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Outranking the competition with our cutting-edge SEO strategies.
I am looking for a content optimization platform that works for you? You’re likely to come across two contenders: SurferSEO and Frase. Well-known in the SEO world, these two rivals bring their unique flair with cool features and pricing options.
Their competition is fierce, but we’re here to give you some valuable insights to help you make an informed decision, and explore why Outranking is a great alternative that goes above and beyond.
Just so you know
This blog was created by the team at Outranking, a trusted content analysis tool for digital marketers. In this review, our team analyzed both SurferSEO and Frase, both of which are competitors with Outranking. This content is for informational purposes only.
Frase and SurferSEO share some overlap as content optimization platforms that offer key features like keyword research, on-page optimization, and SERP analysis. While these similarities make them comparable, you should know how their distinct features and approaches can best fit your needs.
Think of Frase as an AI-driven content optimization platform that helps website owners like you improve search engine rankings and increase online visibility. It provides research tools, outline creation automation, AI writing templates, and a handful of content optimization features.
Frase is best known for its ability to automate research tasks. By extracting headings, sections, and full text from search engine results pages, you can conveniently display this data on the right side of the interface. If you also want to optimize existing pages, Frase allows you to import your URLs. At its core, the platform aims to save you time by eliminating the need to switch between multiple pages.
SurferSEO is a comprehensive content optimization platform that offers slightly more robust features than Frase. It leverages advanced neural language processing (NLP) technology to optimize your content effectively. One of its standout features is a built-in SERP analyzer, which gathers data from the top results of Google.
SurferSEO also provides optional features for AI writing tools, on-page audits, and content features. But most people recognize the platform for its content editor, which has been emulated by competitors across the industry.
SurferSEO has a smaller dataset than Frase, but its interface is more user friendly and that always simplifies the content optimization process.
After reviewing both Frase and SurferSEO, we noticed they both lack comprehensive and actionable data. Frase and SurferSEO focus primarily on specific words and phrases — often resulting in unnatural writing practices — but Outranking takes a more holistic approach.
It goes beyond content optimization and takes factors like the number of images, tables, and lists in addition to textual elements into account. With this, you can leverage successful content structures while avoiding the pitfalls of “keyword stuffing” (a nasty habit of Frase and SurferSEO).
No matter your SEO needs, Outranking has you covered — equipped with an arsenal of features, including AI writing, audits for existing pages, and a plagiarism checker and fixer! Your SEO toolbox will never be empty with Outranking. 🏋️
SurferSEO also offers a large range of additional tools:
It’s easy to see how quickly you can go over budget with SurferSEO! 🫣
How do Frase and SurferSEO compare when it comes to content optimization and research?
| Feature | Frase | SurferSEO | Outranking |
| Keyword Research | Provides SERP data on up to five keywords at once (but no data on traffic) | Provides SERP and related keyword data for up to 11 keywords | Provides top results of SERP for multiple keywords simultaneously. |
| Content Briefs | Numerous brief templates, one automatically generated brief creation | No brief creation support, offers a list of competitors and a section for notes in the brief tab | Automates brief and outline creation as part of your content workflow and creation process |
| Optimization Recommendations | Offers recommendations based on word count, number of links, and number of images | Suggests changes on specific words, number of paragraphs, images, and word count. | Recommends changes based on word count, heading count, word information, number of tables, images, and metadata |
Frase doesn’t provide keyword data support or a browser extension for keyword research. Instead, Frase places a stronger emphasis on the writing process. Frase’s built-in brief creation system provides evidence of its focus on writing, demonstrating its focus on assisting you in creating high-quality content.
To supplement Frase’s absence of keyword research tools, you’ll need to rely on extensions like Keywords Everywhere to get by.
Here, SurferSEO stands out as the simpler and more recognizable of the two platforms. Its content score system is emulated by some SEO writing tools across the SEO world like Scalenut and NeuronWriter, and for good reason: it’s an effective way to gauge the quality of your content.
Both platforms share a common starting point with keyword research. But SurferSEO provides a more comprehensive approach. It features a built-in keyword research platform that enables you to generate a list of keyword clusters. This provides a solid foundation for optimizing your content. Surfer also offers a Chrome extension that lets you conduct further research and gather valuable insight on Google.
| Feature | Frase | SurferSEO | Outranking |
| Content Scoring | Focuses on a topic score that supports topical coverage (use of keywords) | Provides a content score that tracks the words, headings, paragraphs, and keyword use | Gathers data from top performers to calculate their ranking |
| Content Editor | Includes tabs for headings, questions, statistics, news, and wiki articles | Includes tabs for titles, headings, and questions | Provides support across multiple categories and scores for uniqueness |
Frase offers a more comprehensive approach to research by providing news and Wiki links to relevant information so you can stay up-to-date with the latest events and research with trusted sources. You’ll also find tabs for external and internal links, providing ample data for you to sink your teeth into.
Surfer takes a unique “grading” approach to the tracked features. It deducts points if the content falls short of the average word count or lacks the correct amount of images. This helps you keep your content comprehensive and visually engaging, improving its chances of achieving better search engine rankings.
The SEO content audit is a crucial process that analyzes your website’s content to identify areas for improvement and optimization. Both Frase and SurferSEO audit your content in different ways.
With Frase, optimizing your content is easy. You have the flexibility to import data from a website using URLs or a site crawler. Once the data’s there, you can easily apply it to different keywords to bring your content to perfection. Frase’s editor also allows you to rewrite and optimize the text. Frase also provides an optional chatbot feature that lets you interact with your website’s visitors.
SurferSEO brings a comprehensive site audit to the table. It offers technical SEO data like page speed, content length, and backlinks. But all good things have a price — this feature comes at an added cost of $49 per month. 💸 SurferSEO also includes built-in content monitoring features that actively suggest improvements for your existing content so you can keep it fresh and relevant. Finally, SurferSEO offers limited features for off-page optimization.
Both Frase and SurferSEO leverage NLP technology to identify common keywords and phrases in top SERPs.
With Frase, you can sort your NLP terms by long-tail, short, and topical clusters. This sorting feature makes it easier to organize your NLP terms and ensures that you cover common topics found throughout your content.
SurferSEO lets you add and remove NLP terms, but it lacks a sorting capability. As a result, you may have to play the guessing game to determine the most important NLP topics, which can be less helpful and more time-consuming.
Both SurferSEO and Frase offer AI writing and outlining capabilities, but the level of development and focus on AI between the two platforms differ.
Frase has invested more time and effort into its AI software. They provide a variety of AI templates tailored for different needs, like sales copywriting and blog content writing prompts. These templates offer users a range of options to choose from based on their specific needs.
When it comes to outlining, Frase does a good job of suggesting an outline based on the topic mentioned in other web pages. Their built-in site reader allows you to manually browse through the heading and select the ones that best suit your needs. Frase can also generate headings for you, which you can then add or remove as you need.
Frase charges $35 per month to leverage these AI features, as you get “unlimited credits” with the SEO add-on.
SurferSEO has caught up to Frase in terms of its available AI tools. While they offer AI capabilities for blog and article creation, their focus is more specific than Frase’s broader AI templates.
Surfer’s outline-building feature generates a series of headings based on top SERPs. But many of these headers are directly copied from other sources, meaning you’ll have to go through and manually edit each one. This indicates that the AI behind Surfer’s outline builder is relatively weak in producing original and tailored outlines.
To access Surfer’s AI features, the platform charges at least $29 per AI credit, which covers the creation of just one blog.
What about Outranking? 🤔 Read this case study on how Outranking’s AI writing tool helped one company double their content and organic website traffic in just six months!
Semantic terms mapping is a visual representation of keyword-based data. You can use this visual representation alongside semantic terms mapping to understand the topic better.
Visually speaking, Frase is the only one that lets you create a graph-based topical heatmap. If you prefer to “see” your results, Frase is the better choice.
SurferSEO doesn’t offer any unique term mapping features. Instead, it simply allows you to organize your target terms and select the ones that best suit your needs (just like Frase). Surfer’s setting also lets you see the list of alternative terms so you can focus on terms that best meet your writing style needs. You can also exclude or include terms as necessary.
Built-in plagiarism checkers are essential for ensuring originality.
Frase’s plagiarism checker compares your content against the top SERPs for your target keywords. It displays a red bubble with a number in the upper-right corner to let you know how many matching phrases are found in those results. But Frase doesn’t provide a final check at the end of the SEO content creation process.
SurferSEO includes a plagiarism checker that provides a final review at the end of the content creation process. The system is designed to be simpler, allowing you to focus on your writing without the constant urge to rewrite your content as you work.
Looking for an easier solution? 🪄 Outranking finds and fixes plagiarized content just like that! Check this out 👇
Content briefs start your writers off on the right foot. They help everyone stay focused on the information that matters and ensure a comprehensive reference for your content every step of the way.
Frase’s Auto Brief feature streamlines the brief creation process. It includes the following options:
Even though it’s informative, Frase retrieves much of this information from its right-hand tool, making it somewhat redundant to have it duplicated in the Auto Brief feature.
Unfortunately, SurferSEO lacks built-in features for creating briefs, meaning the pressure’s on for you to manually create the format for your briefs before you can continue. This can eat away at your day!
Frase and SurferSEO offer powerful tools for data collection and content suggestions, but they focus on different areas and approaches.
Specializing in analyzing and improving content clusters, Frase distinguishes itself with its organizational style for SERP data collection. Under the research tab, you’ll find selections for the latest news, Wiki pages, and statistics, offering a well-organized approach to gathering relevant information.
SurferSEO provides a comprehensive suite of optimization tools encompassing keyword research, content editing, and SERP analysis. The differences in data collection areas and NLP systems can result in varied content suggestions, making it challenging to consistently follow the changing recommendations.
Check out the key takeaways –
But at the end of the day, both platforms have limitations when it comes to their AI writing capabilities.
With the best SEO best practices in place, our advanced features and user-friendly AI give your on-page SEO the attention it deserves. We even focus on the little details, like page titles and meta descriptions, and offer recommendations for improving your page’s content. (Oh, and don’t forget its ability to automatically catch internal linking opportunities! ⛓️) SurferSEO and Frase offer similar functionalities but lack the same sophistication and ease of use as we do.
At Outranking, we have your best interest at heart 🫶 That’s why we’ve implemented automatic optimization features in our latest V13! One-click is all you need to make your content the best it can be. Using SERP data, we help you determine the best headlines, target keywords, topics, questions, and more.
Your readers need factually correct information and that takes a lot of effort and QA. Our platform will save you so much time and energy by automating the entire content creation process. With the help of AI, Outranking analyzes data from the top SERP results and crafts really great first drafts based on learned language and formatting. This lets you publish content more quickly and maintain better and better research quality and information accuracy.
[Outranking] makes it faster and easier to write content, but not only that, if you are new to SEO like me, it helps you with tips on what to do so that your content is going to rank in the google search results.
Peter Bachmann D. on Capterra
Our outline builder gives you a unique list of headers to organize your content and engage readers. Using data from the top results of the SERP, you can match what works while meeting Google’s originality requirements.
Sit back and relax as our next-generation AI makes writing content briefs that much easier. With the ability to generate detailed briefs and bestow helpful guidance as you craft, these smart robots bring your content vision to life, make production easy, and deliver optimal results.
Our platform offers comprehensive features like content optimization recommendations, keyword analysis, and performance tracking. 📊 With Outranking, you can optimize your content for search engines, drive organic traffic, and ultimately achieve faster and more organic reach ASAP!
Need to see it to believe it? Discover how Angel Nwoha scaled his niche content 10x with the help of Outranking!
With Outranking, you won’t have to pay $30 per article to access AI features or rely on unhelpful templates. Outranking integrates AI directly into its platform seamlessly, covering the entire content creation process from brief creation to optimization.
Our newly updated and simplified UI and extended optimization features cover any UI gaps, making Outranking easier than ever to use! That means you don’t even need to be a content expert to use the platform. Just let the power of AI work its magic. Boost your content, boost your process, boost your bottom line. Period. Full stop.
With the best AI writing features around, there’s no time to lose — try Outranking for free!
