Semrush Tutorial: The Complete Guide (2026)
Your boss drops a competitor URL into your chat and asks where their traffic is coming from, or you open Semrush for the first time and stare at dozens of modules with no idea where to click. This guide walks you through the core tools you actually need for everyday SEO and GEO work, what each number tells you, and where the estimates need a reality check.
Most available tutorials still show the 2023-era interface, skip the newer AI search modules, and say little about validating estimated metrics against real data. I use Semrush primarily for competitor benchmarking and technical site diagnostics, so this guide updates the workflow to the 2026 interface and focuses on how to verify what you see.
Key points
- In 2026, Semrush groups its tools into toolkits on the far-left rail: SEO, AI, Traffic & Market, Local, Content, Ad, AI PR and Social. For an ecommerce or DTC site, day-to-day work happens mostly in the SEO and AI toolkits.
- Domain Overview, Top Pages, Site Audit and Position Tracking now carry AI search data: AI Visibility, Cited Pages, AI Search Health, and rank tracking for ChatGPT and Gemini.
- Every traffic and ranking figure is a Semrush estimate. Use it to compare competitors and read trends, not as a substitute for your own Google Search Console (GSC) data.
- From late October 2026, Google changed how it responds to automated queries, and keyword counts and traffic estimates in Semrush dropped. Keep that in mind when reading any trend line after October.
(All screenshots reflect the live interface as of November 6, 2026, using allbirds.com in the US database, the keyword wool sneakers, and linusseo.com for project setups.)
