Writing with SEO in mind is the content creation process that aims to align with user intent and is one of the best ways to rise to the top of the search results. Introducing your users with content that perfectly answers their questions requires a lot of research, planning, and monitoring, which adds up to countless hours that take a toll on your already busy schedule. Luckily, various AI-based tools can help with the writing process. In today’s article, our SEO agency in Chicago puts three of the most popular content writing tools side by side. We’ll compare WriterZen vs Surfer SEO vs NeuronWriter to help you find your solution to low organic traffic numbers and non-converting website visitors. Let’s explore them together in an effort to push your website toward top-ranking spots.
Table of Contents
WriterZen
WriterZen is an all-in-one solution for creating content optimized for search engines. It helps content writers, copywriters, web admins, freelancers, and content marketing agencies create and optimize content to rank for keywords and drive traffic to their web pages.
Their keyword explorer takes data from Ahrefs and provides a detailed analysis of the steps taken by your competitors to achieve first-page ranking spots for particular keywords. The tool also offers templates and a free plagiarism checker to help with the writing process.
Key features
Moving on with our WriterZen vs Surfer SEO vs NeuronWriter comparison, let’s explore some of the best features WriterZen has to offer.
Topic discovery
If you are looking for more topics to boost your native advertising content marketing, WriterZen can be your go-to solution. By choosing a seed topic, you’ll gain insight into the search volume of your main topic as well as other related topics.
You can then sort these topics by order or relevance. Once you click on a topic, you’ll see the related web pages that rank. You also have the option to export the topics to Microsoft Excel in the form of a .xls file.
Keyword explorer
Keyword explorer pulls data from Google Keyword Planner and Google Suggest. All you need to do is enter the keyword of your interest along with a location and language, and you’ll be presented with its search volume and cost per click (CPC). You gain a certain amount of credits depending on the plan you subscribe to, so each time you conduct keyword research, you are deducted one credit.
The SERP overview is another helpful feature. The data pulled from Ahrefs allows you to check the top 10 pages that rank for your keyword, as well as their Domain Ratings, Page Ranks, Backlink Profile, and more.
Scroll a bit further down the page, and you’ll get to see keyword trends in the last 12 months and keyword ideas. These keyword ideas are secondary keywords related to the main one.
Content creator
WriterZen’s content creator allows you to create quality pieces of content from scratch. As soon as you enter the topic, the tool analyzes various data collected from Google and displays the following details:
- Competitive analysis: Google’s top 20 ranked pages for the keywords you chose, their word counts, and the date of the last update.
- Suggest insights: Suggested topics to discuss in your content based on the commonly asked users’ questions about that and other related keywords.
- Keywords to consider: WriterZen considers the top-ranking pages and makes conclusions about the important keywords that influence ranking. It provides an overview of your competitors’ keywords and opportunities keywords and gives an analysis of each keyword regarding:
- Search volume
- Number of usage in heading
- Relevance
Content writing
The interface used for content writing has these functions:
- Font size
- Alight left, right, center, and justify
- Insert image and table
- Import and export content
- Share content
You can also check your content score, the number of headings, paragraphs, images, and so on. There is even the option of enabling the AI assistant to write the content for you.
AI assistant
WriterZen’s AI assistant comes in handy when you need short-form content written in English. There are 60 templates to choose from, including:
- How to
- Outline
- Rewrite bullets to paragraph
For example, by choosing bullet to paragraph templates, you need to select an outline in a bullet point, and the AI assistant will generate a paragraph. Furthermore, once you highlight the generated paragraph, the AI continues to write from there.
Plagiarism checker
You can copy/paste or import .TXT file content ranging between 20 and 5000 words into the plagiarism checker. The content is then scanned sentence by sentence, and you are presented with the plagiarism score and the affected sentences. You can then choose to export the content or share it. The downside is that WriterZen only compares the content with the Google database. Content copied from other search engines won’t be detected.
Customer support
When it comes to customer support, WriterZen offers a library of articles, tutorial videos, and an option to send them an email to ask for help.
Pricing
WriterZen offers three pricing plans:
- Basic plan – $39 per month
- Standard plan – $59 per month
- Advanced plan – $99 per month
The basic plan allows you to conduct keyword research 50 times per 24 hours. Upon subscription, you gain 25,000 keyword credits for auto-clustering functions and bulk all-in title checks. SERP overview, insight segmentation, and export functions are also available. You have an option to use the golden keyword filter and sales per keyword stimulation that converts the rank of a keyword into US dollars.
Other features include:
- 50 content briefs per month
- Use AI writing assistant to generate 5000 words
- Check plagiarism for 25,000 words each day
- Check topics 50 times each month
- Import 3000 keywords
- Add 20 keywords to the personal database
With the standard plan, you can conduct keyword research 70 times per month and use 70,000 credits for auto-clustering functions and bulk all-in title checks. SERP overview, export functions, insight segmentation, golden keyword filter, and sales per keyword simulation are also at your disposal.
Regarding content creation, you can create 70 content briefs and write 25,000 words each month with the help of AI, as well as share and import content via URL.
Other features include:
- Check topics 70 times each month
- Make a comparison with your competitors via competitors’ headline generators
- Import 70,000 keywords for clustering and golden keyword filter
- Check plagiarism for 40,000 words each month (7000 words per check time)
- Add 50 keywords to the personal database
- Import content via URL and share the link to your content with others
Surfer SEO
Let’s check another excellent AI-based tool in this section of our take on WriterZen vs SurferSEO vs NeuronWriter. Michael Suski founded SurferSEO in 2017 as a tool that can help outrank your competitors by analyzing insights gathered by its artificial intelligence. The team of 30 developers and tech professionals joined forces to create features like SERP analyzer, content planner, audit tool, and more.
Key features
Let’s take a closer look at some of the key features of Surfer SEO.
Keyword research tool (Keyword Surfer)
Keyword Surfer supports 70 different languages and allows you to choose any location to check the search volume of your main keyword and discover related keywords, maximizing your keyword research strategy.
It also offers the Chrome extension, which, upon installation, allows you to see the following data directly from your browser:
- Monthly organic traffic for pages on Google that include your keyword
- Word count for those pages
- Number of times the main keyword was included in the content
By scrolling further down the page, you’ll come across the option that lets you generate an outline for the keyword you wish to write about.
SERP analyzer
It helps you with on-page SEO by analyzing pages ranked on Google SERP and providing a list of dos and don’ts for a particular keyword. You simply enter the keyword, choose a location and language, and run the SERP analyzer. The tool then scans over 50 top-ranking pages for your keyword and gives you insights, as shown in the figure below.
The graph shows the number of words your content needs to have in order to rank in the top 10. You can also see the content score and backlink score for the top 50 pages as well as exclude any of them from the analysis. Furthermore, you can check the outline of the content, perform an audit, paste HTML or take a screenshot for every page.
Now, let’s explore other valuable features of the SERP analyzer as we continue this WriterZen vs Surfer SEO vs NeuronWriter comparison:
- Common backlinks: Links that the top-ranking pages acquired from the same site
- Prominent words & phrases: Words and phrases that Google finds relevant and that may affect page ranking
- Questions: FAQs about a particular keyword
- Popular phrases: Phrases that users usually search before they land on most of the pages in question
- Common phrases: Those that are included in all of the pages ranking for your keyword
- Keywords: Related keywords that pages in question also rank for
Audit tool
The audit tool can boost your pages’ ranking spots on Google SERP. You only enter your URL and keyword and run the tool. Within seconds you gain insight into your page’s performance and how it compares to your competitors. You’ll see your content score compared to the top 10 ranking pages and backlinks from websites that link to your competitors but don’t link to your website.
The audit tool also shows internal links both on your and your competitors’ web pages by displaying elements such as:
- NLPs (natural language processing) in the content
- Load time
- Time to byte
- Partial and exact keyword
- Title and meta description length
- Page structure
- Word count
Content
Content planner
If you wish your web pages to rank for highly competitive terms, you need to build topic clusters to support the main topic. That’s where Surfer SEO content planner can help.
All you need to do is enter the main topic, and the tool creates clusters for you to write about, publish, and interlink.
Content editor
The content editor can help you plan the content before writing as well as improve the on-page SEO of the already published content. Upon entering a keyword, the tool analyzes the best ranking pages and outlines a structure for you to follow. That includes:
- Number of images
- Word count
- Number of paragraphs
- Number of headings
Its advanced options allow you to enable the NLP, which then verifies and suggests terms that influence the ranking of your competitors’ pages. You can also customize your content structure by, for example, excluding social media pages in order to narrow it down to best suit your needs.
Content writing
The content editor lets you write in the dedicated space or connect with Google Docs. Surfer SEO integrates with Jasper AI, so you can even let artificial intelligence write the text for you.
Collaboration
You can invite up to 10 team members to work on the project with you.
Integration
Surfer allows integration with software such as Jasper AI, WordPress, and Google Docs.
Languages
NLP analysis supports four languages (English, Danish, Polish, and Dutch), while the keyword tool supports 70 languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, and others.
Customer support
Surfer SEO offers free certification courses, numerous video tutorials, articles, and an active Facebook community that counts over 10,000 members. You can also email them and get a response within 24 hours.
Pricing
Surfer SEO offers four pricing plans:
- Basic plan – $59 per month
- Pro plan – $119 per month
- Business plan – $239 per month
- Custom plan – contact their sales team for pricing
The basic plan allows you to use the content editor ten times per month, run 20 audits per month, and use the NLP functionality for free during the first month only. This plan also includes the content planner and SERP analyzer.
The pro plan includes the NLP functionality, content planner, and SERP analyzer, using the content planner 30 times each month, performing 60 audits each month, and inviting three team members to collaborate on the project.
Their business plan provides additional features such as white labeling, allowing you to brand your services. You also gain access to the API so you can integrate with other SEO tools. You can use the content planner, editor, and NLP, perform 140 audits per month, invite up to 10 members of your team to collaborate on the project, and use the content editor 70 times each month.
The custom plan allows you to contact their sales team and tailor your plan according to your business needs.
NeuronWriter
Now, let us examine the final combatant of our WriterZen vs SurferSEO vs NeuronWriter three-way battle.
This AI content writing tool will help you produce semantic, well-structured, keyword-rich, and SEO-optimized content. NeuronWriter supports Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3), an autoregressive language prediction model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text so your readers never get lost.
Key features
NeuronWriter comes bundled with excellent features for competitor analysis and content creation. Let’s check them out.
Competitor analysis/SERP analysis
By entering a keyword into NeuronWriter’s interface and clicking on the TOP Analysis tab in the upper corner, you’ll access the keyword difficulty score and important off-page and on-page data for the 100 top-ranking competitors. NeuronWriter pulls this data from Moz.
You have access to data such as:
- Content score
- Page title
- Language
- Content length shown in characters
- Word count
- Readability score
- Moz page authority
- Moz domain authority
- Moz page MozRank
- Moz page external links
All of this data provides a great look at how your competitors perform both in terms of on-page and off-page SEO. NeuronWriter also offers a content optimization checklist to examine your page’s overall optimization.
Competitor breakdown
The competitor breakdown tab provides a complete visualization and overlays data points on all your SERP competitors on a graph.
You can even access off-page data on a page and domain level to determine whether your competitors’ rankings are influenced by their backlink profiles rather than their content quality. You can then omit these URLs when doing on-page SEO.
Content planning and drafting
Once you have completed the competitor analysis, you can select the competitors you want NeuronWriter’s AI content optimizer to analyze and evaluate. After the data processing is finished, you’ll be presented with the content editing interface.
The tool uses NLP to examine SERP content and provide guidelines for you to follow during the content creation process. Some of the best features of NeuronWriter’s content editor are:
- The number of H1 and H2 tags
- Paragraph keyword recommendations
- NLP keyword suggestions
- List of questions you should answer
- List of competitors’ H1s
- List of competitors’ H2s
- H1 and H2 keyword recommendations
- AI writer (AI Content Generator)
- Save, Import, Export, Draft
Customer support
NeuronWriter provides customer support differently than the other two tools in our WriterZen vs Surfer SEO vs NeuronWriter comparison. The level of customer support depends on the pricing plan you opt for.
If you opt for their bronze pricing plan, you get only email support, while choosing the silver plan also adds chat support. The gold plan provides email and chat support while adding one-hour-long onboarding.
Pricing
NeuronWriter offers three pricing plans:
- Bronze plan – $19 per month
- Silver plan – $37 per month
- Gold plan – $57 per month
The bronze plan includes:
- 2 projects
- 25 content analyses
- 15,000 AI credits
- Email support
The silver plan includes:
- 5 projects
- 50 content analyses
- 30,000 AI credits
- Email and chat support
The gold plan includes:
- 10 projects
- 75 content analyses
- 45,000 AI credits
- Content sharing
- Email and chat support
- 1 hour of onboarding
Note: One AI credit gives between 1 and 5 words, depending on the output quality. For example, if you subscribe to NeuronWriter’s silver plan, you can generate between 30,000 and 150,000 words with AI per month.
WriterZen vs Surfer SEO vs NeuronWriter: The comparison
- Competitor analysis: When it comes to competitor analysis, WriterZen analyzes only the top 10 pages on Google, Surfer SEO analyzes over 50, and NeuronWriter analyzes 100 pages.
- Keyword research: While you can use each of the three tools for keyword research, Surfer SEO provides a Chrome extension allowing you to pull data for keywords directly from the browser.
- Plagiarism check: WriterZen has its own plagiarism checker, but it is limited only to Google’s database. On the other hand, NeuronWriter and Surfer SEO offer no plagiarism checkers. However, Surfer SEO’s integration with Jasper AI allows it to connect with Copyscape, which scans other search engines apart from Google.
- Teamwork: NeuronWriter lets you invite an unlimited number of team members for collaboration, Surfer SEO allows up to 3 members within the pro plan and up to 10 within the business plan, while WriterZen’s collaboration goes no further than sharing your content’s URL.
- Writing assistant: WriterZen has a built-in writing assistant, NeuronWriter uses GPT-3, while Surfer SEO has no writing assistant but allows integration with Jasper AI.
- Discounts and money-back guarantee: WriterZen offers a 7-day trial period, 30% discount on all annual plans, and 48 hours money-back guarantee. Surfer SEO offers a 17% discount on an annual subscription to each plan and a 7-day money-back guarantee. NeuronWriter offers a 60-day money-back guarantee, whatever the reason.
Final thoughts
This concludes our WriterZen vs Surfer SEO vs NeuronWriter comparison. We hope this article helped you make an informed decision about which of these three tools is the best fit for your content strategy and give your website an extra push to get more sales leads. We’ve laid out all the essential features and functionalities of each one. Compare them carefully, look at their differences and similarities, or even try them all out. Each of the three has a window during which you may return the product and get a refund.
