I used MarketMuse & Surfer SEO, here are my thoughts…

Now back when I ran this test, MarketMuse and Surfer SEO both offered cheaper plans… they’ve since increased features and pricing. MarketMuse has a free plan with their next plan at $149/mo, and Surfer SEO’s cheapest plan rings in at $49/mo.

Personally, if I were planning to start with one these platforms today, I’d start with MarketMuse’s free plan and if you outgrow that go with Surfer SEO.

No biases, I’m not an associated or partnered with either platform. 

Is MarketMuse Worth It? I ran a test…

We’ll test this on two posts, my ContentBot Review and my ClearVoice Review.

They’re the perfect candidates as they could use some improvement to move up to a top 5 position, as it stands now they currently sit at #9 and #14 in Google, and this content was written without the help MarketMuse:

Rankings BEFORE MarketMuse

Let’s start with my ContentBot review, it has a paltry “Content Score” of 28… whereas the top competitor in the SERPS has a score of 47. They recommend a target score of 34 for this keyword. Optimization is easy enough as they provide keywords I should consider adding:

MarketMuse – Optimizing my ContentBot Review post

Optimization took less than 10 minutes to find places where I can sneak in some keywords. I bumped up my content score from 28 to 43, I could have went higher but I only included the keywords that I thought could have an impact on rankings (they had generic words such as “Facebook”).

For my ClearVoice review,  it started with a content score of 32, whereas top competitors in the SERPS were anywhere from 29 to 37. MarketMuse listed a target score of 36. Same thing as before, a few simple tweaks upped by content score to 47:

After MarketMuse Improvements

I had Google Search Console re-crawl my links as the content has changed, and I waited about a week to see the results. In that time I didn’t create any additional backlinks, nor new content with internal links to those reviews. I wanted to see what I could do purely with content optimization.

The results, not much. Which makes sense as Google tries to obfuscate things to make it harder to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

So I waited a month.

.

..

…

The results – Pretty darn good!

Marketmuse Review – AFTER Content Optimization

We went from 9 and 14, to spots #4 and 6, respectively.

This isn’t surprising to me as I’ve seen similar results from similar (and perhaps more popular software) in Surfer SEO, but MarketMuse happens to be cheaper in the long run and I love to save money whenever possible.

Surfer SEO vs MarketMuse vs ClearScope

Let’s rule out one – ClearScope. With plans starting at $170/mo it might be the right option for a large agency – but not small businesses. Now, I didn’t try it so it could be something you can evaluate for your company, but for me the logical options were between Surfer SEO and MarketMuse.

Update 12-2021 – Looks like MarketMuse is now targeting the enterprise model with their plans now starting at $149, where they now include AI copywriting. But they do have a free plan where you can get started.

Originally, I loved Surfer SEO, but I had sought out MarketMuse because it was the cheaper option, and was close enough to be well worth the purchase.  But the change in their business model obviously changes things.

Overall, if you’re on a budget, I’d say the winner is MarketMuse, and if you outgrow that go to Surfer SEO’s $49 plan.

Because AI copywriting is a dime a dozen. For me, you can pair it with something like ContentBot, which does the job nicely.

But both Surfer SEO and MarketMuse have a free 7-day trial, I encourage you guys to check them out and make the decision yourself.

What are your thoughts on software like Surfer SEO, MarketMuse, and ClearScope? What are your favorites? Any new competitors to the market? Let me know in the comments below!