Semrush: The Comcast of SEO

Today Semrush acquired Third Door Media. I’ll leave the ethics of a tool provider owning its own media properties to others. I’d like to focus more on what this event says about the SEO industry. I think it says a lot.

According to AI Overviews, a leading industry prognosticator, SEO is a $68B industry!

Let’s assume, AIO is off by 50%. That’s still a $35B industry. That’s not nothing. In 2023, the entire U.S. Cable TV industry was about $100B. So maybe SEO is 1/3rd the size of one of the largest and most influential media businesses in the world. No wonder there are so many of us complaining about Google algorithm updates.

Let’s do a thought exercise. Close your eyes and list the biggest companies in SEO. Who comes to mind? My initial list:

There are a lot more companies than these. I tried to avoid media companies that are heavily focused on SEO to generate revenue. See Glenn Alsop’s Digital Goliaths reports for more on these players. For the sake of this piece, let’s stick to companies whose primary business appears to be targeting Search professionals.

I could have included BrightEdge, Botify, Conductor, Lumar, etc., but since they are private, and I am too cheap to buy a Crunchbase Pro subscription, I left them off. I also highly doubt their current valuations are anywhere near the public companies. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ahrefs was raising money, it would get a pretty big valuation. But I digress.

Over Comcast’s 61-year history, it has grown from a single-system cable TV operator in Tupelo, MS to one of the world’s biggest media companies. It accomplished this in part by acquiring at least 39 companies, some of them giants themselves, such as NBC Universal, various cable systems, TV networks, Fandango, etc. Microsoft called this strategy “embrace and extend”.

It certainly feels like Semrush has been embracing and extending more than any other big player in the SEO industry.

After Semrush acquired Backlinko, an SEO content site, in 2022, I recall pulling a 👀 when I saw this Tweet in Feb 2023:

In big professional news, I’ve joined @semrush as Head of Digital Asset Acquisition.

Do you have a website with a digital marketing audience you’re looking to sell? Hit those DMs.

— nick Ξubanks (@nick_eubanks) February 20, 2023

For those of you who know Nick, well, you knew he didn’t join Semrush to just cash a paycheck.

Since that time, Semrush has acquired:

1. Ryte: Website user experience SaaS
2. Brand24: Track brand mentions on Social
3. Exploding Topics: Track Search trends
4. Kompyte: Competitive intelligence automation software (actually acquired before Backlinko)
5. Traffic Think Tank: SEO training and community

And now Third Door Media, maker of fine Search products such as SearchEngineLand (media) and SMX (events).

If we just use Semrush data, these sites combined get about 7 million visits from Google per month – and that’s just from organic. According to our good friends at AIO, in 2021 there were 99,000 people in the SEO industry:

Let’s assume with all the algo updates and economic hair-pin turns, that number has stayed flat. With that kind of traffic, Semrush properties likely touch a huge percentage of all SEOs several times per month.

I mean at this point when we sign a new client, I am surprised when they don’t have an Semrush account.

So where is this all going?

I’d argue Semrush’s goal is to embrace and own both the eyeballs and subscription revenue for an insanely valuable and growing B2B audience. And once it has embraced all aspects of SEO, it will continue to extend to other Search marketing channels. As long as its market cap stays up there it should be able to efficiently gobble up tools and media properties at will as there are few other companies playing the same game. What other company has been rolling up Search properties this way?

And there are plenty of properties to pick from. Many of the most popular SEO media sites and tools have been bootstrapped – Ahrefs is perhaps the biggest example. I bet there are plenty of entrepreneurs out there who at some point may want to exit and cash in, or perhaps sign on for the ride on a bigger rocket ship.

I imagine Nick has a long list of potential targets. Just for fun, here are a few I might go for, if I were him:

1. Screaming Frog: They have no interest in selling to anyone, but Biden kept saying he wanted to run for another term…
3. Majestic: These guys used to be king of backlink data. Got to imagine they still have a decent customer base.
4. Women In Tech SEO: I don’t know anything about how big Areej’s baby is, but it has got to be one of the faster growing SEO events.
5. Aleyda: Not sure why Aleyda would want to give up her independence, but I can totally understand why Semrush would want her doing her Aleyda thing for them. For that matter, how about Kevin Indig, Lily Ray, Mike King, or Greg Gifford? These SEO illuminaries – and many others – have spent the past decade building up credibility and audiences. I doubt any of them would want to give that hard-earned trust to Semrush, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the topic has been broached over cocktails at Pubcon. Kevin’s Growth Memo subscription newsletter, which just hit 15K subs, seems a particularly intriguing puzzle piece.
6. Let’s get even crazier. What is J2 Global/Ziff Davis doing with Moz?
7. And how about Sistrix? Maybe a little too duplicative, but if you are trying to buy the market, buy the market.
8. BrightLocal: Semrush has started to make a bigger play in “Local” with its upgraded Map Rank Tracker. It also has a Listings Management service via a white-labeled version of Yext. BrightLocal is one of the bigger players in Local SEO tools and their webinars are some of the most popular for Local SEOs. (Hi Myles!). And if they won’t play there are a slew of other great, growing Local SEO tools that probably would be another way to buy more customers. Thinking Local Falcon, PlacesScout, WhiteSpark, etc.
9. Local Search Forum/Local U: LSF is probably the biggest forum dedicated to Local Search. Local U is probably the most respected conference for it. Both are owned by SterlingSky/Joy Hawkins. For my money, Joy is one of the sharpest operators in the Local Search space. I’d be surprised if Nick doesn’t have her on speed-dial.
10. SearchEngineJournal: Loren Baker, Jenise Henrikson and Brent Csutoras have built a media and event biz that rivals, and perhaps surpasses, Third Door. Maybe we’re getting into monopoly territory here, but the DOJ likely doesn’t even know the SEO industry exists, even as it has its hands full with Google.
11. NewzDash: John Shehata’s “Semrush for News” is an amazing tool that speaks to a market virtually ignored by Semrush. Thinking it over, I would put this one very high on the list.
12. The Big Enterprise SEO Co’s: In June 2024, Semrush announced an Enterprise SEO service built by Marcus Tober and his crew. I have no idea how it’s doing, but I imagine as it gets more traction with high budget customers, the usual suspects in the Enterprise SEO Tool space (BrightEdge, Botify, Conductor, Lumar, etc.) may start to feel the heat, and want to cozy up to it instead of fight it.

Or maybe they’ll do something completely genius like buy Forbes Advisor. Stay tuned.