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Surfer SEO Review – The Tool That Brings Order to the Chaos of Content Optimization

SEO can be a never-ending puzzle, with changing algorithms, ranking factors, and best practices that always seem to shift. Before using Surfer SEO, I felt like I was just throwing content into the void and hoping something would stick.

But this Surfer SEO review changed everything. Instead of guessing what might work, Surfer SEO gave me a clear plan to follow—helping me develop topic clusters, optimize new content, and audit old posts. This Surfer SEO review will detail how it transformed my approach and why I recommend it for anyone looking to improve their SEO strategy.

Surfer SEO is one of the most popular on-page SEO tools because it removes the guesswork from ranking in search engines. This Surfer SEO review will showcase its powerful features for content optimization utilized by many marketers and writers. Surfer SEO is used in over 140 countries by more than 15,000 businesses.

Keyword research tools within Surfer can assess monthly search volumes for keywords, making it easier to target the right terms. Additionally, understanding keyword difficulty is essential for evaluating how competitive a keyword is, and Surfer SEO provides insights to help with this. But is it the right tool for you? Let’s break it down.

Get Surfer SEO Today

Contents

Surfer SEO Features

This Surfer SEO review will help you understand its unique advantages and how it can benefit your content strategy.

Surfer SEO is full of features designed to help content creators, bloggers, and SEO professionals rank better using data-driven insights. Here’s what sets it apart:

Content Editor – The Core of Surfer SEO

One of Surfer SEO’s most powerful features is its Content Editor, which serves as a comprehensive optimization assistant for content creation. This tool analyzes top-ranking pages and provides real-time recommendations to ensure that your content is competitive in search results.

Key Features of the Content Editor:

  • SEO-Optimized Suggestions: The Content Editor suggests the ideal word count, keyword usage, heading distribution, paragraph structure, and NLP terms to improve ranking potential.

  • Keyword Integration: It provides a comprehensive list of relevant keywords, ensuring that your article includes the terms necessary to rank in search engines.

  • User-Friendly Interface: The Content Editor is designed to streamline the writing process, making it easy to follow optimization guidelines while focusing on content quality.

  • Content Score Assessment: As you refine your article, Surfer assigns a content score that evaluates how well your piece is optimized compared to competing content in SERPs. This metric helps you gauge whether your content meets SEO standards.

  • Outline Builder: The built-in Outline Builder suggests structured sections and subheadings based on competitor analysis. While this feature is useful, some of its suggestions may lack uniqueness, requiring manual refinement for originality.

SERP Analyzer – Understanding the Competition

The SERP Analyzer is another powerful feature that enables users to study search engine results pages (SERPs) and understand why certain pages rank higher.

Key Features of the SERP Analyzer:

  • Comprehensive SERP Breakdown: The tool analyzes over 500 ranking factors, including page speed, backlinks, keyword density, content structure, and internal linking.

  • Competitor Analysis: Users can dive deep into competing pages to see common patterns among top-ranking content, helping them make informed content adjustments.

  • Structural Insights: High-ranking pages often follow specific structural elements that can be emulated to improve content performance.

  • Optimization Opportunities: By examining what works for top competitors, users can spot content gaps and ranking opportunities for their own articles.

  • Data-Driven Adjustments: The SERP Analyzer provides actionable insights, allowing content creators to fine-tune their strategies based on real-time search data.

This tool is especially valuable for content marketers, bloggers, and SEO professionals who want to ensure their content aligns with what search engines favor.

Keyword Research & Clustering – Strategic Keyword Insights

Surfer SEO offers advanced keyword research and clustering tools to help users build a well-structured, topic-driven content strategy.

Key Features of Keyword Research & Clustering:

  • Intelligent Keyword Clustering: Instead of just providing a list of keywords, Surfer groups related terms into clusters, making it easier to create comprehensive, interlinked content that enhances topical authority.

  • Content Roadmap Creation: The keyword clusters help users develop a clear content roadmap, ensuring their site covers an entire topic in depth rather than producing scattered, unrelated articles.

  • Grow Flow Feature: This feature provides personalized SEO recommendations, offering weekly tasks to help improve site rankings based on data-driven insights.

  • Topics and Questions Suggestions: Within the Content Editor, Surfer provides a ‘Topics and Questions’ section, helping users ensure their articles address relevant queries and subtopics.

  • LSI Keyword Integration: Understanding Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords is crucial for SEO. Surfer identifies related keywords and helps users incorporate them naturally into their content to improve search engine rankings.

  • Flexible Editing & Customization: Users can modify suggested keywords and structure recommendations directly within the Content Editor, offering greater control and customization over their content strategy.

  • Collaboration & Sharing: Surfer enables users to share Content Editor documents with team members, making it an excellent tool for collaborative SEO and content creation efforts.

This feature is ideal for content marketers, bloggers, and businesses looking to establish topical authority and improve their search visibility through structured keyword implementation.

Content Audit Tool – Enhancing Existing Content

The Content Audit Tool is a crucial feature for those looking to revamp old content and improve rankings by identifying gaps and SEO weaknesses.

Key Features of the Content Audit Tool:

  • Comprehensive Content Evaluation: Surfer audits existing blog posts and web pages, providing actionable recommendations to improve search engine visibility.

  • Keyword and Structural Analysis: The tool identifies missing keywords, outdated information, and structural inefficiencies, ensuring your content remains competitive.

  • High-Level SEO Overview: Content Audits offer a broad assessment of website performance, pinpointing critical SEO issues that may be hindering rankings.

  • Time-Saving Optimization Guidance: Rather than guessing what needs improvement, Surfer pinpoints exact elements to update, increasing workflow efficiency.

  • Benchmarking Against Competitors: Surfer compares your content to top-ranking pages, providing clear recommendations on word count, heading distribution, and image usage to align with successful competitors.

This tool is invaluable for bloggers, content marketers, and SEO professionals looking to refresh old content and maintain rankings over time.

Integrations

  • Surfer SEO integrates with Google Docs, Jasper.ai, WordPress, and SEMrush, making it easy to use in your current workflow.

2. Pricing – How Much Does Surfer SEO Cost?

Here below is the monthly cost, but you can also get the yearly billing, which makes it less expensive.

Is Surfer SEO Worth the Price?

Get Surfer SEO Today

If you’re creating a lot of content or relying on SEO for business growth, Surfer SEO is a worthwhile investment. Having a clear, data-driven guide allows you to focus on writing and scaling your content business efficiently rather than spending endless hours on guesswork.

  • The Essential plan is ideal for bloggers and small businesses, offering just the right features for optimizing content without being overwhelming.

  • The Advanced and Max plans cater to agencies and SEO professionals, providing more queries, advanced recommendations, and collaboration tools for managing larger-scale SEO operations.

With Surfer SEO, running a content business becomes much easier because it removes ambiguity from content optimization. Instead of spending hours researching SEO best practices manually, you get clear, actionable insights that guide you through the process. Whether you are creating new content, auditing old articles, or strategizing your next blog post, Surfer SEO serves as a roadmap that ensures your content meets search engine expectations while allowing you to maintain quality and consistency.

For content creators, agencies, and businesses that rely on SEO for growth, Surfer SEO is a game-changing tool that simplifies and streamlines content strategy, making scaling an SEO-driven business far more achievable.

How Does Surfer SEO Compare to Other SEO Tools?

I’ve compiled a bunch of my favorite parts of Surfer SEO so you can see if it’s what you need or if one of these other tools might be a better option for you.

Why Choose Surfer SEO Over the Competition?

Surfer SEO stands out from its competitors by offering more robust data analysis, deeper insights, and an all-in-one SEO solution. Here’s how it compares to other popular SEO tools:

1. More Data-Driven Than Clearscope

  • While both tools provide content recommendations, Surfer SEO goes further by analyzing more ranking factors and delivering in-depth optimization insights.

  • Clearscope focuses mainly on keyword relevance and content scoring, whereas Surfer SEO integrates on-page SEO factors, keyword clustering, and SERP analysis.

  • Surfer’s approach ensures a well-rounded SEO strategy, rather than just optimizing for keyword density.

2. Better SERP Analysis Than Frase

  • Frase is great for AI-generated content, but it lacks Surfer’s detailed on-page SEO metrics.

  • Surfer SEO allows you to analyze competitors’ content structure, keyword placement, and ranking factors, providing a clearer picture of why pages rank.

  • Pricing Consideration: Frase offers a lower entry price, starting at $14.99 per month, making it appealing for budget-conscious users. However, Surfer provides more powerful optimization features for those serious about SEO.

3. More Features Than PageOptimizer Pro

  • PageOptimizer Pro is focused primarily on page structure and keyword placement but lacks the comprehensive content strategy tools that Surfer SEO offers.

  • Surfer SEO combines content optimization, SERP analysis, and keyword clustering, making it a more complete tool for long-term SEO success.

Things to Keep in Mind

While Surfer SEO is a great tool, here are a few things to consider:

  • Over-Optimization Can Hurt – Surfer gives keyword recommendations, but if you follow them too rigidly, your content might sound unnatural.

  • Not a Full SEO Suite – It focuses on on-page SEO, but doesn’t cover technical SEO, backlink building, or site audits. Tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush generally offer more comprehensive SEO suites compared to Surfer SEO, which emphasizes on-page optimization.

  • Can Be Expensive for Beginners – If you’re just starting, the price might feel steep, but it’s valuable as you scale.

My Personal Experience – How Surfer SEO Changed My Content Strategy

Before using Surfer SEO, I felt like I was constantly guessing with my SEO efforts. Since I’ve been using it, I’ve been able to:

Develop topic clusters that improve site structure and internal linking.
Optimize new content by following clear, data-backed recommendations.
Audit old content to find gaps, missing keywords, and ranking opportunities.
Ensure my content is fully optimized while keeping all key metrics in mind.

Surfer SEO is now a key part of my content strategy, helping me work smarter, not harder.

Final Thoughts – Is Surfer SEO Worth It?

In this Surfer SEO review, you’ve probably figured out that I think it is worth it. Obviously, I wouldn’t use it if I didn’t think it was worth it. But you should keep in mind that it isn’t for everyone.

Who Should Use Surfer SEO?

Surfer SEO is a versatile tool that benefits a range of users, from solo bloggers to large-scale SEO agencies. Here’s who will find it most useful:

Content Creators & Bloggers

  • If you want to rank higher and write better content, Surfer SEO provides clear, data-backed guidance on optimizing your articles.

  • The Content Editor suggests word count, keyword usage, heading structure, and NLP terms, making it easy to align with search engine expectations.

  • Bloggers can use keyword clustering and topic modeling to ensure they are covering an entire subject comprehensively, improving authority in their niche.

  • The Grow Flow feature offers weekly SEO improvement recommendations, helping content creators refine their strategy over time.

SEO Professionals

  • The Audit Tool and SERP Analyzer help streamline the SEO optimization process, allowing SEO experts to pinpoint weaknesses in existing content and make strategic improvements.

  • With detailed ranking factor analysis, professionals can study competitor content and make data-driven decisions.

  • The SERP Analyzer breaks down over 500 ranking factors, offering insights into backlinks, keyword density, and page structure, helping SEOs fine-tune content for higher rankings.

Agencies & Marketing Teams

  • For agencies handling multiple clients, Surfer SEO’s team collaboration features make it easier to manage content optimization at scale.

  • Bulk content auditing enables agencies to identify ranking opportunities across multiple client websites efficiently.

  • Surfer’s integration with Google Docs, Jasper.ai, and WordPress ensures a seamless workflow across various content creation platforms.

  • Customizable reports provide clear, actionable recommendations that agencies can share with clients, demonstrating measurable improvements in SEO performance.

Who Might Not Need Surfer SEO?

While Surfer SEO is a powerful tool, it may not be the best fit for everyone. Here are cases where it may not be the best option:

If You’re Looking for an All-in-One SEO Tool

  • Surfer SEO specializes in on-page SEO, but it does not offer full-scale technical SEO features like site audits, backlink analysis, or keyword tracking.

  • Tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz provide more comprehensive SEO solutions, including:

    • Backlink analysis to track and build high-quality links.

    • Competitor research beyond just content optimization.

    • Site audit features that analyze crawlability and page speed issues.

  • If you need an all-in-one SEO suite, you may need to pair Surfer SEO with other tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush.

If You’re on a Tight Budget

  • Surfer SEO’s pricing, starting at $69 per month (annual plan) or $89 per month (monthly plan), might be cost-prohibitive for beginners or small businesses with limited budgets.

  • If you are just starting with SEO and need a basic on-page optimization tool, you might find that simpler, budget-friendly options meet your needs before upgrading to Surfer SEO.

Final Verdict

Get Surfer SEO Today

Surfer SEO is one of the best on-page SEO tools available today. It eliminates guesswork, provides clear action steps, and saves time by guiding you through content optimization with data-driven precision.

If SEO is a key part of your business strategy, investing in Surfer SEO is 100% worth it.

Real Estate Investing Coaching Programs – Legit or Scams?

Real Estate Investing Coaching Programs

I’ve met quite a few people that want to get into real estate but haven’t thought about real estate investing coaching programs. Most of these people think investing in real estate would be cool but aren’t really serious about it.

I literally have people ask me about it almost every day, and when I tell them what is involved, their faces are like… what? That’s a lot of work.

Yup. Indeed, it is.

Contents

Jumping Into Real Estate Investing Coaching Programs

Joe (my husband) and I decided to sell our house to get the extra capital to invest in ourselves and our businesses and change our lives. We made the tough decision to leave a house we really loved to go out and rent again.

We received an offer on our house and ended up profiting $135,000 and almost immediately turned around and put $25,000 into Ryan Pineda’s All Star coaching program.

Ryan Pineda’s Future Flipper Program (Wealthy Investor Coaching Program)

Did we feel like we wanted to throw up a little bit after we put that money out there? Yes. Most definitely.

However, we know that we would be able to use this training and collaborate with the community to grow ourselves and our networth.

Check Out the Coaching Program Choices Now

When we started, everyone was going off to the Q2 mastermind, and there were no calls that week due to everyone being there. We couldn’t make it to Vegas due to my Dad’s health problems, so I was super frustrated (because I’m an action taker), but we used that time to go through the courses and to learn the language of real estate.

Soon thereafter, we found a house that we wanted to buy, got it under contract, and ended up having to go back and renegotiate because one of the top coaches (now a dear friend), Brian Davilla, told us that the deal wouldn’t work at the current numbers we had.

How My Real Estate Mentor Saved Me From a $32,000 Rookie Mistake

Thankfully, we were able to get the numbers down to something that worked, and flip 1 started. Within our first 90 days, we were able to start 3 flips, and we are set to make more money this year than we’ve ever made before in a year in our lives. And it is only going up from here.

How to Get the Most Out of Ryan Pineda’s Real Estate Investing Program

First off, Ryan’s real estate coaching program is not a scam. There is so much value in there between the courses, live zoom calls, and the network that the only way you can fail is if you quit learning and quit trying.

This is how I would recommend getting the most out of Ryan Pineda’s coaching program specifically, but this can also apply to other coaching communities if you end up buying those and joining those instead.

Get Through the Course Content as Quickly As Possible

Set aside time to dedicate to listening to or watching the core course content. You want to get that knowledge in your head as quickly as possible. After that, you can go back through it to get more details and clarity but going through it as quickly as possible will help.

Network with Everyone in the Specific Community

This real estate mastermind program has a community on Skool, but other programs might be on Facebook, Circle, Discord or other places. Get in there, add value, ask questions and get to know people.

Network with Everyone on Facebook or Instagram

Instead of just networking with people on community-specific platforms, take it to social media like Facebook and Instagram. You’ll start to notice the people that you really gravitate toward. Take those connections to the phone or a zoom call and really build relationships.

Attend Every Live Event Possible

When there are live events put on by the coaching program, try to show up as much as possible. There are so many great people there, and you will have chance encounters and conversations that you wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Look for Joint Venture Opportunities with Other Members

Real estate is easier when you team up with other people. This is a great way to learn from each other, but you might also have a missing piece to the puzzle they want, and vice versa.

Are Real Estate Coaching Programs a Scam or Legit? – Final Answer

Not all coaching programs for real estate are created equal so make sure to do your research. As for Ryan Pineda’s coaching program, it definitely is not a scam. We’ve found a lot of value in it and I think you should check it out too.

Check Out Ryan’s Coaching Program Now

Personal Branding 101 – 3 Tips that Make all the Difference

personal branding 101

When you think about personal branding and want to learn personal branding 101, it’s easy to feel a sense of overwhelm. There are so many things to think about and things to do that you might find yourself in a tailspin.

Must-Know Healthy Coping Mechanisms When Dealing With Extreme Stress

Healthy Coping Mechanisms

33% of people feel like they are dealing with extreme stress. Learning healthy coping mechanisms to calm yourself and get through the day is a must if you want to be a functioning part of society.

When crazy things like pandemics are going on, there are probably a lot more people dealing with stress, but we don’t have the numbers to report.

How to Create a Lead Magnet and Why You Should

How to Create a Lead Magnet

Did you know it takes 6 to 8 touches to generate a viable sales lead?

If you don’t know how to create a lead magnet to grow your email list, it’s unlikely that many of your site visitors will return. The web is a busy place, and unless you’re emailing and following up, they may move on to research your competition.

Continue reading to learn what a lead magnet is, why you need one, and the lead magnet creation process.

5 Most Profitable Freelance Writing Niches [2022]

Most Profitable Freelance Writing Niches

If you’re wondering what the most profitable freelance writing niches are—good for you.

As a freelance writer, you can spend the same amount of time writing and make a very different amount of money than another person. It’s not necessarily because they have more experience or you have more experience. It’s likely to do with your niche. It could have something to do with experience but all of the experience in the world doesn’t mean anything if you are in the wrong niche.

Done for You Videos Review

If you’re a creative entrepreneur, you might think that you’ll never run out of creative juices. I’ve felt this way before too but sometimes it pays to have someone else in your corner.

That’s where Done for You Videos comes in. If you don’t feel like recording your face on video, you don’t have to. You just have to let them know the video you want to be made and they’ll create a video with “b roll” and audio.

B roll is the content that is rolling on the screen that might not be the main focus. However, in faceless videos, b roll is the star of the show.

Does It Really Work?

Check out their website and you can see some of the great videos they’ve done. I really like them. The only thing you might notice is that it’s an AI reading the script they give it. It’s not a bad thing though. It keeps costs low and makes sure a human doesn’t mess up your script.

Keep in mind that this is my affiliate link and I will make a commission if you buy but it’s a good product and can save you tons of time creating your own videos. Some people (like me) will push themselves to do video but sometimes it’s still hard to make it happen.

If you want to try the service and see how it works for you, you can go to their website and use this discount code: DFYJLV20 to get 20% off the first month of your subscription.

Above is an example of one of the videos they did. It’s pretty cool, right? You’re not going to find a video-making service this inexpensive if you have humans on video for you or if you do your own video and ask someone to edit it, so it’s quite a deal.

Use your creativity on something else and let them take care of the stuff that makes you want to pull your hair out.

Is Skillshare Worth It?

You’re looking around potential courses you could take online and you come across Skillshare.

Is Skillshare worth it?

Skillshare looks like it has a lot of great courses, but how is it once you really get inside?

Spoiler: It’s great.

However, if you don’t want to take my word for it, you could just use this free trial link: Get Skillshare Free and get 30 days of Skillshare free so you can see how it is yourself.

I put together a little video so you can see a bit more about it in case you’re a visual learner, so you can check that out here.

How Does Skillshare Work?

Skillshare is a lot different than some learning platforms I’ve seen online. Most of these places require you purchase each of the courses you want to view.

For me, that might make me think twice about diving into one of the courses. That’s extra money I have to put out and it might not even be what I’m looking for anyway.

However, with Skillshare, you pay one fee and you get access to all of the courses available on the site. It’s pretty awesome.

The cost of a year of Skillshare is $167.88 at this point in time. That’s not bad at all since there are plenty of courses that cost many times this amount. And you can get a free 30-day trial anyway… Get Skillshare Free 🙂

Let me know how it goes for you if you sign up. I’m interested to hear what your learn about.

4 Must-Know Strategies To Market Your Remote Business

Strategies to Market Your Remote Business

Remote businesses are ones that let employees work from wherever they see fit. This can be from a home office, a coffee shop, or even a shared coworking space.

 

The benefit of this style of business is that you can employ people from all over the world, widening the talent pool at your disposal. You also save a fortune as 100% remote businesses won’t have headquarters or offices. 

 

As a consequence, the way you market a remote business can be different from how you market a traditional one. You’re certainly not focusing on driving foot traffic to a particular site, so what is the aim of the game?

 

Naturally, most of your work will be done via the internet. Remote businesses are almost 100% online, so that the primary focus will be generating online leads. The key way to do this is by driving web traffic to your website.

 

This is where you make sales, or leads can submit inquiries. With that in mind, here are some strategies to help you do just that, along with other tips and ideas that remote businesses should focus on when marketing themselves to an audience. 

 

Contents

Create the Ground Rules for Your Brand

 

Branding forms a core aspect of marketing as it influences everything that you do. Every business needs a brand image, which is how you wish to be seen by the wider world.

 

Do you want to put yourself out there as consummate professionals?

 

Are you trying to make people think that your business is really modern and laid back?

 

Your image is entirely up to you, but the key thing that matters is that it stays consistent across all of your marketing channels. 

 

Moreover, with a remote business, you have the challenge of numerous employees working for you and interacting with customers in many different places. Thus, you need to ensure that all of your remote staff align with the brand image and interact in ways that reinforce this.

 

To do that, you need to create the ground rules for your brand. This means telling everyone how your brand should interact with others, the tone of voice you use, the type of content you create, and so on. 

 

All of this helps you solidify a brand image that stays consistent, no matter which one of your remote employees is interacting with consumers. 

 

Make Traditional Marketing More Measurable

Traditional marketing encompasses things like direct mail, print advertising, etc. Some of these techniques are null and void when you have a remote business. For example, things like door-to-door sales are absolutely pointless.

 

However, you can take some of the best traditional methods and add a digital twist to them, making them more measurable. 

 

Look at direct mail, for example. A whopping 70% of consumers say direct mail is more personal than online interactions, with an open rate of up to 90%.

 

You could argue that the chances of someone viewing your direct mail are greater than them viewing an email – largely because letterboxes don’t have filtration systems that can mark your emails as promotional or spam. 

 

Nevertheless, direct mail seems pointless for a remote business. You send some advertising material in the mail, but what do you gain from it? You have no headquarters to direct people to, so how is this impactful? The trick is to use direct mail printing and marketing services that let you implement QR codes or links on your content.

 

Therefore, you can measure how many people visit your site via these links. It directs traffic to your website, and you have a clear way of measuring the campaign’s success. 

 

Put Most of Your Focus on the Digital Approach

 

While traditional methods can be tweaked to become more effective, digital marketing is really the saving grace for remote businesses. If your entire company is based online, the best way to promote it is through digital mediums. 

 

Clearly, you’re looking at SEO and other search engine marketing methods here. Search engines are still the number one way for consumers to find businesses online. Most people’s first interactions with a company are through search engines.

 

As such, a firm focus of your marketing strategy should be on creating as strong a search engine presence as possible. You want to be seen on the first pages for all searches relating to your business. Whether this is done organically or through paid search, it doesn’t matter!

 

Social media is another powerful digital marketing tool to utilize. Growing a large social presence is crucial if you want your remote business to thrive. At the same time, social media represents one of the best places for online advertising. 83% of marketers used it in 2020, ranking it second behind search engine marketing in terms of success.

 

Loads of people scroll through social media every day, and you can create ads that target your key audience. So, the adverts are relevant to them, seamlessly blend in with their scrolling, and can catch their eye. Thus, more clicks are had, and more traffic is diverted to your site. 

 

Build an Aura of Professionalism

 

One of the drawbacks of remote businesses is that you can sometimes struggle to seem professional in comparison to other brands. This is because you obviously have no headquarters, so consumers might worry about doing business with you. 

 

In reality, this can easily be addressed by building an aura of professionalism. This starts with a great website and strong social media presence, but it also includes things like a virtual address.

 

Here, you can give the illusion of an office headquarters in a central business district in any city you like. It instantly makes you seem more authentic and professional, building trust with the consumer. When trust exists, the chances of conversions increases. 

 

There you go; some simple strategies to market your remote business. It’s all about generating traffic to your website, as this is where all of your money will be made. You’ve got no physical location to worry about, so your entire budget can be dedicated to online traffic!

Marketing vs. Advertising: Understanding The Differences

Marketing vs Advertising

All businesses will develop a strategy that helps them promote their business and find new customers. A core part of this strategy will revolve around how you market your company. What tactics will you use, who are you targeting, and so on? Advertising also plays a significant role, but there’s often a lot of confusion surrounding both of these. Some people believe that advertising and marketing are the same things, but they aren’t.

 

As someone that’s looking to promote their business, you need to understand what both of these terms mean and how they differ.

 

Understanding Marketing

 

Marketing is the process of looking at your company and figuring out how best to promote it to your desired audience. It involves identifying the target customer, creating customer personas, then building a strategy that’s meant to meet the needs of the customer. 

 

From here, you will start to implement different marketing tactics to reach your target audience and grow your brand image. Marketing encompasses many different things and has many types. Some of the most well-known are:

 

  • Social media marketing
  • Digital marketing
  • Global marketing
  • Relationship marketing

 

Brand development is also part of a marketing strategy as you figure out how you want your brand to be perceived, which influences all of your marketing material. 

 

Understanding Advertising

 

By contrast, advertising is where you pay to promote your business. You’ve got lots of different forms of advertising to consider:

 

  • Print advertising
  • Billboard advertising
  • TV advertising
  • Online advertising
  • PPC advertising
  • Mobile advertising

 

The list goes on, but all of these things have one thing in common: you create an advert for the desired platform, then pay to have it presented. The aim is to grab the attention of your audience, reeling them in and making them interested in what you’re promoting. 

 

With this in mind, we can say that advertising is actually a form of outbound marketing. This is because the whole aim is to push your message and brand out there as far as you can, trying to grab people’s attention.

 

How Do Advertising & Marketing Differ?

 

After understanding the basics of both, how can we say that marketing and advertising differ from one another?

 

Primarily, the key difference is that advertising is part of marketing, while marketing can stand on its own. In theory, you can run an entire marketing campaign without paying for any advertising. It can all be done inbound using things like SEO, social media, etc. However, you couldn’t really run an advertising campaign without marketing. Why? Because you need marketing to help you identify your target audience and how best to reach them. This information helps you develop a suitable advert and figure out the best place to broadcast it. 

 

In conclusion, marketing and advertising are two different things. Marketing is the act of planning and identifying how to promote your business to the right audience, developing the most effective strategy. Advertising might form part of this strategy, but it’s all to do with paying to promote adverts for your business. The two can exist separately, but they work best when used together.