How To Ranked #1 With Surfer SEO By Founder Michal Suski 🚀

Every Surfer AI article is built on roughly 300,000 words of competitor analysis, about the thickness of a Bible. 📖

At the Chiang Mai SEO conference, I sat down with Michal Suski, co-founder of Surfer SEO, right after his talk on the main stage. 🎙️

We covered Surfer’s new AI and topical map features, the ideal content score, the AI article pricing debate, what’s coming next, and his funniest regret. 🚀

📊 In this episode, we unpacked:

• 🤖 Surfy: one-click AI articles
• 🗺️ Cluster-based topical maps
• 🎯 What content score should you aim for?
• 💲 The AI article pricing debate
• 🔄 Automated content updates and silo interlinking
• 🧠 Programmatic and semantic SEO

🎥 Watch the full episode:

🤖 Surfy: One-Click AI Articles

The headline feature is Surfer’s AI, which generates a whole article in one click. It’s premium because of the work behind it. 🖱️

Each article is built with an understanding of about 300,000 words of competitor content: analysis, ordering, outline, and a knowledge base, all designed by Surfer’s prompt engineers and data scientists. 🧪

Michal showed me screenshots of sites built with clustering plus AI that grew through the update. The content wasn’t human-edited. The only manual work was interlinking. 📈

🗺️ Cluster-Based Topical Maps

Surfer was close to launching a proper topical map. Instead of a keyword database, it’s a database of clusters, so every keyword is linked to others that should rank together. 🗺️

They ran a single clustering pass over the whole US database to build a huge knowledge graph. Connect Google Search Console, and it shows the most semantically relevant keyword groups to cover together. 🔗

For more on topical authority, read Koray Tuğberk Gübür on topical authority and semantic SEO. 🔗

🎯 What Content Score Should You Aim For?

His honest advice: don’t push too hard. If you naturally reach 75–80, fine, go to 80. But “if you can have 70, 70 is perfect.” 🎯

For more on-page fundamentals, read Kyle Roof’s top four on-page spots. 🔗

💲 The AI Article Pricing Debate

Some on social media criticized Surfer charging about $20–25 per AI article. Michal said they may revisit pricing as newer GPT engines like GPT-4 Turbo arrive, once they’re sure quality won’t drop. 💬

But compare it to a real writer, not ChatGPT. Doing the research manually means going through pages and extracting entities, which takes 30 minutes to an hour even with GPT’s help. 🕐

“Look at your paycheck… how much is my hour?” If it’s worth it, use Surfer. “If it’s not worth it, build your own tools.” 🧮

🔄 Automated Content Updates and Silo Interlinking

For 2024, the big goal was automated optimization. Instead of manually revisiting articles after three and six months, Surfer would check them and, if entities or keywords are missing, have AI add them, like “a Surfer insurance policy” so articles keep growing. 🛡️

Also planned: generating whole silos together, around 20 related articles, so they share a knowledge base and interlink semantically relevant parts, guiding users and crawlers the right way. 🕸️

🧠 Programmatic and Semantic SEO

Programmatic SEO has existed for 10+ years but is getting more attention. It may get devalued as everyone tries it, but there’s still plenty of room. AI just makes it simpler. ⚙️

Semantic SEO is growing because Google keeps getting better at understanding user intent. With NLP entities and Google’s API, people started paying attention, and what’s happening now is “much denser.” 🧠

He expects more updates, more silent ones, and SGE expanding to more countries. He also heard e-commerce sites like Amazon and eBay got pushed up. For more, read Koray Tuğberk on AI and programmatic SEO. 🔗

Personal answers:

• ⛷️ Regret: switching from skiing (since age 4) to snowboarding for three years. When he went back to skis, “I almost cried” because his muscles had forgotten
• 😊 A better world: smile more and be kind
• 🚗 Most expensive recent purchase: a Tesla Model 3

Want to try it? Check out Surfer SEO. 🔥

📝 Key Takeaways From the Michal Suski Interview

• 📖 Good AI content starts with deep competitor research
• 🗺️ Plan content as keyword clusters, not single keywords
• 🎯 A content score around 70 is enough, so don’t over-optimize
• 🧮 Judge tool pricing against your own hourly cost
• 🔄 Revisit and update articles regularly
• 🕸️ Build silos together for coherent interlinking

❓ FAQs About Michal Suski

Who is Michal Suski?

Michal Suski is a co-founder of Surfer SEO, an on-page optimization and AI content tool.

What content score should you aim for in Surfer SEO?

Michal says 70 is perfect. If you naturally reach 75–80, that’s fine, but don’t push too hard.

Why does Surfer’s AI article cost more than ChatGPT?

Each article is built on roughly 300,000 words of competitor analysis and a knowledge base. Michal says to compare it with a human writer’s time, not ChatGPT.

What is Surfer’s topical map?

A cluster-based keyword database where every keyword is grouped with others that should rank together, built as a knowledge graph of the US database.

🎙️ More Inside A Hustler’s Brain Interviews You’ll Love

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• Interview With Craig Campbell Top SEO Strategies For 2026

What content score do you aim for? Share this with a writer who’s over-optimizing every article. 💬

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