Step 1: Pick Your Target Page

The first step is to select your target page.

If you have an informational site, such as an affiliate site you might have to pick a page that is ranking between positions 8 and 14 for your primary target keyword.

Step 2: Identify Your 3 Main Keywords

After defining your target page, it’s time to identify your main target keywords.

Choose the three main target keywords.

Ideally, this should be permutations, alternative, or at least having the same intent and meaning.

Note: If you don’t have targeted keywords yet, you can always use the Surfer general keywords, phrases, or keywords and phrases function to help you identify some good keywords.

I think that getting the best overall results requires an analysis of some of the other related keywords that you’re targeting on your page.

Due to the amount of data available to you in Surfer, it is also more important to use the 80/20 rule the tool to “power factor” when analyzing multiple keywords per page.

Step 3: Identify Your Target Device

A very important feature of Surfer is the ability to analyze and analyze search results on your desktop or mobile devices.

Although most sites currently use the “Mobile First” index, this does not mean that the desktop does not matter.

Although most sites currently use the “Mobile First” index, this does not mean that the desktop does not matter.

First, John Muller, a Google employee, confirmed that they still provide 2: 1 desktop computers on mobile-oriented sites.

Yes, we have pages with both desktop & mobile user-agents. Mostly it is something like a 2-3:1 split, so when we transfer to mobile first indexing for a domain, it is 2/3rd mobile, 1/3rd desktop (the numbers are not fix, it is just what I usually see) 

More importantly. Mobile search results and desktop search results are different!

It is important to understand from which device your audience performs most of its searches, as you can optimize for the device from which you will receive the most traffic.

Step 4: Search & Filter Non-Relevant Results

Now you have given your keywords time to search.

Once the report is ready, you can move on to your results.

And now, thanks to a really good filtering tool, you can use the visibility icon (in the image below) to remove irrelevant results from your analysis.

Do it carefully, they come out because Google thinks it’s relevant. But equally, sometimes in the search results there are some real clangers in the SERPs that cannot be compared with your own site.

Optional extra filtering option: Turn off Averages.

You can turn off averages if you need to isolate the exact numbers for specific results.

This can be helpful if you have already optimized within averages, and are now trying to make results better by optimizing “up or down”.

I would recommend doing this after having already optimized your article for the ‘averages’.

Step 5: Log The Results For Your Focus Factor

Since it may take several weeks before returning to SERP to optimize one of the other factors, it is best to record the results for your focus factor.

Thus, when you return later to optimize any other factor, you can update your results and record data to the maximum.

You should log these factors in a comparison matrix for easy visualization:

This makes it easy to come back later and means you don’t have to constantly switch between the thoughts of the surfer. This is not what you should do, but it helps me to have

Here are some quick shortcuts for some of the “power factors” I’ve recommended analyzing and optimizing with:

• Body > Exact Keywords
• Title > Exact Keywords
• Headings > H1 > Exact Keywords
• Headings > H2 > Exact Keywords
• Paragraphs > Exact Keywords

If you regularly use surfers, it is possible that you know where to find most of them, but I agree that I had a hidden motive here.

I wanted you to notice a pattern…

If you saw this, you may ask why I pay so much attention to “exact keywords.” And this is amazing, and I want to tell you why I do it.

Methods like TF-IDF, Density and True Density all use Term Frequency or “Keyword Frequency” as basic parts of their calculations.

I find it easier to use this basic data layer to optimize my sites.

It doesn’t matter what methods come and go, the main question of how many times was this word used will always be vital in some way.

You can use whatever you want, but would suggest you to follow my tutorials step by step.

Step 6: Setting Up Your Campaign Tracker

This step does not require anything special…

A simple spreadsheet with dates, keywords and status will do.

You don’t have to do anything special here; you can log changes daily, weekly or every 10 days…

Everything that works for you and your goals is in order. Logging data at “some” intervals is better than not logging.

Step 7: Setting Up Your Optimization Calendar

Source: https://www.hydratight.com/pt-br/resources/blogs/2016/12/dont-fail-prepare

Calendars are mainly used in our industry for meetings, social media and many more events 

It would be prudent to have a calendar for your optimization work too

In order to have progressive optimization, optimization calendar is essential. 

It makes you more efficient and effective.

Allows you to register changes in the campaign tracker, make new changes on your page and do the latest analysis on Surfer — all in a timely order. It can be a lot to keep on top of if you are doing this for multiple pages and sites.

Step 8: Setting Up Your Changelog

The only thing you must need in place is your changelog.

A changelog is important to keep track of what you are actually doing. Optimization is important for many of the same reasons as a calendar, campaign tracker, etc.

The best results, with progressive optimization, require a degree of organization with your workflow and processes regardless of the tools you are using.

You can find other ways around using the files. What you can’t do is find an alternate way around using a changelog.

To make this simple I am sharing a very basic changelog template for those of you who want to use it.

[FREE] Google Sheets Changelog Template: Click to make a copy.

Step 9: Start Optimizing

At this point there is nothing more to say other than go out there and get optimizing!

You have everything you need to get started =]

Worthy Mentions

There are many other features that I find really useful when using surfers for optimization purposes.

You can use them as part of the procedures described above or separately. No matter what you choose, if you are new to this tool, you should definitely be aware of these things.

Important Terms

We explained these as one of the “power factors”. Whereas some find it controversial, I as well as many others, and the folks at Surfer have all had pretty good results including terms that are expected to be seen in pieces of content.

Surfer helps you to find these easily by providing you access to common words and common phrases…

Quick Audit 

 “Surfer Audit” is one of my favorite features.

You can perform an audit to see how you stack up by isolating your URL in the results, or by adding it manually

This can be very useful for collecting data early, quickly checking or viewing the form of your site after a progressive optimization campaign.

It gives you some actionable term frequency recommendations.

It will also help you in pointing out any obvious issues where they arise (usually when well outside of the average).