Nowadays, the era of digital marketing is going on and in this era of digital marketing, SEO plays a very important role in increasing the ranking of any website and its traffic. By the way, there are many tools for SEO, but Surfer SEO and Ahrefs are leading all these tools.
According to my experience, if you want to do content optimization and on-page SEO, then Surfer SEO is better, but if you want to analyze the technical SEO, keyword research, and backlinks of your competitor or your website, then Ahrefs is a better option.
In this post, I have compared some features of these tools and I have also told a little about pricing according to my experience, so after reading that you can clearly decide which tool is suitable for you.
Although you are a content writer, a professional in SEO, or run an agency, you can also benefit from them by knowing the pros and cons of both of them.
Overview of Surfer SEO
History and Development of Surfer SEO
Surfer SEO was created in 2017 as an on-page optimization tool. Its goal was to optimize content through AI and machine learning to perform well. It proved to be very useful for content writers and SEO professionals around the world.
Key Features:
According to my experience, Surfer SEO provides the following features to improve our SEO strategy.
Content Editor:
It provides real-time suggestions to optimize content to make it SEO-friendly. These suggestions include word count, keyword density, and headings.
SERP Analyzer:
This feature helps you analyze the top-ranked pages on Google. It analyzes backlinks, load speed, etc.
Keyword Research:
This feature of Surfer SEO helps you find keywords along with their search volume, keyword difficulty, and intent.
Content Planner:
It helps you write an entire post on a specific keyword because in this feature of Surfer SEO when you enter a keyword, it creates a complete outline for you based on that keyword, on which you can write content.
Audit Tool:
It reviews the content you’ve published on your website and tells you what optimizations you can make to improve your rankings.
Recent Updates and Improvements
Surfer SEO has improved its AI-powered content suggestions in recent updates, can create an entire Outline using keywords, and quickly analyzes SERP results.
Overview of Ahrefs
Background and Evolution of Ahrefs
Ahrefs was created by Dmitry Gerasimenko in 2010 as a backlink analysis tool.
Key features:
In my experience, Ahref provides many SEO tools to improve your SEO strategy.
Site Explorer:
Analyzes any website’s backlinks, organic traffic, and top-performing pages so you can optimize it where needed.
Keywords Explorer:
Provides all the details of the keyword, including its search volume, keyword difficulty, and related keyword ideas.
Content Explorer:
It analyzes the backlinks, social shares, and organic traffic metrics of any popular content in any niche.
Rank Tracker:
It tracks keyword rankings over time, compares your website with competitors, and tells you where you can optimize your website to further increase your rankings.
Site Audit:
It detects any technical issues on the website and tells you how to resolve them and increase your ranking in search engines.
Recent Updates and Enhancements
Ahrefs has recently improved keyword clustering, accelerated SERP analysis, improved data processing and added many more filters.
They have greatly expanded their database to provide accurate results to their users and make it easier for users to navigate the website.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison of Surfer SEO vs Ahrefs
Keyword Research
Ahrefs boasts an extensive database that shows the search volume, keyword difficulty, and CPC of any keyword across languages and regions.
Based on the work I have done on both of these tools so far, I would say that both of them are good at keyword research, but if you just want to improve your content, Surfer SEO might be a better option for content, but if you want to get the full details of a keyword, such as its search volume, keyword difficulty, etc., then Ahrefs can give better results.
Content Optimization
Surfer SEO provides data by analyzing content in real time and also guides you on keyword usage, structure, and headings, which you can follow to optimize your content.
Ahrefs guides on topic-based keyword research and backlinks, but it lacks the interactive editing features of Surfer SEO.
Backlink Analysis
Ahrefs leads with a detailed and comprehensive backlink database, which tells you the domain, the text that contains the backlink, and the link that ends there. Surfer SEO doesn’t have this feature in its entirety.
Site Audit
Ahrefs offers a comprehensive site audit tool that identifies every issue on your site, guides you on how to fix it, and improves your website performance.
As long as I’ve been using it, Surfer SEO’s audit tool focuses only on content, it doesn’t look at technical issues or other issues, nor does it provide solutions, which is why it doesn’t perform better than Ahrefs for checking the overall site health.
Rank Tracking
Ahrefs provides detailed information about tracking rankings across different locations and devices. Due to its more data, Ahrefs gives a very detailed explanation of rank tracking, which makes it better than Surfer SEO.
On the other hand, Surfer doesn’t have this feature at all.
User Experience and Interface
Both Surfer SEO and Ahrefs have user-friendly interfaces, but their way of work is different. Surfer SEO has a simple layout and guides users through every step that how to optimize content and how to use it. This makes it ideal for beginners.
Ahrefs, which has a lot of features, would require a little learning, it may be better for professionals. Surfer SEO has integration with Google Docs, while Ahrefs supports APIs, which allows for advanced customization. These features, make it easier for users.
Pricing and Value for Money: Surfer SEO vs Ahrefs
Surfer SEO’s pricing plans start at $19/month, which gives any individual or small business features like Content Editor and SERP Analyzer.
Ahrefs’ pricing starts at $129/month, which is probably better for professionals and agencies. This plan includes tools like Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Site Audit, Rank Tracker, Competitive Analysis, SERP History, Page Inspect, and Ahrefs Web Analytics.
Ahrefs does not have a free trial, but for beginners, it offers a plan that costs $29/month, in which the individual gets the features of Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, and Site Audit.
Surfer SEO offers a good low-cost plan for content optimization. While Ahrefs’ plan is a bit expensive but has more features, which might be a good option for professionals and agencies.
Surfer SEO vs Ahrefs: Pros and Cons
Surfer SEO
Pros:
- Good for content optimization
- Affordable price
- User-friendly interface
- Its features make content creation easy
Cons:
- We cannot detect any technical issues or backlinks
- The rank tracking feature is not available
- Relies on other SEO tools
Ahrefs
Pros:
- Give detailed SEO reports
- Provides detailed metrics with a robust database
- Has rank tracking feature
- Ideal for professionals and agencies that work on a large scale
Cons:
- High pricing which beginners cannot afford
- Takes time to learn all the features it
- It does not provide real-time content optimization
Use Cases and Ideal Users
Surfer SEO is good for content creators, bloggers, and small businesses who want to write SEO-friendly content and need real-time content suggestions. In my experience, it is great for on-page SEO and content planning.
Ahrefs is best for professionals, agencies, and large businesses that want to do keyword research, backlink analysis, and competitive insights on a large scale.
For content optimization, I will recommend Surfer SEO and will recommend Ahrefs for technical and off-page SEO.
Conclusion
As a result, Surfer SEO is better for content optimization and on-page SEO, which is ideal for creators and small businesses, while Ahrefs is for professionals and agencies.
Choosing between the two depends on your own goals. You can use whichever one suits you best, keeping in mind your skills and budget.
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