In this guide, you will find a collection of step-by-step instructions from agencies who have boosted their business growth with Semrush. Learn more about their experiences and the tremendous results they have achieved by using the tools.<\/p>\n
Semrush helps agencies at every stage of their workflow.<\/p>\n
Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. Generating and qualifying leads<\/strong><\/p>\n 2. Pitching<\/strong><\/p>\n 3. Managing a campaign<\/strong><\/p>\n 4. Growing client base<\/strong><\/p>\n Greg Gifford<\/p>\n Vice President of Search, SearchLab, Semrush Academy Professor, author of Semrush for Agencies course<\/p>\n SearchLab is an agency that offers local SEO and PPC services to small and medium-sized businesses. Here, Greg Gifford shares actionable tips on how to find and qualify new clients in a specific niche.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Let\u2019s say you work with car dealers, and you\u2019re looking for new prospects to pitch. I like to start off using Domain Analytics \u2014\u00a0you can get a solid overview of prospects on both the organic and paid search side of things. All you need to start with is a domain to analyze. Do a quick Google search and find a business in your target city \u2014\u00a0we\u2019re looking for dealerships in the Dallas area and find Huffines Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram.<\/p>\n Click Organic Research. Since we\u2019re looking in Dallas, we want to be sure we have the right country database selected. Then, we drop in the URL, click search, and we get ridiculous amounts of information about that business, as well as a few handy lists of local competitors who could also be prospects.<\/p>\n Scroll down past the top-level info for all the juicy goodies. You will get a list of the top organic keywords, so you can see if there are any obvious gaps for things you know they should be ranking for. Right next to that, you can see a graph of their organic ranking distribution, so you can get a high-level idea of their visibility in searches.<\/p>\n Then, the really awesome bit \u2014\u00a0a list of their main organic competitors, with data on how many keywords they compete on and how many total keywords each competitor ranks for. Towards the right, Semrush graphs out competitive positioning based on how much potential traffic each site receives and how many keywords they\u2019re visible for.<\/p>\n When you see information about organic traffic or paid search traffic, bear in mind that they\u2019re not actual traffic numbers. Rather, they\u2019re estimated based on search visibility and clickstream estimates, and meant for comparison purposes only.<\/p>\n Check out the branded vs non-branded keyword graph, too. When you find prospects that are heavier on the branded side, that means they\u2019re not getting as much traffic for non-branded terms, and that\u2019s an easy target for a good SEO pitch.<\/p>\n Now here\u2019s the best part. Check out the list of organic competitors \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s the same list that shows on the overview page. You can click to view the full list \u2014\u00a0in this case, over 2,000 competitors \u2014\u00a0and export it, or you can select any one of the competitors and Semrush will conduct the same organic research on that individual site.<\/p>\n If you spend even just a small amount of time here, you can find that sweet spot between the prospects who aren\u2019t quite visible (or aren\u2019t visible at all), but who are also obviously willing to spend money on digital marketing.<\/p>\n I also like to check out the advertising research area. If prospects are paying for Google Ads, that\u2019s typically a sign that they have a higher level of understanding about digital marketing, and they\u2019re more likely to understand that SEO is an important investment.<\/p>\n Finally, it\u2019s a good idea to look at the businesses that are in the top positions and make a comparison\u00a0to how they\u2019re showing up organically. If there\u2019s a gap, that means they\u2019re spending a lot on ads to make up for less organic visibility, which is a great prospect. You also want to look for prospects with higher estimated spending. If they\u2019re spending more, they\u2019re getting results and will typically be more open to an SEO pitch.<\/p>\n Greg Gifford<\/p>\n Vice President of Search, SearchLab, Semrush Academy Professor, author of Semrush for Agencies course<\/p>\n In this chapter, Greg Gifford explains in detail how to find gaps in your prospect\u2019s search strategies using Traffic Analytics.<\/em><\/p>\n As well as Organic Research, you should also use the Traffic Analytics report. Again, traffic numbers here are based on estimates; they\u2019re simply meant for comparison. At the top of the report, check the estimated accuracy of the report, which will be one, two, or three bars. One bar is the lowest level of accuracy and three bars are the highest.<\/p>\n Check out the Traffic Sources graph for a breakdown of estimated referral sources. You can get a ton of insight about a potential lead if you have an idea of how much search traffic they\u2019re getting compared to paid, social, and direct traffic.<\/p>\n The Traffic Journey report is helpful, too. It shows the top traffic sources for the prospect\u2019s site as well as the top exit destination sites \u2014\u00a0the sites that users head to when they leave the site you\u2019re analyzing.<\/p>\n The Top Pages report shows entrance sources for each of the top pages on the site along with the keywords each page is visible for in searches.<\/p>\n Finally, check out the Audience Insights report, which allows you to compare the site you\u2019re analyzing against a competitor. You can see how much audience overlap there is, so you\u2019ll know if they\u2019re fighting in the same market. If you scroll down and select \u201csimilar category\u201d, you\u2019ll also get a list of similar sites that match the audience.<\/p>\n Greg Gifford<\/p>\n Vice President of Search, SearchLab, Semrush Academy Professor, author of Semrush for Agencies course<\/p>\n It\u2019s ridiculously easy to get this kind of info out of Semrush with only a few clicks. Go ahead and enter the prospect as a Project and run a Site Audit. Once the audit is finished, check out the site health score \u2014\u00a0if it\u2019s really low, that\u2019s a great data point to include in your pitch. Then, look at the list of errors and warnings and pay attention to any issues that you know are a big problem. Finally, look at the list of top issues and, again, try to notice any big problems.<\/p>\n The key is to only include things that are major issues. If your prospect has a 500-page website, and the audit shows that they have 4 duplicate title tags, then that\u2019s not really something that is important enough to include in your pitch.<\/p>\n Instead, pick out the important points that help drive home the idea that you\u2019re the obvious choice for the prospect. Then add that data to your pitch deck and rock the prospect\u2019s socks off!<\/p>\n Greg Gifford<\/p>\n Vice President of Search, SearchLab, Semrush Academy Professor, author of Semrush for Agencies course<\/p>\n Open the Market Explorer report and enter the domain of the business you want to analyze. As always, make sure you\u2019ve got the right country database selected and click \u201cresearch a market\u201d.<\/p>\n The industry competitors section graphs out the site\u2019s competitors in four quadrants:<\/p>\n Based on where sites fall in the graph, you can judge what sort of opportunity exists. If you roll over the dot for a site, you can see top-level information about it. You can even click the date range and see how sites are placed differently in the quadrants, which gives you even more insight into which ones are better prospects.<\/p>\n If you scroll down, the Traffic Trends graph also shows some useful information. One line displays the traffic trend for the industry you\u2019re analyzing, while the other line shows the traffic trend for the specific website.<\/p>\n If industry traffic is trending up, but the prospect\u2019s site has stagnant traffic (or, even better, if they\u2019re trending down), then that\u2019s incredibly compelling information to share in your pitch.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also really useful to see the breakdown of traffic generation strategies. The graph shows the traffic mix broken down by direct, referral, organic search, social, and paid \u2014\u00a0and compares the standard for the industry versus the breakdown of the site you\u2019re analyzing. Whenever the site you\u2019re looking at shows a significantly smaller percentage of search traffic than the industry standard, you know it\u2019s a great prospect.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also worth looking at the breakdown of traffic by demographics, again from industry versus site perspective. Your prospect may have no idea that they\u2019re missing out on a significant amount of traffic because they\u2019re not optimizing to target the right audience.<\/p>\n The Market Traffic graph shows the share of visits for each channel, and how they trend over time. If you see a big spike or a big drop, that\u2019s also good data to include in your pitch.<\/p>\n Back at the top of the report, click the All Domains tab. You\u2019ll see a list of all the sites that have been identified as similar to the site you\u2019re analyzing. Each one of these could be a prospect.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll see the total traffic for the site, then a breakdown of the various referral sources. In addition, each source shows a percentage increase or decrease, so check out the Search Traffic column and look for anyone who\u2019s got a big drop in search traffic \u2014\u00a0those are killer prospects!<\/p>\n The Market Explorer tool will default to looking at the top competitors, but with custom markets, you can run the same analysis on a specific set of up to 20 domains. In other words, instead of using the full industry list, you\u2019re looking only at the sites you want to include.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll usually find better insights that really speak to the prospect when you use the custom market lists. Instead of the industry at large, you\u2019re looking only at the dataset of the sites you include. You can even dial it down to just two or three sites so that you\u2019re comparing your prospect to their biggest competitors.<\/p>\n For example, let\u2019s say you\u2019re pitching Chewy.com, and you want to compare them to Amazon, PetSmart, and eBay. You can also click the link to add sites from the relevant sites list; then you\u2019d just click the plus icon to add them to your Custom Market list. Now you can see all of the Market Explorer data with only those sites included.<\/p>\n Amazon is obviously high in the Leaders section, and PetSmart and Chewy are still seen as Niche Players, so you might want to base your pitch on taking them from a small specialist to a more powerful competitor.<\/p>\n If you take Amazon out of the mix, the market traffic is now showing the trend for only Chewy and PetSmart. Toggle timeframes \u2014\u00a0it shows that traffic is slowly trending up, but Chewy is trending up faster. This would be great data to show if you were pitching PetSmart because they can see firsthand how a close competitor is outpacing them.<\/p>\n Turn Amazon back on and scroll down. Now you can see some useful information about the breakdown of traffic strategies. Again, Amazon is basically the same as the market graph, since it\u2019s such a heavy influencer, but there\u2019s a different mix between Chewy and Petsmart. Petsmart has a much larger pink bar, showing that they get more organic traffic, but Chewy has a bigger paid traffic bar. If you\u2019re pitching Chewy, that\u2019s great data to highlight: that one of their main competitors is getting significantly more organic traffic. And, since Chewy gets more traffic overall \u2014\u00a0but has more paid traffic \u2014\u00a0that means if they gain more organic traffic, they can reduce their paid traffic budget. Thanks to you, they win on the organic front and you save them money on the paid front!<\/p>\n When we check the share of visits by channel, we know that the percentages are skewed because Amazon obviously dominates. With this in mind, you can still see that, while Chewy has almost double the total share of visits of PetSmart, they\u2019re still fairly close for organic share \u2014\u00a0which shows a gap in potential traffic generation strategy. It\u2019s also clear that they far surpass PetSmart in paid traffic share, which is, again, not great news. You can pitch them on saving money there to win overall in organic.<\/p>\n\n
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1. Generating and Qualifying Leads<\/h2>\n
How we find and qualify new clients in our niche<\/h3>\n
1. Find potential prospects in your target city<\/h4>\n
2. Pay attention if they have gaps in their organic search strategy<\/h4>\n
3. Discover the sweet spot<\/h4>\n
Finding gaps in your prospect\u2019s strategies with Traffic Analytics<\/h3>\n
1. Check the traffic sources of your prospects<\/h4>\n
2. Trace your prospect\u2019s traffic journey<\/h4>\n
3. Benchmark your prospect\u2019s website against its competitors<\/h4>\n
2. Pitching<\/h2>\n
Pointing out technical SEO problems and offering solutions<\/h3>\n
1. Set up a Project and run a Site Audit for your prospect<\/h4>\n
2. Pick out the nuggets of information that can strengthen your pitch<\/h4>\n
Pitching clients with Market Explorer<\/h3>\n
1. Understand the market surrounding your website<\/h4>\n
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2. Identify your best prospects<\/h4>\n
3. Analyze the client\u2019s market position and spot growth areas<\/h4>\n