7 Best Surfer SEO Alternatives for Public Health Departments

RankDots is an SEO and content optimization platform designed to help marketers reverse-engineer top-ranking content and generate AI-ready briefs. According to their website, RankDots combines keyword research with content strategy tools to identify content gaps and optimize for search visibility. Its core functionality centers around OTTO SEO, a tool that analyzes top-ranking pages and generates structured content outlines based on semantic relevance and keyword clustering. RankDots also offers OTTO Agent, an AI-powered assistant that helps draft content based on these outlines, and LLM Visibility, a feature that tracks how content performs in AI-generated answers across platforms like Gemini and ChatGPT. While it doesn’t offer social media publishing or video generation, RankDots excels at creating SEO-optimized content briefs that align with how modern search engines interpret intent. The platform is particularly useful for public health departments looking to improve the visibility of educational resources in search results, especially when targeting long-tail medical queries. According to their site, RankDots supports integration with CMS platforms and provides analytics to measure content performance over time, helping teams refine their messaging based on real search data.

NeuronWriter is a content optimization tool that leverages NLP (Natural Language Processing) to analyze top-ranking pages and provide real-time suggestions for improving content quality and SEO performance. According to their website, NeuronWriter offers a live content editor that compares your draft against competitors, highlighting missing keywords, optimal heading structures, and recommended content length. It also includes a plagiarism checker and a readability score to ensure content is accessible to diverse audiences—critical for public health messaging. NeuronWriter’s AI assistant helps generate content outlines and suggests semantic variations to enhance topical depth. While it doesn’t automate publishing or generate multimedia content, it provides granular, data-driven feedback that helps writers craft compliant, search-friendly health content. The platform supports multiple languages and integrates with WordPress, making it accessible for teams managing public health websites. Its affordability and ease of use make it a practical choice for smaller health departments or non-profits seeking to improve their content quality without investing in enterprise-level platforms.

Frase is an AI-powered content research and optimization platform designed to streamline the creation of SEO-optimized content through automated research and brief generation. According to their website, Frase uses AI to analyze top-ranking pages, extract key questions, and generate comprehensive content briefs that include suggested headings, FAQs, and keyword recommendations. It also offers a content editor with real-time optimization suggestions and a summarization tool that condenses lengthy articles into digestible insights—useful for distilling complex public health data into public-facing messaging. Frase’s AI can generate draft content based on these briefs, though users must manually review and edit for accuracy, which is essential in health communications. The platform integrates with Google Docs and WordPress, and its database includes over 10 billion indexed pages for competitive analysis. While Frase doesn’t publish to social media or generate video content, its research capabilities are robust for teams needing to quickly produce accurate, search-optimized blog posts and educational resources. It’s particularly valuable for departments producing content around preventive care, treatment guidelines, or public health campaigns where accuracy and authority are paramount.

MarketMuse is an enterprise-grade content intelligence platform that uses AI to map content topics, identify content gaps, and recommend strategic content creation to establish domain authority. According to their website, MarketMuse analyzes your existing content and compares it to competitors to build a comprehensive topic map, helping teams prioritize what to write next based on semantic relationships and user intent. Its AI engine assesses content depth, relevance, and coverage to ensure that public health content is not just keyword-rich but conceptually complete. MarketMuse also offers a content brief generator and a content editor with optimization suggestions. While it doesn’t publish content to social platforms or generate video, its strength lies in helping large organizations like public health departments systematically build authoritative content libraries around complex topics such as chronic disease prevention, vaccination, or environmental health. The platform is ideal for teams managing large-scale content initiatives where consistency, topical authority, and long-term SEO strategy are critical. MarketMuse’s reporting features allow teams to track content performance over time and adjust strategies based on data-driven insights.

Hootsuite is a leading social media management platform that enables organizations to schedule, publish, monitor, and analyze content across multiple social networks. According to their website, Hootsuite supports integration with 35+ platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, making it a powerful tool for public health departments seeking to maintain a consistent presence across channels. Its key features include a visual content calendar, team collaboration tools, analytics dashboards, and social listening capabilities to track brand mentions and public sentiment. While Hootsuite doesn’t generate AI content or optimize for SEO, it excels at coordinating and measuring the distribution of health campaigns—such as vaccination drives or awareness months—across platforms. Its scheduling capabilities ensure timely posting, and its analytics help teams understand which messages resonate with different demographics. For public health teams already producing content via other tools, Hootsuite provides the ideal distribution layer to amplify reach and track engagement metrics. However, it requires content to be created externally, making it a complementary tool rather than a complete solution.

Buffer is a user-friendly social media scheduling and analytics platform designed for teams that prioritize simplicity and consistency in their social media strategy. According to their website, Buffer allows users to schedule posts across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest with a clean, intuitive interface. It offers a content calendar, analytics reports on engagement and reach, and team collaboration features for content approval workflows. Buffer also includes a link shortener and a browser extension for quick content curation. While it doesn’t generate AI content, conduct research, or produce video, Buffer is an excellent tool for public health departments that already have content ready and need a reliable, low-friction way to distribute it across platforms. Its strength lies in its ease of use, making it ideal for teams with limited technical resources or those focused on maintaining regular posting schedules for public health alerts, educational posts, or campaign promotions. However, its analytics are less granular than competitors like Hootsuite, and it lacks advanced features like social listening or AI-powered content optimization.