Surfer FAQs! Why can't you score 100 on every single article? How does Surfer come up with its NLP suggested terms to use? We'll answer these questions and more!
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Hello! Danni from Surfer, here with some information you care about! In this lesson, we're going to talk about some of your frequently asked questions. No matter how great a tool is, if you don't know how to use it, it doesn't really matter does it? Let's get into it. Let's answer your questions. Let's get you feeling even more confident about using Surfer!
Why can’t I score 100 in every article?
Content Score is a numerical value that ranges from 0 to 100 and represents the quality and relevancy of the website's content in reference to a given keyword. If the search intent within that keyword isn’t 100% the same, it would be hard to make it completely relevant
Moreover, the Content Score is a calculation that doesn’t take into account user experience. Surfer’s mission is to help people produce content that people would enjoy reading even if it’s SEO optimized, and therefore it might not be a good idea to trade content’s readability for a couple of points in Surfer’s Content Score.
There are high chances the SERPs for a given keyword will change after a while. Since Content Score is based on what ranks, your efforts to make it high might not justify the time you would spend on that. Usually, once your score is green you’re good to go and you can start optimizing other URLs. More optimized content means better SEO - one perfectly optimized page wouldn’t make it up for ten other pages being unoptimized.
Where do the terms to use come from?
Terms to use are based on the competitors you picked in the customization panel. Surfer would crawl those websites, analyze the content there, and then calculate which terms are important for the best topical coverage.
You can learn more about our algorithm and what exactly is taken into account here: https://surferseo.com/blog/the-new-algorithm-for-content-analysis/
Where do the clusters in Content Planner come from?
Clusters in the Content Planner are based on what we found within the domain that ranks for your seed keyword. So the more alike the search intent for seed keyword is, the more chances you’ll get many relevant topics worth covering on your website. We take a look at the top urls from the SERP to see which ones rank. Surfer scans the web and uses its databases to present a ready-made list of article ideas that both Google and your users want to see. They are relevant, connected and organized. Content gaps? Not anymore! You’ll avoid three very common SEO mistakes: thin content, when your content barely scrapes the surface or doesn’t match search intent. Cannibalization, which happens when two articles target the same keyword and one basically steals traffic from the other. And lastly irrelevant segment inclusion: With Content Planner, you have a guarantee that all sub-clusters are topically connected. You won’t accidentally harm your topical relevance by trusting only your intuition.
Does NLP really make a difference?
It does! Have you ever had a meal that you really liked, but suddenly found out that adding one specific spice made it thousand times better? It’s like that with NLP. Without that, Surfer is able to do the calculations and our suggestions are based on pure math. With NLP, algorithms can actually understand what that word means, and therefore associate it with another term that makes sense. Thanks to that, we can provide you with phrases that are more descriptive so that you won’t have trouble adding them to the content. Moreover, thanks to that we can better understand what the content is about, and therefore our suggestions on relevancy are much more on point.
Why do I get different Content Score in the Content Editor and in the Audit?
Audit takes into account everything that is placed within the part of your source code, so it will include any additional elements that you might have, like footers or sidebars. When you’re writing in the Content Editor, you’re usually creating your main content there - and therefore, once it gets posted within the content that has been already there, it might affect your final score.
That's all for now. I don't want to overwhelm you with information. If I missed anything, make sure to let me know. If you have any specific questions, you can leave a comment or send us an email. Our support team is *chef's kiss* I'll see you in the next lesson. We'll talk about some amazing tools that are useful and practical that you should include in your SEO strategy and in content creation process. Happy Surfing, and I'll see you in the next lesson.
