Semrush API for SEO Analytics
Semrush API opens data impractical to collect manually: competitors' organic traffic and keywords, positions for thousands of queries, backlink profile, technical audits. API lets include this in own analytics system, compare domains in single dashboard, automate competitive analysis.
Authentication and Basic Client
Semrush API uses API key as query parameter. Response format CSV (default) or JSON for some endpoints:
import requests
import csv
import io
class SemrushClient:
BASE_URL = 'https://api.semrush.com'
def __init__(self, api_key: str):
self.api_key = api_key
self.session = requests.Session()
def _request(self, params: dict) -> list[dict]:
params['key'] = self.api_key
resp = self.session.get(self.BASE_URL, params=params, timeout=30)
resp.raise_for_status()
if resp.text.startswith('ERROR'):
raise ValueError(f'Semrush API error: {resp.text}')
reader = csv.DictReader(io.StringIO(resp.text), delimiter=';')
return list(reader)
Organic Keywords for Domain
Get top organic keywords with positions, search volume, estimated traffic.
Compare with Competitors
Get competitor domains by similarity of organic keyword intersection.
Competitor Organic Keywords
Get keywords your competitors rank for that you don't.
Backlink Audit via API
Get backlinks with anchor text, source domain score, first/last seen dates.
Position Tracking
Semrush Position Tracking available via separate API for projects.
Daily Metrics Collection
Collect daily metrics for domains and store in PostgreSQL:
def collect_daily_metrics(client: SemrushClient, domains: list[str], db_conn):
for domain in domains:
try:
ranks = client.compare_domains([domain])[0]
keywords = client.get_organic_keywords(domain, limit=500)
# Store in PostgreSQL
except Exception as e:
print(f'Error collecting for {domain}: {e}')
API Cost Calculation
Semrush API tariffed in "API units". Cost per request depends on type and volume. Guru plan has 3000 units/month. Business has 10,000.
Timeline
Basic integration with daily domain metrics and top-200 keywords — 2–3 working days. With competitor analysis, backlink audit, alerts and visualization in Grafana/Metabase — 5–7 days.