# Surfer SEO alternatives: content optimisation tools and what they measure

Content optimisation tools all do a version of the same thing: they read the pages ranking for your query, count what those pages contain, and grade your draft against them. That is genuinely useful as a brief and dangerous as a target. This page explains what the category measures, the alternatives by the job you need done, the free method that produces a better brief, and when a score is worth ignoring.

Updated 2026-09-15 · Source: https://porteur.ai/alternatives/surfer-seo-alternatives

## What these tools actually measure

A content optimisation tool fetches the pages currently ranking for a query, extracts what they have in common, and compares your draft against that. The comparison is mostly about terms, headings and length.

- Terms the ranking pages use, and how often, which becomes a checklist of words to include.
- Headings those pages carry, which becomes a suggested outline.
- Length, taken from the pages that rank rather than from any rule.
- Questions the results page shows, in the tools that read People also ask.

Nothing in that list is a Google ranking factor. Google has said repeatedly there is no word count that ranks, and no term frequency target exists. What the score captures is a resemblance to the pages that already rank, which is a decent proxy for covering the subject and a poor proxy for being worth reading.

> Treat the score as a brief you can argue with. The pages that rank are the competition, not the standard.

## Why people look for an alternative

- Cost per page. These are subscriptions priced for teams publishing constantly, and a founder publishing two pages a month does the sums.
- The score becomes the goal. Writers pad paragraphs to reach a number, and the page gets worse while the grade improves.
- It says nothing about whether the page should exist. A perfect score on a topic nobody searches is still a wasted week.
- Sameness. A tool that rewards resembling the top ten produces the eleventh version of the same page, with nothing of its own.
- It has no idea what your product knows, which is the only part a rival cannot copy.

## The criteria that decide it

- What you need: a brief before writing, a check after writing, or the questions readers ask.
- Volume: two pages a month, or twenty.
- Who writes: you, or writers who need an instruction to follow.
- Does it help you decide what to write, or only how to write what you already chose.
- What you give up when the subscription ends.

## The alternatives, by the job

1. **You want a graded editor for writers: Clearscope** Content optimisation built around term coverage and a readable grade, aimed at editorial teams who need one instruction a writer can follow.
2. **You want research and a brief: Frase** Built around researching the results page and assembling a brief from it, with drafting features on top. Useful when the bottleneck is preparing the page rather than scoring it.
3. **You want the questions, not a score: AlsoAsked** It maps the People also ask questions as a tree, several levels deep, by country and language, with a small free allowance. Those questions are your headings, and this is the cheapest research on the list.
4. **You already pay for a suite** The large suites carry their own content tools beside keyword research and tracking. If a subscription is already on the card, use what it includes before adding another.
5. **You want to know what to write at all** That is a different question, and no scoring tool answers it. It comes from your own Search Console queries, the results pages of the searches you want, and what your rivals have that you do not.

> Check each tool's own site for what its plans include. Feature sets in this category move quickly, and a comparison page is out of date the month after it is written.

## Side by side

| Tool | The job it does | Gives you a score | Helps decide what to write |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Surfer SEO | Scores a draft against the pages that rank | Yes | No |
| Clearscope | Term coverage and a grade for editorial teams | Yes | No |
| Frase | Research and brief building from the results page | Yes, with drafting | Partly |
| AlsoAsked | Maps the questions people ask around a query | No | Partly |
| The results page itself | Shows intent, format and competition | No | Yes |
| Porteur | A report on which pages to write and why | No | Yes |

## The free method, which produces a better brief

Twenty minutes, no subscription, and it ends with something a scoring tool cannot produce: a reason for the page to exist.

1. **Search the query and read what ranks** Ten product pages means buyers, ten guides means learners, ten lists means people choosing. Match the format before anything else, because a page in the wrong format never competes.
2. **Take the questions** Read People also ask and the related searches at the foot of the page. Those are your section headings, phrased as readers phrase them.
3. **Open the top three pages and list their headings** That is the coverage a scoring tool would have charged you for. Write it in a note.
4. **Write down what they all miss** A figure from your own product, a worked example, a decision table, a tool. This is the part that makes the page worth ranking rather than worth counting.
5. **Set the length from the competition** Look at how long the top pages are and write what the subject needs. There is no word count that ranks, and padding to a target is the failure this whole category encourages.
6. **Answer in the first two sentences** The reader came for the answer, and an assistant quoting your page will take those sentences. Detail goes after them, never before.

## The risk of writing for a score

A grade is a resemblance measure. Push it high enough and you have written a page that resembles ten others, which is the definition of a page with no information gain.

- Padding: sentences added to carry a term, which readers skim and assistants will not quote.
- Sameness: the same outline as the top ten, so nothing gives a reader a reason to read yours.
- False confidence: a high score on a page that answers a query nobody makes.
- Displaced judgement: the tool decides the outline, so nobody asks whether the page should exist.

We make Porteur, and it is not in this category: it is a report bought once that says which pages a site should build or fix and why, rather than grading a draft you have already decided to write.

## The tools compared

### Surfer SEO

Scoring a draft against the pages currently ranking for a query, with terms, headings and length as the comparison. (surferseo.com)

Good at: Turning the top results into a checklist; Giving writers one instruction to follow; Covering a subject without missing the obvious; Working inside an editor while drafting; Consistency across many writers.

Choose it when You publish often, with several writers, and need a shared standard for coverage.

Not for: Deciding what to write, or writing the part of a page that no competitor has.

### Clearscope

Content optimisation for editorial teams, built around term coverage and a readable grade. (clearscope.io)

Good at: A simple grade a writer can aim at; Coverage of the terms the ranking pages share; Fitting into an editorial workflow; Consistency across a content team; Briefs that non-specialists can follow.

Choose it when An editorial team needs one shared, simple standard for coverage.

Not for: A solo founder publishing occasionally, where the cost per page is hard to justify.

### Frase

Researching a query from the results page and assembling a brief, with drafting features on top. (frase.io)

Good at: Pulling the outline of the ranking pages together; Building a brief before writing; Collecting the questions around a topic; Speeding up the research half of a page; Helping a writer start from something.

Choose it when Your bottleneck is preparing pages rather than grading them.

Not for: Judging whether a topic is worth a page for your business.

### AlsoAsked

Mapping the People also ask questions around a query as a tree, several levels deep, by country and language. (alsoasked.com)

Good at: The questions readers actually ask; Headings phrased the way searchers phrase them; Seeing a topic's shape before writing; A small free allowance for occasional use; Working for any query, in any market it covers.

Choose it when You want research rather than a grade, and you write the page yourself.

Not for: Scoring a draft or measuring coverage after writing.

### Porteur

A growth report bought once that reads a site, its searches and its rivals and says which pages to write or fix, in what order. (porteur.ai)

Good at: Deciding which pages are worth writing at all; Naming the searches a site can realistically win; Showing who holds each search today; Findings written as briefs, with the figures behind them; A free check first, no card.

Choose it when The question is which pages to build next, not how closely a draft resembles the top ten.

Not for: Grading a draft, counting terms, or working inside your editor as you write.

**Verdict.** If several people write for you every week, a scoring tool earns its place as a shared standard: Clearscope for a simple grade, Surfer for a detailed one, Frase when the work is preparing briefs rather than grading drafts. If you write two pages a month yourself, the free method beats all of them, because twenty minutes on the results page gives you the format, the questions and the gap, and AlsoAsked maps the questions for almost nothing. Whatever you use, decide the page's reason for existing before you open the scorer, and stop optimising when the page is honest rather than when the number is green.

## Questions

### Does a higher content score mean a higher ranking?

No. The score measures resemblance to the pages currently ranking, not anything Google computes. It is useful as coverage insurance and misleading as a target, because the pages that win usually have something the others do not.

### Is there a free Surfer SEO alternative?

The results page is free and better for deciding: it shows the format that ranks, the questions people ask and what the top pages cover. AlsoAsked maps the questions with a small free allowance. What you lose is the automated grade, which is the least valuable part.

### How long should my page be?

As long as the subject needs. Google has said there is no word count that ranks. Look at the length of the pages that currently rank to calibrate, then write what answers the query and stop. Padding to hit a target is the standard failure of writing to a score.

### Do these tools help with AI answers too?

Indirectly. Assistants quote pages that answer plainly, with clear headings, lists and tables. A scoring tool nudges you towards covering the subject, which helps, but the thing that gets quoted is a direct answer near the top, which no score measures.

### Should I use one if I write with AI?

It is the wrong pairing. A model already writes text that resembles what exists, so grading it for resemblance doubles the sameness. The scarce ingredient is what only you know: your product's data, a worked example, a decision you made and why.

## Read next

- [Updating old blog posts: which ones, what to change, what to leave](https://porteur.ai/guides/update-old-blog-posts): Pick the posts worth your hour, make changes that pay, keep the URL, set dates correctly, and know when to merge or retire instead.
- [Search intent: what the results page tells you to build](https://porteur.ai/guides/search-intent): Learn the four intents, read intent from the results page, and fix pages that will never rank by changing their kind, not just the words.
- [People also ask: turning Google’s questions into sections](https://porteur.ai/guides/people-also-ask): See what People also ask is, where questions come from, how to collect them, write two-sentence answers, add FAQ markup, and track results.
- [How to refresh a page that lost its traffic](https://porteur.ai/guides/content-refresh): Find why a page lost clicks, refresh what searchers want now, and measure the result. Keep the same URL, update facts, sections, links and date.
- [Content brief](https://porteur.ai/glossary/content-brief): A content brief defined, what to include, how to write one in minutes, how to measure it in Search Console, and common traps to avoid.
- [Thin content](https://porteur.ai/glossary/thin-content): Thin content is a page with little value of its own. See why it drags a small site, how to spot it, and how to expand, merge or remove.
- [Google Keyword Planner alternatives](https://porteur.ai/alternatives/google-keyword-planner-alternatives): Keyword Planner shows ranges without ad spend and no difficulty. Here are the free and paid alternatives by need, and the method that uses none.
- [Yoast SEO alternatives for WordPress](https://porteur.ai/alternatives/yoast-alternatives): Every WordPress SEO plugin writes the same tags. Here is what Rank Math, All in One SEO and SEOPress each are, and how to switch without breaking a site.

Before you grade a draft, check the page is worth writing: paste your URL and the free check names the searches around your site, who holds them, and three findings in about thirty seconds. Free check: https://porteur.ai/