Keyword Surfer Extension

Review: Is Keyword Surfer Worth Installing in Google Chrome?

Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank

Knowing the best keywords to use is only part of creating stellar content. You also need to keep in mind search intent. And a good, free tool can help you take your content even further. Today, I’m taking a look at the Google Chrome extension, Keyword Surfer.

And if the developer fixed a few of the issues I’ve found with the tool, I’d consider paying money for it.

But from the perspective of SEO content writing, the Keyword Surfer extension works well enough in Google Chrome.

What Is Keyword Surfer?

Keyword Surfer is part of a toolset created by Surfer, an organization specializing in search engine optimization. The free Chrome extension provides data for the user concerning any search term used in Google.

The app will display similar and relevant terms alongside their average search volume. This can help find highly-searched terms the user may not think of when creating content.

Under the keyword ideas, Keyword Surfer also shows Correlation charts to help users compare terms against the most popular results in Google.

To use Keyword Surfer, all you need to do is install the Chrome extension. It runs automatically whenever you use Google to search. The extension will show keyword data on the right of the screen.

What Are Some of the Features of Keyword Surfer?

Since the prime capabilities of Keywords Everywhere are no longer free, I decided to try a few Chrome extensions out for a good replacement. I came across Keyword Surfer and found it to have a great deal of potential.

However, the tool isn’t without its drawbacks.

Showing Keyword Ideas Based on Search

Keyword Surfer Word Ideas

Anytime you perform a search in Google, the extension will show a list of keyword ideas based on your term. It does this while also showing the search volume of those terms as well as the similarity score.

This means you can find great, high-volume phrases that may fit your content ideas nicely. But keep in mind, the higher the volume number, the more competition you’ll have for that specific term.

The issue I have is that I don’t know where the Keyword Surfer extension is pulling its data.

For instance, the search term, “keyword surfer” displays a 0 for search volume. But according to Google Keyword Planner, the average monthly volume is between 1,000 and 10,000.

Even if the numbers are a bit skewed from what Google says, the keyword ideas it provides are worth using.

In fact, a single search could open possibilities for a long list of future content you may want to write. I use it quite often to explore the possibilities for a variety of articles.

Number of Words in Articles…ish

Number of Words

One function of the extension that almost had me excited was the Number of Words feature. This shows you how many words were used to create each of the top 10 posts on the results page.

For someone using the Skyscraper technique or trying to gauge how many words are good for top positions, this is an ideal function.

However, I find the Number of Words for Keyword Surfer to be completely misleading. Like the volume data above, I’m not sure what the extension is counting on these pages.

A good example of this is when searching “textbroker writing tips.” According to Keyword Surfer, my post has 2,528 words. In fact, it only has 1,634. So, where are the other 894 words coming from?

I don’t even think there are 2,500+ words on the entire page, including advertisements.

If the developers could fix this feature, it would be an amazing addition. But as it stands, I take the data with a grain of salt. There are just too many ways text can register on a page that has nothing to do with the actual content.

You’re probably better off going into the post itself and using the Word Counter extension.

Select and Copy Keywords from Google

Export Word Ideas

As opposed to other keyword lookup tools, Keyword Surfer gives you the ability to select the terms you want and then copy them to an accessible Clipboard. From here, you can copy them to a doc file or export the list as a CSV.

This means you can pick and choose which terms you want to use for future content by clicking the little star next to each.

For me, this puts the Keyword Surfer extension ahead of a few other free tools in Chrome for creating SEO content.

You can open a CSV in just about any spreadsheet program, such as Excel or LibreOffice Calc. At which point, I would take to Google Keyword Planner to find the bid cost of each term.

For someone creating content strategies on a daily basis, this feature is quite handy. I don’t have to type in terms one-by-one of what I want to use in blog posts, tutorials, or articles.

Keyword Surfer Outline Generator

I would like to point out the new addition of the AI-powered article outline tool. From the extension, you can get ideas of what to write next as an AI system analyzes your topic and gives you ideas.

This function is available from the bottom on the very top of the Keyword Surfer extension when searching topics in Google.

The article generator will take your search phrase from Google and create an entire outline that you can use in your blog post. Or, you can simply use it to give you some ideas about what to write about.

In any case, it’s a handy tool for those who have trouble getting ideas.

How Do You Use the Keyword Surfer Extension?

Essentially, you just install the extension and it begins working immediately. Then, take to Google and search any phrase you’re interested in writing about. The selection of words will show up on the right of your screen.

It’s a pretty simple and straightforward system.

From there, you select which terms to use and download them as a file to use in your spreadsheets.

Keep in mind, though, Surfer SEO has a lot more tools at your disposal than just the keyword analyzer for Google. It may be worth checking them out to see if they offer anything else that may be of interest to you.

Would I Recommend Using Keyword Surfer?

The Keyword Surfer extension is a simple tool that can provide quite a few ideas for content marketing. Although I hate that the article word count is off by an incredible amount, and the search volume doesn’t seem to correspond well with Google, it’s still a nice tool to have.

Keyword Surfer is a comparable Keywords Everywhere Chrome alternative for finding relevant phrases when writing.

In reality, I have both extensions running on my browser as they give me a massive list of terms. What’s surprising is that both tools, even though they are similar, often find different keyphrases for each search I’ve made.

And the ability to pick and choose terms from the list before copying them to a spreadsheet is useful for me.

But with all of the oddities surrounding the plugin, I highly doubt I would pay money for something like this. At least not without the developer fixing a few of the issues I came across.

Though, I really like the addition of the outline generator. And, I am debating on writing a few articles using it as a guide to see how well they perform.

Perhaps that will be an experiment I’ll do later on. For now, though, it’s not a bad tool overall.

The Best Tool is One that is Perfect for You

In the end, the best tool for finding keywords is the one you get the most out of. Everyone has their preferred methods, and I find using Keywords Everywhere and Keyword Surfer together is what works for me.

At any rate, Keyword Surfer is a free extension. If you don’t like it, just delete it from Chrome and move on. The only thing you really lose is a few minutes of your day.

And what’s a few minutes if it helps you find terms and words you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise?

Michael Brockbank
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