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Step 1: How to measure your content progress

A step-by-step workflow for tracking and reporting your content progress with Surfer

Updated today

💡 Why is this important?

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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❓ What’s in it for you?

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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🛠️ What you’ll need?

Before accessing and using the Dashboard:

📆 When to check it?

  • 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. Getting Started

  1. Log in to Surfer

  2. Go to Sites from the sidebar

  3. Choose the Site you want to monitor

2. Set and Track Goals

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.

3. Use Filters for Focused Analysis

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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4. Understand the Main Chart

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.

5. Dive into Rankings

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.

6. Check Top Pages

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.

7. Check Top Keywords

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

  • Core metrics

  • Trends: Growing, Declining, Top

💡 Spot rising stars and underperformers fast.

8. Review Recommendations and Rank Drops

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.

9. Use the Activity Log

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.

Bonus Tips

  • Add notes when launching content or optimizations

  • Always compare activity to outcomes

  • Build a weekly review habit—it compounds over time

Weekly Checklist

  1. Review Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Position trends

  2. Track keyword movement across rank groups (Top 3 / 4–10 / 11–20)

  3. Identify top growing/declining pages

  4. Spot keyword gains or drops

  5. Filter: Tracked with Content Audit → monitor priority content

  6. Use custom URL filters for key folders (e.g., blog or a category)

  7. Review recent SEO activity & impact

  8. Check algorithm update markers

  9. Review your Recommendations

Monthly Checklist

  1. Compare performance vs. last month

  2. Evaluate optimized content

  3. Filter: Tracked with Content Audit → monitor priority content

  4. Analyze keyword segments: branded vs. non-branded

  5. Find drops in content or keywords

  6. Review location/device performance

  7. Review activities vs. results

  8. Refresh strategy using Recommendations + Content Ideas

Quarterly Checklist

  1. Review long-term growth and trends (3–6 months)

  2. Measure Topical Map content performance

  3. Link actions to outcomes

  4. Evaluate long-term growth for tracked pages

  5. Review keyword growth by rank range

  6. Identify seasonality patterns

  7. Align results with your KPIs

  8. Adjust your SEO and content strategy

🎉 That’s it. Your Dashboard is now your SEO command center. Use it weekly, act on it monthly, and win quarterly.

Now, let's show you how to monitor daily keyword positions with Surfer ->

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