Surfer SEO vs. SEMrush Video Review: Which One is better?

Surfer SEO vs. SEMrush: Key insights

• 📊 “I have 12,921 keywords ranking in the top 100 positions on Google, not that being below 20 you’re not getting traffic from really anyway, but it kind of is a good gauge on how well you’re doing as a whole getting keywords to rank and then you can focus on moving them up.”
• 💡 “You have to start small, that’s the magic secret if you get anything else out of this video start with the lowest keyword difficulty first start getting that traffic to your website work your way up to the more competitive terms.”
• 💡 Surfer SEO provides a content score based on how well a topic is covered, the number of words and headers used, and the inclusion of images, rather than relying solely on backlinks for optimization.
• 📝 The SEO content brief in Surfer SEO provides a scoring system that evaluates how well the topic keywords are covered in the article, including factors like the title and word count.
• 📝 The speaker suggests using a combination of SEMrush and Surfer SEO to map out content creation and optimize for SEO, highlighting the importance of keyword research and content briefs.
• 💡 Surfer SEO provides valuable insights on content strategy by analyzing how competitors have used certain keywords, helping users understand how to create effective content.
• Surfer SEO has a powerful feature called “grow flow tool” that provides weekly suggestions for improving a website’s content.
• 💡 Surfer SEO provides insights on content optimization, suggesting that a content score of 75-80 is ideal for best results, avoiding over-optimization.

Surfer SEO vs. SEMrush: Video Summary

Surfer SEO and SEMrush are both valuable tools for keyword research and content optimization, with Surfer SEO being recommended for specific topic optimization and content mapping, while SEMrush is preferred for its comprehensive presentation of information and additional features.

• 00:00 🔍 Surfer SEO and SEMrush are both useful tools for keyword research and tracking rankings, with SEMrush offering additional features like backlink building and on-page SEO audits.
  • The speaker compares Surfer SEO and SEMrush, explaining that the choice between the two depends on the individual’s learning level and specific needs in the content process, but emphasizes that both tools are useful and mentions that they used to do manual research before the availability of these tools.
  • The video compares Surfer SEO and SEMrush, explaining how to use both tools and emphasizing that there is no bias in the presenter’s recommendation.
  • The speaker discusses the availability of free trials for SEMrush and Surfer SEO and provides links to access them.
  • The speaker explains how they use SEMrush’s keyword manager to save and organize keywords for content creation, giving an example of comparing Asana and Monday.com on their website loriballen.com.
  • Semrush is a useful tool for researching keywords, tracking rankings, and understanding what Google wants from a website.
  • The speaker discusses the benefits of using SEMrush, including the ability to track keyword rankings, identify new ranking keywords, and utilize features such as backlink building and on-page SEO audits.

• 08:28 🔍 Surfer SEO and SEMrush are both useful tools for local SEO and competitor research, with SEMrush’s keyword difficulty score being particularly helpful for monitoring domain effectiveness and focusing on keywords with a difficulty score of 50 or less to compete with higher authority websites.
  • The tool discussed in the video is used for local SEO and competitor research, allowing the user to save and analyze competitor websites.
  • Authority hackers is a website focused on affiliate marketing, and by analyzing their keywords, the speaker realizes that they are competing with them for certain keywords in their niche.
  • The speaker discusses using SEMrush to analyze competitors in the pet blogging niche and identifies a keyword with high search volume and low difficulty, prompting them to create content on their own website.
  • You can use Surfer SEO or SEMrush to find and save keywords for blogging, but SEMrush’s keyword difficulty score is particularly useful for monitoring the effectiveness of your domain.
  • If you have a new domain or a domain with few backlinks, building more content will naturally increase your domain authority and the number of links pointing to your website, which can improve your ranking on Google.
  • To compete effectively with higher domain authority websites, focus on keywords with a difficulty score of 50 or less, as shown by the proof of ranking for such keywords.

• 15:04 🔍 Start with Surfer SEO or SEMrush for keyword research, focusing on low difficulty keywords related to Pinterest, gradually working up to more competitive terms below a domain authority of 20, and consider trending topics with a monthly search volume of 170 and a keyword difficulty of 50.
  • For beginners, the speaker recommends using Surfer SEO or SEMrush for keyword research, specifically focusing on topics related to Pinterest.
  • Start with low keyword difficulty to rank for and gradually work your way up to more competitive terms, focusing on keywords below a domain authority of 20.
  • There is not much ranking below a 50 keyword difficulty for Pinterest, so it may not be a great topic, but the speaker found a trending topic in the chat GPT world with a monthly search volume of 170 and a keyword difficulty of 50 that they are interested in.

• 18:39 🔍 Surfer SEO and SEMrush are both valuable tools for advertisers, with Surfer offering a quick overview of competitors’ rankings and content optimization, while SEMrush is preferred for its instant and comprehensive presentation of information, making it more effective for keyword difficulty and picking the right keywords.
  • Surfer offers a serp analyzer, keyword research, and content editor, which can be created in a few minutes and are valuable tools for advertisers.
  • Sem Rush is preferred for its instant and comprehensive presentation of information, while Surfer is considered the best on-page optimizer, particularly for keyword research.
  • Surfer SEO provides a quick overview of competitors’ rankings and content optimization, indicating areas for improvement.
  • Surfer SEO and SEMrush are tools that help determine the quality and relevancy of content based on keyword research, backlinks, content score, domain score, and domain authority score, allowing for optimization and identification of opportunities for ranking.
  • The speaker discusses the features of Surfer SEO and SEMrush, including keyword analysis and the ability to identify featured snippets, and demonstrates how to use the keyword research tool to generate a topical authority map of related keywords.
  • If you don’t have SEMrush, you can use Surfer SEO to generate a visual mind map of related topics for a broad keyword, but it is not as in-depth or effective for keyword difficulty and picking the right keywords as SEMrush.

• 25:52 🔍 Surfer SEO provides more relevant information and data for specific topics compared to SEMrush, making it a recommended option for optimizing content for SEO, especially for new websites.
  • Surfer SEO provides more relevant information and data for specific topics compared to SEMrush, which is more general and lacks sufficient data for certain topics.
  • Surfer SEO has a clustering tool that allows you to sort clusters by difficulty and analyze individual keywords with their respective difficulty scores.
  • If you have a new website and want to optimize your content for SEO, it is recommended to use Surfer SEO or SEMrush, with Surfer having more limitations but still being a viable option.

• 29:02 🔍 Surfer SEO and SEMrush are both useful for optimizing content, but the speaker recommends using SEMrush for keyword research and Surfer SEO for mapping out content and creating an SEO content brief.
  • The content editor in Surfer SEO provides a scoring system that evaluates the coverage of topic keywords, word count, and other factors in a content brief.
  • Surfer SEO and SEMrush are both useful tools for optimizing content by analyzing top-ranking pages and creating correlation data, but the speaker recommends using SEMrush for keyword research and Surfer SEO for mapping out content, creating an SEO content brief, and writing the content.
  • The speaker discusses their process of customizing and massaging content from various sources, including an AI writing tool, to avoid having their website flagged as AI written.
  • Surfer SEO provides a scoring system that suggests the number of headings, paragraphs, and keywords needed in content creation to improve SEO ranking.
  • You can use Surfer SEO to analyze your competitors’ content and improve your own, and it can be integrated with Jasper or other AI tools for content creation.

• 35:58 🔍 Use Surfer SEO or SEMrush to optimize your content by analyzing keywords, headings, and images, and then utilize chat GPT to generate a comprehensive outline and different formats of the content.
  • Download the guidelines as a txt file and use them to send a content brief to your writers, covering the necessary topics.
  • Use Surfer SEO or SEMrush to optimize your content by analyzing paragraphs, images, headings, characters, and keywords, and then utilize chat GPT to generate a comprehensive outline and different formats of the content.
  • Surfer SEO is a powerful tool that helps in selecting low competition keywords, creating topic clusters, optimizing content, and providing suggestions for website improvement.
  • Optimizing blog posts with relevant keywords and strategically linking to other pages can improve rankings, and Surfer SEO provides a helpful to-do list and an audit feature for optimizing existing content.
  • Based on the website’s content score, the speaker suggests optimizing it to improve rankings, acquiring links from suggested domains, and using internal links and keywords.

• 41:19 🔑 If you’re a beginner, use Surfer for on-page optimization and get keyword data from a cheaper or free tool, but don’t skip keyword research; if you’re more advanced, use SEMrush for its additional tools.
  • If you’re a beginner, use Surfer for on-page optimization and get keyword data from a cheaper or free tool, but don’t skip keyword research; if you’re more advanced, use SEMrush for its additional tools.
  • The speaker suggests a helpful idea and expresses gratitude for the audience’s presence.