SEO Content Template

The goal of this tool is to help you outrank your rivals on the SERPs for target keywords. The way to do this is by creating fully optimized content and building links to your new content.

SEO Content Template provides you with specific recommendations to build new content on your site specifically to improve your SEO. These range anywhere from suggested text length to related keywords, to backlink targets.

It's super easy to create templates and export them as files or even integrate with Google Docs to grade your draft's SEO value in real-time.

Using SEO Content Template, you can:

• Optimize your content step by step
• Create an SEO-friendly brief for a copywriter

Select your target settings (country, region, city, device type) and enter a single keyword or keywords that you want to rank for in organic search results.

From your keywords, Semrush analyzes the top 10 ranking pages (“rivals”) and generates a template of recommendations for your content.

The goal is to outrank your rivals on the SERPs by creating fully optimized content. The tool provides two categories of recommendations for your content: Key recommendations and General recommendations.

Create a content template

These include suggestions on:

• Semantically related words - related topics to include in your page's content
• Backlinks - target domains to try to acquire backlinks from
• Readability - how easy it should be for users to read your content
• Text length - how many words should be in your content

Take these suggestions to formulate the big picture of your content. The semantically related words can help you outline your page with different sections to cover a wide range of topics.

Based on the suggested text length, you can determine how much detail you should write about each topic. Generally, Google likes pages with more in-depth content that can answer a searcher’s question completely.

The target readability is a measure of how easy your content is to read. The easier it is to read, the more accessible the message is and the better chance it has of performing well.

You should also investigate the domains suggested in the linking section. Look at the content of their website. Do they have a blog? If so, what types of websites do they send links to from their blog posts?

After analyzing this kind of research you can reach out for a potential link. You can see if this site would be willing to include your blog link in an upcoming post.

Please note: key recommendations are based on our competitive analysis of your rivals. Read more here.

This section allows you to see your top 10 rival articles in Google for each target keyword you’ve typed in.

Click on ‘Show more’ below each article to see the full text. Your target keywords are highlighted with orange to make your research easier.

You’re free to switch between your keywords at the top of the section. This way you can have all the information on the same page.

These will include suggestions on:

• Page title - optimal length and usage of target keyword(s)
• Meta description - optimal length
• H1 - usage of target keyword(s)*
• Text - usage of target keyword(s)

Users can generate templates for up to 30 keywords per day. If you want to change the targeting of your template, use the “Google Search targeting” dropdown to the top right of your screen. This will change the template based on the different competitors in the newly selected targeting.

If your keyword or website is based on location, then you should make sure to select the most specific targeting possible. This way you know how to shape your content to outrank your rivals in the desired location.

To see what keywords and topics are covered by your competitors please refer to our How to Find Gaps in Your Content Plan guide.

To save your template, you can export the template to a word document. The document will list your recommendations for Page title, meta description, text, backlinks, and your rivals’ URLs.

You can locate your previous templates from the start screen with the “View SEO template” or “Export to DOC” buttons.

When you have SEO recommendations for your keywords, the next step will be to create the text itself. This is what SEO Writing Assistant was created for.

SEO Writing Assistant is an add-on for Google Docs, Wordpress and MS Word that connects your SEO Content Template to your Google doc, Wordpress or MS Word account. Doing this lets you analyze in real time how well your text complies with these SEO suggestions.

You can send recommendations to Google Docs add-on by opening it in SEO Writing Assistant in the Real-time content check tab.

Then click on the "Move to Google Docs" button in the top right corner.

Next, click on "Move document" from the pop-up window, and you’ll be sent to a new Google document:

Once there, click on ‘Extensions’ at the top of the menu and select ‘SEO Writing Assistant’.

The add-on will open up on the right side of your document.
To find out how to work with the add-on and what possibilities it gives you, head to the SEO Writing Assistant manual.

SEO Content Template can be generated only once ever on a Free or Pro account. If you have a Guru or Business account, the keywords you use to generate SEO Content Templates will be taken from your pool of SEO Ideas units. The number of SEO Ideas units you have depends on your monthly subscription. 

• Free accounts have 10 SEO Ideas units per month and can create 1 SEO Content Template with 10 keywords (all time)
• Pro accounts have 500 SEO Ideas units per month and can create 1 SEO Content Template with 30 keywords (all time)
• Guru accounts have 800 SEO Ideas units per month and can create unlimited templates with 30 keywords per template
• Business accounts have 2,000 SEO Ideas units per month and can create unlimited templates with 30 keywords per template

This means that the maximum possible number of keywords on Free is 10, Pro 500, Guru is 800 and on Business it's 2,000. 

SEO Ideas units are shared between three tools:

• SEO Content Template
• SEO Writing Assistant (check how the limits for this tool work)
• On Page SEO Checker (check how the limits for this tool work)

Let’s see how SEO Ideas units are calculated for paid users. Every time you generate a template for one keyword in SEO Content Template, one SEO Ideas unit is charged.

If you generate a template for two keywords simultaneously, two SEO Ideas units are charged respectively, and so on.

If you enter the same keyword several times, one SEO Ideas unit is charged every time you do this, as the new template will be generated based on the current SERP.

When you send your template to SEO Writing Assistant and open it in Google doc, no extra units are charged, unless you edit your target keywords.

For more information on how limits work in SEO Writing Assistant, head to this article.