Yoast vs Semrush
Yoast vs Semrush, which is the right SEO tool for you?
That’s what I will break down in this blog. I’ll break down the differences between Yoast SEO and the Semrush SEO platform.
Differences: Yoast vs Semrush
For starters, let me start by saying that these tools primarily serve different purposes regarding SEO.
Yoast SEO will help you optimize your blogs for technical on-page SEO while Semrush is an SEO research tool.
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is an incredible tool. The Yoast WordPress SEO plugin is primarily used for on-page SEO optimization. Meaning, the Yost SEO plugin will tell you exactly how many times to use your given keyword, where exactly to put your keyword (title, heading tags, metadata, etcetera…), the number of internal links you need, and the number of external links to include in your blog, among many other features.
As described by Yoast “Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that helps your site perform better in search engines with a variety of features. It takes care of the technical aspects of SEO. That leaves you free to perfect your posts and pages with the help of our SEO and readability analyses. While the free version of Yoast SEO gives you a lot of tools to help you do well in the search results, Yoast SEO Premium automates many SEO, making your workload much easier.”
I highly recommend this tool. I think everyone utilizing SEO needs to be using Yoast SEO. This tool, and the entire Yoast brand, will help you optimize your website for SEO purposes so that Google can better understand your website, better read your website, follow your sitemap, and improve your blog rankings.
Semrush
Semrush on the other hand is a tool more used for planning SEO strategy by finding the right keywords to write about, and for tracking your SEO progress. It’s a full-fledged SEO tool commonly used by SEO agencies. It does just about everything you could possibly need for SEO research. It helps you analyze competitors, find SEO opportunities, find keywords to rank for, find improvements that you can make to your website to better rank, and track results of keywords that you’re trying to rank for with suggestions on how to improve it.
As stated by Semrush “Semrush is an all-in-one tool suite for improving online visibility and discovering marketing insights. Our tools and reports can help marketers with the following services: SEO, PPC, SMM, Keyword Research, Competitive Research, PR, Content Marketing, Marketing Insights, and Campaign Management.”
Conclusion: Yoast vs Semrush
The easy answer is, use both tools! They serve different purposes.
Yoast SEO offers a whole suite of free SEO tools that you can use, most notably is the free Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress. If you are utilizing SEO, you have to be using this plugin. This plugin will give you a checklist, to ensure that each of your blog posts are optimized for on-page SEO. If you are missing anything, this plug-in will tell you exactly what you need to change to best perfect your blog for SEO ranking purposes.
Semrush is a premium tool, but they do offer a free trial to test out the tool and see all that it offers. Semrush is primarily used for SEO research purposes. Use Semrush before you write your blog post to find opportunities for keywords that you can rank for, analyze your competitors, and analyze your own website to see what can be improved. Then write your blog post and use Yoast SEO the on-page SEO of your blog.
So, when you are considering Yoast vs Semrush for SEO, just know that they are different tools that serve different purposes. So, use them both!