Does a tool like SurferSEO really work?

I've started experimenting with Surfer SEO. All I do is throw a page in, and change the words until my score is high (80%).

How can I be sure that that's working?

Sure my website traffic is up, but that could be for a bunch of other reasons (e.g. I have more backlinks AND the pages are live longer so chances are they'll probably rank higher anyways). None of the big SEO blogs (like Backlinko) even mention tools like SurferSEO... They mostly focus on getting backlinks.

This is why I'm not sure if the work I'm doing with SurferSEO is correlated to or causing my growth. How can I find out? It takes a lot of time and effort (and money!) so I want to be 100% sure it has an effect.

(and if someone has already done this experiment, please share it!)

AccsMonopoly said:

None of the big SEO blogs (like Backlinko) even mention tools like SurferSEO... They mostly focus on getting backlinks.

Click to expand...

Why would they mention something that does not pay them to?

Everyone is selling their own product, nobody gonna mention anything for free even if its 100x better than what they get paid to mention, welcome to the internet.

AccsMonopoly said:

I've started experimenting with Surfer SEO. All I do is throw a page in, and change the words until my score is high (80%).

How can I be sure that that's working?

Sure my website traffic is up, but that could be for a bunch of other reasons (e.g. I have more backlinks AND the pages are live longer so chances are they'll probably rank higher anyways). None of the big SEO blogs (like Backlinko) even mention tools like SurferSEO... They mostly focus on getting backlinks.

This is why I'm not sure if the work I'm doing with SurferSEO is correlated to or causing my growth. How can I find out? It takes a lot of time and effort (and money!) so I want to be 100% sure it has an effect.

(and if someone has already done this experiment, please share it!)

Click to expand...

Matt Diggity and several others really pushed Surfer, but matt has a financial stake in there.

Jarvis/Jasper guys added it as a function to their tool.

The thing with Surfer is like any tool, if you know how to use it proficiently, it does work.
Too many people aim for the 90-95% scores, yet Michel the guy behind Surfer has often said publically, aim for 70% and in the time you'd be spending trying to get 99% you could do 5 articles at 60-70%.

The downside with Surfer and similar tools is the content often isn't great to the human reader.

Surfer (and the alikes) is great for beginners to help them optimize their content because google relies heavily on SEO entities when ranking content, and if that content doesn't have the right entities it will simply not rank. So, for this purpose alone Surfer, Frase, NeuronWriter, etc are great tools to have.

Now, of course that if your content targets keywords that are brutally competitive (such as: best web hosting... or payday loans, car insurance, obesity surgery, etc) no optimization suggested by Surfer will help you rank for such keywords. A combination of content age + content optimization + EAT + strong backlinks + trusted domain + topical authority are needed in such cases, so content optimization in only part of the full picture and Surfer alone won't matter squat.

But for most niches / keywords that are not obscenely competitive tools like Surfer are great. And they're definitely a must-have for newbies, like I said, until the said newbies learn how to optimize the content themselves

I don't think it's only for the newbies. I think it's saving you a lot of time on checking your competitors, so you'll not be over-optimized or under-optimized.
I've been using SurferSEO for around half a year and have had good results. About the money part, you can buy it from the Marketplace.

No, surfer is awful. I was one of the early testers, and they never fixed the problems. It over optimizes so much.

Use Frase, Page Optimizer Pro, or Cora instead.

I used it quite extensively in the past - 1 year to be exact.

I recently cancelled by subscription.

Why?

I noticed that my PAA pages rank well even if not optimized by SurferSEO as long as
- I answer the question directly with no fluff
- I give solid real world examples
- I deliver on the SEARCH INTENT of the keywords I'm targeting with the content

At the end of the day, the only OPTIMIZATION TOOL you need is SEARCH INTENT

100% free

Is SurferSEO and Frase and others completely worthless? No

I think they can help newbies get their bearings

But if you want to scale, you have to ditch the training wheels and focus on the USER INSTEAD (after you have enough content experience)

AccsMonopoly said:

I've started experimenting with Surfer SEO. All I do is throw a page in, and change the words until my score is high (80%).

How can I be sure that that's working?

Sure my website traffic is up, but that could be for a bunch of other reasons (e.g. I have more backlinks AND the pages are live longer so chances are they'll probably rank higher anyways). None of the big SEO blogs (like Backlinko) even mention tools like SurferSEO... They mostly focus on getting backlinks.

This is why I'm not sure if the work I'm doing with SurferSEO is correlated to or causing my growth. How can I find out? It takes a lot of time and effort (and money!) so I want to be 100% sure it has an effect.

(and if someone has already done this experiment, please share it!)

Click to expand...

Don't use surfer. Would rather use POP (page optimizer pro). Page optimizer it pretty good, costs too much, I am able to get LifeT accounts.