All Collections
Content Editor
Tool Guide
Main Features of Content Editor
Main Features of Content Editor
Alex avatar
Written by Alex
Updated over a week ago

Import existing content into Content Editor

Once you have selected a target keyword, you can toggle this feature on if you want to optimize an existing article right away. We will simply scan and scrape your content from a URL, import it once the Content Editor is created successfully, and provide you with guidelines and Content Score. No copy + paste needed.

You can even import content from URLs you previously ran through the Audit tool if you want to instantly work on your audit suggestions.

I encountered problems when fetching my URL 😢

Keyword input suggestions in Content Editor

This feature is integrated in the Content Editor as a simplified version of the Keyword Research Tool. Use it on the spot to find your one perfect keyword, or to quickly find relevant keywords for an accurate multi-keyword analysis without making any additional query.

How it works: After typing your target keyword, it will provide 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.

💡 TIP IN YOUR KEYWORD INPUT SUGGESTIONS:

  • Difficulty is represented by a level bar.

  • Volume represents estimated monthly search volume per keyword. If no estimation data is available, you can still use it by either clicking "Add..." or pressing Enter from your keyboard.

Terms Assistant

This feature will help you with your terms optimization process in just once click within your Content Editor drafts. Simply click "Insert terms" to get the assistant going. You can use the assistant as many times as you need for one article, within the Surfer web-app. Currently, it is not available for any extension/integration.

You can use the Assistant when:

  • Your current word count is 50% of the suggested length. For example: if your suggested word count range is 1,000 - 1,500, you'll need to have written a minimum of 500 words.

  • You have already ensured your article is well-structured because we can only provide one suggestion per paragraph.

    As of now, you cannot pick which terms to optimize. The list is auto-populated by the algorithm, and the top priority is the terms that are the least optimized.

💡 TIPS: After the Assistant has finished loading your suggestions, you can navigate through the list by clicking on the specific term on the right side panel or by clicking on the up and down arrows at the bottom bar. You can also go through the suggestions by clicking on the paragraphs in the text.

Some terms may have more than one potential placement in the paragraph - so make sure to review it as well by clicking the left and right arrows.

Your keyboard arrow keys can be used to navigate through the suggestions as well.

A term can either be Accepted or Dismissed. You can also skip a term by simply not taking action for it.

These are the languages supported by Terms Assistant:

en, ru, id, vi, fa, uk, th, ja, de, ro, hu, bg, fr, fi, ko, es, pt, no, el, zh, da, pl, he, it, nl

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.

    outlinebuilder

The last section of the builder contains topics and questions scraped from People Also Ask and contains the answers.

Insert Headings

The Insert Headings feature is also there so you can update your headings easier 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 to add your own touch to them.

4 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“insert outline (headings) icon will appear and can be selected.

3. Click the same icon in the menu from your draft.

4. Go to the Content Editor Outline and go click on “Headings” you can click on each one that is relevant to you and add to your article.

Headings are available for all languages, but unique paragraphs of content work in a few languages.

Click here for available languages.

  • English

  • Polish

  • German

  • Dutch

  • French

  • Spanish

  • Swedish

  • Danish

👉 IMPORTANT NOTE: AI-created content is still provided for paragraphs listed under the headings if you are using one of the supported languages. If it is not, you will be provided with headings suggestions.

We cannot generate paragraphs for all languages, but you get all competitors' headings in two places: You can find competitors by either clicking the cog icon or below the Notes in the Brief.

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 our 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 wait 10 minutes in 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.

To run a plagiarism check, simply:

  1. Open a draft with a 50% suggested word count

  2. Open the “Tools” Menu and select “ Run Plagiarism Checker”

  3. Wait for the progress through the loader. Once done, you will see the results.

  4. If there is any plagiarism detected, the plagiarised paragraphs will be highlighted in red.

  5. You can also navigate between plagiarised paragraphs using the “Previous” and “Next” tabs.

  6. Make edits on highlighted paragraphs to remove plagiarism or “Ignore this plagiarism”

After making edits on all changes, “Mark content as done” or close the plagiarism checker.

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 a 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? As long as 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.

Click here to learn where to find the Version History.

On your Content Editor draft, you can either:

  • Click on the banner at the bottom of the page saying, “Synced x minutes ago”

  • or click the three dots icon and select the “Version History” option.

  1. On the right side panel, you will be given a list of the article's versions, separated per day and editing time.

  2. Click on the desired version to preview it.

  3. 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.

👉 IMPORTANT NOTE: 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 Guidelines

There are various ways to share your Content Editor guidelines which we have listed below.

  • Sharing via a shareable link (https://app.surferseo.com - 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 Copy link, and simply forward it to your colleague, writer, or friend.

👉 IMPORTANT NOTE: 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 sharing setting on your Google Drive > share it with your colleague.

👉 IMPORTANT NOTE: After clicking this option Surfer's shareable link generated previously will be deactivated.

  • 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.

  • Sharing through an offline text guide (.txt) - At Surfer, you can only have one public link to share at a time - for example, if you link a Content Editor query to a GoogleDoc - it will give you a new link and permanently invalidate the previous one. The only persistent link is the private link. (https://app.surferseo.com/drafts/...).

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.

Did this answer your question?