‍What's New at Surfer? Product Updates January 2025

First things first: let’s address the elephant in the room—Surfer’s product newsletter got a housing upgrade and will no longer live within the Knowledge Base.

Why, you ask?

Simple. Now you’re just one click away from our educational resources: data studies, recovery tips for core updates, and advice on growing your organic traffic. The idea? Make it easier to discover (and actually use) all the knowledge we’ve packed into Surfer.

Secondly, I have a confession.

You’ve probably noticed a two-month gap in our newsletter.

Here’s why:

1. Black Friday happened.

2. Then the Wrapped campaign happened (which ends January 31st—so claim your SEO title before it’s gone!).

3. And, well… I’ve been sitting on a big secret.

Time to spill the beans:

We’re launching a new Content Optimization Masterclass!

What’s inside?

• 18 practical video lessons packed with examples.

• Exclusive community.

• Expert knowledge to take your content marketing to the next level.

Here’s the kicker: for a limited time, it will be free.

Yes—certificates, bonus materials, and community access—completely free.

Curious? Keep an eye on your inbox (or our LinkedIn, if you are not an active Surfer user) in the coming days.

Off to the product updates!

What's new? 👇

We’ve got three months of updates to cover, so let’s dive in tool by tool.

What’s New in Topical Map?

Topical Map now does two important things:

Instant domain-wide topical map

If you connect your GSC, you get an instant map of your entire domain.

See topic clusters you’ve already covered, spot content gaps your competitors have filled before you—aka stuff you should write about next, and discover semantically related ideas for new content.

This, you know (I hope).

What you might not know is that your domain map:

auto-updates every 30 days,
auto-expands with newly published content,
suggests new content ideas or even entire complimentary topics (suggestions are indicated with a purple dot),
labels everything nicely to show you keywords that gain or lost rankings (and more),
… and has a Competitor Tab for the nosy among us—in case you want to compare strategies and coverage with a specific competitor.

There is even a new Cannibalization report you can download (available as a CSV now, with an easier to digest, interactive version coming soon!).

Here’s the second thing:

Easy content expansion with “Enter Topic”

Whether you’re starting fresh or expanding your existing strategy, the “Enter Topic” option has you covered—at any time, with any topic.

It also introduces a new metric to watch: Topical Authority Score*.

Quick note: The “Enter Topic” map is separate from the domain map (for now), but once you start publishing, your domain map will auto-update to include your newly covered topics.

Here’s how it works:

Type in a seed keyword to instantly generate content ideas for your chosen topic and check your Topical Authority Score.

Topical Authority Score is our proprietary metric that reflects how strong your domain’s E-factor (Expertise from EEAT) is for a specific topic. It evaluates how many relevant keywords your domain already covers and gauges your domain’s expertise within any niche. The better your semantic coverage, the higher your score.

*Please note that this is a gradual roll out and applies to newly created single keyword maps only; if you can’t see the update yet and can’t wait to test it out (or want to leave feedback), please reach out to Topical Map’s Product Manager: [email protected].

From there, just sort your article ideas by difficulty or competitor coverage to prioritize your next steps.

Not a fan of time-consuming decisions? The Recommendations can help with the next best steps.

If you’re not sure how to decide on the topic (or simply can’t be bothered choosing), just navigate to the Recommendations tab and follow the suggested to-do list one by one.

Our recommendations algorithm is quite complex; it takes several different things into consideration and sprinkles extensive math on top. I’ll spare you the boring details and say this: keep completing the suggestions that make sense for your business goals and search intent, and you will quickly notice topical authority and organic traffic growth.

Pro tip: if you start writing using Topical Map, recommendations will update every 24h and will be more related to the content idea you picked, giving you more relevant articles as possible next steps.

Congrats, we just automated your content planning.

You’re welcome.

Cool features and UI changes aside, we did a lot of “invisible” work too—all algorithms that are responsible for finding the best topics and keywords were updated and tailored to the user feedback we received. Keep it coming, folks!

Oh, and Keyword Research is back in the main navigation.

Apparently, y’all are not over it, and honestly? I get it. It works great for localized, niche queries.

‍That said, very soon Topical Map will outperform it, so, consider switching.

Once you’re happy with your new content calendar, you can start writing articles one by one or create them all in bulk—and for that, you’ll need Surfer’s Content Editor. 👇

What’s New in Content Editor and WordPress plugin?

For the uninitiated, Content Editor is where you write SEO-friendly content—or let Surfer AI handle it for you (tomato, tomahto).

Manual workflow—aka regular Content Editor—highlights are as follows:

• Insert Outline gives you detailed SEO-friendly briefs in one click. Whether you’ll use it as a brief for your external writers or as a blueprint for your own writing, it will exponentially improve and speed up your writing process. Use it.

• Topics tab flags missing content so you can fill content gaps and easily outperform competitors with the depth of your article. It’s basically your cheat sheet to expert topical coverage. Very important, especially in the light of recent SPAM updates—use it.

• We also added Surfy, the AI writing assistant, to all Content Editors. It can expand, rewrite, shorten, and format anything. Yes, even create tables. Or social media posts, based on your article. Just, ask.

Here’s how I do it: I generate the outline with Insert Outline, review and add missing topics to it as needed, and then ask Surfy to write each section for me.

Next, I go to the Humanizer to rephrase the entire article into a human-like style, copy the result back to Content Editor, Auto-Optimize it and auto-insert internal links.

All that’s left is adding images, a final review of the article and voila—my article is ready in less than 20 minutes!

But, if you prefer to write in ChatGPT, use our extension to align it with Surfer guidelines. Here’s a tutorial:

‍

Pro tip: If you want ChatGPT to write in your specific tone of voice, remember to set up custom instructions for your GPT first. To find them, go to ChatGPT’s Settings > Personalization > Customize ChatGPT and add your directions. The more detailed you’ll be, the better the result!‍

Back to the topic - once you make sure your article is as comprehensive as possible, your next step should be Auto-Optimize.

One click, and your article goes from “meh” to “chef’s kiss” faster than a core update can ruin your rankings. No more worrying about keyword density or missed terms—it will take care of it for you.

But, that’s not all we added:

You can now find auto-generated metadata at the top of every Content Editor. Edit it or copy-paste it to the CMS of your choice as is.
You can insert relevant internal links to any article with a single click - all you need is a GSC connected to your Surfer account.
You can now collaborate easily with version history, comments, and folders, so you can work with colleagues or clients without actually speaking to them. 😉

Oh, and if you’re using our WordPress plugin, just know that it got so many updates it could star in the Substance. 💅

With the newest updates you can:

• Export meta tags from Surfer directly to your WP.

• Seamlessly apply Elementor Template designs during export.

• Rename images without breaking re-uploads—our plugin will still recognize them.

• Hide writing guidelines in Elementor when you don’t need them.

• Quickly find specific posts with a new title-based search.

• Export links with the correct target attributes automatically.

From analytics and live Content Editor guidelines to Elementor integration, it’s working very smooth right now. Seriously, give it a go—here’s a quick installation guide.

Basically, Content Editor is your content Swiss Army knife. And it will only keep getting better, because we have several exciting features coming up very soon. 🤫

That said—if you’re writing any SEO content with AI and you’re done writing, your next step should be Humanizer. 👇

What’s New in Surfer AI and Humanizer?

サーファーAIは最高です

Yeah, I don’t understand it either. 😅

But Surfer AI does—it speaks 13 languages now. Including Japanese.

Instant, SEO-ready articles in minutes. About anything.

Complete with templates, a SERP-based tone of voice, and the most customizable article outline out there.

Still not impressed? It also generates images, metadata and inserts internal links with a single click.

And is cheaper than ever.

You’re welcome, again. 😉

Moving on.

If you are not using AI to speed up your research and writing, you will get left behind by your competitors—that’s F 👏 A 👏 C 👏 T 👏 S.

That said, AI is not an answer to everything—it needs to be used properly to actually benefit you.

So, if you don't like how AI-generated content sounds (who does, honestly), always use a Humanizer when you’re done writing.

Humanizer detects and rephrases AI content to sound human.

You can even teach it to mimic your tone of voice, with our new Custom Voice option.

Oh, and you can use Humanizer directly in ChatGPT, with the Surfer extension I mentioned earlier—because, of course, we made it possible for you. 🤷

You created your content calendar, wrote and optimized articles. What’s next?

That’s right—making sure they keep ranking over time. For this, you’ll need Surfer’s Content Audit. 👇

What’s New in Content Audit and Recommendations?

Writing optimized content is not enough—you need to keep it ranking over time. And that’s why we created Content Audit.

Honestly, this should be your first step when joining Surfer.

Or, first thing you do tomorrow, if you’ve been with us for a while and haven’t audited your website yet.

Connect your GSC and let the tool scan your domain—it’ll show you what ranks, what flopped, and what to re-optimize.

There is even a special Recommendations tab—which is basically a fast pass to recovering lost rankings with targeted suggestions for underperforming articles. It automatically detects articles on pages 4th to 20th with solid traffic potential and highlights them for you to Auto-Optimize and republish.

Moving on.

Let’s say, you reeeeeally can’t be bothered to check all of these tabs.

That’s fine, we got you.

We’ll email you a weekly digest with best topics to cover and quick wins to boost your rankings—all in a single place.

It’s like having an SEO assistant—minus the payroll.

All you need is a Content Audit and Topical Map created for the domain of your choice.

New addition: Reports

We just released Reports to help you stay on top of your metrics without parkouring through endless tabs.

If you want to see yours, make sure to connect your Google Search Console to Surfer first. Current version of Reports covers basics only right now but we’re actively working on adding useful expansions. 🤌

As always, we’re waiting for your feedback and improvement suggestions. Is there a specific datapoint you’d like to see or track within Surfer? Let us know!

Cool.

Moving on.

New addition: Rank Tracker

Picture this: Your competitor swoops in and outranks you for your top keywords overnight.

You didn’t see it coming—and now you’re losing traffic and sales.

Why? Because you weren’t tracking your rankings.

With Surfer’s new add-on, Rank Tracker, you’ll spot changes before they cost you. See where you’re losing ground, where your competitors stand, and what you need to do to win it back.

It’s $8.50/month for a basic package of 100 keywords (or less if you buy in bulk), and can be purchased from the Rank Tracker tab.

If all this is not a clear view of your SEO performance, I don’t know what is.

And with that, we’re done with the rapid-fire product updates (phew!).

Time for the knowledge nuggets. 🤓

Learn on YouTube 👇

How to Use Surfer: A Complete Guide

You can watch our tool-specific explanatory videos—we have several of them, one for every tool. Buuuuuut you could also watch the complete user guide instead—and get practical tips directly from our marketing team (that uses Surfer daily for content planning and optimization.). Watch now 👉

Introducing Topics - Surfer's New Content Optimization Feature!

Creating high-quality, SEO-optimized content isn’t just about sprinkling keywords—it’s about ensuring you create original, comprehensive, and helpful content that fully covers any given topic. That’s where Topics comes in, your new content optimization tool inside Surfer! 🚀 Watch now 👉

Optimize content faster with Surfy, your AI writing assistant. Now in Every Content Editor!

If you or one of your writers has ever spent wayy too long staring at a blank page and blinking cursor 😅 you need this—we’ve just launched a new feature which enables Surfy, your AI-writing assistant, in Content Editor! 🎉 Watch now 👉

‍Auto-Optimize 2.0 - Cover Topical Gaps With Just One Click!

🗣️ Auto-Optimize now covers Topical Gaps! If you thought Auto-Optimize was helpful before, it just got an upgrade that you’ll want to know about… Topical Gaps: if there’s a topic your competitor has covered that you’re missing, AO will factor that in when adding relevant terms and missing sections! Watch now 👉