Semrush intimidates newcomers with the sheer length of its menu. The SEO toolkit alone has more than fifteen tools, and opening them one after another gets you nowhere: an hour later everything seems interesting and nothing makes sense. It works better to go through the first week to a plan, where each day covers one task and builds on the result of the day before. Below is such a plan for someone working in the Russian market who wants to understand where Semrush helps and where its data needs checking.
Before you start: what Semrush knows about the Russian market
Before opening any reports, three things about the data are worth understanding.
Country databases. Semrush keeps separate keyword databases by country. According to its knowledge base there are more than 140, and Russia is among them (semrush.com/kb/287, checked 27 September 2026). The database selected in a report changes everything: volumes, rankings, competitors. The most common beginner mistake is analysing a Russian site against the US database that is selected by default.
Search engines. Semrush describes its organic data in terms of Google results: in Keyword Gap, for example, organic keywords are those where a domain ranks in Google's top 100. For rank tracking, Semrush lists Google, Bing, Baidu, ChatGPT Search and Google AI Mode (semrush.com/kb/32-position-tracking, checked 27 September 2026). Yandex is not on that list. For a project that lives on Yandex, Semrush will be the second tool, and Yandex positions and volumes will have to come from Yandex Webmaster, Wordstat and local services.
Free access. The pricing page lists a free plan with one demo project and ten reports a day, and a seven-day trial with no card required (semrush.com/pricing, checked 27 September 2026). Ten reports a day will not carry you through the plan below, but they are enough to get to know the interface.
Day 1. The project and the connections
Everything to do with your own site in Semrush lives inside a project. A project is tied to a domain, and it is where you launch Position Tracking, Site Audit and the other tools that need regular work on one site. One-off research on other domains does not need a project.
What to do on day one:
- Create a project for your domain.
- Connect Google Search Console and Google Analytics if you have them. According to the Semrush knowledge base, keywords can later be imported from them into rank tracking.
- Open Domain Overview for your site and select the Russian database.
- Write down the headline figures from Domain Overview: the organic traffic estimate and the number of organic keywords.
That last step looks like a formality, but everything else rests on it. Compare the traffic estimate you wrote down with the real visits from Google in Yandex Metrica or Google Analytics for the same month. You get the ratio by which Semrush is off in your niche. When you look at a competitor's traffic estimate, divide or multiply it by that ratio.
Day 2. Organic Research on your site and your competitors
Day two is about which queries the site is already visible for. The Organic Research report (the knowledge base also calls it Organic Rankings) shows keywords, positions, pages and how traffic is spread across them.
What to look for:
- Keywords in positions 4 to 20. These are the cheapest growth points: the page is already relevant and needs only a little more.
- Several of your pages on one query. If different pages alternate in the results for the same phrase, it looks like cannibalisation, and those cases are worth checking by hand.
- Pages that bring in a disproportionate share of traffic. These must not be broken by a redesign, a migration or template changes.
Then open the same report for two or three competitors from your search results. The goal at this stage is simple: see which sections and page types bring them traffic. How to pick competitors, and who counts as one, is covered in our article on competitor analysis in search.
Day 3. Keyword Magic Tool and keyword research
Keyword Magic Tool takes a seed phrase and builds a list of related queries around it. According to the Semrush knowledge base (semrush.com/kb/617, checked 27 September 2026), the table shows search intent, volume, trend, keyword difficulty (KD), cost per click, competitive density and SERP features. On the left, keywords are grouped by topic automatically, and the groups open into subgroups.
The order for day three:
- Enter the main phrase for your line of business, with the Russian database selected.
- Go through the groups on the left and mark the ones that belong to your business. Groups cut out the irrelevant faster than filters do.
- Turn on the questions filter. Questions almost always give topics for informational articles and an FAQ block.
- If the country has several languages, use the language filter within the database.
- Move what you have selected into Keyword Strategy Builder. According to the same article, it takes up to 2,000 keywords in a regular list and up to 10,000 in a structured one.
Two warnings. Semrush volumes in the Russian database reflect Google, so they cannot be compared directly with Wordstat, which shows Yandex and counts differently. And keyword difficulty is calculated mainly from the links pointing at the top-ranking pages, so it works as a first-pass filter and not as grounds for a decision. How to turn a keyword list into a site structure is covered in our article on keyword clustering.
Day 4. Position Tracking
Rank tracking is set up once and then runs by itself. According to the Semrush guide (semrush.com/kb/548, checked 27 September 2026), setup has two steps.
Step one: targeting
You choose what to track: the whole domain, a subdomain, a folder or a single URL. Then the search engine, the device and the location, down to city or postal code. For a local business you enter the business name exactly as it appears in Google, so Semrush can spot you in the local pack. One important detail from the same guide: once the campaign is created, the original location and device type cannot be changed. Choose carefully.
Step two: keywords
Keywords can be uploaded as a file or imported from other Semrush reports, from Keyword Magic Tool or from Search Console. Tag them straight away by site section or by query type: without tags, a report on several hundred phrases becomes unreadable within a month. You can also switch on a weekly email summary of rankings here.
According to the knowledge base, Position Tracking keeps daily data for 60 days and then shows weekly data points. For reporting, that means detailed month-by-month history has to be exported in time.
Day 5. Keyword Gap and Backlink Gap
Day five is about gaps against competitors. Both tools work the same way: you enter your own domain and your competitors' and get a table split into tabs.
What both comparisons give you depends on whom you put into them. Marketplaces, aggregators and big directories overlap on keywords with almost any site, but copying their structure or link profile is pointless: they have different page types and different resources. For the gap analysis, take sites that resemble yours in business model and size, the ones you saw in the results on day two. If there are fewer than three, comparing against two good fits beats adding a giant for the sake of numbers and letting it swamp the report with its own keywords.
Keyword Gap compares keywords. According to Semrush (semrush.com/kb/28-keyword-gap, checked 27 September 2026), you can choose organic, paid or product listing keywords. The most useful tabs to start with:
- Missing: every competitor ranks and you do not. This is your list of missing topics.
- Weak: you rank, but lower than all your competitors. Existing pages usually need work here.
- Untapped: at least one competitor ranks and you do not.
Backlink Gap does the same for referring domains and, according to the knowledge base, compares up to five sites at once (semrush.com/kb/773, checked 27 September 2026). The Best tab shows domains that link to all your competitors and not to you. Those sites have already shown they link to businesses like yours, which makes them the sensible place to start.
Link data does not depend on the search engine, so this part of Semrush works as well for a Yandex project as for a Google one.
Day 6. Site Audit
Give day six to the technical audit. Launch Site Audit in your project and, while the crawl runs, read our guide to Semrush Site Audit: it covers the settings to change before the first run, why Site Health is easy to raise without a single fix, and the order in which to fix things.
On a first audit the main thing is not to drown in the list. Filter errors by site section, look at what affects the most important pages, and check the findings against Yandex Webmaster and Search Console.
Day 7. A first summary for yourself
The last day of the week is well spent pulling everything you found into one document. This one is for you, and the client never sees it. It should contain:
- the baseline figures from day one and the ratio between the traffic estimate and your analytics;
- the list of keywords in positions 4 to 20, with their target pages;
- the missing topics from Keyword Gap, sorted by site section;
- a dozen sites from the Best tab in Backlink Gap;
- three to five audit tasks that affect the most pages.
A month from now, this document will be your baseline. How that kind of data becomes a report a client will read is covered in our article on the monthly SEO report.
First-week mistakes
Almost everyone makes these, so they are worth listing in advance.
The wrong database. A report on the US database for a Russian site looks plausible and is almost entirely useless. Check which country is selected on every screen.
Taking the traffic estimate at face value. It is a model built on rankings and volumes. Without the ratio you measured on your own site, it cannot be compared with reality.
Comparing Semrush numbers with other services. If you have Ahrefs open as well, referring domain counts and traffic estimates will differ, and that is normal: the services have different indexes and different models. How exactly they differ is covered in Semrush vs Ahrefs.
Making decisions on keyword difficulty. KD speaks about the links to the top-ranking pages and says nothing about the quality of their content. A high-KD query with weak articles at the top may be well within reach.
Tracking rankings without tags. After a month, hundreds of ungrouped phrases turn into a table you cannot draw any conclusion from.
If you do not have a subscription of your own, access to Semrush can be priced in the calculator on the homepage. For choosing between Semrush and other platforms, see our comparison of SE Ranking and Semrush.
Frequently asked questions
Does Semrush have data for Russia?
Yes, the Russian database is one of more than 140 regional databases, according to the Semrush knowledge base as of 27 September 2026. The organic data in it describes Google.
Can you track Yandex rankings in Semrush?
Yandex is not on the list of search engines for Position Tracking. Yandex positions are tracked with local services.
Can you use Semrush for free?
There is a free plan with a daily report limit, and a trial period. That is enough to learn the interface, but not for regular work.
Which tool should a beginner start with?
Domain Overview on your own site, compared against your real analytics. Without that step every other number is read blind.
How long does it take to learn Semrush?
A week is enough to work confidently with the main reports. Understanding where Semrush data goes wrong in your niche comes after a month or two of regular use.