Surfer SEO Review

Surfer SEO Review

Last Updated on February 27, 2023 by Jussi Hyvarinen

Did you know that Surfer SEO can help you rank your content higher on Google?

Surfer SEO is a cloud-based tool that allows marketers and bloggers to write better SEO-optimized content for their website and thus increase organic traffic from search engines.

In this Surfer SEO review, I will walk you through all of its features.

The Surfer SEO software includes many great features like an in-depth SERP analyzer and Content Editor. It analyzes your content along with the selected Google results for any given search term.

That helps marketers understand what types of keywords are being used by their competition and how they can use those exact keywords to improve their own website's ranking

To rank high on Google, you need great SEO-optimized content and backlinks from other authoritative sites to your website.

What is Surfer SEO?

Surfer SEO Review

Surfer SEO is a cloud-based AI software that helps you write better on-page SEO-optimized content to increase your rank on Google. It has several tools to accomplish this goal - content planner, content editor, SERP analyzer, keyword research, and audit.

The software uses artificial intelligence to analyze your competitors' data to help you improve written content to rank better on Google. Remember that SEO means competing against other websites, not optimizing against Google.

To outrank your competitors on Google, you need to have better content than your competitors, your site has to have high domain authority, and your site has to be fast enough.

How to use Surfer SEO?

Surfer has the following features, which I'm going to cover all in this Surfer SEO review:

  1. Content editor
  2. Content planner
  3. SERP Analyzer
  4. Keyword Research
  5. Audit

Surfer SEO Content Editor

Surfer SEO content editor

Surfer SEO content editor's interface

Content Editor is the real beef of Surfer SEO. It shows how to optimize your content for the most significant SEO impact. 

The Content Editor considers many SEO ranking factors, like how many keywords you should use in the article, how many images you should include, how many words, etc.

The Surfer Content Editor shows a content score in real-time. You should aim for a 70-90 content score, which I have found a sweet spot. The Content Editor unveils the contextual keywords that Google expects to see and what you should include in your article for the maximum ranking effect.

In this example, Surfer Content Editor says I have used the keyword "online businesses" two times, but the optimal amount is 4-9 times for this topic.

Bear in mind that Content Editor tends to show overestimates regarding the number of headings, paragraphs, and images.

Depending on the plan, you can invite team members to your account. 

That is very handy if you have outsourced content writing to a freelancer. They can use your Surfer account to improve their writing, and you can see all their work in real-time.

The bottom line is that the Content Editor helps you write better-optimized content for your website. It provides detailed information on how to improve your keywords, title tags, meta descriptions, and other elements of your web page that influence your site's rank in Google.

SERP Analyzer

The SERP Analyzer is a tool that allows you to see how your content is performing against different on-page SEO ranking factors compared to your competitors.

SERP Analyzer shows you a visual graph about the chosen ranking factor, usually a number like a word count or exact keywords used on a page.

I haven't found the SERP Analyzer to be particularly useful. I usually use it to check the word count of the competitors' articles.

The amount of data of SERP Analyzer might be overwhelming, especially if you are new to SEO.

Surfer SEO Content Planner

Surfer SEO content planner

The Content Planner is a relatively new addition to the Surfer SEO toolkit, and it is still in the beta stage.

The idea with Content Planner is to discover new content opportunities to write about what is supportive to the broad keyword. That helps you rank the broad keyword with a lot of search volume.

It all starts with entering a broad keyword within your niche. I use in this example "online business."

You can then use filters to narrow down the results to reveal the best opportunities. Content Planner is an excellent tool for finding new topics to write in my niche.

You can also use it as a starting point for your competitor's website domain name for the Content Planner. You will get very interesting results with this approach. It shows the 100 best pages of the competitor's website and many other SEO metrics and how well the pages are optimized.

Keyword Research

Surfer SEO also has a keyword research tool. It has only basic features - you type the keyword, and the tool generates the related keywords, same terms, or related questions with the volume and SERP similarity information. You can export the loaded data to CSV for further analysis.

Audit

The audit tool allows you to determine how optimized is the piece of content on-page SEO. The usage of the audit tool is simple, you enter the URL of the page you like to inspect, and the audit tool performs an on-page SEO analysis and breaks down the results as follows:

  • Content score
  • Missing common backlinks
  • Internal links
  • Terms to Use
  • Word count
  • Exact keywords
  • Partial keywords
  • Page structure
  • Title and meta description length
  • Time to first byte (page speed)
  • Load time (page speed)

Grow Flow

Surfer SEO Growth Flow

Grow Flow is the newest feature of Surfer SEO, and it is pretty interesting. The idea behind Grow Flow is simple, the tool keeps track of what is happening on your website, and it gives you suggestions on how to improve your site's SEO. The suggestions could be, for example, like these:

  • Add 5 missing keywords to "article 1"
  • Insert link to "Article 1" from 2 other pages
  • Write and publish an article this week about "topic x"

Once you have completed the tasks, you mark them as completed. Growth Flow will suggest more tasks when it finds something to improve your site.

Please note that Growth Flow needs a Google Serch Console connection in order to work. 

Growth Flow is in beta at the moment, and you can try it for free because of that.

Other features

Surfer SEO Chrome Extension

Surfer also has a free Google Chrome Extension named Keyword Surfer, a convenient tool to explore keywords, volumes, and other related information. Keyword surfer has over 300,000 users with a 4.4 rating.

Google Search Console Integration

You can connect Surfer to your Google Search Console to get accurate data from your domains.

Surfer pricing

Surfer has relatively flexible pricing options. The basic plan is $59/month. The pro plan costs $99/month, and the business plan costs $239/month. You can invite team members to your account with the pro and business plans. There are also annual plans available, saving 17% of the cost.

Monthly Plans

Basic

$ 59

/month

10 content editors

20 audits / month

Free NLP first month


    Pro

    $ 119

    /month

    30 content editors

    60 audits / month

    NLP

    Invite 3 team members

      Business

      $ 239

      /month

      70 content editors

      140 audits / month

      NLP

      Invite 10 team members

        Annual Plans

        Basic

        $ 49

        /month

        10 content editors

        20 audits / month

        Free NLP first month


          Pro

          $ 99

          /month

          30 content editors

          60 audits / month

          NLP

          Invite 3 team members

            Business

            $ 199

            /month

            70 content editors

            140 audits / month

            NLP

            Invite 10 team members

              Surfer training

              The Surfer SEO team offers excellent training called Surfer Academy on how to use the tool and improve your website's SEO. The training is delivered in video tutorials, and it is easy to follow.

              They also conducts live training, and you can register for upcoming training and extend your money-back guarantee to 30 days.

              Surfer training

              Surfer also has an SEO Writing Masterclass if you want to take advantage of the Surfer SEO team expertise and become a better writer.

              Surfer writing masterclass

              Surfer SEO Alternatives

              There are not so many market tools that do the same as Surfer SEO. However, there are a few.

              RankIQ

              RankIQ is an online software tool designed for SEO professionals, digital marketers, and website owners to improve their website's search engine rankings.

              It provides a range of features, including keyword research, site audit, competitor analysis, and more. With RankIQ, users can analyze their website's search engine ranking, monitor their competitors, and identify areas where they can improve their website's SEO.

              The tool also provides insights on how to optimize content for specific keywords and provides suggestions on how to improve website performance.

              Bloggers use RankIQ to help improve their website's visibility and performance in search engine rankings.

              Frase

              Frase is an online software tool used by SEO experts, content marketers, and website owners to help them create better content that ranks higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

              It provides a range of features, including content optimization, keyword research, and competitor analysis. With Frase, users can analyze their competitors' content and identify areas where they can improve their content to meet their target audience's needs better.

              It also offers tools for optimizing content based on specific keywords and topics, which can help improve its visibility in search engine rankings. Overall, Frase is a valuable tool for SEO experts and content marketers who want to create relevant and optimized content for search engines.

              Surfer SEO Pros and Cons

              Pros

              • A contextual keyword analysis is a compelling feature that tells you what keywords to include in your content.
              • Surfer is a unique tool, and there is no other tool in the market that has the same functionality.
              • The Surfer SEO Team actively brings new features to the platform, making the software even better.
              • You will get free perks added to your account occasionally. For example, I got "Unlimited organization members" added to my account, and I have no idea where that came from.

              Cons

              • The sheer number of features could be overwhelming for beginners. While Surfer is easy to use like other SaaS software, it might be too much to digest if you are not familiar with SEO.
              • Some statistics that Surfer shows appear to be somewhat overestimated, like the number of headings or images you should include in an article.
              • I haven't found the Keyword Research tool particularly useful, and there are better options available like Ahrefs.

              Frequently Asked Questions about Surfer SEO

              What is a good Surfer SEO score?

              Basically, the higher, the better, right? However, it isn't as simple as that. It very much depends on how optimized your competitor's content is. You should aim for a 70-90 score as a rule of thumb.

              What is NLP?

              NLP stands for Natural Language Processing. Surfer uses NLP to extract relevant words & phrases related to your main keyword.

              Is Surfer SEO free?

              Surfer SEO is paid software, but it has a 7-day money-back guarantee. You can extend the money-back guarantee to 30-days if you join their live training.

              Surfer and Jasper AI together, what does that mean?

              You can integrate Surfer SEO to Jasper AI copywriting tool to create SEO-optimized content with Jasper artificial intelligence. That will take your writing process to the next level.

              Jasper AI

              Jasper AI

              Jasper is a cutting-edge AI tool that helps you produce content effortlessly on multiple platforms.

              We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

              Conclusion

              In the Surfer SEO review conclusion, I recommend using Surfer SEO as your go-to content optimization SEO tool. While it has many features, they are all designed to help you rank your content on Google.

              The Content Editor is by far the most powerful and valuable feature, in my opinion. You can use it to optimize your content for the most outstanding SEO effect. The SERP Analyzer is also a great tool to help you compare your content against your competitors.

              Overall, the surfer SEO software is an excellent on-page SEO tool for improving your website's ranking on Google. It includes many features that help you write better-optimized content and understand how your competition ranks in Google.

              I highly recommend using surfer SEO to improve your website's search engine visibility.

              Read also my list of Best DIY SEO Software on the market.

              4.5
              Out of 5.0

              Best for

              On-page SEO


              Price

              Starting at $49 per month



              We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

              Jussi Hyvärinen

              Jussi Hyvärinen is an online entrepreneur from Finland who has over 25 years of industry experience. With his expertise in digital marketing, he is committed to helping others achieve their goals and aspirations.

              Join Jussi on his journey and discover how his guidance can help you achieve your own dreams. Get inspired by Jussi's story today!

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