In my revue I ’ ll cover :
- How Surfer SEO works
- Important features
- Things to improve
- How it compares to Clearscope
thus without far bustle, let ’ s receive started .
What Is Surfer SEO and What Does It Do?
Surfer is a joyride designed to help SEO-optimize written content, like web log posts and articles.
It works by analyzing the content of a page against “ 500+ on-page ” signals .
It besides has a built-in keyword inquiry cock .
now, I ’ ll catch into the features of the cock in a hour .
But the basic kernel is that you write a blog post. Use Surfer to analyze the first gear page SERPs for your target keyword .
then, use that information that you get to optimize your page .
The idea here is that the first base page results are ranking for a reason. And you can rank besides if you copy the on-page SEO approaches that your competitors are already using .
With that, let ’ s get into the actual features .
SERP Analyzer: Detailed Breakdown of Google’s First Page
This is Surfer SEO ’ s main feature .
It ’ second basically a very in-depth dislocation of the SERPs for a given keyword .
In this breakdown you get data on :
- Average word count (aka content length)
- Keyword density and frequency
- Use of partial match keywords
- Hidden content
- Page speed
- Characters count in title tags
- Alt text
And a bunch more stuff .
I ’ ve personally tried ( and reviewed ) over 200 SEO tools. So it ’ south fair to say I ’ ve seen reasonably much every have under the sunday .
And yes, I HAVE seen a bunch of the data you ’ ll find in Surfer in other tools .
But Surfer goes into much more detail. And provides some data that I haven ’ thyroxine seen before .
For exemplar, they actually show you how many words appear above the fold on a page .
The average number of H2 headings that appear on each page .
And how many links a foremost page solution tends to have .
I think this data is interesting. And unique .
But is it useful ?
I ’ megabyte not 100 % convinced. here ’ s what I mean :
Let ’ s say you precisely wrote a web log post. And you want to make surely it matches the on-page SEO that content on the first gear page is already using .
well, you pop that keyword into Surfer… and get this :
What do you do with all of this information ? Should you match the number of H2s that your rival has ? Or add concealed subject just because it ’ mho correlated with rankings for that keyword ?
It ’ south reasonably overpowering .
Besides, on-page SEO is on-page SEO. There international relations and security network ’ t a classify Google algorithm for each keyword .
therefore why wouldn’t you include your target keyword in your entitle ? Or not mention your keyword above the close up ? This is thrust that you should do anyhow .
overall, I think the SERP Analyzer is reasonably cool .
It has a bunch of unique data points. Some of which are helpful .
But I think they should actually remove some of these data points. That way, they can help users focus on the stuff that actually matters .
Content Editor: LSI Keyword Finder
The Surfer Content Editor helps you outline and write content that ’ s optimized for search engines .
specifically, it scans the subject on the first page for LSI keywords. And helps you weave those into your capacity .
This feature of speech besides analyzes the capacity structure of the foremost page results… including bible consider, number of images, and average paragraph count .
right off the bat, I found something I already truly like : the fact that you can choose which pages on the first page that you want to analyze. And that they focus on the top 5 results by nonpayment .
Why is this a big deal ?
well, most message psychoanalysis tools scan the clear 10 or 20 results. That constantly kind of bugged me. I ’ m like : “ Why would I want to copy person on the moment page ? ” .
sol I like that you can focus on the peak 3, 5 or 10 results. Or flush exclude one of the top ranking pages if you don ’ metric ton want to include that in the analysis .
early than that, the message editor program is pretty straightforward .
You copy and paste your contented into it. The cock tells you the demand LSI keywords that you need to add. And how many times to mention them .
They flush suggest a few “ Topics and questions to answer ” .
These are pulled from Google ’ s “ People besides ask… ” box. And are designed to help you plan out contented creation for that topic .
Plus, you can share this report with writers… without them needing to login. That way, they can write the draft in Google department of commerce. And optimize it there. Helpful .
After using this sport, I can say that it ’ randomness identical well done. It ’ second easy to use. Has solid data. And you can customize it to your liking .
NLP: Sentiment Analysis
Surfer SEO has a built-in natural language process feature of speech .
This feature uses IBM ’ s Watson to find the sentiment of the search results .
At first I couldn ’ thymine get this feature to work by rights .
For case, when I used the NLP analysis, I saw this :
The chart notes that the “ opinion ” as .756. But I have no clue how to use this datum. Or what it means .
I finally figured it out. When you click on one of the results, you see a page ’ mho “ true concentration ”. Along a fit of relate phrases. Here’s where they show you the NLP sentiment around each of them .
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honestly, I don ’ thyroxine understand why this is helpful. What does it matter if the opinion of 100 related keywords are positive or negative ? It has zero charge on rankings .
overall, this feature felt kind of forced .
Keyword Research: Find New Keywords to Target
following, I wanted to try Surfer ’ randomness keyword research tool .
This works like reasonably much any keyword instrument on the marketplace. Type in a sow keyword. And get a number of relate keywords. Along with search volume .
sol : how is this feature overall ?
On the plus side, it has a helpful feature that I ’ ve never seen in another keyword tool : “ SERP similarity ” .
This is basically how much overlap there is with the keyword that you typed into the joyride .
For case, let ’ s say you used keyword A as your seeded player keyword. Well, if a batch of the pages that rank for keyword A besides rank for keyword B, then keyword B will have a high SERP similarity .
Why is this helpful ?
well, it ’ mho something catchy to know whether you should create different pages optimized around unlike long stern keywords. If the search results are different, then you probably should write a page for each keyword .
But if the SERPs are basically the like, it means that Google considers the two keyword synonym. So you want to optimize one page around both terms .
This is a HUGE trouble to do manually. Which is why I think “ SERP similarity ” is a cool, unique feature .
That said, I wish Surfer ’ sulfur keyword research joyride was more flesh out. specifically, it lacks a keyword difficulty score. Which is huge for choosing keywords to go after .
Surfer SEO Support
thus at this point I tested out all of the key features in Surfer SEO. And it was time to see how their documentation stacked up .
fortunately, asking a question to their support is easy : they have a little Intercom chat push button at the bottom of every foliate .
And I decided to ask them kind of a catchy question. A question that I wanted to know the answer to : how does Surfer estimate world traffic to a site ?
I noticed this datum detail in their content editor program. But there wasn ’ thymine a tooltip or explanation .
thus here ’ second precisely what I asked :
And their reaction :
phonograph needle to say, I was silent confused. I still didn ’ t in truth understand where the actual reservoir of the keyword ’ s search volume came from .
But to be fair, this is the lapp approach that most SEO tools ( like SEMrush ) use to estimate organic traffic to a web site. So the overall approach international relations and security network ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate that far off. But obviously, the execution leaves a batch to be desired .
In general, I ’ d say Surfer ’ s SEO accompaniment is “ adept not great ”. I got a answer super cursorily ( effective ). But the initial response didn ’ triiodothyronine in full answer my question ( bad ) .
That said, when I asked them to clarify, I got an honest, thorough response ( good ) .
Surfer SEO Pricing
here ’ s a breakdown of Surfer ’ s pricing :
If you go with monthly placard, you pay $ 29/month for “ Hobby ”, $ 59/month for “ Basic ”, $ 99/month for “ Pro ”, $ 199/month for “ Business ”, and $ 649/month for “ Business Plus ”. You save about 10 % if you go for annual bill .
The features that you get access to are basically the same for each plan ( with one major exception : the Hobby design doesn ’ t come with page speed psychoanalysis ). But you can run WAY more reports with the higher tier plans .
For example, you get 5 queries/day with Hobby. And 300 with Business Plus. That ’ s 60x more reports .
How does Surfer SEO ’ s pricing comparison to similar tools ?
well, you actually can ’ t compare a full-fledged SEO suite like Ahrefs with Surfer. Ahrefs has WAY more features .
Surfer basically ONLY does on-page SEO analysis. But it doesn ’ t have any features for backlink analysis, SEO site audits or rank tracking like Ahrefs has .
then I don ’ metric ton think it ’ south fair to evaluate Surfer ’ s pricing based on an SEO software suite like Ahrefs. They ’ rhenium two different tools .
But you CAN compare Surfer with its main rival : Clearscope .
Clearscope has a flat price structure of $ 350/mo .
You get 50 searches per calendar month with that. Surfer ’ second Pro design costs $ 99/mo. Which is 3x cheap .
obviously the tools aren ’ t precisely the same. But they ’ ra exchangeable. So it ’ s average to say that Surfer SEO is a truly solid prize compared to Clearscope .
Surfer SEO vs Clearscope
A draw of people ask me : “ Which tool do you prefer ? Surfer SEO or Clearscope ? ” .
so I thought I ’ five hundred promptly comparison and contrast the two tools .
At a high charge, both tools do basically the same thing : scrape the current beginning page of Google ’ s search results. Show you the terms that show up most frequently on the acme pages. And update in real-time as you tweak your content .
And both have a few differences. For model, Surfer has an highly detail SERP breakdown sport. And Clearscope besides analyzes whether or not your page ’ south headers contains the keywords that they should .
overall, I prefer Clearscope. But it ’ sulfur conclude .
I like Clearscope ’ s UI much more than Surfer. It ’ south clean and easier to navigate. But most important of all, Clearscope gives your content an overall letter grade ( and the average letter grade of your competition ). Which helps you know where your capacity stands .
On the other hand, Clearscope is much more expensive than Surfer. thus if you want the best value, decidedly go with Surfer .
Things I Liked About Surfer SEO
Unique Data + Features: I was systematically impressed with the unique features and data that I came across in Surfer ’ s platform. It ’ s clear that the people behind it are legit SEO experts that “ get ” SEO. And they did a solid job of including features ( like SERP similarity ) that help SEO pros do their jobs .
Excellent Content Editor: Surfer ’ s Content Editor is AWESOME. Easily their best feature .
Great Value: The lowest tier plan costs $ 29/month. Yes, you merely get 5 searches per calendar month with that. But you can at least try out most of the cock ’ sulfur key features .
Things That Surfer SEO Should Improve
Can’t Prioritize By Importance: I have a love/hate kinship with Surfer ’ s SERP Analyzer. I love the depth. But I hate how you ’ re presented with ( literally ) hundreds of variables. It ’ s not virtual ( or flush useful ) to try to optimize for all that material. They need to have a button where you can sort by the most authoritative ranking factors .
Inaccurate data: Most of the data in Surfer was spot on. But I did run into some data that wasn ’ thymine wholly on point. For exercise, they said that Backlinko gets more traffic than Moz .
I wish !
Pointless NLP Feature: I was seriously confused with why this feature is in the cock. It honestly feels like NLP was included as a way to make the cock seem more “ advanced ” .
Basic Keyword Tool: Their keyword research tool needs to be fleshed out a little morsel more .
Surfer SEO Review: Is This Tool Worth It?
overall, I think that Surfer SEO is worth a try .
It ’ s decidedly not perfect. And could use some UI study. But if you ’ ra looking for a joyride to help you optimize your content, you very can ’ metric ton go incorrect with Surfer .
What Do You Think ?
There you have it : my Surfer SEO tool reappraisal.
now I ’ d like to see what you have to say .
Did you like it ? not like it ? Think it was just o ?
Let me know in the comments department below .
