Lucjan Suski is the co-founder and CEO of Surfer, an all-in-one platform for key phrase analysis, content material creation, optimization and search engine marketing (Web optimization) development administration.
When did you initially get concerned about search engine marketing?
Web optimization has at all times fascinated me from the angle of a product individual. A lot of the instruments that had been constructed on this house had inferior UX in comparison with what I used to be used to working as a Product Engineer for a number of product startups throughout totally different fields. I additionally knew that SEOs use their instruments closely, and utilization is instantly related to income, that’s why I began to dig deeper.
Might you share the genesis story behind the launch of Surfer?
Again in 2016, after a few years working as a Product Engineer, I began to entertain the thought of a startup as a technical co-founder. Throughout that point, my brother Michal was employed as an Web optimization Specialist in KS, a advertising company based by our buddy Slawek Czajkowski. Michal shortly climbed the ladder and have become Head of Web optimization, and I began to select his mind in regards to the issues he confronted every single day at work and methods to enhance the efficiency of Web optimization groups. Some had been apparent. For instance, a not-very-innovative factor like a rank tracker crossed our minds, however we shortly settled on one thing actually distinctive – an on-page optimization instrument that mechanically analyzed lots of of rating elements to see what actually makes a distinction relating to rating. Inside a couple of weeks, I put collectively a prototype that was instantly adopted by the company, and the remainder is historical past.
How does Surfer assist with key phrase analysis and changing into a topical chief in a distinct segment?
Nicely, the best way Google works now could be that you might write the most effective piece of content material on the planet on a subject, say “the best way to shed extra pounds”, however your possibilities of rating nicely would nonetheless be slim to none.
What they wish to see is a sustained, steady effort to publish content material in a sure area of interest. So, if you happen to’re overlaying weight reduction, be ready to write down about all issues weight reduction – vitamin, train, well being, and so forth.
Consider your web site as a guide on a topic. Like a guide, you need to cowl subjects with examples and sources in numerous chapters whereas demonstrating why you’re a credible supply on the area of interest.
This idea has been broadly adopted and is called topical authority in Web optimization circles.
However simply writing about totally different subtopics in a distinct segment isn’t efficient. You have to additionally determine which articles to write down, the best way to hyperlink them, and even which to prioritize.
That is the place key phrase analysis instruments are available. Sadly, most key phrase analysis instruments act as key phrase database instruments – they provide you a ton of key phrase info, however you might be left to behave upon them, to interrupt down the knowledge into steps you could truly implement in a content material technique.
That’s the place Surfer differs. We do not simply hand out a bunch of key phrases to you. As an alternative, Surfer takes a scientific method to key phrase analysis.
We break down which pages to write down about and in what order primarily based on which cluster they belong to. Clustering associated articles collectively helps web site homeowners know which pages to hyperlink to, and naturally, we additionally present key phrase metrics like search quantity.
Key phrase issue is a person metric. For instance, Forbes and I ought to have totally different metrics for a subject as a result of we’re not the identical. Sadly although, most Web optimization instruments ignore this.
We don’t, so our key phrases are customized to your area relying on the key phrases you’re already rating for and what your natural presence appears like.
Are you able to focus on Surfer’s content material era, and the way it differs from aggressive Generative AI instruments resembling Jasper?
Our focus is on creating content material that ranks nicely in search engines like google and yahoo. That is the place we’re totally different from different AI instruments.
Most AI instruments depend on creating well-written content material primarily based on their coaching information and prompts. Surfer’s goal is to create articles that may allow you to appeal to natural visitors by rating to your goal key phrases.
In an effort to do that, we make use of a collection of proprietary algorithms to investigate the top-ranking articles to find out how they obtained there.
We analysis their content material, decide what heading constructions they use, NLP key phrases and phrases, and at what frequencies, amongst different issues.
So if the search outcomes present articles on “picture search engine optimisation greatest practices” while you seek for “picture search engine optimisation”, Surfer will write an article on “picture search engine optimisation greatest practices” as an alternative of say, “picture search engine optimisation instruments”
We additionally enable customers a number of customization options, from selecting a tone of voice, article kind and to edit headers and speaking factors they wish to be included inside the articles earlier than the content material is generated.
Might you focus on how Surfer integrates with Jasper, and the advantages of this integration for the top person?
Jasper’s Web optimization mode permits you to use Surfer instantly inside Jasper to optimize Jasper-generated content material for search engines like google and yahoo. As I discussed earlier than, our focus is on content material that helps customers rank in search engines like google and yahoo and draw natural visitors.
Surfer presents data-driven evaluation and optimization for on-page Web optimization to enhance your content material written inside Jasper.
The combination is kind of simple when you log in to Jasper and doesn’t require any nice setup on the person’s half.
The primary profit for the person is enhanced content material optimization for Web optimization. The combination ensures that the content material not solely reads nicely however can be optimized for search engines like google and yahoo proper from the drafting section. This may save time and assets by lowering the necessity for in depth revisions and Web optimization changes after the content material is created.
Since customers are guided by Web optimization insights from Surfer whereas writing, this permits for a extra streamlined workflow.
Most writers should not SEOs and don’t need to spend so much of time optimizing their content material. The combination permits non-Web optimization acquainted writers to give attention to what they do greatest whereas aligning with Web optimization greatest practices.
Particularly for companies and in-house content material groups, this integration permits for scaling content material manufacturing. Groups can produce extra content material in much less time, whereas sustaining excessive requirements.
After an article is printed there’s an choice to proceed to audit the articles, for post-publishing optimization. Are you able to focus on what that is, and the way it works?
Nicely, Web optimization is a long-term and continuous course of. Not like social media or movies, you may’t publish content material as soon as and neglect about it.
However in fact, Web optimization additionally continues to usher in guests lengthy after you will have written an article, in contrast to these platforms.
The reason being that person conduct adjustments, as do tendencies and preferences. And so folks search for various things and wish to accomplish duties that weren’t beforehand accomplished. On the earth of search, that signifies that publishers should adapt to those adjustments to remain related.
Moreover customers, search engine algorithms are additionally regularly evolving. In truth, in 2016, Google introduced that it ran 130,336 search high quality exams.
This can be a mind-boggling quantity that’s inconceivable for customers to maintain up with.
That is the place auditing or post-publishing optimization is available in. Surfer permits customers to maintain up with these adjustments by regularly updating for ends in the search engine pages.
So whereas one 12 months, we might even see ecommerce web sites within the search outcomes, we might even see guides the subsequent 12 months for a similar search time period. Surfer ensures you could adapt your present content material in step with these adjustments.
Typically, it takes weeks, if not months, for Google to discover a rating to your key phrase. However as an alternative of accepting what Google decides for you, it’s prudent to repeatedly optimize your articles for incremental good points that may allow you to rank greater in search outcomes.
Surfer’s audit instruments have a look at different pages which might be rating and can make suggestions for lacking key phrases and their density in your content material, in addition to different particulars.
Our method is to spotlight the low hanging alternatives you could take to maximise your search efficiency.
I’m a private believer that human writers ought to increase themselves with AI, versus changing human writers with AI. How would Surfer match on this world view?
Surfer will assist right here in two methods. First, though you wish to write essentially the most worthwhile and distinctive content material by hand, you continue to have to help it with articles which might be much less thrilling. For these, it is best to think about hiring high-quality AI writing instruments resembling Surfer or Content material at Scale. On high of that, we goal to enhance human content material writing with a toolset that automates all of the analysis that individuals at the moment do manually, to allow them to give attention to offering a singular standpoint. That is one thing that now we have in our roadmap for the long run.
Between 2019 and 2023 Surfer has grown its income by 15x, what do you attribute this success to?
I feel it’s all about specializing in issues that may actually make a distinction. If you find yourself a small startup with out many shoppers, you may’t spend time on issues like conversion fee optimization, which has the potential to spice up your development by possibly 20%. At that stage, you want 10x and even 100x enhancements. These enhancements are primarily coming from specializing in product innovation. We had been at all times pondering, “how can we blow the minds of our clients”, and such a mindset was fairly straightforward to attain provided that over half of the co-founding workforce consisted of Web optimization consultants. We had a really fast suggestions loop again within the day between myself and Slawek, Michal and Tomek, that led to delivering mind-blowing options quick.
What’s your imaginative and prescient for the way forward for Web optimization and Surfer?
With the evolution of AI, Web optimization will proceed to evolve. Engines like google will proceed to undertake the know-how, however I don’t assume we are going to see a speedy disruption occasion the place search will change in a single day. Do not forget that we’re speaking about a few billion customers which might be used to the search working the best way it really works at this time. ChatGPT obtained large traction and was adopted by 100 million customers, however most of them should not resigning from looking out within the conventional method, they fairly increase it.
At Surfer, we are going to maintain evolving our AI capabilities to assist folks perceive what makes good content material and, in impact, rank greater. It doesn’t matter what AI or non-AI method you like to write down your content material, Surfer AI might be there to assist make it higher fitted to Web optimization.
Thanks for the nice interview, readers who want to study extra ought to go to Surfer.
