You and I wouldn’t be looking for Clearscope alternatives if it weren’t for the hefty price tag.
After using it to optimize dozens of blog posts while working with several SEO agencies, I know it does have some SEO advantages. It's surprising that after many years in denial, I always have it in my content planning.
But that doesn't mean that other options don't get their users to the top of Google's SERPs.
While most content marketing and SEO agencies I’ve worked with use Clearscope, most bloggers I’ve worked with use the Clearscope alternatives I’m about to review here and are doing really well on the SERPs.
This post will discuss the best 7 Clearscope alternatives that will help you rank higher on Google.
What are the best alternatives to Clearscope?
Here are the only seven Clearscope alternatives you should choose from:
Surfer SEO: the best Clearscope alternative
Surfer SEO is an SEO tool for optimizing new and published posts for better ranking on Google. It’s AI-powered and relies on a number of on-page SEO signals to help you rank your content on Google.
By taking into consideration data on ranking signals like keyword density and frequency, word count, alt text, and so on, it’s able to tell what the top 10 Google results are doing right and accurately predict what to include in your blog post to beat them.
Features of Surfer SEO
Let’s review some features of Surfer SEO and see how it works.
Built-in keyword research tool
Every SEO process passes through keyword research to identify what keywords to go after. Using Surfer SEO’s built-in keyword research tool, you’ll save time by conducting your keyword research and content optimization on the same platform.
When you enter your target keyword on Surfer, it shows you all the data you need, including search volume, keyword ideas, keyword difficulty, and so on.
Outline building
Surfer SEO also generates SEO-driven outlines. This is benchmarked against the available results on the first page of Google SERPs.
It takes cognizance of the competitors’ outlines, then uses that data to generate a better one for you.
This also comes with a lot of suggestions on how to improve the outline, and you can take it further by manually adding other sections to the outline if you have something to add.
By using this feature, you save yourself endless hours of research and brainstorming and can quickly move to creating your draft
If you need more, it also integrates with Jasper AI, an AI copywriting software.
Content score
When you’ve used Surfer SEO to create an outline and find keywords, that’s not the end. It also scores your content based on how likely it is to rank on Google.
It also shows you the average word count of your competitors, their content quality, as well as search intent. As you know, search intent is essential to ranking on Google these days.
If you follow the score and recommendations, you’ll be able to optimize your content to a stage where it’s better than most of the ranking content on the search engines. Needless to say, this will give you a chance to rank better than any of them
LSI finder and content editor
LSI keywords are the keywords that Google sees as semantically related to a particular target keyword, and they are a ranking factor.
Unless your niche is completely new, the more you can use them correctly, the better your chances are of ranking high on Google.
Surfer SEO shows you key terms and LSIs that you should apply in your content to improve your chances of ranking highly.
The more you weave these keywords into your content, the higher it scores and the more you can rank.
I guess this is one of the most highly prized features of Clearscope that should be found in its best competitor.
And in Surfer SEO, the Content Editor is where all the work takes place.
Topic cluster creation
In case you are just starting out and don’t have a lot of content ideas lined up in your content strategy, Surfer SEO will show you some topic clusters you can create when you insert your seed keywords.
This enables you to streamline your content creation process and rank faster
Pricing plans
Free plan: This lets you optimize and track one website.
$49 per month (starter plan): this lets you track and optimize websites, optimize articles with the content editor every month, and audit 20 pages per month.
$99 per month: this lets you track and optimize five websites, optimize 30 articles, and audit 60 pages.
$199 (business plan) per month gets you 10 websites optimized and tracked, 70 articles optimized, 140 pages audited, and more. It's also the best for large content teams.
For more information, see Surfer SEO vs Clearscope.
Frase: the easiest to use among Clearscope alternatives
Frase is an AI-powered writing tool for writing and optimizing SEO content. It has multiple use cases and can be used to write, optimize, rephrase, write content briefs, and see content analytics.
If you are looking for a budget-friendly Clearscope alternative that has a host of use cases, including making your content easier to read, then Frase is for you.
Features of Frase
Here are the top features of Frase:
Content brief creation
Personally, the content brief creation feature is the one I like most in Frase. If you are an SEO or content writer, you know how hard it is to write an SEO-driven content brief.
But this is what Frase does for you in a few minutes. The only action required of you is to insert your primary keyword, and from there, you’ll have your content brief done for you.
Everything, including your research, the headers, the number of keywords, the number of images used by your competitors, and so on, will be displayed and used to generate a comprehensive content brief for you.
Here is an example of that:
Content opportunities identification
Frase also audits your website to find content opportunities for you. It assesses the pages on your website and shows you pages that are already dropping off in Google, pages that need refreshing, and pages that need a bit more optimization to perform better.
It also conduct a competitive analysis to find your keyword opportunities from your competitors.
It can also use your keywords to help you develop a keyword strategy.
LSI keywords suggestion
By now, you can probably see that LSI keywords are a recurring feature in content optimization tools.
That’s because, over the years, we’ve come to realize how important it is as a ranking factor.
And this is one of the things that Frase SEO will take care of for you.
Pricing
$14.99 per month: Optimize four articles.
$44.99 per month: optimize 30 articles.
$144.99 per month will let you optimize unlimited articles.
Dashword
Dashord is a content creation and optimization software enabled by Artificial intelligence. It can also help you write complete SEO-optimized content, and it’s one of the best Clearscope alternatives.
Dashword stands out because of its automated keyword report and automated page import.
Let’s find out the key features of Dashword.
Features of Dashword
These are the stand-out features of Dashword:
AI content brief creation
Since content brief and outline are the foundational blocks of SEO content, this is one major area of focus for Dashword.
It suggests content ideas and relevant keywords and organizes them properly. It also makes it easy to share the brief with your team members so that they can create content that addresses search terms properly.
Content optimization
You’ll also be able to optimize your content on Dashword before publishing it. This optimization is where you add anything that might be missing in your content, including queries, H-tags, and LSI keywords
Automated content monitoring and report
From time to time, you’ll get automated reports from Dashord on:
- Underperforming pages on your website
- Newly ranking keywords
And so on. It also automatically adds more pages to your report as you publish them.
Pricing
$39: this gives you five reports per month, three user seats, and content briefs.
$99 per month: this gives you 20 reports per month, everything in the previous plan, and access to the AI writer.
$249 per month: this gives you everything in the previous plans and 100 reports per month.
GrowthBar: the AI writer among Clearscope alternatives
GrowthBar is an AI content creation tool for writing SEO-optimized content. Unlike most of the Clearscope alternatives reviewed here, Growthbar isn’t just about content optimization but about writing faster and working more efficiently.
If you are looking for a tool that takes care of virtually every aspect of your blog post creation, this is a perfect fit.
Now, let’s see its major features.
GrowthBar features
These are the top features of GrowthBar:
Comprehensive content creation tool
GrowthBar makes content creation easy by allowing you to insert your title and then it takes care of the entire writing for you.
A single click will have it generating your outline, keywords, introductions, word count, internal links, H-tags, images, and everything else your content should have.
Then, you can command it to write a complete blog post draft based on the comprehensive outline it has generated.
This makes content creation a lot faster, and content brief creation less of a nightmare
Keyword research
GrowthBar is also a good stand-in for other keyword research tools. You can insert your seed keywords to see more long-tail keywords and other important data such as search volume, keyword difficulty, CPC, etc.
You can also identify long-tail keywords in its keyword suggestions and use that to your advantage.
This consolidates all of your work and allows you to be more productive.
Chrome Extension
GrowthBar also exists as a Chrome Extension. That means it can help you in your content writing and planning when you are working in other workspaces like Google Docs.
Pricing
Standard plan: this costs $29/month and comes with 25 AI content outlines, unlimited content ideas, 300 competitor backlinks each month, email support, unlimited keyword research, 200 AI paragraph generations, and a lot more.
Pro plan: this costs $79 per month and gives you everything in the standard plan, plus five user accounts, 1,000 competitor backlinks, 100 AI outlines and more.
Agency plan: $129 per month. This gives you everything in the previous plans and 300 AI outlines per month.
Topic
Topic is a content optimization tool for creating SEO-optimized content briefs and optimizing content.
Topic works in a similar way as Clearscope but has fewer features than Clearscope and some of its alternatives.
Features of Topic
Here are th topmost features of Topic:
Content analysis
This lets you identify areas of improvement in your content, including more information and keywords.
This lets your existing content perform better and secure a higher ranking on Google.
Content optimization
Another area of strength for Topic is content optimization. This is where you improve your already written content to perform better on Google by adding more information, headings, relevant terms, and related keywords.
Pricing plans
$99/month: 10 content briefs and keyword research tool.
$199 per month: 25 content briefs and keyword research.
$299 per month: 50 content breifs and keyword research tool.
MarketMuse
Marketmuse is a content optimization and website auditing tool. Among other things, it analyzes your content to identify your best opportunities and show you which content has the potential to perform better.
It also helps with content research, content creation, outline generation, and content optimization. In summary, it's all about creating high-quality content.
Features of MarketMuse
Here are the key features of MarketMuse
Prediction of ROI potential
One of the best things about Marketmuse is the ROI prediction which tells you how much a piece of content is likely to bring you.
This ensures that you don’t put effort and money into any piece of content without seeing the possible ways it could impact your bottom line.
Data-driven content brief
If you are looking for comprehensive, data-driven content briefs that can help you rank higher and also demonstrate your expertise, MarketMuse would be a good fit for you.
Beyond being a content optimizer and content grader, it also generates content based on 100s of topic models to provide you with a comprehensive overview of what should be included in your content, as well as an already detailed brief that address the search queries.
This allows you to write content whose quality is better than most of the ones on the SERPs and also sounds reliable and trustworthy to your readers.
Using MarketMuse content briefs helps you strike a balance between thought leadership and SEO-driven content.
Content opimization
Marketmuse also supports content optimization just like the other Clearscope alternatives we are reviewing here.
I guess there is no improving organic traffic these days without using any of these optimization tools. But in any case, you’ve got to try it out
Pricing
Free: this gives you 15 queries, 10 projects, and access to all the applications (research, optimize, compete, question, connect).
$7,200 per year: this gets you 100 queries per month, unlimited projects, data export, and access to all features.
$12,000 a year: this comes with exclusive features and everything in the previous plans.
SEMrush writing assistant
SEMrush Writing Assistant is software for optimizing copy for better ranking and engagement.
Originally, SEMrush is an in-depth keyword research and ad planning tool, and this feature is a newly added one
Features of SEMrush Writing Assistant
The following are the SEMrush Writing Assistant features:
Topic research
In case you don’t have enough content ideas and need data-driven information on topic research, SEMrush Writing Assistant can help you with that.
It normally takes your seed keyword and your focus country and finds related topics for you. It also displays a lot of information regarding those topics, such as the search volume and the leading pages on the SERPs.
SEO writing assistant
Its SEO writing assistant is a suite of tools that contains:
- SEO friendly content
- Readaibility improvement
- Tone of voice maintenance
- Plagiarism checker
$119/month: 500 keyword tracks and 10,000 results per report.
$229/month: 1,500 keywords to track and 30,000 results per report.
$449/month: 5,000 keywords to track and 50,000 reports per report.
Which of the best Clearscope alternatives should you use?
In my opinion, Surfer SEO and Frase are the best Clearscope alternatives. I used them personally for my blog, and I’ve seen a significant improvement in my rankings, thanks to them.
Now both of them offer some level of free trial that you can try now if you are ready.
