Semrush

Semrush Steps

Semrush steps provide powerful SEO and competitive analysis capabilities directly within your workflows. These steps allow you to retrieve valuable keyword, domain, and backlink data from Semrush's extensive database, enabling data-driven content and SEO strategies.

Available Semrush Steps

AirOps offers the following Semrush steps:

• Backlinks Overview -- examine a domain's backlink profile

• Domain Organic Search Keywords -- view a domain's ranking keywords

• Domain Organic Search Pages -- identify a domain's top-performing pages

• Domain Overview -- get comprehensive SEO metrics for a domain

• Domain vs. Domain -- compare SEO performance between domains

• Keyword Magic Tool -- access related and broad match keywords

• URL Organic Search Keywords -- see which keywords a specific page ranks for

Backlinks Overview

This step allows you to examine a domain's backlink profile, retrieving comprehensive backlink data for any domain or URL, including referring domains, backlink types, and anchor text distribution.

Configuration

• Target: Enter the domain or URL to analyze

• Database (Optional): Select the geographic database

Output Format

{
  "total_backlinks": 15843,
  "total_referring_domains": 2457,
  "total_referring_ips": 1892,
  "total_follow_backlinks": 12568,
  "total_nofollow_backlinks": 3275,
  "backlink_distribution": {
    "text_links": 13456,
    "image_links": 1257
  },
  "top_anchor_texts": [
    {
      "anchor": "example.com",
      "backlinks": 1267
    }
  ]
}

Domain Organic Search Keywords

This step allows you to view a domain's ranking keywords, retrieving a comprehensive list of keywords that a specific domain is ranking for in organic search results.

Configuration

• Domain: Enter the domain to analyze

• Database (Optional): Select the geographic database

• Limit (Optional): Maximum number of keywords to return

• Include/Exclude Keywords (Optional): Filter results by specific terms

• Position Range (Optional): Filter by ranking position

Output Format

[
  {
    "keyword": "content marketing platform",
    "position": 3,
    "previous_position": 5,
    "position_difference": 2,
    "search_volume": 2200,
    "keyword_difficulty": 68,
    "cpc": 12.45,
    "traffic": 342,
    "traffic_cost": 4260.90,
    "url": "https://example.com/content-marketing-platform"
  }
]

Domain Organic Search Pages

This step helps you identify a domain's top-performing pages in terms of organic search visibility.

Configuration

• Domain: Enter the domain to analyze

• Database (Optional): Select the geographic database

• Limit (Optional): Maximum number of pages to return

• Sort By (Optional): Choose how to sort results (Traffic, Keywords, etc.)

Output Format

[
  {
    "url": "https://example.com/content-marketing-platform",
    "title": "Content Marketing Platform | Example.com",
    "keywords_count": 325,
    "traffic": 12450,
    "traffic_cost": 38500.75,
    "top_keyword": "content marketing platform",
    "top_keyword_position": 3,
    "backlinks": 387
  }
]

Domain Overview

This step provides comprehensive SEO metrics for a domain, giving you a high-level view of a website's organic and paid search performance, backlink profile, and overall search visibility.

Configuration

• Domain: Enter the domain you want to analyze (e.g., "example.com")

• Database (Optional): Select the geographic database

Output Format

{
  "domain": "example.com",
  "organic_search": {
    "keywords_count": 15842,
    "traffic": 487500,
    "traffic_cost": 1245000,
    "average_position": 18.4,
    "ranking_distribution": {
      "top_3": 246,
      "top_10": 1578,
      "top_20": 4235,
      "top_50": 8653,
      "top_100": 15842
    }
  },
  "backlinks": {
    "total_backlinks": 65432,
    "referring_domains": 4567,
    "domain_score": 78
  },
  "competitors": {
    "organic": [
      {"domain": "competitor1.com", "common_keywords": 8765, "competition_level": 0.85},
      {"domain": "competitor2.com", "common_keywords": 7432, "competition_level": 0.78}
    ]
  }
}

Domain vs. Domain

This step allows you to compare SEO performance between domains by performing a direct comparison of their organic keyword overlap, unique keywords, and competitive positioning.

Configuration

• Domains: Enter a list of domains to compare (up to 5)

• Database (Optional): Select the geographic database

• Display Limit (Optional): Maximum number of keywords to include

• Report Type (Optional): Choose comparison type (Common, Missing, All, Unique)

Output Format

{
  "domains": ["yourwebsite.com", "competitor1.com", "competitor2.com"],
  "summary": {
    "total_keywords": {
      "yourwebsite.com": 15842,
      "competitor1.com": 24567,
      "competitor2.com": 18932
    },
    "unique_keywords": {
      "yourwebsite.com": 5623,
      "competitor1.com": 12543,
      "competitor2.com": 8765
    }
  },
  "keywords": [
    {
      "keyword": "content marketing platform",
      "search_volume": 2200,
      "positions": {
        "yourwebsite.com": 8,
        "competitor1.com": 3,
        "competitor2.com": 12
      }
    }
  ]
}

Keyword Magic Tool

This step lets you access related and broad match keywords, discovering thousands of keyword variations and related terms for any seed keyword, helping you expand your keyword research.

Configuration

• Keyword: Enter the seed keyword to explore

• Database (Optional): Select the geographic database

• Limit (Optional): Maximum number of suggestions to return

• Match Type (Optional): Choose match type (Broad, Phrase, Exact, Related)

• Include/Exclude Keywords (Optional): Filter by specific terms

Output Format

[
  {
    "keyword": "content marketing strategy",
    "search_volume": 3200,
    "keyword_difficulty": 65,
    "cpc": 10.25,
    "competition": 0.72,
    "number_of_results": 18900000,
    "trend": [85, 86, 88, 90, 92, 94, 96, 95, 92, 90, 88, 86],
    "intent": "informational",
    "questions": ["what is a content marketing strategy", "how to create a content marketing strategy"]
  }
]

URL Organic Search Keywords

This step helps you see which keywords a specific page ranks for, retrieving a list of keywords that a specific URL is ranking for in organic search results.

Configuration

• URL: Enter the complete URL to analyze

• Database (Optional): Select the geographic database

• Limit (Optional): Maximum number of keywords to return

• Include/Exclude Keywords (Optional): Filter by specific terms

• Position Range (Optional): Filter by ranking position

Output Format

[
  {
    "keyword": "content marketing strategy guide",
    "position": 2,
    "previous_position": 3,
    "position_difference": 1,
    "search_volume": 1200,
    "keyword_difficulty": 58,
    "cpc": 9.45,
    "traffic": 185,
    "traffic_cost": 1748.25,
    "intent": "informational"
  }
]

Common Use Cases

Competitor Analysis

1. Use Domain Overview to get a high-level view of competitor performance

2. Use Backlinks Overview to analyze competitor link profiles

3. Use Domain vs. Domain to compare your site against competitors

4. Identify keyword opportunities and content gaps

5. Develop strategies to improve competitive positioning

Content Strategy Development

1. Use Keyword Magic Tool to find keyword opportunities

2. Use Domain Organic Search Keywords to see what competitors rank for

3. Use URL Organic Search Keywords to analyze high-performing pages

4. Generate content briefs targeting identified opportunities

SEO Performance Analysis

1. Use Domain Overview to get a high-level view of your site's performance

2. Use Domain Organic Search Pages to identify top-performing content

3. Use Domain Organic Search Keywords to see your complete keyword profile

4. Create optimization strategies for underperforming content

Error Handling

By default, all Semrush steps will terminate the workflow if they fail. To continue the workflow if a step fails, click "Continue" at the bottom of the settings panel.

[IMAGE: Screenshot showing the "Continue" option in the step settings]

The step will return the following keys when it fails:

• output: this will be null

• error:

  • message: the message returned from the step

  • code: the error code representing the error

Common error causes include:

• Invalid domain or URL format

• No data found for the specified keywords or domains

• Rate limits exceeded

Example Workflow

Here's an example workflow that uses multiple Semrush steps for comprehensive SEO research:

1. Start with a competitor domain

2. Use Domain Overview to analyze their overall SEO metrics

3. Use Domain Organic Search Keywords to identify their top-ranking keywords

4. Use Domain vs. Domain to compare against your website

5. Use Keyword Magic Tool to expand on promising keyword opportunities

6. Use an LLM step to analyze the data and generate a content strategy

7. Output a prioritized list of content opportunities with keyword targets

This workflow enables you to develop a data-driven content strategy based on competitive analysis, identifying specific opportunities to improve your organic search visibility relative to competitors.