How To Use The SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool

One of the best keyword research tools to up your SEO game is the SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool. The wealth of keyword data you can get using this tool, if used properly, can make a huge impact on your digital marketing strategy. But how exactly do you use the SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool? We outline quick, helpful steps in this article.

SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool: What Is It?

SEMrush’s keyword research tool that helps you find short-tail and long-tail keywords easily

The keyword data you collect through SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool can help guide your content strategy to drive more traffic to your website. Knowing which keywords your target audience is searching for gives you a competitive advantage when trying to rank for certain keywords.

You can set parameters and add filters to find the most relevant keywords. You can also find questions through the SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool to get more content ideas for your website’s blog. With that said, if you don’t know what you’re doing or what you’re looking for, the results you get from the Keyword Magic Tool can be overwhelming.

1. Choose the seed keyword you want to analyze

In the search bar, enter the seed keyword you want to analyze. Unlike long-tail keywords, seed keywords are typically one or two-word keywords. Some examples of seed keywords are Black Friday, web hosting, dresses, accountant, supplements, etc.

In the above photo, you will notice that our seed keyword is ‘web hosting.’ The related keywords that SEMrush generated, which occupies the majority of the screen, are ‘free web hosting,’ ‘web hosting services,’ ‘ best web hosting,’ etc.

On the left side, you’ll find the list of keyword groups such as ‘free,’ ‘best,’ ‘service,’ etc. These are the terms that typically go with the seed keyword when users search for them.

2. Configure the match modifiers & filters

You can choose from Broad Match, Phrase Match, Exact Match, and Related Match modifiers

You can set your match modifier to be an exact match or a broad match.

• Exact Match: Let’s say our seed keyword is ‘web hosting service,’ the keywords that the SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool will pull out are the ones that only show ‘web hosting service,’ such as ‘Gmail web hosting service.’ It will not show keywords like ‘web hosting services’ or ‘cheap web hosting services.’
• Phrase Match: Similar to Exact Match, the keywords you’ll get won’t show other forms like ‘web hosting services.’ It will still show keywords with the same terms, but in different order.
• Broad Match: This is probably what you’d want to use if you want to cast a wider net and get more keywords from the Keyword Magic Tool. Using the same seed keyword, the Broad Match modifier will show keywords like ‘web hosting services’ and ‘amazon web services hosting.’

Another way to filter the keyword results is to just show questions. This is good if you want to come up with articles that answer directly what your audience is searching for. Some example keywords are “what is a web hosting service” or “do I need a web hosting service.”

3. Research Keyword Groups & Subgroups

The keyword groups can give you more subtopic ideas for your seed keyword

The keyword groups on the left side of the SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool are the keywords that typically go with your seed keyword. For example, people usually add the keyword groups ‘free,’ ‘best,’ and ‘service’ when searching for seed keyword ‘web hosting.’ You can filter the results by number or by the average search volume. If you click the arrow before each keyword group, you’ll get subgroups if you want to be even more specific.

4. Search Volume, Keyword Difficulty & SERP Features

You can see how competitive a keyword is and their average monthly search volume

If you’re writing content blindly, you’re missing the opportunity of targeting specific keywords that can actually drive traffic to your website. This is why checking the average search volume through SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool will help you identify what people are searching for. If your website does not have a high domain authority yet, you can start with keywords with average or low keyword difficulty. Once your website builds more authority, you can then aim for more competitive, high volume keywords.

Another filter you can set on the SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool is the SERP (search engine results pages) features. You can choose which specific keywords trigger particular SERP features such as featured snippets, videos, images, local pack and review, and more. If you want to choose keywords that don’t trigger SERP features, you can set the filter to none.

5. Export Your Keywords

You can add the keywords you need to your Keyword Manager or export the keyword list

Once you’ve played with the match modifiers and filters, you can select the keywords you want by ticking the checkbox before the keywords. SEMrush then lets you export your chosen keywords to a CSV file. You can also add the keywords you need to the SEMrush Keyword Manager.

Summary

If you know how to use the SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool, you can utilize the keyword lists you generate to design an effective content marketing strategy

SEMrush Pro Plan

Best for businesses with a limited budget

SEMrush Guru Plan

Best for fast-growing marketing agencies

With a database of over 20 billion keywords, the SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool can be a powerful solution for your business’ marketing strategy. Among the key metrics you can get from the Keyword Magic Tool are the average monthly search volume, keyword difficulty and competitiveness, SERP features, and cost per click. SEMrush offers a free 7-day trial on its plans–Pro, Guru, and Business–that you can take advantage of before finally committing to a plan.

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