SEM Rush New Features

Back in November I reviewed one of our favourite tools SEM RUSH – SEM Rush Review

The guys recently gave us a heads up on some features they have added to the mix and asked if we would do a quick post with our thoughts on the new additions. If you don’t know about SEMRush then our previous post will give you an overview of some of the key features but essentially it’s a very smart keyword research tool. Focusing primarily on Google data, it pulls all sorts of information on keywords, search volumes, trends, commercial values, advertiser competition etc. When it comes to building more effective, relevant and commercial keword lists; its keyword reports, phrase and exact match reports and competitor analysis are some of the ways that the tool can help.

So what is new in SEM RUSH?

The 2 new features recently added are Adsense Reports and Back links Reports. 

The back link report lets you analyze your website(or anyone else’s) producing a full list of sites which link to your site. It provides the exact URL of the site/page which links to you and shows you the target URL (the page on your site that the link points to). It also gives you the anchor text of the link. This is very useful data for checking your own links, analysing competitor back links etc. however as it stands we already source this type data from a few other tools but I’m keen to see how the SEM Rush guys develop this report over time as I am sure they will be build in more features.

The Adsense Report
I found the Adsense report very interesting. For anyone who doesn’t know about Adsense it is effectively a Google run program which allows website owners (once signed up and accepted) to make space available on their sites (ad blocks) for Google to populate with Adverts. Revenue generated is shared between Google and the website owner. The flip side of Adsense is the Google Adwords program where Advertisers can use something called the Google Display Network to get their adverts placed in other websites. Essentially the Google Display Network is comprised of website publishers participating in the Adsense program.

Advertising effectively through the Display Network involves investigating and identifying a range of web properties that are relevant and complimentary to your own products or services and then targeting these sites through the network. There are broader, more general ways to use the Display Network however typically the more targeted, the better. Analysis of click through, rates and conversions can then tell you what sites are working for you and what ads are generating interest.

Using the Report
After entering a website address and selecting the Adsense option this report will give you all kinds of information and data on how that particular company is  using the Google display network to publish adverts around the web in various web properties. It contains top level data on the total number of ads running, split between text ads and banners etc. it then lists all of the websites where these ads are appearing and actually displays each of the ads being run with key metrics such as number of publishers displaying the ad, first seen, last seen dates, frequency and average ad position on the page.

So how might this data be used ?
Aside from the immediate insights into exactly how your competitors are spending money through this channel, there are ways to use this report to inform your own Google Display network strategy. By analysing larger direct competitors you can find out all of the sites they are targeting through the Google display network. You can then check the ads they are actually displaying and get data on how long the ads have been running. The ads that have been running for a while are likely to be converting well so this is useful information to take note of.

If you have a way to compete with some of these competitors on price, quality or service you can then tailor an ad to reflect this and target the same sites. By conducting this research on a number of competitors and possibly even on related and complimentary websites you are likely to find a very targeted range of websites which you can target with your ads through the Google display network. Further tailoring of ads based on the nature of these sites and based on what you have learned from competitors can give you a real leg up when it comes to smart online spending and Return on Investment