If you’re serious about increasing your search visibility, you need to invest in a good SEO tool.
The only
problem? There are way too many SEO tools to choose from.
Even when you’ve
narrowed down your choice to two tools, it’s a tough decision to make.
This post is an
attempt to make that decision easier for you.
If you’re
struggling to decide between Semrush and Mangools, you’ve come
to the right place.
In this post,
I’ll be comparing Semrush and Mangools on the following parameters:
· Keyword research
· Backlink analysis
· Position tracking
· Ease of use and accessibility
· Pricing plans
Basic Plans(Comparison)
Pricing – $ 119.95/mo
Users Included –
1
Keyword
Suggestions / Search – Unlimited
Competitor Keywords
/ Search – Unlimited
Tracked Keywords
Daily – 500
Mobile Rankings –
Yes
Scheduled PDF
Reports – 5
Trial – 1-Month
Free Trial
Pricing – $49/mo
Users Included –
1
Keyword
Suggestions / Search – 200
Competitor Keywords
/ Search – 25
Tracked Keywords
Daily – 200
Mobile Rankings –
Yes
Scheduled PDF
Reports – NA
Trial – 10 Days
Free Trial
Semrush: Overview
Semrush was
launched in 2008 by a small team of SEO and IT specialists as a competitive
analysis tool for marketers.
Fast forward to
today, the product has evolved into a fully loaded digital marketing toolkit,
comprising tools for Keyword research, technical SEO audit, competitor
research, link building, content marketing, online advertising, and more.
Semrush is
the preferred SEO tool for marketers all over the world, helping
companies of all sizes and industries improve their search visibility and
rankings.
Since Semrush
has been dominating the space of SaaS SEO tools for so long, it has the largest
keyword database (20 billion+ keywords) as well as the largest link index (6.7
trillion+ backlinks) on the market.
Try Semrush PROfree for 30 days (worth $119.95)
Mangools:
Overview
Launched by online enthusiasts in 2014, the first iteration of Mangools was simply called KWFinder. Back then the company was purely focused on building a robust Keyword research tool.
The key to
survival for any SEO tool in this industry is to evolve with the changing SEO and
content marketing landscape.
Keyword Research: Semrush vs Mangools
(KWFinder)
While most content creators have an idea of the topics they’d like to cover, it's only when they engage in productive keyword research that their ideas begin to take shape.
Whether you’re working on a new blog post, video, podcast episode, or just tweaking some of the key sections on your website, investing some time in keyword research goes a long way in helping you identify the right keywords to use in your content.
Semrush: Keyword Research
If you decide to go
ahead with Semrush, a bulk of your time will be spent on doing keyword
research.
Semrush’s flagship
keyword research tool, Keyword Magic Tool, has over 20 billion keywords in
its database, easily surpassing the second-best keyword research tool on the
market.
That’s a staggering
amount of keywords.
But as they say,
quantity does not always equal quality.
So how does Keyword
Magic Tool measure up in terms of the quality of data?
I’ll be answering that
question in just a bit.
Before that, let’s
explore Semrush’s Keyword Overview feature, which is best for quick keyword
analysis.
To get started, enter your seed keywords in the search bar:
The overview report will provide a quick summary of important metrics for
your target keywords, including monthly search volume, keyword difficulty
CPC, and SERP
analysis.
You’ll also find the top 5 keyword variations, question-based keywords, and
related keywords for
your seed keywords.

As mentioned
earlier, Semrush’s Keyword Overview report should be used only for quick
keyword analysis. It’s the best tool to use when you need to take a cursory
glance at all the important metrics for your target keywords to make sure
you’re on the right track.
For a more
comprehensive analysis, you need to use Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool.
To access this
tool, go through this sequence:
SEO Dashboard
> Keyword Research > Keyword Magic Tool
You can type in
your seed keywords here to get a long list of keyword ideas, alongside keyword
metrics for each keyword.
You can use modifiers (broad match, phrase match, exact match, or related)
and other
filtering options to narrow down the list of keywords.
You can also use the keyword groups on the left side of the table to find
different combinations
of keywords.
To exclude keyword groups that are not relevant to your requirement, just tap
on the eye icon next
to the keyword group.
If you’re creating content around questions in your niche, just select the
“Questions” modifier to
see a list of question-based keywords.
Navigate
to Competitive Research > Organic Research
Enter your
competitor’s domain in the search box to generate the organic research report.
Scroll down to the “Top Organic Keywords” section in the report to view your
competitor’s top 5
organic keywords.
Click on “View
details” to open the full list of organic keywords.
To see organic keywords that generate the highest traffic to your competitor’s
site, sort the
list by traffic.
You can also use
Semrush’s Competitive Research Toolkit to get a behind-the-scenes look at your
competitors’ online advertising activities. You can view all their paid
keywords, monthly paid traffic, traffic post, position changes, ad copies, ad
history, and lots more.
This is just
skimming the surface when it comes to performing keyword research in Semrush.
There’s a lot more you can do to unlock the full potential of the tool.
Mangools (KWFinder): Keyword
Research
KWFinder is
Mangools’ keyword research tool. As mentioned earlier, Mangools was initially
focused solely on keyword research and KWFinder was the only tool available to
users. As such, keyword research continues to be Mangools’ biggest strength.
KWFinder offers both
traditional and competitor keyword research features to help you find long-tail
keywords with low keyword difficulty.
Here’s a quick overview
of how KWFinder works.
You can start by
entering your seed keywords or your competitor’s domain in the search box.
Let’s cover the
traditional approach to keyword research first.
So enter your seed
keywords, select the location and language, and hit the “Find Keywords” button.
KWFinder will then generate a long list of keyword suggestions, alongside
search volume, keyword
difficulty score, and other keyword metrics.
On the right side of the keywords table, you’ll find the Keyword Difficulty score
for your seed
keywords, alongside monthly search volume and trends graph.
You can switch to “Autocomplete” to get a list of keywords pulled from
Google’s autocompleting feature.
Which Tool is Better for
Keyword Research?
When it comes to
keyword research, Semrush is second to none. It’s the gold standard
in keyword research tools and truly deserves to be recognized as one
of the pioneers in keyword research.
From traditional
keyword research to competitor-based keyword research and everything in
between, Semrush provides you with tons of keyword ideas and helps
you find lucrative keywords that your competitors have overlooked.
Mangools is a decent
keyword research tool. But when compared to Semrush, there’s really not much of
a competition.
Backlink Analysis:
Semrush vs Mangools (LinkMiner)
Link building is extremely challenging, yet supremely rewarding.
Indeed, backlinks are one of the top two criteria considered in Google’s
page ranking algorithm.
You can outmaneuver and outrank just about all of your
competitors in SERPs by implementing a solid link-building strategy.
To execute a successful link-building strategy, you need a
backlink analysis tool to audit your site’s link profile and spy on your competitors’
backlinks.
Semrush: Backlink
Analysis
I’ll admit that I was never a big fan of Semrush’s BacklinkAnalytics tool. I considered it the weakest tool in the Semrush suite.
I honestly thought the company had given up on improving this
aspect of their product.
That changed in 2019 when Semrush launched an upgraded version
of its Backlink Analytics tool.
In the last few years, Semrush has sincerely put a lot of effort
into improving the quality of their backlink data and introducing new features
and reports.
Mangools (LinkMiner): Backlink Analysis
LinkMiner is Mangools’ backlink analysis tool. The primary role
of LinkMiner is to provide you backlink data on your competitors so you can
replicate their link-building strategy.
The biggest drawback of LinkMiner is that it doesn’t have its
own link database. Instead, its backlink data is based on Majestic’s link
database. There was a time when Majestic was featured among the best backlink
checker tools, but those days are long gone.
Having said that, LinkMiner is not bad for basic link analysis.
Here’s a quick sneak peek at how LinkMiner works.
To get started, enter your competitor’s domain into the search
box and hit “Find backlinks.”
On the results page, you’ll see domain metrics like citation flow, trust flow, the
total number of referring domains, and total backlinks. This data will be
displayed right next
to the search box.
In addition to
domain metrics like citation flow (CF) and trust flow (TF), you’ll also be able
to view the anchor text and link strength (LS), a metric developed by Mangools
to evaluate the power of a backlink.
Link strength
considers various factors such as referring domains, citation flow, trust flow,
Do/NoFollow attributes, and other metrics. Link strength is indicated on a
scale from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the better the backlink.
Which
Tool is Better for Backlink Analysis?
Semrush’s backlink features have improved a great deal in recent
years. As mentioned earlier, Backlink Analytics was my least favorite feature
in Semrush.
But after making significant improvements and upgrades,
including an expanded link index, Semrush is right up there with the
best backlink analysis tools on the market. And it’s definitely better than Mangools in
this department.
LinkMiner just provides you with basic backlink data for any
website, while Semrush gives a complete picture of the website’s overall link
profile, including trend charts, top pages, link attributes, backlink types,
top anchors, and more.
Position Tracking:
Semrush vs Mangools (SERPWatcher)
To stay ahead of your competitors in SERPs and to dominate your
niche, you need to monitor your rankings to ensure you’re on the right track
and take action whenever necessary.
Both Mangools and Semrush provide excellent
position tracking features.
Which Tool is Better for Position Tracking?
Both Mangools and Semrush provide an
accurate analysis of your rankings. Although Semrush includes several reports
and graphs to help you make more sense of the data, Mangools provides an
excellent summary of all the important data points pertaining to your rankings.
So it’s difficult to choose a clear winner in terms of rank
tracking features. Both these tools do a great job of monitoring your organic
search performance.
User Interface and
Accessibility: Semrush vs Mangools
Mangools’ intuitive user interface is the best illustration of
Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous quote, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
Because of this rigorous focus on simplicity, it’s the ideal
tool for beginners.
If we were evaluating these tools on user-friendliness, Mangools provides
a more intuitive experience.
Semrush, on the other hand, offers an abundance of features. As
you can imagine, this comes at the cost of providing a seamless experience to
users. It’s because you have to familiarize yourself with so many features to
truly master the tool.
Pricing Plans: Semrush
vs Mangools
Semrush
Pricing Plans
Semrush’s pricing plans
start at $119.95/month. Here’s their current pricing structure:
·
Pro – $119.95/mo (ideal for startups)
·
Guru – $229.95/mo (ideal for SMBs and marketing agencies)
·
Business – $449.95/mo (ideal for large businesses)
You can save up to 16% by switching to annual billing.
Semrush’s Pro plan includes access to all 40+ tools and features
within the platform, except historical data (included in Guru) and product
listing ads (included in Business).
I personally use Semrush’s Guru plan ($229.95/mo). If
you run an agency or have a large website, I’d recommend the same plan.
If you have a blog-based business or own a bootstrapped
business, I’d recommend you get started with Semrush’s Pro plan ($119.95/mo)
and then upgrade to a higher plan as you scale up your business.
Get a 1-month free trial to Semrush Pro ($119.95
value)
Mangools
Pricing
Mangools’pricing starts at $49/month when billed monthly. Here’s the current monthly
pricing structure of Mangools:
· Mangools Basic – $49/mo
· Mangools Premium – $69/mo
· Mangools Agency – $129/mo
When billed
annually, Mangools offers a 40% discount on all their plans. These are their
pricing plans if you opt for annual billing:
· Mangools Basic – $29.90/mo
· Mangools Premium – $39.90/mo
· Mangools Agency – $79.90/mo
If you’re just
starting out, it’s better to sign up for the free trial first and then upgrade
to the Basic plan.
Final Verdict: Semrush
vs Mangools
As highlighted above, both Semrush and Mangools have
their strengths and weaknesses. Semrush is packed with features, but a beginner
can easily get overwhelmed. A common sentiment echoed by users is that the UI
feels a bit cluttered and there are too many dashboards.
Good Luck.
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