Semrush Tutorial 2025: How to Grow Your Brand with SEO + AI Search Visibility

Sep 5, 2025

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If you want to grow your brand in 2025, mastering SEO and understanding how your content appears in both traditional search results and the emerging world of AI-powered search is crucial. Semrush remains one of the most powerful platforms for building, analyzing, and executing a winning digital marketing strategy.

This tutorial is a step-by-step guide to using Semrush effectively, covering keyword research, competitor insights, backlinks, audits, tracking, and AI visibility.

Why Semrush in 2025?

With Google, Bing, and AI search assistants (like ChatGPT or Gemini) shaping how people discover information, brands must optimize for both SEO and AI-driven answers. Semrush gives you:

In-depth keyword insights
Competitive benchmarking
Backlink analysis
Technical SEO auditing
Tracking of rankings and AI visibility

Step 1: Keyword Magic Tool – Building the Right Foundation

The Keyword Magic Tool helps uncover thousands of keyword opportunities based on your niche.

How to use it:

Enter your primary topic (e.g., digital marketing).
Explore keyword clusters by search intent (informational, transactional, commercial).
Filter by volume, keyword difficulty, and AI search relevance.

👉 Example: If you type AI marketing tools, you’ll see related clusters like AI for SEO, AI copywriting tools, and AI ad automation.

✅ Pro Tip: Focus on keywords with moderate difficulty + high relevance for quick wins.

Step 2: Organic Research – Learn from Competitors

The Organic Research Tool reveals your competitors’ top-performing keywords.

Why it matters:

Shows you which pages bring traffic to your rivals.
Helps you find content gaps in your own strategy.
Allows you to benchmark visibility in AI search snippets.

✅ Pro Tip: Compare your keyword rankings vs AI snippets – some keywords may show higher visibility in AI-generated answers.

Step 3: Keyword Gap Tool – Spot Missed Opportunities

The Keyword Gap Tool compares your site with competitors across shared and missing keywords.

How to use it:

Enter up to 5 competitors.
Check “Missing” and “Weak” keyword lists.
Target those keywords with optimized blogs or landing pages.

✅ Pro Tip: Focus on keywords where your site ranks between positions 11–30. These are “low-hanging fruits” you can push into page 1.

Step 4: Keyword Strategy Builder – Plan Long-Term Growth

Instead of chasing random keywords, Semrush’s Strategy Builder lets you:

Create topic clusters
Map out content strategies
Prioritize based on traffic, difficulty, and AI snippet visibility

✅ Pro Tip: Always build pillar pages (in-depth guides) with interlinked cluster articles. This signals authority to both Google and AI crawlers.

Step 5: Connections (Backlinks) – Authority Boost

Backlinks remain the backbone of SEO. With Backlink Analytics, you can:

Analyze your backlink profile
Identify toxic links
Track referring domains

✅ Pro Tip: Focus on contextual backlinks from niche-relevant sites instead of just volume.

Step 6: Backlink Gap Tool – Build Smarter Outreach

This tool helps you find where competitors are getting links but you’re not.

How to use it:

Enter your competitors’ domains.
Identify common backlinks they have.
Reach out to those sites with better content offers.

✅ Pro Tip: Pitch guest posts, data studies, or expert insights to earn high-quality backlinks.

Step 7: Corrections – Site Audit Tool

The Site Audit Tool scans for technical issues such as:

Broken links
Duplicate content
Mobile performance
Core Web Vitals

✅ Pro Tip: Run audits weekly. Fixing small technical errors can dramatically improve rankings.

Step 8: Measure Success – Domain Overview & Position Tracking

Domain Overview Tool

Gives a snapshot of your entire site:

Organic traffic trends
Top keywords
Backlink profile
AI visibility insights

Position Tracking Tool

Track keyword rankings daily/weekly to:

Measure progress
Spot drops early
Monitor competitors’ movement

✅ Pro Tip: Always set up geographic-specific tracking if targeting local markets.

Step 9: AI Visibility – The Future of SEO

In 2025, AI-driven search assistants often display answers directly to users. Semrush’s new AI Visibility tracking helps you:

Identify where your content appears in AI answers
Benchmark against competitors
Optimize for AI-focused queries

✅ Pro Tip: Write content that is concise, factual, and source-backed. AI engines favor trustworthy, well-structured content.

Wrap-Up: Building Your 2025 SEO Strategy

To dominate both traditional search and AI-driven visibility:

Use Keyword Magic to build a content base.
Apply Organic Research & Keyword Gap for competitor insights.
Strengthen authority with Backlink Analytics & Gap Tool.
Run Site Audits regularly to maintain technical health.
Track progress with Domain Overview & Position Tracking.
Optimize for AI Visibility to future-proof your brand.

Quick Reference Table

Tool	Primary Use
Keyword Magic Tool	Discover keyword clusters
Organic Research	Analyze competitor keywords
Keyword Gap Tool	Find missed opportunities
Keyword Strategy Builder	Build topic clusters
Backlink Analytics	Evaluate backlink profile
Backlink Gap Tool	Identify competitor backlinks
Site Audit Tool	Fix technical SEO issues
Domain Overview Tool	Big-picture site health & traffic
Position Tracking Tool	Monitor keyword rankings
AI Visibility	Track content in AI-generated search results

Final Thoughts

Growing your brand in 2025 requires a balance between classic SEO fundamentals and new AI-driven search strategies. Semrush gives you every tool to:

Research keywords
Track competitors
Build backlinks
Optimize technical SEO
Measure results
Prepare for the AI-first internet era

Master these tools, and you’ll not only boost visibility but also ensure your brand thrives in both Google search results and AI-powered answers.