TLDR
- Optimize your content within minutes and get yourself on the first page of Google. 😎
- Content editors, keyword research, and SERP analyzers – oh my! 😏😏
- Use your integrations wisely and let your online tools do the work for you.
- More than 4.7 followers on Facebook. 🤩
- Trusted by Lenovo, Shopify, FedEx, and much more!
Surfer SEO is a tool that can improve your content ranking tenfold. There are so many similar marketing tools out there, but most still regard Surfer SEO as one of the best.
Why? The impact you’ll see on your content ranking is incredible. Once you optimize one of your articles with Surfer SEO, you won’t go back. 😎😎😎
Let’s get into our full review of Surfer SEO, shall we?
What Exactly Is Surfer SEO?
Surfer SEO is an online tool specifically designed to optimize SEO-written content, such as articles, blog posts, and product pages.
You can analyze your content against more than 500 on-page signals with Surfer SEO, automatically clueing you into what’s working and what isn’t. 👍👍
Surfer SEO works alongside your writing process to give you a side-by-side comparison. Give it your target keyword and it will analyze the SERPs to give you useful information which you can use to optimize your writing.
We all want to be on that front page of Google! 🤩
The idea is that you can use inspiration from the first page rankings so that you have a higher chance of ranking there yourself. After all, if they’re on the front page of the SERPs, they’re doing something right! Take notes… ✍️
Get Clued Up With The SERP Analyzer
SERP Analyzer is the main feature of Surfer SEO and the one we use most often. It does exactly what it says – analyzes the SERPs of your chosen keyword. 🙌
Here you will be able to get information on the SERPs, such as:
- Page speed
- Word count
- Keyword frequency
- Hidden Content
- Partial keyword matches
- Character count in the title tag
- Alt text
To name a few! 👀👀
Most of these features can be found in the majority of SEO tools, but the main difference here is the detail that Surfer SEO goes into.
They even offer some unique features that we’ve never seen in SEO tools before. An example of this is their visualization to show you how many words are shown above the fold on any given page.
They’ll also tell you how many H2 headings are on each page, and the average number of links on each page ranking high on the SERPs.
This information is useful and can be helpful when you’re taking inspiration from a competitor. If you want to rank high on the SERPs, it’s often encouraged that you should rely on what the highest-ranking pages are doing. 👌👌👌
The SERP Analyzer is a cool feature that has a lot of data points for you to pick and choose from. You might not find all of them helpful (you’re given a lot of information here!) but it is always interesting to know.
Optimize Your Keyword With The LSI Keyword Finder
Surfer SEO also comes with a Content Editor that assists you in outlining and writing your content. More specifically, it scans the first page of search engine results to give you a list of LSI keywords to work into your own writing. 👏
LSI keywords are otherwise known as search terms relating to the main keyword you’re targeting. They support content by adding more context, making it easier for both readers and search engines to understand what the content is about.
So, you want to put as many LSI keywords into your work as possible so that Google knows what you’re talking about. This will increase the chances of your page ranking higher on its search results. 🤩🤩
The Content Editor also scans the structure of the first-page content results, giving you insight into the word count, image density, and paragraph number.
An excellent note that comes with this feature is that you can choose which pages you want to analyze. This means that you don’t automatically have to use the first five results that come up on Google. 🥳
This is beneficial to you because it ensures that you can target people only on the first page. Too many SEO tools analyze 10 to 20 SERP results, but why would you want to copy content from the second page? 🤔🤔🤔
Surfer SEO cuts down your resources in the best way possible.
The Content Editor is easy to use and optimizes content within minutes. Simply paste your content into the program and add the LSI keywords highlighted in red. It will even tell you how many of each keyword you need to add.
There is even a Topics You Need To Answer section, in which Surfer SEO pulls questions from Google’s People Also Asked feature. This gives you some content pointers and cuts down on research time. #WinWin! 🤠
Content Auditor
Sometimes it’s difficult to say goodbye to good content that isn’t ranking as highly as you wanted. But the good news is that with Surfer SEO, you can update this content without deleting it forever. Hooray! 🥳
Give it another lease on life (and another shot at ranking higher) with Surfer SEO’s Content Auditor.
This feature analyzes your URL, and the keyword’s SERP results, and gives you plenty of areas in which you could improve your content.
The improvement suggestions are based on:
- Content Score
- Missing Backlinks
- Internal Links
- Terms to Use
Similar to the Content Editor, you can also filter the competitors you want to use for inspiration. However, you don’t really need to do this as Surfer SEO is so good at filtering out the bad SERP results from the good. 😎😎😎
The Content Auditor feature is invaluable to older websites with content that you want to recycle and make a higher ranking. We’ve lost count of how many articles we have turned around thanks to this feature! 👍
Plan Your Content Out
The Content Planning feature from Surfer SEO is excellent for beginners looking for new ideas on how to improve their content. If you have no idea in what direction to take your content in, Surfer SEO can help. 💪💪
All you need is an umbrella term keyword that you want to base content around. Surfer SEO will then do all of the work, giving you clusters of different keywords relating to your original keyword.
Each cluster is designed to be an article, so you’re conveniently getting a bunch of recommended keywords to include in your articles. 🤗
The articles will also come with a bit of background information, and preliminary notes such as search volume and keyword difficulty.
You can even begin writing the article there and then, and Surfer SEO will create an individualized Content Editor that considers all of the keywords put into the original cluster. 😍
You might not get the most groundbreaking articles out of this process, but it is still invaluable for people building a new site without much idea of what to fill it with.
We’ve used a few of these suggestions from the Content Planner, and we love them. 👌👌
Surfer SEO’s Newest Feature: The Grow Flow
Surfer SEO is always working to improve its services with updates and new features, and the newest addition we’ve been given is the Grow Flow. This is an AI assistant that is designed to help you improve your SEO presence with simple tasks.
It’ll give you tasks to improve your optimization, such as ‘Insert link to an article from three other pages’, or ‘Add missing keywords to this article.” (But obviously with a lot more detail). 🤣🤣
Surfer SEO essentially uses its research capabilities and applies them to your entire website, rather than just one page. This, in theory, makes it easier for you to create a cohesive site that is completely optimized for front-page SERPs.
As with any new feature, the Grow Flow has some teething issues to work through. 😬 This feature isn’t enough to get you to cancel your subscriptions to other, more in-depth AI tools.
However, if it is the only one you have, it is a good start to the world of AI interfaces and how they can help you grow your site. Still, it is far from enough.
We hope that Surfer SEO will continue to improve this service so that we can cancel our other subscriptions in the future!
Surfer SEO Integrations
Any good online marketing tool will have plenty of integrations that make it possible for you to use it alongside your other tools. Surfer SEO does not disappoint in this aspect, with integrations for plenty of online document editors like Google Docs and WordPress.
However, one new development is that Surfer SEO has recently announced its partnership and integration with SEMRush. 🤯🤯🤯
SEMRush is another one of the leading content optimization tools, so joining these two forces together could be amazing for your website.
But what does this integration entail? 🤔
You’ll connect both of your accounts together which will enhance your writing by giving you more information on backlinks and much more.
There is also an option to integrate Search Console into Surfer SEO, which will provide your work with a deeper level of analysis. This will also improve the Grow Flow feature. 👌👌
You can also integrate your Jasper AI account into Surfer SEO, taking away the burden of even writing the article yourself. Let Jasper do the work for you!
Is Surfer SEO Worth The Price?
Surfer SEO offers four payment plans, ensuring that there is something for everyone.
Free Plan 🤑
The free plan is – you guessed it – free. It is a simple account with not many features, but you can track one website from your account, receive specific optimization suggestions on each article, and get new SEO insights every seven days.
This is a good plan for anyone who wants to try Surfer SEO before they buy, or who wants to grow their new website quickly without having to spend any money. 👍
Basic Plan 🤑🤑
The Basic Plan comes in at $59 a month, or $49 a month if paying annually. You can
track two websites with this plan, as well as track unlimited early-stage websites. You can get SEO insights every seven days, and you’ll get access to more tools than the free plan.
Write and optimize articles with the Content Editor, (10 articles a month), and audit any old page (20 per month).
This is a decent plan for beginners who want to make use of the Content Editor. Since this is one of the best features of Surfer SEO, we highly suggest opting for this plan over the free one. 😵😵
Pro Plan 🤑🤑🤑
The Pro plan comes in at $99 a month and offers you all of the same features that the Basic plan offers. However, you will be able to optimize 30 articles a month with the Content Editor and audit 60 pages every month. 🙂
This is best for teams or established websites where you want to push out more content every month.
Business Plan 🤑🤑🤑🤑
Finally, the Business Plan costs $199 a month and is suitable for teams. You can add up to 10 people to this plan and work through the content together.
The features are all the same as the Pro account, but with much more. Optimize 70 pages per month and audit 140 pages a month! That’s a whole lot of content. 😎😎
You’ll also have access to the dedicated Customer Success team whenever you need help or assistance. There are dedicated backlink building and metric reports, as well as white labeling, and access to Surfer SEO’s API.
There are many added features here that are beneficial to optimizing content, but due to the high price point, it is best kept for businesses or teams of people. 👌
What We Loved About Surfer SEO
There are many great features of Surfer SEO that offer impressive results to your website, and there is no denying that it is an asset to optimization. There are also many things that we loved while using the tool, and we think you’ll appreciate them too. 🤩
Ease Of Use
For starters, Surfer SEO is super easy to use. The interface is readable, intuitive, and understandable to anyone who reads it. Beginners can use this tool without becoming overwhelmed, and the results are the same no matter who uses it. 🤗🤗
There are also plenty of integrations available to make it even more effective, and these can all help make Surfer SEO easier to use.
Content Structure Help
Surfer SEO never leaves you alone – in a good way. It is always right next to your document editor, guiding you through how to optimize your work. It helps you structure your content in the best way possible by taking in more than 500 factors.
These factors determine your structure, backlinks, and more in order to rank your content higher. Say what you want about Surfer SEO, but it certainly is effective! 😅
Constant Updates
Surfer SEO is always becoming more intuitive thanks to continual updates striving to make it better. This is a valuable asset to have in a tool, as you know the brand is constantly striving to enhance its features for your gain. 🙌🙌
While not all of the tools can be a hit, the majority of what Surfer SEO offers you is impressive and beneficial. And, with constant updates, we can be sure that the next best feature is never too far in the future! 😎
What We Didn’t Like About Surfer SEO
As with anything, there are always areas destined for improvement. These are the things that we did not like about Surfer SEO as much, and wish they’d improved upon. 😬
High Price Point
We cannot miss the fact that Surfer SEO comes with a premium price tag. While this may be justified due to the premium product you’re using, it does mean that Surfer SEO is not accessible to everyone.
While there is a free account and one cheaper Basic account, you’ll need to invest in the $99 per month Pro plan if you want to get decent caps to create an affiliate website.
Most people are happy to pay extra for the premium benefits, but this still does make it less accessible for beginners or small businesses. 🤑🤑🤑
Keyword Research Needs Some Work
When looking into optimization for your website, Surfer SEO focuses on high-volume keywords only. In fact, they don’t even bother showing you low-volume keywords. 🙄
Here lies our main gripe. Low-volume keywords are what a new site needs to be built upon. If Surfer SEO isn’t giving you all of the keywords surrounding your topic, no matter whether they’re low or high-volume, you’re missing out on vital information.
We wish that Surfer SEO gave us more low-volume keywords rather than just focusing on the high-traffic keywords. 👌👌👌
Comparison: Surfer SEO Vs. SEMRush
SEMRush is another online tool that helps you optimize your content for the first page of search engines.
Surfer SEO and SEMRush are often considered the two leading tools online, and they’ve even partnered with each other so you can integrate your accounts and make one super optimization tool.
But if you’re in the market for only one, which should you pick? 🤔🤔
Both of these tools offer optimization tools like keyword research, headings, images, backlinks, and more.
However, SEMRush offers a different set of tools that can help you in more ways, like social media marketing, PPC, and more.
Both of these tools give you keyword research, information about your competitors, and SEO writing assistance. ✍️✍️✍️
Which tool you will choose depends on your needs and goals. If you want to focus more on improving content to rank higher in the SERPs, then Surfer SEO is the tool for you.
However, if you want to hit SEO from other angles like specific markets and digital marketing, then SEMRush might be a better fit.
It is worth noting that SEMRush is much more expensive than Surfer SEO, with their Pro plan being $119.95 a month. This is their lowest-priced plan. Compare this to Surfer SEO’s $ 45 a month lowest-priced plan, and you have yourself some serious savings.🤯
Our Verdict
Surfer SEO is a great tool for anyone in need of help with their SEO optimization. It can benefit you from content editing, competitor analysis, auditing old content, and AI recommendations. 👌👌👌
However, it is not a perfect app, and there are some issues with the newer features and lack of keyword research. 🤐
The pricing is also higher than some beginners can afford, especially considering that you need to have at least the Pro account to take advantage of all of its most beneficial features.
Still, Surfer SEO is undeniably a must-have for anyone who wants to rank higher on search engines organically. And who doesn’t want that? 🤩🤩🤩