The Complete Semrush One Tutorial: Mastering SEO and AI Visibility Optimization

You can no longer rely on just ranking #1 on Google to get traffic. AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's own AI Overviews are now answering questions before a user ever clicks a link. This shift means you have to win two different games: traditional SEO and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). If your brand isn't mentioned in the AI summary, you're losing a huge chunk of your potential audience.

Semrush One solves this by putting everything in one place. It combines a full SEO toolkit with a new AI Visibility toolkit. You can now track how Google sees your site and how AI models talk about your brand on a single dashboard. This allows you to build a strategy that covers all bases.

Getting Started: Account Setup and Initial Project Configuration

To start, you'll need an account. You can sign up for an extended 14-day free trial to test all these tools without paying upfront. Once you verify your email and activate the trial, you'll land on the main dashboard.

The sidebar is where you'll spend most of your time. The top section contains the SEO Toolkit and the AI Visibility Toolkit. These are the core of the Semrush One plan. Lower down, you'll see add-ons for social media or local SEO, but you don't need those for basic growth.

To get data, you must create a project. Enter your domain—like "Brightland" for our olive oil example—and click start. Semrush immediately gives you a snapshot of your site health, organic traffic trends, and AI visibility scores. This is your baseline. Everything you do from here is about moving these numbers up.

Foundation Building: Researching Google Keywords and AI Prompts

Research is the bedrock of any growth plan. First, use the Keyword Magic Tool to see what people type into Google. Enter a broad "seed" keyword like "olive oil" to find thousands of related terms.

Pay attention to three main metrics:

Volume: How many people search for this per month.
Keyword Difficulty (KD): How hard it is to rank (0-100%).
Intent: Whether the user wants to learn (Informational), find a site (Navigational), research a product (Commercial), or buy (Transactional).

A smart move is to find "low-hanging fruit." Use filters to set KD between 0-49% and volume above 5,000. This gives you a list of keywords that are easier to rank for but still bring in significant traffic. For example, a question like "Is olive a seed oil?" is a great target because it has high volume and low difficulty.

Now, shift to the AI side with Prompt Research. Prompts are what people ask AI tools. For "olive oil," you might see 3.2 million monthly AI searches across 706 subtopics. You can see exactly what ChatGPT or Gemini tells people when they ask "best olive oils to buy."

If your brand isn't in that answer, you have a gap. You can see the AI response and the sources it uses. This proves that you need to optimize for both. Add your best finds to a "Month One Focus" list in the Keyword Strategy Builder to keep your targets organized.

Strategic Planning: Competitive Analysis and Content Calendar Creation

You don't have to guess what works. You can just look at your competitors. Use the Organic Rankings tool to see every keyword a competitor like "Graza.co" ranks for. If they have a lot of informational traffic, that tells you their audience likes to learn before they buy.

The Keyword Gap tool is even more powerful. Enter your domain and your top competitors. Look at the "Missing" tab to see keywords they rank for that you don't. Then, check the "Weak" tab for keywords where you rank, but far below them. If a competitor is #1 for "high-quality extra virgin olive oil" and you are #36, that is a priority target.

Once you have your list, use the "Cluster this list" function. Semrush groups related keywords together. Each cluster becomes one piece of content. Instead of ten tiny posts, you create one definitive guide that targets multiple keywords. This builds topical authority.

To finish your plan, use the Topic Research tool. Enter your target keywords to find headlines that already have high resonance. You can find exact questions people are asking, like "What is the best olive oil brand?" Save these as favorites. This is now your content calendar for the month.

Technical Health and Authority Building

Good content won't rank if your site is broken. Run a Site Audit to find technical errors. You might see a Google Health score of 87% but an AI Search Health score of 75%. This gap means AI bots are struggling to read your site.

Fix critical errors first, like 404 broken links. These frustrate users and tell Google your site is neglected. The audit tool tells you exactly how to fix each issue.

For AI visibility, you need to look at your crawlability files. Google uses robots.txt, but AI tools use llms.txt. If you don't have an llms.txt file, create one. It tells tools like Perplexity which pages are the most important. This makes it easier for AI to cite your brand.

Finally, build your authority with backlinks. A backlink is a vote of confidence from another site. Use the Backlink Gap tool to find sites that link to your competitors but not to you. If the Food Network links to three of your rivals, they are a perfect outreach target. Filter for sites with an Authority Score over 50 to ensure you're getting high-quality links.

Tracking Progress: Monitoring SEO and AI Performance Side-by-Side

Now you must track your results. Use Position Tracking to monitor your "Month One Focus" keywords. You can see your visibility score and track whether you're moving up in Google results. You can even see if you've hit the #1 spot in an AI Summary via the cached SERP preview.

The Domain Overview gives you the big picture. Toggle between Google Search and AI Search to see traffic trends. If your traffic is dipping, you'll see it here first. Check this weekly to stay on top of declines.

The most advanced tool is the Brand Performance report. This shows how AI actually speaks about you. You might find you have a strong sentiment score (78%) but a low "share of voice." This means people love your brand, but AI doesn't mention you enough.

The report also lists key business drivers. It might show you rank high for "design-led appeal" but low for "freshness." Semrush then gives you a checklist of urgent recommendations. Following these helps you shift how LLMs perceive and recommend your brand.

Conclusion

Winning in 2026 requires a balanced approach. You can't ignore Google, and you can't ignore AI. The most effective way to grow is to follow a repeating cycle: research both keywords and prompts, organize them into clusters, fix your technical foundation, and track your performance.

By using Semrush One, you stop guessing and start using data. You can see exactly where you're missing out on traffic and how to fix it. Start your trial today and build a brand that is visible everywhere your customers are searching.

Metics Media