SEMRush vs Authoritas - Alternative or complimentary SEO tools

SEMRush vs Authoritas

If you’ve been a Semrush user for some time and you’re now considering alternative SEO tools then you’ve come to the right place.

If you are looking to completely replace Semrush in your SEO software technology stack then we can show some viable alternative contenders and why you might want to consider trying Authoritas in your next beauty parade.

Perhaps you are pretty happy with most aspects of Semrush and you are just looking for a few new or different SEO tools and insights that Semrush is missing?  If this is the case, then you will probably want to read our review of common features, as well as unique features of both platforms.  Hopefully, this will help you easily compare and find a few complementary Authoritas tools that will be good substitutes or additions to what you already have in your SEO tools arsenal.

Summary of Semrush vs Authoritas

What is Semrush?

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Semrush is a search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing tool that allows users to research their competitors’ websites and optimise their own website accordingly. Semrush provides users with information on website traffic, organic keywords, paid keywords, backlinks, and other SEO metrics.

What is Authoritas?

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Authoritas is a cloud-based SEO platform that helps users improve their online visibility and grow revenues by improving their organic search results. Authoritas covers all the essential SEO tools you would expect to find and a few unique features you might not have expected.

Alternatives to Semrush

Well, if you’ve subscribed to Semrush then you are no fool.  It’s a comprehensive SEO platform with a few additional bells and whistles for paid search and social media folks.  It’s got a comprehensive range of features and has a pretty good track record and reputation in the industry.  But is it right for everyone?  (Probably not if you’ve arrived on this page) 🙂

Tl;dr: Authoritas is a viable alternative to Semrush offering you a comprehensive range of accurate SEO tools and data, but at a price point that gives you double the number of projects and keyword rankings, so you can do more for less.  If you want and use every feature that Semrush has to offer beyond SEO, such as social media monitoring and local business listings. Then you would have to factor the price of additional complementary tools when weighing up a decision to move away from Semrush to Authoritas, or any other SEO tool for that matter.

Similar SEO tools to consider

There are hundreds of different SEO tools that focus on one aspect of SEO, whether that’s a tool for keyword research, backlink analysis or SEO testing.  Many of these are complementary to Semrush or indeed Authoritas.  But it’s beyond the scope of this review to compare each and every one.  So, here instead is a list of comprehensive, seasoned SEO platforms at a similar price point that you could consider when you are thinking about replacing Semrush.

Semrush vs Authoritas Comparison

Both Semrush and Authoritas offer a wide range of features and SEO tools to help you improve your SEO. But which one is right for you?  Here is a detailed comparison of Semrush and Authoritas.

Common Semrush & Authoritas SEO Features

• Keyword rankings with Universal Search Results and User Intent.  Although, Authoritas uses a real browser to get the most accurate results and can even deliver hyperlocal results to a building level using a decimal latitude and longitude. We also have a large selection of filters to give you the insights you need.

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• Keyword research – both have extensive keyword databases.  But at the time of writing Semrush’s keyword database is larger than Authoritas. (We tend to focus on commercial keywords and are continually updating our database and have big plans to expand it even further)

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• Backlink analysis – Semrush has built its own database of backlinks.  Authoritas gives you firehose access to the Majestic database.  (We still believe this offers the best combination of comprehensive coverage of the whole web coupled with regular fresh updates with new links)

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• Competitor analysis – SEMrush allows you to analyse performance against multiple competitors and its Keyword Magic tool allows you to do competitive gap analysis by evaluating keywords that selected competitors are ranking for that you are not.  Authoritas allows you to track 25 competitors per project and its Content Strategy module does competitive gap analysis across your top 100 competing sites giving you a complete industry analysis across potentially millions of keywords

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• SEO auditing – Semrush has a website auditor and crawler.  It analyses more basic technical issues than Authoritas.  The Content 360 module from Authoritas joins-up website crawl, keyword ranking and analytics data in one view so you can get a consolidated view of your technical SEO issues and can prioritise actions using keyword or analytics data.  It also has a range of advanced filters to allow a technical SEO team to drill-down to specific types of problems.  You can also use advanced search operators, such as allintitle: inpagebody: to search for specific text found on pages or to search for specific pages that meet other criteria

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• Traffic analysis – both platforms integrate with Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics and Google Search Console
• Platform APIs – both SEO tools have APIs that allow you to suck data out of their databases into your own BI or data visualisation tools
• Platform exports in .csv – Both platforms let you download data.  Authoritas does not limit this or charge you for additional rows over your allowance – downloads are unlimited.
• Google Data Studio Integration – Both platforms make it easy for you to export data for SEO reporting and storytelling in Google Data Studio.  But, the depth offered by Authoritas in this area is unparalleled
• Alerts – You can set alerts to notify you of changes to key SEO metrics and data, such as ranking changes

Semrush Unique Features

• Paid search data – Semrush gives you information about who is competing in paid search with your brand.  This includes details about the advertisements your competitors are running.  Authoritas provides information about the presence of Ads and Shopping results in the SERP in the Keyword Ranking module and offers access to the full SERP for each keyword in Big Query or via its standalone SERPs API

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• Local listing tool – This helps you manage your business’ locations in local directories.
• Log analyser – this allows you to upload a zip file of your log data (if your IT team will give you access to it!) and will show you some basic insights into the pages search engines are crawling on your site.  N/B: Authoritas has a Log Analyser and PHP snippet in Beta release.  It works differently though as you can insert our PHP snippet into your site and it will then automatically ping our servers when a search engine or other bot visits your page. This democratises access to log data and is secure and meets privacy concerns as no Personally Identifiable Data from users is captured.  (Get in touch if you want to test it!)
  
• Social –  Schedule posts, track competitors, manage and create ads on Facebook and Instagram

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• SEO Content Template – this analyses your top competing pages for a keyword and provides rudimentary SEO advice about keyword usage on the page and in the meta data.  Semrush offers some very good tools; I don’t think this one is likely to be many people’s favourite.

Authoritas Unique Features

• Advanced Keyword Ranking – Greater number of Universal SERP features including industry specific ones such as Stock prices, hotel and travel guides
• More detailed User Intent Score – Semrush gives you a single user intent classification per keyword.  Unfortunately, the SERPs are not binary in nature.  The majority of keywords have a blend of intent from Navigational to Informational, Research oriented or Transactional in nature.  We give users a score across this spectrum and time and time again SEOs have told us they prefer our classification method.

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• Custom Exports – we have created a range of custom data exports for large in-house and agency teams
• Google Big Query Synchronisation – we sync ranking data, analytics, Google search Console, full SERPs results, crawler, share of search and backlink data to your Big Query account giving you peace-of-mind and granular access to all your data
• Advanced Google Data Studio templates (see example)

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• Multinational Google Data Studio templates for MNEs managing many international sites or hundreds of sites across a country (see example)

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• Hyperlocal Keyword Ranking visualisations (see example)
• Big data-science-driven Content Strategy tool that does Competitive gap analysis at scale for your whole industry – if you have a large site and want to get even larger then you won’t have seen anything like this before.  It’s also ideal for analysing a country prior to international website expansion
• A strategic focus on SEO tools for major eCommerce sites.  Key unique features here include integration with Site Search and Merchandising technology from companies such as GroupBy, the ability to create SEO friendly landing pages at scale, automatic creation of metadata and eCommerce summary text and buyers guides
• New: “Smell of the SERP” – our SERP Landscape tool can help you understand whether you have the correct type of content to rank in the SERPs.  It does this by analysing the top organic 10 page types and comparing the differences with your page
• Standalone SERPs API – Why pull historic data from Semrush’s API when you can get fresh data on-demand from our SERPs API.  Oh, and we also return User Intent and Smell of the SERP data

Semrush Price Comparison

Authoritas gives you a comprehensive range of SEO tools, and around double the number of keyword rank checks and twice as many projects on its mid-tier and upper-tier pricing.  It’s also free to get started!  In our opinion, you can achieve more for less with Authoritas.

Semrush offers a wide range of pricing plans, starting with the Pro package at $119/month, the Guru at $229/month and Business at $449 per month.

Authoritas offers a similar range of competitively priced plans.  You can start for free with 1 site and 1,000 keyword rank credits per month.  Paid plans start with the Essentials plan at $99/month, Advanced at $399/month and Expert from $799 per month.  Customisable plans are also available.

The major pricing axes are based on a combination of features and usage allowances.

Semrush vs Authoritas Pricing

The table below directly compares advertised pricing packages from Authoritas against Semrush. You can also look at our other SEO tool review pages to compare Semrush with even more SEO tools.

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Anecdotally, SEOs have shared a few unintentional gotchas and other things to watch out for, so you can properly budget for Semrush and other SEO tools that have complex pricing models with a plethora of usage limits for different features, that make it hard to calculate what you will end up paying every month.

If you use some of these features extensively, then you may reach a hard limit or be ‘forced’ to upgrade which may mean Semrush may cost you more than you think.  Here’s a couple of things to look out for:

• Share of Voice data is only available on Semrush’s most expensive Business plan.  
• ‘Targets per project’ are limited to 1 and 10 on the Pro and Guru plans meaning you can only track your website’s search visibility across 1 or 10 different locations, devices, and languages within the same project.

With no complex feature related usage limits (other than projects, users and keywords which almost every tool uses) Authoritas offers great value for money.  We also offer a ‘Price guarantee’ that we will beat any comparable, competitive quote by at least 10% and we offer you a no-quibble 30 day money back guarantee.

Semrush User Reviews and Customer Satisfaction

Semrush has thousands of satisfied customers.  But, if you are reading this page then perhaps you find it a bit too overwhelming and you are considering alternatives?

It has great reviews across all the major SaaS software review sites and the common Pros and Cons we see listed are:

Pros:

1. Semrush is a comprehensive tool that provides users with a wealth of data on their competitors.
2. Semrush’s user interface is easy to use and navigate.
3. Semrush provides users with a wealth of information on how to improve their website’s SEO.
4. Semrush offers a wide range of features, including website audits, backlink analysis, and keyword research.
5. Semrush is a reliable and trustworthy tool.

Cons:

1. Semrush can be expensive for small businesses and individuals.
2. It has so many features, not all of them are SEO related and so it can be a little overwhelming.
3. Semrush’s data can be difficult to interpret for users who are not familiar with SEO.
4. Difficult if multiple people need to log in to the same account.
5. The ability to create custom reporting/dashboards is limited.

(N/B: Obviously no software provider stands still, and like us, Semrush is constantly working on improving all aspects of their software).

• Semrush scores 4.7 on Software Suggest
• Semrush scores 9/10 on Trust Radius – Authoritas scores 8.1/10 on TrustRadius
• Semrush scores 9.7 and has a 94% customer satisfaction rating on FinancesOnline Reviews – Analytics SEO (official company name for Authoritas) scores 7.8 and 99% for customer satisfaction.
• Semrush scores 4.7/5.0 on Capterra and Authoritas scores 4.0/5.0 on Capterra.

• Semrush scores 4.5/5.0 on SoftwareAdvice.

(Data correct as of 10/02/22).

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Semrush FAQs

We’ve put together a list of short answers to the most common questions users have about Semrush and how it stacks up against other leading SEO tools.‍

What is Semrush?

Semrush tool is a SaaS (Software-as-a-service) marketing platform that provides online marketing and SEO analysis of websites.

Which is better Ahrefs or Semrush?

When it comes to Ahrefs vs Semrush, both tools have their own unique benefits and drawbacks.  In our opinion, Ahrefs is better for backlinking and competitor analysis, while Semrush is better for keyword research and PPC analysis.  Checkout our in-depth reviews of both platforms to make up your own mind.

Is Semrush free?

Semrush is not free to use. There is a limited free trial, and then users must purchase a subscription to continue using the tool.

What is a Semrush report?

Like most SEO software tools, Semrush offers a range of PDF reports that you can schedule that include site auditing, technical SEO reports, keyword rankings, content opportunities and more.  It also offers data downloads to .csv or .xls files and Google Data Studio connectors.

Is Semrush good?

Yes, it’s got very positive reviews on the whole from thousands of customers and is a SaaS success story.  But, it may not be for everyone and there are some good alternatives to consider, especially if you are an advanced SEO looking for expert-level tools and granular filtering capabilities.

Which is better Semrush or Moz?

Both are well-renowned tools in the industry.  Moz has some really interesting tools for SEO research, especially in areas like backlink authority where it has its own widely accepted link authority metrics.  Semrush has a huge database of keywords across many countries and is arguably better for PPC and competitor analysis.

Can Semrush create sitemaps?

At the time of writing it doesn’t create a sitemap for you.  But there are plenty of free sitemap generation tools online that will do this for you and your CMS is almost certainly going to have a plugin that does this for you.  Or you can use plugins like Yoast for WordPress (and others that do this for you).

What tools are better than Semrush?

It really depends on your use case.  There are some very expensive SEO software tool sets out there (Authoritas is not one of them – we are focused on value-for-money), but a lot of them fail to deliver nearly as much as Semrush or Authoritas.  The best thing you can do is to either; try each platform yourself and use any free trial period as a period of parallel running with your current SEO stack so you can see and feel the benefits that implementing a platform will deliver for your organisation, or, contact the sales team and get a demo focused on your top 5 essential SEO use cases.  Only you can decide if anything is better than Semrush, or whether another tool like Authoritas is better suited to your needs.

Why Is Semrush Good?

It has a great range of products and data for digital marketing professionals available with good support and training materials for a reasonable price in range of most businesses.

How expensive is Semrush?

Semrush is relatively inexpensive when compared to most comprehensive SEO platforms.  It’s in the same price bracket as Ahfres, Authoritas and Moz and is cheaper than Brigtedge, Conductor, Searchmetrics and SEOClarity.

What is Semrush for?

Semrush is a search engine optimization tool. It can be used to help improve website visibility and traffic. Semrush can also be used to track competitor websites and analyse their SEO strategies.

What is the best alternative to Semrush?

There are a range of alternative SEO tools out there.  Definitely consider Ahrefs, Authoritas and Moz for all-in-one solutions. You could also make up your own arsenal of SEO point solutions and pick different tools for key SEO tasks such as rankings, crawling and backlinks.

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