The THREE most cutting-edge Surfer SEO alternatives are:
Before we jump into the details of why they’re the best alternatives, we’ll briefly talk about Surfer SEO.
What is Surfer SEO?
Surfer is an SEO toolkit that offers multiple features to provide you with real-time feedback on the overall on-page optimization of your website.
You can use Surfer SEO to perform keyword research, audit your content, and get better SEO recommendations to increase your search traffic.
Here’s what its content editor looks like;
As you can see, the tool will give you real-time suggestions to make your content SEO-friendly.
The best part? Surfer also offers a few free tools such as Keyword Surfer, AI outline generator, etc.
What essential features should you consider when searching for a SurferSEO alternative?
Here are a few KEY features offered by Surfer SEO. So you should consider those tools that provide all those features.
- Keyword research tool
- SEO audit tool
- Content optimization tool
- SEO growth management tool that offers personalized SEO recommendations
The three tools we will show you provide you with all the above features (and much more). So let’s jump into the details without much ado.
Top 3 Surfer SEO Alternatives With Pros & Cons
1. Semrush
55+ marketing tools, 23+ billion keywords from 140+ geo databases, data of 800+ million domains and 40+ trillion backlinks.
These are a few astonishing stats of Semrush.
Hands down, Semrush is the MOST powerful SEO toolkit on the planet. If we had to pick only one SEO tool for all of our content marketing needs, it has to be Semrush.
Why should you go for Semrush over Surfer SEO?
Here are a few biggest benefits of using the Semrush SEO toolkit.
Massive keyword database: The #1 reason most people use Semrush is because of its keyword tool as it offers a huge database of over 23 billion keywords.
To get started, enter any seed keyword and the tool will generate hundreds (if not thousands) of keywords instantly.
Here’s one of the examples;
As you can see, it gives you all the important metrics including monthly search volume, 12-month search trend, keyword difficulty, keyword intent, average CPC, competitive density, SERP features, and much more.
Worth every penny: Most people think that Semrush is expensive as its pricing starts at $119.95 per month. But it’s worth every penny you pay for. Why? The reason is it offers 55+ SEO tools under one roof.
No other SEO tool gives you so many tools for one price. That’s why over 10 million users are using Semrush for SEO purposes.
Huge backlink data: Did you know that Semrush has a database of 43 trillion quality backlinks? Using their Backlink Analytics tool, you can spy on any website to discover its backlinks along with its sources.
It also gives you an Authority Score metric that helps you analyze the backlink quality of all the links. If you’re looking for a powerful link building tool, you should definitely check out Semrush.
Semrush Pros:
- It has the largest backlink database with 43 trillion quality backlinks
- It offers the biggest keyword database that has over 23 billion keywords
- It offers the most number of SEO tools (over 55 tools) under one platform at one price
- You can use it for all SEO tasks including keyword research, site audits, competitor analysis, and more
- It also offers social media toolkit to post, schedule and analyse your posts on social media platforms
Semrush Cons:
- When compared to Surfer SEO, Semrush is expensive as its pricing starts at $99.95/mo (if billed annually).
Semrush Pricing: Semrush offers the following three pricing packages.
1. Pro: If you’re starting, go with this plan, which costs you $99.95 per month (if paid annually), where you’ll get the following features.
- Results per report: 10,000
- Reports per day: 3000
- Projects: 5
- Keywords to track: 500
- Pages to crawl: 100,000
- 50 profiles for monitoring
- Scheduled PDF reports: 5
2. Guru: This plan is suitable for agencies and small businesses. It costs you $191.62 per month (when paid annually), where you’ll get the following features.
- Results per report: 30,000
- Reports per day: 5000
- Projects: 15
- Keywords to track: 1500
- Pages to crawl: 300,000
- Social media profiles: 100 (for monitoring)
- Scheduled PDF reports: 20
- Branded PDF reports
- Access to Historical data
3. Business: If you’re looking for an exclusive plan from Semrush for large agencies and enterprises, go with this plan. This plan costs you $374.95 per month (when paid annually), where you’ll get the following key features.
- Results per report: 50,000
- Reports per day: 10,000
- Projects: 40
- Keywords to track: 5000
- Pages to crawl: 1,000,000
- Social media profiles: 300 for monitoring
- Scheduled PDF reports: 50
- White-label PDF reports
- Historical data
- Multi-user management and more
It also offers a 30-day free trial which can be claimed using the following link.
2. Frase
Frase is one of the top content marketing tools that uses artificial intelligence to research topics, write, and optimize high-quality SEO content for you.
It is also one of the #1 rated AI software tools on Capterra, used by thousands of SEOs and content marketers around the world. It gives you all the tools you need from keyword research to content writing to optimization.
Why choose Frase over Surfer SEO?
Here are a few benefits of using Frase over Surfer.
Automatically generate optimized content: The primary reason to use Frase over Surfer is that it creates SEO-friendly content automatically for you. It offers a writing tool called “Frase’s AI Writer” which helps you come up with ideas and create content on any topic.
Here’s what it looks like;
As you can see, it gives you a content editor where you can use the AI tool to create SEO-friendly articles.
Quick note: Make sure to cross-check the content written by ANY AI tool because the content can be inaccurate sometimes.
Identify content gaps: Most people struggle to get better rankings with their content. Do you know why? They miss A LOT of things within their content.
That’s why finding the missing opportunities in your content is essential. Frase helps you easily find content gaps to create high-performing content.
Watch the following quick video tutorial from the Frase team to see how it works.
Gives you a ton of templates: Frase offers a wide range of AI templates that help you create almost ANY type of content you want.
If you’re curious, here’s a list of some of the templates offered by Frase AI;
- AI content generator
- Introduction generator
- Outline generator
- Paraphrasing tool
- Paragraph rewriter
- Blog title generator
- Description generator
- People also ask
- Product description
- Slogan generator
- Summary generator
- Value proposition
- Sentence rewriter
As you can see above, from introductions to people also ask questions, titles and summary – you can create any content you want.
Frase Pros:
- It offers extremely affordable pricing plans starting only at around $15/mo
- Offers an AI writing tool that automatically creates SEO-friendly blog content for you
- You can use it to rewrite existing content or expand any topic
- It gives you unlimited access to their AI Writer, which allows you to generate unlimited content every month
- Create content briefs
- It offers a few powerful AI templates that you can use to generate varius things like blog intros, FAQ’s, headings, and much more
- Research your competitors content to compare your content to your top search competitors.
- Automatically cluster your keywords and much more
Frase Cons:
- Limited tools when compared to other competitors such as Semrush, Ahrefs, etc
Frase Pricing: Frase offers a 5-day trial for only $1. If you’re unsure about the tool, you can try it for $1.
If you’re convinced Frase is for you, here are three pricing options Frase IO provides.
1. Solo: Go with this plan if you’re just starting. It costs just $14.99/mo ($12.66/mo if paid annually). This plan offers the following features.
- Access to 1 User
- Write + Optimize up to 4 articles per month
- Generate 20,000 AI characters per month
2. Basic: This plan lets you write 30 articles per month, costs you $44.99/mo ($38.25/mo if paid annually), and gives you the following features.
- Access to 1 User
- Write + Optimize up to 30 Articles per month
- Generate 20,000 AI Characters per month
3. Team: This plan lets you create unlimited articles. It costs you $114.99/mo ($97.75/mo if paid annually) and gives you the following features.
- Access to 3 Users
- Write + Optimize Unlimited Articles per month
- Generate 20,000 AI Characters per month
3. MarketMuse
MarketMuse is an excellent Surfer SEO free alternative. It is a widely used AI tool that can help you with content planning and optimization.
If you’re looking for a tool that offers personalized SEO recommendations to boost your content rankings, MarketMuse is an excellent choice for you.
Why should you try MarketMuse over Surfer SEO?
Here are some of the reasons to try MarketMuse in 2023.
Content audit: The BIGGEST benefit of MarketMuse is it offers a powerful AI to conduct an in-depth content audit.
It can analyze your entire website, telling you which of your existing posts need a proper update along with suggestions.
Here’s what it looks like;
Helps you with content briefs: MarketMuse offers content marketing tools that help you generate content briefs for pages that need to be created or optimized.
The best part? It uses AI (artificial intelligence) to provide you data-based recommendations. That’s how you can improve your overall website rankings.
Keyword research: MarketMuset offers an incredible keyword research tool that helps you find profitable keywords for your website. You can use it to see keyword coverage by topic relevance.
You can also use MarketMuse to perform in-depth analysis on specific topic, including search intent breakdown and competitive analysis.
Here’s what it looks like;
As you can see above, you can easily audit your existing pages to see the relevant keywords along with their difficulty and authority. That way you can easily decide whether to optimize your existing pages around a topic or create a new post.
MarketMuse Pros:
- Offers a free plan (although with limited features)
- Provides you with excellent suggestions for internal and external linking
- Schema for content structure
- Advanced SERP features
- Get personalized suggestions including how many images, H2s, links, and keywords to include to get higher rankings on Google
- Perform a topic audit for any website to see how well it covers a topic beyond the top 20 SERPs
- Offers all the content marketing tools you need including content analysis, content planning, content creation, and content optimization
- It uses AI to identify gaps and opportunities and provide high-quality SEO recommendations to improve your rankings
MarketMuse Cons:
- It is expensive even when compared to Semrush as MarketMuse pricing starts at $149/mo whereas Semrush costs $99.95/mo
MarketMuse Pricing: MarketMuse offers the following four pricing packages.
1. Free: As the name suggests, this is a free plan from MarketMuse which offers the following features.
- No time limit
- 1 user
- 5 queries per month
2. Standard: This plan costs you $149 per month ($1500 if paid annually) and offers the following features.
- 1 user
- 100 queries per month
- Full results in SERP X-ray, incl. averages
- Full results in Heatmap, including site-level analysis
- Full results in Topic Navigator
- Connect for linking recommendations
- Data export
3. Team: This plan costs you $399 monthly ($3900 if paid annually) and offers the following features.
- 3 users
- Unlimited queries
- Full results in SERP X-ray, incl. averages
- Full results in Heatmap, including site-level analysis
- Full results in Topic Navigator
- Connect for linking recommendations
- Data export
4. Premium: This plan offers advanced features, personalized data, and content intelligence. It provides custom pricing based on your usage and offers the following features.
- Team Access
- Unlimited queries
- Full results in SERP X-ray
- Full results in Heatmap, including site-level analysis
- Full results in Topic Navigator
- Connect for linking recommendations
- Data export
- Domain analysis for unlimited pages
- Managed topic tracking and more
FAQs About SurferSEO Alternatives & Competitors
Here are some frequently asked questions about SurferSEO alternatives and some of its alternative SEO tools.
What is the free alternative of Surfer?
MarketMuse is a free alternative to the Surfer tool, as it offers a free plan which can be used by one user where you can perform 5 queries per month.
Is Surfer SEO worth it?
Surfer SEO’s pricing starts only at $49 per month, which is comparatively cheaper than most of its competitors. If you’re looking for a budget-friendly tool to write and optimize articles, Surfer SEO is worth your money.
What is SurferSEO?
SurferSEO is a content optimization toolkit that offers several tools, including content audits, optimization, keyword research, and more.
Which is better: Frase IO or Surfer SEO?
Frase offers a comprehensive list of tools that help you quickly research, write, and optimize SEO-friendly content, whereas Surfer has a limited set of tools. So Frase is much better when compared to Surfer SEO.
Is there a free version of Surfer SEO?
No, Surfer SEO doesn’t offer a free version. However, you can try any of its paid plans FREE for seven days. You can use the following link to try Surfer for free.
Free Resources:
Final thoughts on Surfer SEO free alternative
Yes, there are a ton of alternatives available for Surfer SEO. But we mentioned only a handpicked list of THREE of the best tools. We’ve tried all these tools, and they’re bang for your buck.
Whether you’re a blogger, small business owner, or an agency, you can find a suitable plan from Frase, Semrush, or MarketMuse.
What do you think about the SurferSEO alternatives mentioned here? Which one are you going to try? Have any questions? Let us know in the comments.
