SurferSEO Review

SurferSEO is a powerful tool designed to assist you in researching, writing, and optimizing your content. It analyzes your website in comparison to top-ranking sites in search engine results, enabling you to enhance your content effectively.

The key question is: is it worth the investment?

You’re in the right spot! By the end of this review, you’ll have a clear answer.

We’ll explore everything Surfer has to offer, outline the available plans, and highlight what we believe are the platform’s main advantages and drawbacks.

What is Surfer SEO?

Surfer SEO is a content optimization and on-page SEO tool designed to help improve website rankings in search engine results by analyzing top-ranking pages and providing data-driven insights.

It combines AI-driven recommendations with SEO best practices to assist users in creating content that aligns with what search engines prioritize for specific keywords.

What features does Surfer SEO offer?

• Content editor
  
• Keyword research tool
  
• Keyword Surfer
• AI outline generator
• AI writer
• Surfer SEO audit tool
• Customer support

Below, we’ll explore each of these features and give you a first-hand look at the SEO tool.

Please note: Some of the features below may only be included in specific plans. See the pricing section of this review for a full breakdown of which features come with each plan.

Content editor

The Content Editor in Surfer SEO is a specialized tool that helps users create SEO-optimized content by offering real-time guidance based on data from top-ranking pages for a specific keyword.

It provides actionable insights and recommendations to align the content with current ranking standards, making it easier to craft articles, blog posts, or web pages that are optimized for search engines.

Surfer SEO provides users with a Content Editor that allows them to better structure their articles, receive a comprehensive list of relevant keywords, and acquire real-time feedback on their ongoing optimization efforts.

Real-time metrics are provided for structure, word count, NLP-ready keywords, and images, allowing you to boost your old content and upgrade new pieces when you create them.

Keyword research tool

Surfer SEO's Keyword Research Tool helps users identify valuable keywords to target for SEO content creation and website optimization.

It’s designed to streamline the keyword research process by providing a combination of primary, secondary, and related terms that users can incorporate into content to improve search visibility.

• Keyword Suggestions and Variations: The tool generates a list of keyword ideas based on a primary keyword or phrase. It includes both broad and specific keyword variations, allowing users to explore topics and find terms that are relevant to their niche or industry.
• Search Intent Identification: Surfer SEO categorizes keywords based on search intent (informational, navigational, transactional, or commercial). This helps users understand what searchers are looking for, so they can tailor content to meet those needs more effectively.
• Keyword Difficulty and Competition Analysis: The tool evaluates the level of competition for each keyword, giving insights into how challenging it may be to rank for that term. Users can prioritize low-competition keywords or identify areas where they have a competitive edge.
• SERP Similarity: This feature helps users find keywords with overlapping SERP results, indicating that search engines consider them similar. By targeting keywords with high SERP similarity, users can create one piece of content to rank for multiple terms.
• Content Clustering: Surfer’s Keyword Research Tool groups related keywords into clusters or “content silos.” This helps users build topic clusters around a primary keyword, which can improve the SEO of a website by creating a network of related content pieces.
• Keyword Volume and Trends: For each keyword, Surfer provides search volume metrics and trend data, helping users understand the popularity of keywords over time and plan content around rising or seasonal trends.

Surfer SEO's Keyword Research Tool is especially helpful for content marketers, SEOs, and businesses aiming to expand their reach by finding untapped keyword opportunities and creating content tailored to user intent and search engine demands.

Keyword Surfer

Another valuable tool in the Surfer package is Keyword Surfer, a user-friendly Google Chrome extension that provides search volume, cost per click, and estimated traffic directly in Google’s search results.

With Keyword Surfer, you can also view competitor page word counts, see the exact number of keywords used, and access a full list of keyword ideas with search volumes included.

Additionally, you can create folders to organize and track keywords of interest, then easily export these folders as CSV files for convenient access and analysis—making it both practical and efficient.

AI outline generator

Surfer also offers a free AI Outline Generator, a handy tool for creating complete content outlines with ease. Just type in a few words, and within minutes, you’ll receive a rough outline for your next piece of content. While some editing and human input will refine the structure, it provides a quick start to your content creation process.

You can test out the AI Outline Generator for free on Surfer's site, making it a valuable tool to jumpstart your content planning.

The AI technology behind the outline generator is the same as what powers the Content Editor, ensuring consistency and quality across Surfer’s tools. Plus, with a 7-day money-back guarantee, you can explore the full capabilities of the AI outline generator risk-free.

It's worth trying out to see if it fits your content needs.

AI writer

Surfer’s AI writer aims to create a fully optimized, near “ready-to-publish” article, complete with a high Surfer score.

Though it had room for improvement at launch, the AI writer has evolved significantly since then. The workflow is smooth—simply start by entering your keyword, just as you would for setting up a content editor. It will analyze competitors and allow for a few customization options before generating the full article for you.

That said, I’d recommend reviewing and making a few adjustments before publishing any AI-generated article to ensure quality and accuracy.

SEO audit tool

Surfer’s SEO Audit tool makes it easy to revamp old content and spot SEO issues across your site. It’s user-friendly and instantly valuable.

With the tool, you gain access to essential insights like recommended heading count, ideal content length, NLP entity coverage, and keyword density. Additionally, it analyzes the piece's NLP sentiment, checks meta tag structure, and identifies missing backlinks to help boost search engine performance.

With step-by-step optimization guidance and automated internal link suggestions, Surfer’s SEO Audit tool offers a thorough approach to elevating your content—all within a user-friendly interface that’s easy to navigate.

Integrations

Surfer provides integrations with several essential platforms, including Semrush.

For those who might not be familiar, Semrush is an SEO tool that specializes in keyword research and competitor keyword strategy tracking, among other features. The combination of these two tools creates a powerful synergy, and the best part is that the integration is free.

Additionally, Surfer integrates with the following third-party platforms:

• Salesforce
• HubSpot
• Google Sheets
• Google Docs
• Zendesk
• Amazon S3
• Xero
• Facebook Marketing
• Shopify

Surfer also integrates with Writesonic, an AI writing tool designed to assist with content creation for blogs and social media. This integration enhances your content generation speed and streamlines the optimization process.

However, Surfer’s own AI article writer is so effective that you might find you don’t need to rely on Writesonic or any other AI writing tool.

How much does Surfer cost?

Essential 79$ - Everything you need to start optimizing your content

What you can do:

• Track 200 pages across your sites
• Write & optimize 360 articles/yr
• Generate 60 rank-ready AI articles/yr
• Invite up to 5 teammates
• Topical Maps & Keyword Research

Scale 175$ - Ideal for marketing teams scaling up content production

What you can do:

• All in Essential with up to 5x higher limits:
• Track 1000 Pages across your sites
• Write & optimize 1200 articles/yr
• Generate 240 rank-ready AI articles/yr
• Invite up to 10 teammates
• Plus unlock unique Scale features:
• Analyze up to 100 SERPs/day
• Onboarding call to jump-start your SEO journey

Enterprise - Custom solutions with added control, security, training, and support

What you can do:

• Custom limits on everything in Scale, plus:
• Custom number of teammates
• White-labelling & API access
• Personalized onboarding, dedicated CSM and priority support
• SEO advisory & consulting

They also offer a 7-day money back guarantee

Surfer’s pros and cons

Surfer is an excellent SEO and content optimization tool all around, but few things are flawless.

Here’s a quick roundup of what we thought were Surfer’s biggest pros and cons.

Surfer pros

• Intuitive content editor: The main attraction of Surfer, and for good reason. The content editor is easy to use and intuitive, helps you include easily missed topics and terms, and enables you to create awesome content right across your entire site.
• Easy keyword and content optimization: Provides both keyword and content writing optimization in one place. Most keyword tools don’t provide content editors inside the platform, and you would have to pay for an additional tool altogether—great value for money.

• Customer (and technical) support: Friendly, professional, and timely support that has a personal touch. It’s backed up by useful training videos, a detailed knowledge base, and the option to ask the community.
• Keyword Surfer: The free Chrome extension is more than worth using, especially as it’s free and can be installed in minutes. You’ll get access to genuinely useful insights, such as search volume, cost per click, and estimated traffic, directly from your browser.
  
• Content Auditing: Surfer offers a powerful content auditor that offers plenty of insights. You can use this in combination with the content editor to improve rankings for your legacy content.
• AI Writer: Surfer’s generative AI may have been lacklustre at launch but it isn’t any more. It’s quite impressive. You can generate high quality articles that are fully optimized within a few clicks.

Surfer cons

• AI writer is expensive  Surfer has introduced its own AI writer, but its pricing makes it less competitive compared to other AI writing tools available on the market. However, since it’s offered as an add-on, you won’t incur additional costs for a feature you don’t plan to use.
  

• Core plans are expensive with limited usage allowances. Surfer tends to be quite expensive. The entry-level plans are pricey, and they come with significantly limited usage allowances.
• No free trial. Probably. They’ve switched between offering a money back guarantee and a free trial a bunch of times. You’ll just need to see what they offer at the time you sign up. Personally, I wish they’d just stick with a free trial and stop changing things.

Final thoughts

Your content can truly stand out in just a few days with comprehensive keyword and content optimization all in one place.

Overall, we highly recommend Surfer for copywriters, small business owners, and even medium-sized organizations. Large businesses and enterprises will also find plenty to appreciate.

However, it's worth noting that their new AI writing feature may not be the strongest option available. Fortunately, it's offered as an add-on, so you won’t incur additional costs unless you choose to use it.

Alternatives

Scalenut - a content optimization tool that provides outstanding content creation features along with an SEO writing assistant to give you a competitive edge. Definitely worth checking out.

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Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links where I may receive a small commission (for at no cost to you) if you choose to purchase a plan from a link on this page. However, these are merely the tools I fully recommend. You can read my full affiliate disclosure in my Privacy Policy.