Now that AI SEO is becoming the new norm, over 57% of marketers report seeing an increase in competition online. Your competitors have amped up their strategic approach to SEO and content marketing, so why shouldn't you? However, following the herd doesn't always get you places, especially when the destination is the top SERPs where only a handful of websites get to sit.
At times, the better approach is content gap analysis, which involves filling in the gaps your competitors have missed. However, even after identifying these gaps, many marketers and businesses struggle to execute their content gap analysis effectively. It's also tricky to filter high-potential keyword gaps from irrelevant ones.
Below, we'll explain how to conduct content gap analysis and then use the insights in a way that guarantees maximum return on investment (ROI). We'll also go beyond search engine content to help you shine in other marketing channels using the same tactic.
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- Getting Started: Steps to Conduct a Successful Content Gap Analysis
- How to Focus on High-Impact Content Gaps (And Ignore the Noise)
- How to Turn Gaps Into Click-Worthy Content That Ranks
- Avoid These Costly Errors When Analyzing Content Gaps
- Emerging Trends in Content Gap Analysis You Can't Ignore
- Close the Gap With Our Insights
- Frequently Asked Questions
Getting Started: Steps to Conduct a Successful Content Gap Analysis
When it comes to identifying valuable content gaps, it's easy to get overwhelmed by the vast amount of information available, especially if you have a large number of competitors. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to collect and use this data.
Step 1: Audit Your Existing Content
Before you start looking for content gaps in your competitors' strategies, take a look at your existing content. Ideally, you want to identify content pieces that aren't performing well. For example, if a content piece has low traffic or engagement, it's due for a revamp. Similarly, content with outdated information also needs updating.
Besides the actual content, consider the web page's (where the content is published) performance, too. Some signs of poor engagement are a high bounce rate, low time spent on page, a low click-through rate, and shallow scroll depth.
Tekla Szymanski, the former content quality controller at HubSpot, has shared a content audit template in a LinkedIn post that you can use as a starting point. For a better analysis, you can use the Semrush Site Audit tool. The Site Performance tab is where you'll find pages with poor performance metrics.
Semrush Site Audit
Semrush's tool also shows you technical SEO issues on your site that can further improve your content's performance. Use these recommendations to better optimize your existing content before a content gap analysis.
Semrush site performance issues
You can also use the Semrush On Page SEO Checker tool to find content ideas for improvement. The tool identifies pages in need of improvement and also suggests ways to optimize them. These are the pages that you need to focus on for your content gap analysis.
On Page SEO Checker
Step 2: Analyze Competitor Content
The next step is analyzing your competitors' content to see which topics they're covering and which ones they have missed. While keywords are an important factor to analyze, they're just the starting point, so don't limit yourself to them.
SEO has moved beyond keyword stuffing, with a higher emphasis on intent. One of the best AI SEO tips we can give you is to focus on topic clusters that include a range of closely related keywords since that's what semantic search-modeled search engines look for. More importantly, assess the types of content your competitors are producing, such as blog posts, videos, social media posts, infographics, and webinars.
Among the best competitor analysis tools is the Semrush Keyword Gap tool, where you can compare your domain with up to three competitors and see which keywords you have in common, which ones are unique to your site, and which ones your competitors are ranking for that you're not.
Keyword Gap tool
You'll find the most important information in the Missing tab. Here, you'll see the keywords your competitors rank for, but you don't.
Select the keywords from here (up to 5), and then put them in the Keyword Strategy Builder. It will then create topical clusters and subtopics. When writing content, include all these subtopics in your content to make it more intent-driven and comprehensive.
Keyword Strategy Builder
Step 3: Map Content to the Buyer's Journey
Once you've identified the keywords and topic clusters, map them to the buyer's journey. Simply put, determine which stage of the buyer's journey each keyword or topic cluster relates to: awareness, consideration, or decision.
Semrush's Keyword Gap tool shows you the intent for every keyword your website is missing. This information can help you gauge which stage of the buyer's journey the keyword or topic cluster is targeting. For example, Oneupweb, a digital marketing agency, used Semrush to map out its content plan. Then, the agency built relevant pages for service-related keywords, which helped them increase organic leads and take away market share from competitors.
One of the agency's clients only had a single page for plumbing installations on their website. The agency used Semrush to identify keywords they were not targeting or not ranking for strongly. Then, they created content for these keywords based on the buyer's journey, resulting in a 576% increase in organic sessions for these pages.
Semrush case study
If you need more information on how your competitors are targeting these topics for different buyer journey stages, use the Semrush Traffic Analytics tool. It shows website traffic stats for your competitors' pages to give you an idea of which content angle performs the best. This competitor traffic analysis provides insights into the top pages and traffic sources that you can also target to get the same (or better) results as your competitors.
Semrush Traffic Analytics
How to Focus on High-Impact Content Gaps (And Ignore the Noise)
A quick scroll through the results of the Semrush Keyword Gap tool will show you that there's a lot of data to view. With so much information, it's natural to feel overwhelmed and unsure of where to start. You might also end up wasting time on low-value and irrelevant opportunities.
The most effective way to avoid this is to focus on high-intent and low-competition keywords. In the Keyword Gap tool, you can sort the results by filters like volume, keyword difficulty %, CPC, and competitiveness.
For example, in our analysis, we sorted the results by keyword difficulty to find terms with the lowest competition. Then, we focused on keywords with an informational intent since we plan to write for the awareness stage. This strategy helped us narrow down the terms we can easily rank for and that align with our content goals.
Keyword Gap analysis
When you find keywords that you believe will resonate with your audience's needs during the buyer journey stage, click on them. They will then open in Keyword Overview. Here, type in your website URL to get personalized information, such as the PKD%, which shows you the specific keyword ranking difficulty for your website.
Keyword Overview
Semrush also shows you your site's topical authority for that keyword and potential SERP position. Focus on using keywords for which your site specifically has a high authority and low PKD% instead of just blindly targeting high-volume keywords.
Also, prioritize keywords that have a high engagement potential. To find these, look at which of your competitor's pages have the best engagement metrics. Go back to the Traffic Analytics tool and then to the Top Pages section.
Top Pages
Here, you'll see the top-performing pages for your competitor's site. Semrush shows you a number of metrics, from average visit duration to unique page views and visitors. Use these keywords to inform your own content strategy since they have already proven to be successful for your competitors.
Aligning Non-SEO Gaps with Your Content Strategy
As important as SEO is, simply using trending keywords and taking inspiration from competitor strategies isn't enough. You have to supplement these efforts with social media and video content gap analysis to seal the deal further.
A good example is a viral TikTok trend. Let's say you notice that none of your competitors have created content around this trend yet. You have the perfect opportunity to take the lead before anyone else even considers it.
Besides viral trends, trending topics and under-discussed pain points on social media can also be powerful content ideas. People are especially vocal on X and LinkedIn about their qualms with businesses. You can use social media listening tools to monitor these conversations and create content to address them.
BuzzSumo is one such tool that lets you track not just your own mentions but also those of your competitors. You can hear what people are saying about your brand and then use content to communicate with them or answer their queries.
Semrush also has a Social Media Tracker tool that you can use to monitor conversations around your brand, your competitor, a certain hashtag, or a trend. You can also see your competitors' top-performing posts and then follow suit. Look specifically at posts that are driving the most engagement, such as likes or comments, and then create similar content.
Semrush Social
Semrush Social also shows you which platforms are the most successful in your particular niche. Use this knowledge to focus on social media sites where you have the chance for the highest engagement. The tool also provides post-level data to let you know which types of posts resonate the most with your audience. Keep these metrics in consideration for future content creation.
Semrush Social
Similarly, video content gaps are important to fill, especially with mobile video consumption rising by a staggering 100% annually. Call it convenience or low attention spans, but video content is booming. People are more likely to watch product demos and how-tos than read lengthy documents.
To find the gaps in your video content, conduct a YouTube competitor analysis using vidIQ. It shows you who your competitors are and what kind of content seems to be doing well for them. Focus on their high-performing videos to find gaps that are actually worth spending time on.
You can also consult the YouTube search suggestions. These are trending topics that people are searching for, so you can frame your video content around them. If you find similarities between YouTube and search engine trends, you can repurpose your written content, such as blog posts or articles, into video content.
The opposite is just as true. If a certain video topic is gaining traction on YouTube and Semrush-based keyword analysis shows you that its search volume is also high in search engines, repurpose it into a blog post for a dual impact.
On TikTok, you can find trending video ideas in the Creative Center. In Semrush Social, check if your competitors are creating content around trending topics and the responses they're getting from their audience. For every gap you want to fill, track viewer retention rates and other engagement metrics to steer your video content strategy in the right direction.
How to Turn Gaps Into Click-Worthy Content That Ranks
With the right tools, such as Semrush Social and Keyword Gap, it's easy to identify SEO and non-SEO content gaps. However, creating content to fill these gaps is a tad bit complicated, especially when you're up against a well-established competitor.
The best approach is to start with what you already have. As we explained earlier, in the first step of content gap analysis, you audit your existing content. Now is the time to update and freshen up this content based on your findings from Semrush or other gap analysis tools.
For example, if you've found new keywords to have emerged since you last updated an article, incorporate them into your content. If your competitors are focusing on visual content, such as infographics, add them to your articles, too.
Take AI SEO optimization into account as well. Reframe your content to meet intent rather than just lexical keyword coverage. Also, provide direct answers that can get picked up by AI Overviews or LLMs. Even better, include an FAQ section in your articles.
Another important component of writing for the new search space is comprehensive topic coverage rather than keyword coverage. Create an SEO topical map (with the Keyword Strategy Builder tool) around the priority gap and then cover each topic fully in your content. More importantly, interlink between these topics to create a strong website architecture and further contextualize your content for LLMs and AI-assisted search engines.
Use the intent that Semrush has shown you for each keyword to make your content more relevant to the user. For example, if you're writing for buyers in the consideration stage (keywords with a navigational or informational intent), focus on comparison guides or product reviews. Use one of our content map templates to guide you.
In your content audit, you must have also found pieces that weren't performing as well as you would want them to. Compare this content to your competitors and notice where you're falling short. Again, use the Semrush On Page SEO Checker to get content improvement ideas, such as better keyword placement or optimizing for featured snippets.
Avoid These Costly Errors When Analyzing Content Gaps
There are a few errors you should be aware of when conducting content gap analysis. These mistakes can cost you a lot of time and money, so it's best to steer clear of them right from the beginning.
The first problem is focusing solely on keywords that get a ton of traffic but don't convert. It's easy to get caught up in the numbers and think that targeting high-volume keywords will automatically bring in more traffic and conversions. However, this is not always the case.
Avoid falling for this trap by considering the intent behind the keyword. Create content according to the intent to get the most out of high-traffic keywords.
For example, when Wine Insiders, a wine company, came to electrIQ marketing agency, the latter first focused on high-volume competitive keywords to cover the necessary bases. Then, they narrowed down broader topics into mid to low-volume keywords where they could score quick wins.
A practical example of this is them creating a red wine guide and then linking it to smaller content pages about wine varietals. The agency used Semrush to find these intent-based keywords. They also used the Semrush’s Domain Overview tool to gauge the traffic the company’s rivals were getting from the same keywords. With this information, they only focused on high-value keywords and that’s exactly what you should do, too.
Semrush case study
Another common error is copying competitors rather than using them as an example. Their audience likely has several differences from yours, so you can't just copy and paste their content to see the same results as them. Instead, you have to write for your own audience. Take the ideas or topics from your competitors but curate them for your customer base.
And while you're at it, don't forget user experience. You can find suggestions on how to improve it in the On Page SEO Checker tool. Then, use UX/UI design tools to implement these improvements.
Website structuring is just as important. Create categories or content hubs to make it easier for users to navigate your site. Also, use internal links to connect content pieces that relate to each other and can provide more value to readers.
Emerging Trends in Content Gap Analysis You Can't Ignore
Like every other aspect of digital marketing, content gap analysis also changes with every passing day. You have to keep up with these advancements to make the most of this strategy.
The first advancement is quite obvious: AI integration. Most content gap analysis tools now have some sort of AI-powered features that offer better and faster analysis. Semrush has really taken it to the next step, especially in keyword analysis.
As an AI-powered keyword research tool, Semrush has introduced:
- PKD%: Your site's personalized keyword difficulty for ranking, helping you select keywords that are specifically tailored to your website's performance.
- Potential Traffic: In the Keyword Overview tool, you can see how much traffic you can expect to get if you write quality content on a particular keyword.
AI-powered metrics
- Potential Topic Traffic: The Keyword Overview tool also shows you the potential topic traffic, which is the number of visitors you can expect to get if you cover the whole topical cluster and not just a keyword. Click on the "See topic" link to find all the keywords or topics in a cluster. Since AI-assisted search engines and semantic search are gaining dominance, this feature lets you focus on intent-meeting rather than keyword stuffing.
Keyword Overview
Besides gap analysis for SEO content, you should also focus your attention on social media and video content. Instead of going for every gap you see, use Semrush Social to find platforms and topics from which you can benefit the most. To repurpose written content into videos for social media or websites, you can use the AI Video Marketing Automator. It takes mere seconds to convert a blog post into a video and lets you automatically publish it to social media platforms.
In addition, use content gap analysis in combination with other elements of the broader marketing funnels. For example, divide the keywords you've gathered during gap analysis into different stages of the funnel based on their intent. Those with informational intent can be used in the awareness stage, ones with navigational intent in the middle of the funnel content, and so on.
Close the Gap With Our Insights
As you can see, content gap analysis is an effective tactic to get ahead of your competitors. However, you have to do it right to see these results, especially with the constant changes in search engine functionality.
To start, an AI SEO content software like Semrush is a must-have as it can assist you in different steps of the analysis process. Plus, you need to focus on high-ROI opportunities rather than going for just any gap you see. Keep up with new developments, particularly AI-powered ones, and dabble in non-SEO gap analysis to really cover all your bases.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a content gap analysis in SEO?
Content gap analysis in SEO means finding topics your competitors rank for but you don't. It's basically spotting the missing pieces in your content strategy. Then, you can fill in these gaps to be on par with your competitors or beat them.
What tools are best for identifying content gaps?
Semrush Keyword Gap compares your keywords with competitors, showing where they're ranking and where you're not. It's super handy for finding opportunities to close the gap. Plus, you can get additional information about the keywords using the Keyword Magic Tool and Keyword Overview.
How do buyer personas influence content gap strategies?
Buyer personas give you a peek into your audience's needs, preferences, pain points, and search behaviors. When you account for them, you're filling gaps with content your audience actually cares about, not just what ranks well.
What is a keyword gap analysis, and how is it different?
A keyword gap analysis focuses specifically on identifying keywords your competitors rank for, but you don't. It's more about targeting search terms than broader content topics. Meanwhile, content gap analysis looks at missing content opportunities, like underserved audience needs or topics, to guide a complete strategy.
How to integrate social listening into gap analysis?
Social listening helps you track what your audience is saying on platforms like X or TikTok. You can look for questions, pain points, or trending topics they discuss that aren't covered in your content. These insights inspire new content ideas to better serve your audience.
Can content gaps be found in video or social media content?
Content gaps aren't just for blogs. For video, check what topics competitors cover that you don't; maybe they have tutorials or trends you've missed. On social media, analyze engagement and audience questions to find gaps in formats, platform usage, trends, topics, or posting frequency.
What are the risks of following competitor content blindly?
Copying competitors without your own input can backfire because their strategy might not align with your audience or goals. It also risks making your content feel unoriginal, which hurts your brand identity. Plus, competitors might target ineffective keywords or outdated trends, leading you down the wrong path.
How can you use AI tools for gap analysis?
AI tools, such as Semrush Keyword Gap, can help you find content gaps in your content. Similarly, they can show you how your competitors' content is performing so that you can only focus on gaps that are likely to bring in engagement.
What role does the buyer's journey play in filling content gaps?
The buyer's journey helps you create content that matches each stage your audience is in. You can implement your content gap insights throughout the marketing funnel to make sure that the findings are actually relevant to your audience and can be converted into leads or sales.
What is topic clustering, and how does it help with content gaps?
Topic clustering means organizing related content around a central "pillar" page for comprehensive subject coverage. Since semantic search and LLMs now focus on intent rather than lexical keyword optimization, you must address all aspects of a topic your audience cares about to actually fill in a gap.
How to use Google Trends to identify content gaps?
Start by using Google Trends to find the topics that are currently trending in your space. You can also find related terms that the audience is searching for. Then, use the Semrush Keyword Gap tool to check if your competitors are using those terms in their content. If not, you can create timely content to fill this gap and enjoy the first-mover advantage.
