One question we get asked a lot is: what’s the difference between Surfer and ChatGPT? 👀

So, we went to ChatGPT and asked 😉

🚫 Audit: I can explain how to perform an audit or suggest key areas to focus on for SEO, but I can’t access or analyze your website directly to provide specific recommendations based on current performance.

🚫 Competitor Analysis: I don’t have access to tools that can analyze competitors' SEO performance directly.

🚫 Real-time search data: I don’t have real-time access to the web or SEO data, so I can’t analyze what’s currently ranking or give keyword-specific suggestions.

➡ In its own words, ChatGPT can offer general SEO knowledge, but doesn’t have access to real-time data or the ability to analyze specific SERPs.

If you ask us, teams need more than “general SEO knowledge” to get the types of results their audiences deserve ✨

...and to help you with that, we have a Surfer AI credit sale until October 4th 😉 (more details below).

PS. We're currently at BrightonSEO, so if you're attending, make sure to swing by booth 8 (you can find it by the cloakroom)!

Let's jump to the updates!

Tables are now supported in all Content Editors 🎉

We have a long-standing joke at Surfer about good intentions when naming our tools and features. Long story short, it's a skill we continuously work on 😅

To make the research user experience more transparent, we introduced some cosmetic changes:

To help you focus on what matters the most, when adding a new domain you have now a choice of manually selecting pages you want to track or choosing the default option of top-ranking pages.

We updated image generation model in Surfer AI articles to the latest Flux Pro. All images are now more realistic and relevant to the contents of each section, while still being commercially safe to use. 🎨

The update is currently released to 10% of users - if you can't see any changes yet, please be patient, we'll roll it out to all Surfers soon!

We know from your feedback, that even though Surfer is a goldmine of SEO opportunities, it can be hard to choose what to focus on RIGHT. NOW. In response to that, we're developing smart recommendations that will help you make informed decisions when choosing the next best step.

You can think of it as an actionable list of best next steps to take right now (for example, articles and topics to cover or optimize), curated by our expert algorithm based on SERPs and your domain's performance, delivered to you on a weekly basis from both Topical Map and Content Audit via email.

This project will take a while (we want to ensure personalized and quality recommendations) but it is nearing the official release (recommendations from Topical Map are already released to all users 🎉 ) and is absolutely worth waiting for! 🤞

This feature will automatically compare your content to the top-ranking pages in search results and find facts and topics that you’re not covering yet. Then, based on the gaps found, you'll receive actionable suggestions to help you add missing topics or expand underdeveloped sections to cover more ground and improve your topical authority with data-driven insights. And the best part? Automated research will make both your writing and optimizing process so much faster and more effective! ❤️

Surfy quickly became one of the most liked additions to Surfer AI and we thought... why not making it a part of regular Content Editors as well? He should be making a grand entrance in October, so keep an eye on your Surfer dashboard announcements! 🤞

I've been hinting at it for some time and I'm thrilled to announce that we're very close to the release! Soon, you'll be able to "teach" our AI Humanizer how to write in your own tone of voice.

And once you'll be happy with the results (don't forget to leave feedback once the update rolls out!), we'll move on to embedding Humanizer and Surfer AI (along with adding custom voice to Surfer AI). It will take some time but your patience will be rewarded 🤞

Soon we will auto-generate SEO-optimized AI meta titles and descriptions for all your articles to make the publishing step easier. 🎉

We'll be introducing folders in Content Editor to help you organize your work better. 💪

We're working on adding long-awaited stemming and lemmatization to Content Editors. The goal is to make the terms list easier to manage without decreasing Content Score or ranking opportunities. We don't have a set release timeline yet but we're working on delivering as soon as possible.

We had to put the comment directory on the Content Editor dashboard on hold but we will get back to it after we release updates listed above 🙇

88% of SEOs believe Topical Authority is essential for SEO success. 📊 But how can it help you rank higher? How to build topical authority with content clusters? How tools like Surfer AI can scale your content without sacrificing quality? And do you have any proof (spoiler alert, we do!). 👉 Watch on YouTube

Running an online store? 🛒 You know the power of organic traffic, but optimizing hundreds (or thousands) of product pages can feel overwhelming. At Surfer, we’ve made this easier and faster! 🚀 Check out this quick video to learn how our two powerful tools can improve your SEO! 👉 Watch on Youtube

If you’re looking to boost your traffic and improve your rankings, this video is for you! We’re diving deep into on-page SEO strategies that actually make a difference. From smart keyword placement to internal linking, these tips will level up your On-Page SEO! 💡 👉 Watch on YouTube

Why does some content soar in search results while other great pieces fall flat? 🤷‍♂️ The difference lies in how you optimize it! In this new video, we share 9 actionable SEO tips that will help you rank higher. With these strategies, you can position your content in a way that search engines—and your audience—can’t ignore! 🏆 👉 Watch on YouTube

🚀 Want to boost your SEO efforts using FREE tools? In this video, we go through the best SEO content tools that cost you nothing but deliver results! 🌟 Learn how to leverage tools like Google Search, ChatGPT, and Google Trends to create content that ranks. Plus, we’ll walk you through a simple workflow you can follow to create SEO content with those free tools. 👉 Watch on YouTube

Google's latest update is shaking things up! Their previous core update wasn't perfect, which resulted in impacting many legitimate and helpful websites. The good news? Seems like smaller domains are making a comeback, and many sites are seeing a traffic boost! Want to learn more? Watch this quick video summary and learn how it might affect your website's ranking! 👉 Watch on YouTube

This is a part of the latest Surfer Academy. Want to learn about On-Page SEO? Watch the full episode here.

In the last few years, the phrase Topical authority has emerged as a buzzword in the SEO industry. Everyone is talking about it, but nobody seems to know what it is or how to measure success. Everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it too. So we decided to poll SEOs and content marketers themselves about topical authority in their content strategy. Here are the top takeaways. Read more ->

In a survey of 680 marketing executives, 59.9% ranked B2B lead generation as a leading marketing goal, on par with brand awareness. While there is no foolproof way of generating leads for your business, the good news is, you can make it easier. This article will explore 11 proven tips to optimize your B2B lead generation campaigns. Read more ->

Surfer AI vs ChatGPT: which tool gives better content quality? Which is easier to use and to detect by AI detectors? How do they differ in SEO capabilities and customization options? We looked into what users and the tools themselves have to say in the matter 👀 Read more ->

That's it for September! Don't forget to follow us on social media: