SEO content writing tools: Choose the right one with this practical guide

Struggling to find the right keywords and boost your website traffic can be incredibly frustrating. But have no fear – SEO content writing tools like Frase, Surfer SEO, and Clearscope can light the way.

This practical guide breaks down the ins and outs of these powerful tools. We’ll look at their features, pricing, and how they can help you conquer search engine rankings.

Get ready to say goodbye to SEO hurdles and hello to increased visibility.

What are SEO tools for content writing?

SEO writing tools are vital for crafting digital content that stands out in search engine results. These tools assist by automating the SEO optimization process—making it easier to target content strategies that get you on page one of Google.

• Keyword Research: This process involves discovering target keywords that increase traffic and match with user queries effectively.
• Content Tailoring: Tools adjust your articles to improve content quality, focusing on SEO-friendly content that engages readers and ranks well.
• Insights and Analytics: Using data analytics, these tools offer a highly nuanced look into how your content performs, providing a clear path to refine strategies and maximize search engine visibility.

These functionalities collectively ensure your content is optimized from conception through publication, helping both reach and reader engagement.

How do SEO Writing Tools Work?

Understanding the mechanics of SEO writing tools can transform your content creation process from guesswork to precision.

• Real-Time Optimization: As you draft, these tools evaluate your use of keywords and writing style to suggest immediate improvements, ensuring every piece is optimized for search rankings and reader clarity.
• Adaptive Content Guidance: Whether adjusting for tone or structure, these tools act as a dynamic guide through the content creation maze.
• Easy Workflow Incorporation: Directly embedding into popular content management systems and Google Docs, these tools simplify your workflow and blog posts creation, enabling efficient edits and optimizations without needing to switch between different software environments.

Top SEO content tools we recommend

Achieving your content goals takes more than just good ideas. With the right tools for SEO, you can expedite the entire process: discover powerful keyword suggestions, craft compelling product descriptions, optimize social media posts for maximum reach and so much more.

Let’s roll up our sleeves and test some of these firsthand.

Frase.io Review

Frase.io is primarily a tool for SEO that facilitates content optimization by using several different features like SEO optimization guides all the way up to AI-generated content insights. It’s designed to systemize the process of content planning and improve the SEO-optimized content that businesses produce.

Key Features of Frase.io

1 – Content Analysis and Optimization:

• • Content Briefs: Frase.io is adept at generating detailed content briefs. These briefs provide a structured outline for your content, incorporating essential SEO strategies (using their “SEO Workflow”), primary keywords, and more to ensure content remains natural yet effective.

• • Real-Time Content Scores: As content is crafted, Frase.io provides live feedback, helping to adjust keyword density and maintain content grades. This feature ensures that your content adheres to SEO best practices.

Let’s look at a real-life example. Here’s a screenshot from this very article as it stands now while we’re writing it:

Now, 39% is a very low Frase score – but we’re still quite early into this blog post and always strive for 80% or more as the final result. We’ll show you our full score a little later on.

2 – Competitive Analysis Tools:

Frase.io offers tools that allow you to analyze your competitors’ content strategies. This helps in understanding the SEO tactics being used by competitors, giving insights that can refine your approach to content creation.

3 – Support Across Content Types:

Whether dealing with long-form content or quick content pieces, Frase.io adjusts its tools to support various content formats, making it versatile for different content strategies.

4 – Seamless Integration and Ease of Use:

Frase also offers add-ons for Google Docs and WordPress, making it a user-friendly option for those embedded in these ecosystems.

SEO Benefits:

• Reduced Bounce Rate: Focus on user intent and answer key questions to keep visitors engaged.
• Improved Rankings: Frase’s data-driven insights help you craft search engine-optimized content.
• Topic Authority: Become a trusted authority in your niche by producing comprehensive content.

Bottom line:

From our direct experience, Frase.io has significantly refined how we tackle SEO and content development. Its analytical capabilities, combined with real-time feedback and comprehensive competitive insights, make it a central tool in our digital marketing arsenal.

Frase SEO pricing

Frase.io offers three different subscription models to cater to various user needs:

Solo Plan

• Priced at $15 monthly, this plan allows up to 10 articles each month. It’s tailored for bloggers at the beginning of their journey or those who publish sporadically.

Basic Plan

• At $45 per month, this plan is optimal for solo entrepreneurs or individuals managing a single blog, allowing for the creation and optimization of up to 30 articles monthly. This plan is limited to one user.

Team Plan

• For $115 monthly, this plan is ideal for those with a team of writers or assistants. It supports up to three users and offers the capability to create or optimize more than 30 articles per month without any limits on content volume, making it an excellent option for active bloggers and content creators.

Compared to similar tools in the market, like MarketMuse which starts at $149 per month, Frase remains an excellently priced option in the SEO tool industry.

Surfer SEO Review

Surfer SEO is also an SEO tool designed for content marketers who want data-driven insights to improve their content strategy. It uses artificial intelligence to analyze top-ranking pages, providing specific features to optimize your content for search.

Here’s how it can boost your company’s SEO:

1 – Uncover Hidden Gems with Keyword Research

Stuck with content ideas? Surfer’s Keyword Research tool goes beyond basic suggestions. It analyzes search intent and identifies relevant keywords you might have missed. This helps your content reach a wider, more targeted audience.

2 – Spy on Your Competitors with Competitor Analysis: Feeling uninspired? SERP Analyzer lets you see what’s working for your top rivals in terms of relevant keywords, content structure, and even potential content length based on top-ranking pages. This intel allows you to tailor your content to outrank them organically.

3 – Write with Confidence Using the Content Editor

 The Content Editor is Surfer SEO’s core feature. As you write, it analyzes your content in real time, suggesting improvements based on what’s ranking well. This ensures your content addresses search intent and includes the right keywords naturally, increasing your chances of ranking higher.

4 – Optimize with SEO Audit

With this, Surfer provides a checklist of actionable steps to enhance individual page performance. It pinpoints issues and gives recommendations for improvement, from internal linking to on-page SEO enhancements.

Bottom line

By providing these features and data-driven insights, Surfer SEO empowers content marketers to create content that’s strategically optimized and user-friendly. This translates to a more effective long-term SEO strategy for your company.

Surfer SEO pricing

Essential Plan ($89/month, $69/month annually)

• Includes: Content Editor, Keyword Research tools
• Optimize up to 30 articles per month

Scale Plan ($129/month, $99/month annually)

• Includes: Everything in Essential, plus Content Audit tool, up to 5 users
• Optimize up to 100 articles per month

Scale AI Plan ($219/month, $179/month annually)

• Best for: Scaling content production with AI assistance

Enterprise Plan (Custom pricing starting at $399/month)

• Best suited for large companies, agencies and marketing teams, with the added bonus of having a customized number of articles per month available to you and your team.

Frase vs Surfer SEO

Frase is our clear winner here, and here’s why:

1- Affordability

Frase’s Basic plan ($45/mo) is significantly more cost-effective than Surfer’s comparable offering ($89/mo).

2 – In-Depth Research Tools

Frase offers an exceptional research experience whereas SurferSEO’s research capabilities – while good – are far less robust in comparison.

3 – Technology Ownership

Frase’s in-house development of core NLP technologies allows them to pass on cost savings to customers.

Bottom line

The bottom line really is cost.

They both do an excellent job at optimizing content – but why pay Surfer’s much higher fees? Frase takes our gold medal here and it was an easy choice.

Clearscope review

Clearscope is our third content optimization tool designed to help you create content with a higher potential for search engine success. Here’s how its features support you:

1 – Reports

Clearscope analyzes top-ranking competitor content for your target keyword. This provides you with insights into word count, readability, and key topics, helping you establish data-driven intents for your own content.

2 – Content Optimization

Just like Frase and Surfer, Clearscope offers real-time feedback as you write within its editor. It assigns a content grade and suggests relevant keywords, including search volume data, to guide your SEO efforts.

3 – Keyword Search Tab

Explore semantically related keywords (LSI keywords) to naturally enrich your content‘s topical relevance. Clearscope provides search volume and keyword difficulty data to help you make strategic keyword choices.

4 – Competitors Tab

Analyze your competitors’ readability scores, word counts, and content grades. This helps you understand the level of quality you need to exceed and identify potential weaknesses in their content to gain a competitive edge.

Bottom line

Clearscope has been around since 2016 and it’s starting to feel a little jaded and janky to be honest. We much prefer the smoother and slicker Frase and Surfer to write with and – as we’ll see –  Clearscope’s pricing does it no favors too.

Clearscope pricing

Essentials ($199/month)

• Unlimited users/projects, plus 100 content inventory pages, 30 keyword credits, and 15 content reports monthly.

Business ($599/month)

• Adds dedicated support, increased limits on resources, and AI-generated content outlines.

Enterprise (Custom)

•  Bespoke solutions for large-scale content operations, including custom data integrations and features.

Surfer SEO vs Clearscope

This is a very easy decision and we’re going with Surfer here.

It’s much more affordable – especially for larger teams – and it offers additional features like Grow Flow and a Chrome extension.

*Current Frase score update:

Remember our Frase score earlier on this very article when it was at a low 39?

At this exact point of the article we have it now sitting at a much more optimized 79 – and we can improve it even more before the end of this blog. Let’s see how it goes.

Hemingway app

Another app that sharpens your content for search engines is Hemingway. Here’s why it and similar high-powered grammar checkers take articles up a few notches:

• The tone of Voice: The app helps deliver a consistent tone, ensuring the messages are clear and impactful.
• Active and Passive Voice: It nudges users towards using active voice, which keeps the writing vibrant and direct, though it will flag passive constructions that might sap the energy from the sentences.
• Grammar and Style: While Hemingway isn’t a full-fledged grammar checker, it’s great at catching complex sentences that could confuse readers.
• Support for Content Writers: Content writers might appreciate how Hemingway keeps their style crisp and the pieces of content engaging.
• Plagiarism checker:  Unfortunately, it hasn’t got one and we think that’s one addition it could do with.

Hemingway app pricing

The main app will show you for free – with color coding – what you need to fix. Like this:

But if you don’t want to manually fix each suggestion yourself you’ll need to upgrade to the premium version – and there are three tiers to choose from:

Marketmuse review

MarketMuse is another AI platform aiding digital marketers in creating search-optimized content. It analyzes your competitors and builds “topic models” to guide your blog outlines. Detailed reports also zero in on content weaknesses and areas to surpass rivals for SEO gains.

Here are its key features:

• Content Optimizer: Offers real-time feedback as you write, suggesting relevant keywords and improvement points.

• Personalized Difficulty Score: MarketMuse assigns a score for each keyword, indicating its potential value and how hard it would be to rank, helping you set realistic objectives.
• Competitive Analysis: Uncover the word count, topics covered, and overall quality of top-ranking competitors using their SERP X-ray and Heatmap features:

Important Note: MarketMuse has a steeper learning curve than other tools in this round-up, and – as we’ll see next – can be costly. It’s best suited for large-scale content operations.

Marketmuse pricing

With the first properly usable tier starting at $149 a month, this isn’t a tool we’d recommend for small start-ups.

For example, for less money per month with Frase you get unlimited search queries (versus 100 per month with Marketmuse).

Dashwood

And our final tool – Dashword – is another one that streamlines the content creation process with some specific capabilities:

• Content Brief Builder: This quickly gathers and organizes necessary data for writing assignments, allowing users to generate content briefs efficiently.

• Content Optimization: This assesses drafts before publication, identifying key topics and keywords to include, and providing feedback on content readiness through a scoring system.
• Content Monitoring: The Business Plan tier tracks content performance post-publication, offers updates on SEO metrics, and identifies pages that need revisions based on performance trends.

This tool aims to simplify managing SEO content from inception through ongoing optimization, ensuring relevance and visibility.

Dashwood pricing

Dashwood’s entry tier starts at a high $99 a month for 30 reports. When compared to Frase’s $45 for the same amount of reports we don’t really see the value for money here. You effectively get two months worth of Frase for the price of one month with Dashwood.

Note: Why didn’t we mention any of the automatic “AI writing” features that Frase, Surfer etc offer?

This tool’s automatic AI writing software still needs some improvement, some tweaks here and there, and they have a long way to go. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for these tools to write content that we later fact-check to be wrong. We have found they keyword stuff, they write robotically and they ultimately end being a time sink rather than a time saver.

We recommend giving the AI article-writing features some time to improve before including them in your marketing arsenal. Your readers deserve real information in a voice that best fits your brand.

SEO content writing software FAQs

Here are answers to some of the most common queries about SEO content writing.

What does AI content optimization entail?

AI content optimization tools analyze vast amounts of search data and top-ranking content. These tools provide insights into keywords, topics, readability, and structure to help you create content more likely to rank well in search results.

What is an SEO content score?

An SEO content score is a metric generated by some content optimization tools. It typically indicates how closely your content aligns with what search engines consider high-quality, often based on keyword usage, structure, and other factors.

What does SEO editing entail?

SEO editing involves revising existing content to improve its ranking potential. This might include adding relevant keywords, optimizing headings, improving readability, and addressing any technical SEO issues.

*Final Frase score on this article

In the end, we scored a 98 on this article using Frase:

We’re more than happy with this. We avoided keyword stuffing, we scored more than double of our competitor‘s average and we get to keep the Google Gods happy. We’re confident Frase’s optimization will play a big role in this article‘s ranking in the weeks to come.

Looking for content optimization services?

Feeling like you’re wandering aimlessly in the tangled SEO wilderness? Let Nomadic Advertising be your helpful compass. We’ll craft optimized content using Frase, uncover the best keywords, and forge a clear path for you to the top of search results. Book your free 30-minute consultation today and let’s chart your course to SEO success.

Key Takeaways

• Frase and Surfer SEO are great for content optimization, with Frase being more affordable and our clear winner in this round-up.
• Clearscope feels outdated, while MarketMuse is expensive and better suited for large companies.
• The Hemingway app improves writing style for SEO by focusing on clarity and conciseness.