Online Tool Store
· 4 min read
How to Find Content Gaps Against Competitors
Manesh Jayawardhana
CIO & Co-founder
Three competitors cover eighteen topics you don’t. That’s the output of a gap analysis, and the instinctive response — write eighteen articles — is usually wrong.
A gap tells you a competitor decided a topic was worth covering. It doesn’t tell you they were right, that it works for them, or that it would work for you.
The three categories a comparison produces
Gaps — they cover it, you don’t. The headline output, and the one that needs judgement rather than action.
Overlaps — you both cover it. This is where you’re directly competing, and it’s often more actionable than the gaps: an existing page that ranks poorly against a competitor’s is a page you can improve, which is cheaper and faster than writing something new.
Your unique topics — you cover it, they don’t. Either a genuine differentiator or a topic with no audience. Check whether those pages bring traffic before concluding which.
Most teams look only at the first category, which is the one requiring the most work and offering the least certainty.
Which gaps are worth filling
Four questions, and a gap needs a yes to most of them:
Can you serve it credibly? If the topic sits outside what your product or expertise covers, writing about it produces filler that ranks briefly and converts nobody.
Does it connect to what you sell? Traffic on a topic with no path to your product is a vanity metric. The connection doesn’t have to be direct, but it should exist.
Can you do it better? Ranking means displacing something. If the existing coverage is thorough and well-established, a competent article won’t move it.
Is the competitor’s version actually working? Hard to know from outside, and worth thinking about. A competitor with a content team publishing daily produces plenty of pages that get no traffic either.
| Gap type | Worth filling? |
|---|---|
| Core to your product, thin competitor coverage | Yes, first |
| Adjacent, strong competitor coverage | Maybe — only if you can be better |
| Outside your expertise | No |
| High volume, no connection to what you sell | Usually no |
Where volume data fits
Coverage comparison tells you what exists. It says nothing about whether anyone searches for it.
Adding search volume changes gap analysis from “what’s missing” to “what’s missing that people want”, which is a different and more useful question. That data comes from a keyword tool with API access, and it’s worth having when the gap list is long and you need to prioritise.
Without it, prioritise by relevance to what you sell — which is a reasonable proxy and occasionally a better one, since a low-volume topic that reaches exactly your buyer beats a high-volume one that doesn’t.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Treating every gap as an opportunity and writing eighteen thin articles.
- Ignoring the overlap list, where improving an existing page is cheaper than creating a new one.
- Copying a competitor’s topic without their expertise, which produces obviously derivative content.
- Comparing against a competitor who isn’t actually competing for your buyer.
- Running the analysis once and never revisiting it — coverage changes on both sides.
How to do it with Keyword Gap Analyzer
The Keyword Gap Analyzer compares coverage in your browser.
- List the topics your pages actually cover, in the words a searcher would use.
- Do the same for one or two genuine competitors, from their sitemap or navigation.
- Read the gaps, the overlaps and your unique topics — all three are informative.
- Filter the gaps by whether you can serve them credibly, before by anything else.
Other SEO tools are in the tools directory.
Frequently asked questions
Is every gap worth filling?
No. A competitor covering a topic proves they decided to, not that it works. Fill gaps where you have genuine expertise or a real product connection.
What about topics only I cover?
Either a genuine differentiator or a topic nobody searches for. Check whether those pages bring traffic before deciding which.
Does this need search volume data?
It works without it, comparing coverage rather than demand. Adding volume data tells you which gaps to prioritise, which is a separate question.
Final thought
Look at the overlaps before the gaps. Improving a page that already exists and already ranks somewhere is faster and more certain than starting from nothing.