Step 1: How to measure your content progress

Tracking your SEO isn’t optional—it’s the only way to know what’s working and what’s wasting time. The Sites Dashboard pulls together your key SEO signals—clicks, rankings, performance trends, rank drops, and algorithm updates—into one visual, actionable view.
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With the Sites Dashboard, you can:

• Track how your SEO efforts (like optimizations, new content, and internal linking) affect performance

• Monitor high-priority pages and keywords

• Spot growth or drops early—and understand why they happened

• Respond quickly to algorithm updates

• Make smarter decisions with up to 16 months of GSC data

• Understand your overall site visibility at a glance

Bottom line: faster insights, better decisions, and stronger results.
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Before accessing and using the Dashboard:

• Completed setup of:

  • Connect GSC (Follow How to add Google Search Console to Surfer)

  • Setup Sites in Surfer (Follow How to audit your website)

• Initial setup → Once, when first connecting your site

• Weekly → Stay ahead of issues and track progress

• Monthly → Review trends and adjust strategy

• After any SEO work → Measure impact and catch misses

1. Log in to Surfer

2. Go to Sites from the sidebar

3. Choose the Site you want to monitor

Under the main chart, click Set up traffic goal.

1. Choose a traffic increase target (%)

2. Set a timeline (monthly or quarterly)

3. Preview the estimated growth chart

4. Click Create goal

You’ll now see:

• Progress (% completed)

• Days remaining

• Average daily clicks needed to hit the goal

It's a great motivator—and a quick way to measure real gains.

Slice your data by:

• Date Range: Access up to 16 months of GSC data

• Location: Track performance by country

• Device: Compare desktop, mobile, and tablet

• Pages:

  • “Optimized with Content Audit” → see results of re-optimizations

  • “Tracked with Content Audit” → monitor priority pages

  • “Custom” → filter URLs using contains / exact match / does not contain

• Keywords:

  • Use “Custom” and then “exact match”, “contains”, or “does not contains” to narrow down keywords

  • Track branded vs. non-branded queries

Branded search traffic is a strong trust signal for Google. Combine SEO with social or paid to boost it.

Filters apply across the entire dashboard.
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This chart shows:

• Clicks, Impressions, CTR, and Position over time

• Activity markers showing:

  • When you optimized with Content Audit

  • New content launched from Topical Map

  • Google algorithm updates

Helps you tie actions to outcomes—what worked, what flopped.

Track how many keywords you rank for in:

• Top 3

• Positions 4–10

• Positions 11–20

Watch how content climbs—or slips—week to week.

View your Top 5 pages, sortable by:

• Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Position

• Growth status: Growing, Declining, or Top Performer

Use this to double down on wins or flag pages for updates.

Same as pages—your Top 5 keywords, sorted by:

• Core metrics

• Trends: Growing, Declining, Top

Spot rising stars and underperformers fast.

Surfer give you three types of actionable suggestions:

• Optimize → Existing content to refresh (updated daily)

  • These Recommendations are refreshed daily so be sure tho check them often to keep you content up to date (follow How to audit your website and refresh old content for steps to reoptimize underperforming pages)

• Content Ideas → Based on Topical Map (refreshed monthly)

  • Even though these recommendations are refreshed every 30 days, you'll never run out of content ideas!

• Rank Drop notifications → live notifications about content that's loosing it's position over a 7+ day period

  • You can find them in your notification inbox in the main app navigation or in Content Audit (use "Rank Drops only" option in filters).

Add your Surfer email to contacts to ensure you don’t miss alerts.

See every SEO action logged in one place.

• Filter by date → Monthly, quarterly, yearly

• Filter by activity type

• Search by teammate

Perfect for reports, retros, or catching unplanned changes.