ranking? The choice is really difficult because both platforms are very close in terms of feature sets. SE Ranking is more accessible for newbies and specialists with limited budgets. Its intuitive interface allows you to use it effectively without prior training or deep SEO knowledge. In addition, it can reveal for you unique ways to promote your business, which your competitors often fail to notice.
SEMrush impresses with its database content and the number of filters in most reports. It clearly leads the way in competitive analysis — with it, you can take a peek at other companies’ statistics without breaking the law. However, when choosing SEMrush or SE Ranking, you should be aware that there is a downside to this professional approach. The cumbersome interface somewhat spoils the impression of an efficient service and makes it difficult to learn.
It seems that we have a draw coming up. So, when subscribing to SEMrush or SE Ranking, we recommend that you consider material factors as well. More specifically, the cost of the plans. In this respect, SE Ranking is much more loyal to all groups of users, from freelancers to huge corporations. And that is why it is the winner.
