In this guide, we'll walk you through various features that allow you to import existing content, refine your keyword strategy, optimize your terms and headings, build outlines effortlessly, check for plagiarism, track version history, and seamlessly share your drafts.
Let's dive in and explore how Surfer's Content Editor can revolutionize your content creation journey even more!
Keyword Input Suggestions in Content Editor
In Content Editor, we've integrated a simplified version of the Keyword Research Tool. It's handy for finding the perfect main keyword or quickly discovering relevant secondary ones for multi-keyword analysis without extra searches.
How it works?: After typing your target keyword, we will provide up to 10 suggestions based on your input, 1 for the exact match, and up to 9 relevant keywords. Each keyword has difficulty and volume listed beside it.
💡 Difficulty is represented by a level bar, and volume shows the estimated monthly search volume per keyword.
💡 If no estimation data is available, you can still use your keyword by either clicking "Add..." or pressing Enter from your keyboard.
Import existing content into Content Editor
If you want to optimize an existing article right away, just toggle this feature, and we'll do the rest! No need for copy-pasting. We will simply scan and scrape your content from a given URL, import it once the Content Editor is created successfully, and provide you with guidelines and a Content Score.
You can even import content from URLs you previously ran through the Audit tool if you want to work on your audit suggestions instantly.
Auto-Optimize
Auto-Optimize is a feature within Content Editor that you can maximize when you are aiming to boost your content score.
After you finish writing your content and are ready to optimize it, you can use Auto-Optimize with a single click and let our algorithms analyze the best opportunities to enhance your content and help it rank higher. We will be adding relevant NLP terms that will help to enrich your content while its original message and meaning remain unchanged. You will be seeing real-time results and once the tool is finished analyzing your content, a list of suggestions will be displayed on the right panel of your draft.
Click on a suggestion to see the exact section or heading that was auto-optimized and feel free to compare the suggestion vs. the original version. You also have the option to restore the original. Hit save and close after review.
Keep in mind that you will have limited Auto-Optimize runs, depending on what is included in your Surfer Plan. Know more about usage limits here.
Outline Builder
Outline Builder consists of proposed headings and unique paragraphs generated based on competitors’ content to help you prepare a content-rich outline in minutes. The outline is generated based on the 5 competitors with the highest Content Score and will show you results for Titles, Headings, and Subheadings.
In this tool:
recommended terms to use in generated content is highlighted
subheadings are nested under headings to help you keep the logical structure
you can paste only a heading or paragraph instead of the whole section
content is based on selected competitors.
all competitor headings can be entered into the article body at once.
The last section of the builder contains topics and questions scraped from People Also Ask and contains the answers.
Insert Outline (headings)
The Insert Outline (headings) feature is also there, so you can update your headings more easily with just one click. Headings are scraped from your selected keyword/s and competitors and will come from their top headings and will include recommended keywords. They are listed in order of relevance and are not AI-edited content, so it is suggested that you add your own touch to them. Insert headings option is available for all languages.
Three Ways To Insert Headings
Three Ways To Insert Headings
1. If your editor draft is still empty, the “insert outline (headings) icon will appear, and you can click it from there.
2. Type a slash “/“ so that the list of commands will appear. From there, you will see and can select Insert outline (headings). You can also spell "insert outline" commans out after hitting slash "/"
3. Click the Insert outline icon in the menu from your draft.
Plagiarism Checker
Plagiarism Checker helps you create full and in-depth plagiarism checks on your content within the Content Editor. We need at least 50% of the total suggested word count in the guidelines to be able to run a plagiarism check successfully. Surfer uses its own analysis to check duplicated content on the SERPs, so we will present you with a unique analysis that can be different compared to other tools out there.
There is no limit to how many times you can use the tool in a draft, but you have to wait 10 minutes between every check. It is accessible in the web app on your draft’s shareable link but not to drafts created outside Surfer (ex., Google Docs, Jasper).
Click here to learn how it works.
Click here to learn how it works.
To run a plagiarism check, simply:
Open your Content Editor. If your text is still shorter than 50% of the suggested word count, plagiarism checker will not work.
Click oh the three dots icon and select “ Run Plagiarism Checker”
Wait for the progress through the loader. Once done, you will see the results.
The plagiarised paragraphs will be highlighted in red if any plagiarism is detected.
You can also navigate between plagiarised paragraphs using the “Previous” and “Next” tabs.
Make edits on highlighted paragraphs to remove plagiarism or “Ignore this plagiarism”
Changes will be reflected live, so whenever a plagiarised paragraph is removed, our Plagiarism Checker will react. After making edits on all changes, “Mark content as done” or close the plagiarism checker.
FAQs
FAQs
How do you calculate the plagiarism score?
That is the number of plagiarised words divided by the total words in your content. This, however, doesn’t include alt texts and headings.
Why does Surfer count plagiarised sentences and paragraphs differently?
A paragraph match is when the whole paragraph was plagiarised. A paragraph may consist of multiple sentences or just a single one. A sentence match is when a sentence that is part of a larger paragraph was plagiarised but not the whole paragraph.
I fixed my paragraph, but it appeared again when I ran a second check.
When fixing plagiarised paragraphs, it’s enough to change one letter for us to consider it “fixed,” as we don’t run the checker each time you change something. But on the next checker run, those matches will be shown again. For best results, consider making the fixes to paragraphs as a whole before running the next check.
Can I exclude my URL from coming up as a plagiarised source?
If your page is published online, Surfer would bring it up as a source. You can, however, "Ignore" the plagiarism suggestions from your site, and they won't be counted in the plagiarism score.
Version History
The Version History feature allows the owner and members of the organization who have access to the main drafts to bring back past versions of their articles with a few clicks, if necessary. It can be used to fix mistakes or bring back outdated versions.
To access Version History, you can either:
Click on the "Show version history" at the bottom, next to sync info
or click the three dots icon in the top-right corner and select the “Version History” option.
On the right side panel, you will be given a list of the article's versions, separated per day and editing time. Click on the desired version to preview it and if you found the right one, remember to click the "Restore" button at the top of the Editor to save changes.
All draft changes are saved automatically and constantly synced, but creating a backup version takes some time. To trigger a new backup creation, add extra space or a word to the content.
Backups for each draft are stored for up to 30 days, so anything older will automatically be removed. Editors with no changes in the last 30 days will only have 1 backup version of their draft, which contains the current draft.
👉 Customization Panel configurations are excluded from the feature and won’t be restored. It will stay the same regardless of the version you bring back. Version History will also not be available via shareable links or using other extensions/integrations like Google Docs or Jasper.
Sharing Drafts & Collaboration
There are various ways to share your Content Editor guidelines
Sharing via private link (https://app.surferseo.com/drafts/######) - The private link is the URL copied directly from your browser. Only you and people within your Surfer Organization can access the draft through this link. Also, a Surfer login is required.
Sharing via a shareable link (https://app.surferseo.com/drafts/long string of digits and letters) - Anyone with this link can access the Editor draft with no login or organization membership requirement. To generate such a link, you will need to click the Share button on the Editor in question, click the Copy link, and simply forward it to your colleague, writer, or friend.
👉 Only one shareable link to a specific article can exist at a time - so if you want to disable access through the previous link, simply click the "Reset link" option, and a new one will be generated.
Sharing through Google Docs extension (https://docs.google.com/document/d/…) - Install our Google Docs extension and share the linked document just like any other file from your Google Drive. Access control is done through Google - so any person with our Chrome extension installed will be able to see the Content Editor guidelines through an overlay in their Gdoc after accessing the link.
Access the Share menu on the Editor in question > click Create new Google Document > adjust the sharing setting on your Google Drive > share it with your colleague.
👉 After generating a Google Document, your regular shareable link generated previously will be deactivated and replaced by the Google Doc. To regenerate the Surfer shareable link, click "Disconnect from Content Editor".
Sharing through Jasper (https://docs.google.com/document/d/conversion-aijarvis-doc-…) - Once your account is connected to Jasper, you will not be able to get regular shareable links for Content Editors. You will see Jasper converted links instead. If you would like to share your draft through a shareable link instead, you will need to disconnect Surfer from Jasper (in Jasper). Then you will be able to generate a shareable link or a Google Documents link.
Collaboration
Thanks to our Collaboration feature, multiple people can work simultaneously on the same document - regardless if it's opened via the main link or the shareable link. You will see how many people are working on the file at the bottom of the page and you will see real-time updates happening in your content.
In collaborative Content Editor drafts, you can also maximize the "Add comment" feature which is a tool designed for easier exchange of ideas and feedback amongst teams working together in one article. With comments, you can freely discuss without immediately changing the draft itself.
Simply, highlight a section or text to prompt the command menu and click on "Add comment." A text box will appear so you can write your ideas, suggestions, or feedback.
You can resolve, delete, or reply to a comment thread.
Do you still need help? Don't worry! You can contact us at [email protected] or via live chat by clicking the icon in the bottom-right corner.