Quick Overview
Surfer SEO is a one of the leading SEO research and on-page optimization tools to hit the market.
5/5
If you're looking for the ultimate Surfer SEO review, then this is for you.
You can find all the nitty gritty details, scroll through our contents, or jump right into the how-to video explaining how Surfer SEO works below.
What is Surfer SEO?
There are a lot of myths and misconceptions about SEO.
One of the most common is that you need to be an expert in order to do it well. While it does take some know-how to get your site ranking high, Surfer SEO makes it super easy to pull off.
Essentially, it gives you the research along with the actionable items to make your site skyrocket to the top of Google.
All in an easy to read manner like no other SEO software on the marketplace.
Inside this review, I'll be explaining how it all works so you can see if it's a fit for your digital marketing business.
How to Create New Content
You can also build new content with an organized outlook with clear guidance regarding you content creation.
This guide can also be sent directly to your website's editor to make sure it aligns with the SEO guidelines.
It really takes the guess work out of what to include in your content for your SEO pages.
You simply enter your keyword that you're targeting and Surfer SEO will guide you with the appropriate headlines, targeted word count, and will even let you know what words to include inside the content.
Creating the optimum length of the content
One of the many things Surfer analyzes is word count.
Once you're creating content with the Content Editor inside Surfer, you'll be able to adjust this word count and see what is actually already ranking.
It's one of the many ways you can know what to do and how to build your content from scratch.
You'll see the following:
- Recommended word count
- Recommended words and NLP terms to include
- The number of times to use those words
- Headings to use
- Frequently Asked Questions around your topic
This would all be impossible to analyze but Surfer SEO gives it to you in a well organized user interface so you can almost gamify your content creation with scores on a scale of 1-100.
The higher the score, the more optimized your content is.
Review Keywords
Surfer SEO recommends potential keywords to include that have semantic relevancy for your piece of content.
This is all gained because Surfer SEO is looking at NLP which stands for Natural Language Processing.
NLP is another form of artificial intelligence that aims to link relevancy to certain keywords.
This is all done automatically once you began creating your content inside Surfer SEO.
How to Find Keywords
Surfer didn't really began as a keyword research tool, however the development team has continuously added new features and built in new tools inside the Surfer dashboard.
One of the keys to ranking is topical authority.
That's where you cover an entire topic on your website.
So, instead of making 1-2 post, you're covering the entire topic in great detail.
The more content you build, the more authoritative you become around that particular topic, and therefore ranking higher in the search results.
However, there are some pitfalls to this idea that revolve around creating content that is too similar in nature.
For example, suppose we are working with a local plumber in Orlando Florida and our goal is to rank for terms like plumbers in Orlando, best Orlando plumbers, etc.
Often we'll see someone create something like this:
- Post # 1- Best Orlando Plumbers 2022
- Post # 2 - Best Orlando Plumbers 2023
- Post # 3 - Plumbers in Orlando 2022
These are all too similar in nature.
In this case, you'd create one post around those keywords but build supplemental content that would cover everything around these keywords.
In this case, we'd run Surfer's Keyword Research tool to find these additional keywords.
Our content would start to look something like this:
- How to determine a leak
- Repiping in Orlando
- Toilet Repair
- Water Softeners
- CPVC Pipe Problems
All of these would add more context and value to the end user, giving us more authority around the "plumbing" topic.
This is all super simple to do inside the Keyword Research tool.
You simply plug inside your keyword and Surfer will spit out all of these relevant terms so you can begin building out inside the Content Editor screen with the precise keywords to include inside your content.
Optimize Existing Content with Audits
If you didn't use Surfer's Content Editor to build your first piece of content, then it's really no big deal.
Audits allow you to optimize existing content you may have already published on the web.
Simply, plug in your keyword and your web page url, Surfer will then scan to see if you're showing up inside the top results and will give you an outline on exactly what to improve upon inside your content.
As you can see in the screenshot above, you're given the actionable steps of what to include inside your search volume.
These suggestions include:
It's pretty extensive at the data Surfer analyzes inside it's audits.
The cool part?
These audits are something you can use to charge clients for or you can use as a freebie to get your foot in the door to sell your SEO services.
Grow Flow
In 2022, Surfer SEO released a new feature into the plans called Grow Flow.
Grow Flow takes Surfer to the next level for those of you that want to optimize it to the fullest capability.
Here's how it works.
You connect your website to Google Analytics within the Surfer Dashboard.
Once you do, Surfer will then begin to send you recommendations on exactly what to do to boost your overall SEO rankings.
This is taking what you have, then making the recommendations based on what's happening inside your Google Analytics account.
Grow Flow is included in all plans with the ability to track up to two websites on the Basic level.
How to Use (Step By Step Tutorial)
Surfer comes packed with a ton of firepower and features, so it can be a bit daunting for the first view when wondering - what should I do first.
So here's a breakdown of exactly how to use Surfer from start to finish.
Step 1: Begin with Keyword Research
The keyword research tool has been revamped in the later part of 2022 to include Keyword Clusters for gaining topical authority.
You'll start with your Keyword to see what other pieces of content needs to be built.
Take the suggestions and plug them into the Content Editor.
Step 2: Create the Content inside Content Editor
This will lay out everything you need to include inside your content piece.
You'll be given the desired word count, heading examples, number of images, and more.
Once you get your content piece to a score of around 60-70 range, you're good to go to publish.
Once you're done with the first content piece, continue to build out the remaining clusters suggested from Step 1.
Step 3: Give it 2 weeks to analyze your rankings
After you've given it a couple of weeks, next you want to audit your pages you've built.
Surfer will tell you how your pages stack up and where they currently rank for the keywords.
For example, this current page at this stage of writing is at a 54 and it's telling me I need to add additional elements to the page to give it the full scope of how to use Surfer.
Step 4: Rinse and Repeat
Continue to add additional keywords to your Content Editor so you can continue to build out SEO optimized pages.
Work to add the backlinks recommended by Surfer to your pages.
Also, adding Grow Flow integration into your websites will give you clear instructions on what to do.
Support
One of the biggest selling features of Surfer SEO is the support group.
You obviously have a support desk that's available within your dashboard that you can hit up in a chat.
But you also have a Facebook group packed full of advanced SEO professionals that are pretty active inside the group.
Surfer SEO Alternatives
There are other content optimization tools that have hit the market, although we find Surfer SEO the clear winner based on pricing as well as ease of use.
We'll go through some of these alternatives here.
Surfer vs Cora
We're not going to sugar coat this at all. Cora is a beast.
But that's also it's achilles heal.
It takes all the analyzed data and plugs them into these spreadsheets which can be rather complex to go through because of all the pages of data.
In our review, it's really too overwhelming.
Surfer makes this data super easy by color coating everything and giving everything grades.
Surfer vs Clearscope
Clearscope has an easier to use interface, however Surfer comes out as the clear winner.
Surfer SEO has way more features built into it's plans at a much cheaper price.
Clearscope plans begin at $170 per month.
Surfer vs Page Optimizer Pro
Page Optimize Pro does a good job at analyzing data for pages but Surfer again is the clear winner due to it's vast number of tools and features built inside the dashboard.
Surfer is much more than just an analyzing tool but instead it also is for keyword research, content editor, planning, and audits.
Surfer SEO Pricing
Surfer SEO includes a number of plans based on your current level of business from the beginner to a full agency that give you more functionality and more features.
Here's a full breakdown of all the pricing plans.
The Basic plan
The basic plan starts out at only $49 per month and includes the following:
- 120 Articles per year (created with Content Editor)
- 240 Audits per year
- Optimize and Track 2 websites with Grow Flow
- Invite 1 Team Member
The Pro Plan
The pro plan is for those that are operating multiple websites. This is their most popular plan at $99 per month.
- 360 Articles per year (created with Content Editor)
- 720 Audits per year
- Optimize and Track 5 websites with Grow Flow
- Invite 3 Team Members
The Business Plan
Geared toward digital agencies that are operating for multiple medium to high level clients. This plan is $199 per month.
- 840 Articles per year (created with Content Editor)
- 1680 Audits per year
- Optimize and Track 10 websites with Grow Flow
- Invite 10 Team Members
When you click below, you're given a 17% discount (the prices listed above) when you signup for one of their annual plans.
