AnswerThePublic is a search listening tool that helps you make sense of the millions of web searches done every day. Anyone who creates content needs to know what their audience is searching for. This type of data is crucial for Search Engine Optimization as well as choosing topics for blog posts, social media, videos, and other content. In this AnswerThePublic review, we’ll explore how it provides valuable information on the latest searches. We’ll also compare this service to another popular tool, SEMrush.
There are all kinds of tools and services that provide information on search trends, and everything ultimately comes down to Google itself. While there are many other large sources of information, including Bing, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, and many sites and search engines, Google is still, by far, the best place to gather data. With around seven billion searches per day, this is where you go if you want to know what your customers are thinking about -no matter who your customers may be.
Google itself has tools to help you identify search trends. You can use their Keyword Tool, Google Trends, set Google Alerts, and study Google News, just to name a few. However, it’s still challenging to get a handle on such vast and fast-moving torrents of data. AnswerThePublic was created to meet this challenge.
AnswerThePublic has a straightforward interface. You simply type in a word, phrase, brand name, place, or topic, and you get a long list of queries. Here’s a simple example. I typed in the term “Pet Food,” and some of the results include:
Are pet food bags recyclable?
What pet food was recalled?
What pet food do vets recommend?
How to recycle pet food pouches?
These, along with 50 other results, came up under the Questions menu. You can also click on Prepositions, Comparisons, and Alphabeticals. Results are displayed on a large circular diagram, categorized into sections such as Who, Where, and How.
Here’s another example for the query “Auto Insurance.”
What auto insurance should I get?
Where to cancel auto insurance?
When to get auto insurance?
Can an auto insurance company sue me?
Will auto insurance cover a blown engine?
These are a few out of 72 returns. This is what you can access with AnswerThePublic’s free version. There’s a lot more if you upgrade to Pro. Results can be downloaded into a CSV file (with the Pro version).
If you try a few queries yourself, you’ll soon see that the results are far more detailed and accessible than what you could get on Google itself. AnswerThePublic can be seen as a much more thorough and detailed version of the simple Google trick of typing in a word or two and seeing what prefills.
Plans and Pricing for AnswerThePublic
The free version of AnswerThePublic provides quite a bit of value and is a powerful alternative to using simple Google searches or tools such as Google Trends. However, the free plan limits your searches while upgrading gives you some additional benefits. Here’s a breakdown of the plans.
Free: Limited daily searches.
Pro: $99/month or $948/year (comes to $79/month). Includes unlimited searches, unlimited users, compare data over time, CSV export, high-resolution images, priority support, hide unwanted suggestions.
The main advantage of the Pro version is that you can search as much as you want. However, another nice benefit is the ability to compare data over time and track changes in trends. Since 20% of Google searches are brand new, it gives you a real advantage to be one of the first to identify a new trend. Here are all the Pro benefits;
Unlimited searches – The Pro version allows unlimited searches so you are never hit with the daily limit again.
Saved reports – AnswerThePublic automatically saves the reports you create so you can easily refer back to them (If you run the same search at a later date, the results may change).
Compare data + see new suggestions – You can run the same searches over time and easily compare how the search behavior is changing. AnswerThePublic highlights the new topics so you can easily see what is new.
Language + Location-based results – While the free version is set to the UK by default, you can set a home region from these countries in the Pro version – and even look at different languages.
High-res images – Great for if you are including your research in a pitch or presentation, the Pro version allows you to download the images in high resolution.
Hide unwanted sections and individual suggestions – Another feature that is great for reports and presentations is the ability to hide arms. This means you can take out the results that are not relevant or only include the ones you want to talk about.
Unlimited team members – You can add anyone from your organization to your plan – so you only need one account per company.
AnswerThePublic Discounts: Currently, the only AnswerThePubic discount available is 20% off when buying the annual pro plan.
Possibly, during the Black Friday / Cyber Monday period, an additional discount will go live.
Ways to Use AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is a simple yet quite powerful tool that can provide great value to website owners, content creators, SEO agencies, and anyone that wants to know what people are searching for.
Brainstorm ideas for new products by identifying your customers’ most pressing problems and questions.
Use it as a tool for finding long-tail keywords for your paid ads.
Generate ideas for blog posts, videos, and other content. The Questions category is especially useful for creating a knowledge base or coming up with titles for posts, videos, email subject lines, etc.
Help serve your clients better. Agencies and consultants can use AnswerThePublic to generate better-targeted content for the businesses they work with.
AnswerThePublic is a powerful listening tool that lets you glean important insights from Google. If you’re involved in online advertising, SEO, or content creation in any capacity, it’s worth using at least the free version. Now let’s see how Answer the Public compares with an even more widely used tool.
SEMrush has some points in common with AnswerThePublic in that both help you do keyword research and identify helpful new trends and terms. SEMrush, however, has a broader scope and lets you do things like competitor research, perform SEO audits, analyze backlinks, and more. Let’s look at some of SEMrush’s most important features.
Keyword Tools
Keywords are a fundamental part of content marketing as well as paid advertising. As we’ve seen, AnswerThePublic helps you identify keywords by mining Google’s latest data. SEMrush also has some useful keyword tools. The Keyword Magic Tool generates up to 20 million keyword ideas. It lets you create up to 50 keyword lists, use Keyword Grouping to segment keywords into by topic, and export your favorite keywords to use in other SEMrush tools.
The SEMrush Keyword Difficulty Tool lets you calculate keyword difficulty and help you find keywords with less competition. These are keywords that you’ll be able to save money on with paid advertising campaigns. When you type in a keyword, you’ll see a difficulty rating as well as search volume.
Compare Domains
Many businesses use SEMrush largely as a tool to monitor the competition. Identifying the keywords, backlinks, and topics your competitors are using, you can improve your own results. SEMrush lets you compare domains side by side for helpful insights.
Compare keywords and find out which ones you have in common and which are unique to each site. This can help you locate profitable keywords that you haven’t thought of before.
Visual data – SEMrush provides easy to read graphs that let you quickly compare data between two sites. You can bring up a Venn diagram showing which keywords are the same for each domain. SEMrush also has charts that let you compare domains side by side, highlighting comparative strengths and weaknesses.
Analytics reports – Get detailed reports on your competitors’ backlinks, keywords, advertising strategies, and search engine rankings. These reports can help to inform your own SEO and advertising tactics. They also help you identify new competitors and stay current with the latest changes in search rankings for keywords relevant to your business.
CPC Map
CPC or cost per click is one of the most crucial metrics of all for paid advertising. This is tricky when you’re managing multiple campaigns. Costs for different keywords are always fluctuating based on the region you’re targeting, how popular keywords are, and who else is bidding on them. SEMrush has a tool to provide you with quick insights into CPC in different regions.
The CPC Map lets you measure the different CPC costs in different regions within a country, letting you identify where you can find the best value. These costs may fluctuate from month to month, so you can change your targeting based on the latest data. You can look up this data for any niche or industry. You can run A/B tests for different regions to confirm which ones provide the best ROI.
My Reports
My Reports provide you with all SEMrush data in one convenient location. SEO and content managers can send these reports to their supervisors. Agencies can brand them and send them out to clients.
Pricing for SEMrush
SEMrush has several plans, with the choice to pay either monthly or annually. There’s a free trial for each plan. All plans include basic features such as on-page SEO checker, site audit, keyword research, backlink audit, My Reports, and more.
Pro: $99.95/month or $83.28/month billed annually. Suitable for freelancers, startups, and anyone with a limited budget. Includes 10,000 results per report, 3,000 reports per day, 250 keyword metric updates per month, 3 projects, track 500 keywords, and more.
Guru: $$199.95/month or $166.62/ month billed annually. For SMBs and agencies. Includes 30,000 results per report, 5,000 reports per day, 1,000 keyword metric updates per month, 15 projects, track 1,500 keywords, historical data, content marketing platform, and more.
Business: $399.95/month or $333.28/month billed annually. For larger businesses and agencies. Includes white label reports, API access, Google Data Studio integration, 50,000 results per report, 10,000 reports per day, 5,000 keyword metric updates per month, 25 projects, track 5,000 keywords, product listing ads, and more.
SEMrush also has a Competitive Intelligence add-on that includes tools for advanced competitive analysis such as Market Explorer, Traffic Analytics, Competitor Benchmarking, and Bulk Traffic Analysis. This add-on is $200/month.
Both AnswerThePublic and SEMrush help you to find keywords and identify what people are searching for. However, there are some significant differences. Here are some of the advantages of both services.
AnswerThePublic
It offers a free plan.
Straightforward user interface.
It provides quick access to the latest data.
SEMrush
It provides a broader range of services, such as competitor analysis, SEO reports, and much more.
An excellent choice for agencies, allowing them to issue branded reports for their clients.
Value and Recommendations
Both AnswerThePublic and SEMrush can help make your business more profitable. You may be able to benefit from one or both of these services. If you can use some of the tools provided by SEMrush, you could opt to use the free version of AnswerThePublic and subscribe to SEMrush. On the other hand, if you are mainly interested in keywords, search listening, and identifying new trends for your ads or content, you should consider subscribing to the Pro version of AnswerThePublic.
